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Comment by Blackthorn | Hacker News Reader

So I take it you're on the "okay, they're not" side of that divide?

I mean, how many more decades does one need to really make a decision on these?

2-3 generations. Historically demonstrable as a metric to be sure about the ill effects of a new substance/tech. History is littered with examples of consumers & industry placing convenience & profits ahead of what's sensible to these ends.

Eg, X-rays - 60 years from invention, popularity, child use, "crazy" people claiming they're bad, to suspicion they might be, conservative study, realising they're screwed, all kinds of safety standards being applied, and acceptance.

Radiation, thalidomide, PCB's, DDT's, smoking, Asbestos, etc. Sometimes it can be faster or slower, but 2-3 human generations is also pragmatic as you can reasonably assess effects on offspring as well as sufficiently-aged pioneers.

I mean, why are people even considering artificial sweeteners? Isn't it only because it's taken us all several decades to realise refined sugar is fucked after initially thinking it was great if not at least "safe"?

I'm happy ingesting organic fruit, but I understand many out there prefer their bodies used as profit-making devices.

> I mean, why are people even considering artificial sweeteners? Isn't it only because it's taken us all several decades to realise refined sugar is fucked after initially thinking it was great if not at least "safe"?

Can't speak for anyone else obviously, I use sucralose to sweeten plain nonfat greek yogurt for breakfast. It tastes like churned asshole without it, but it's otherwise a great food with everything I need for breakfast. Then I flavor it with either a certain number of calories, or artificial flavoring, depending on the day's goal.

I use sucralose in particular because it's what was available, but I'd be perfectly happy using aspartame or whatever instead if that's what was usable.

Agree on the Greek yoghurt taste. I'd sweeten it with banana, as it can mix nice without much effort and is also packed with nutrients along with only a tiny bit lethal radiation. Calories I've no idea about though.

I've often wondered why grocery stores are infested with flavored yogurts, especially when they are often out of the plain variants that I'm seeking. I've thankfully never felt the need to 'flavor' yogurt and prefer its taste unadulterated - sourer the better.

Have you tried allulose/Monk Fruit? That's the new zero calorie sweetener hotness. I've been using it for sweetener the past year and haven't heard of any ill effects but that could just be due to lack of studies like we have for sucralose and erythritol.

There are studies for and against artificial sweeteners. There are studies funded by industry. There is such a thing as corruption in science and corruption in regulatory agencies. The global artificial sweetener market size is $7 Billion.

https://www.healthline.com/health-news/this-common-sugar-sub...

I think you'll find nothing I said contradicts that statement.

You have a short memory. Not long ago you wrote the following

> I know I won't change anyone's already set opinions here, but for anyone reading this and not sure what is being discussed: there's absolutely nothing wrong with consuming sucralose.

Then I posted a link to a study showing Sucralose is toxic.

Yes and I'll stand by that statement. I think you'll find, once again, that nothing I said contradicts the statement you made, which is:

> There are studies for and against artificial sweeteners. There are studies funded by industry. There is such a thing as corruption in science and corruption in regulatory agencies. The global artificial sweetener market size is $7 Billion.

I get that you're on the "okay, they're not" side of that divide that we all find themselves on. That's fine, and you are welcome to come to that conclusion. It's not one I've come to, but that's why the world is made up of different people. Remember, what I actually said was:

> These artificial sweeteners are among the most studied chemicals in the world. At some point you've gotta say okay, they're fine, or okay, they're not.

as well as the post you quoted. So I'm really not sure what you're arguing about here. Nothing I said contradicts your statement of "There are studies for and against...". Indeed, there are. Decades of them.

You wrote

> there's absolutely nothing wrong with consuming sucralose

Well, there are studies showing that there is something wrong with consuming sucralose.

I posted a link to such a study. That contradicts your statement.

You actually posted a link to a news article about a study, not a link to a study. And no, it doesn't contradict my statement that there's nothing wrong with consuming sucralose. It by itself is a piece of evidence, and doesn't by itself override decades of evidence.

The article contains direct links to studies

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10937404.2023.2...

https://www.bmj.com/content/378/bmj-2022-071204

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnut.2022.84839...

https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2607/10/2/434

This obviously logically contradicts your statement.

Your sophistry is incredible. Let's see how you bullshit your way out of this one.

There's no sophistry here. I simply find the FDA's GRAS finding, and the EU SCF's findings, to be much more convincing than a handful of restricted studies.

You, clearly, do not feel the same, but given that you feel that my position on this is "sophistry" and "bullshit", it is obvious that we are incapable of having an actual discussion on it.

