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Comment by SoftTalker | Hacker News Reader

Pretty sure a bad sunburn sucked back then as much as now, and was something one tried to avoid.

Unless you are albino (which is a large set of other problems) being in the sun all day will develop enough of a tan that you won't sunburn. There might be a problem in spring, but by summer time most people will have spent enough time outdoors that they wouldn't sunburn. I've always been the lightest person in town (a tie in Stockholm) and I can spend all day outside