This is simple logic. It seems that you don't understand the meaning of the word "contradiction"

"a combination of statements, ideas, or features which are opposed to one another."

You wrote that there is no problem with sucralose. I showed studies indicating a problem with sucralose. That is a contradiction.

Then you gaslight us saying there is no contradiction. Sophistry and gaslighting.

This is basic english and logic.

Words like "gaslight" must have no meaning anymore. All of my comments are here for reading. If you think I'm lying...I don't know what to tell you.

There's no contradiction. The FDA marks sucralose as GRAS, which means "generally recognized as safe". There's a study you found that disagree. There's other studies over the decades that disagree as well. You may choose to believe the body of evidence gathered by the FDA that made it make its recommendation, or you may choose not to. It appears that you do not wish to engage in good faith here, and prefer to make attacks against me and claim that I am gaslighting you, so I will not be continuing this conversation further.

Referring to the FDA is an appeal to authority. Yet another logical fallacy from you.

They are a regulatory agency and are part of the most corrupt government on earth (US Government). You are outsourcing your thinking to a corrupt government agency staffed by extremely mediocre people who are not intellectually capable of doing the research themselves.

You stated there is no problem with sucralose. I referred to studies showing that there is indeed a problem. Then you say there is no contradiction, but this is a contradiction by definition. To insist that there is no contradiction is blatant stupidity at best, and gaslighting at worst.

I am sorry that you get personally offended by English dictionary definitions and basic logic.

I'm with xcv here. It's impossible to have a logical discussion with someone who doesn't see a contradiction between "sucralose is toxic" and "there is nothing wrong with sucralose", and it's impossible to have a fairminded discussion with someone who gives objections as speed bumps instead of arguments. If you really cared whether he had linked to a news article vs a study, you would have been satisfied and apologetic when he showed you the article linked to a study; instead you just switched to objections about the quality of the study.

I'm really not understanding why this is being called a contradiction. These studies have, in a good scientific fashion, uncovered some amount of evidence. This evidence has to stand up against 25 years of the FDA recognizing sucralose as generally-recognized-as-safe (GRAS), and the decades prior that made it reach that point. That's a tall hurdle!

A contradiction as the term is being used here, to claim my position is invalid, would mean the studies have found some mathematical proof from axioms that sucralose is toxic. If they did, that would certainly be a contradiction! But that's not what happened. They ran some experiments and found their results. That's good science! But that's not the sort of thing that creates a logical contradiction. Their results don't immediately invalidate 25 years of GRAS status and the decades of work and observation that resulted in that status. They say something more like "hey that's interesting, and worth taking a closer look and getting a better understanding".

My statement that seems to cause some bones of contention was "there's absolutely nothing wrong with consuming sucralose". The study might cause some disagreement there, but the FDA agrees with me on this one. That's not a contradiction in my logic, that's a scientific disagreement. People can disagree in science without there being a contradiction in the logic of either side. Logic has some pretty strict mathematical requirements, after all.

edit: Aand, going back to what I originally wrote, this is the exact statement from the other user that I said I was not contradicting with anything I wrote: "There are studies for and against artificial sweeteners. There are studies funded by industry. There is such a thing as corruption in science and corruption in regulatory agencies. The global artificial sweetener market size is $7 Billion."

All of those things are true, and nothing I wrote addresses them at all. From there we seemed to have launched into a debate about studies. Which, that's fine, but that's a totally separate type of disagreement!

"Contradict" does not mean "disprove".

"there's absolutely nothing wrong with consuming sucralose" contradicts the linked studies and the opposing statements that were made by myself and others here.

This is a simple fact by the definition of the word "contradiction".

Whether the FDA is correct about sucralose or not is actually irrelevant to this point.

Someone can believe the Earth is flat. Another can believe the Earth is a cube. Their beliefs contradict each other but do not prove or disprove anything.

I agree that the sentences you quoted didn't contradict anything you wrote and I was on your side at that point. After xcv explained that he meant the link, I was annoyed that he had been so vague, but I updated my expectation to "ok, now Blackthorn will understand the intended contradiction and either agree or explain why both things somehow can be true at the same time".

I think xcv is right that the problem lay in your definition of "contradiction". Whether Position A contradicts Position B has nothing to do with whether Position A has mathematical proof or the FDA agrees with Position B. It's simply whether A and B can both be true at the same time. "Toxic" and "nothing wrong with it" cannot.

Thank you for having a reasonable discussion with me though!

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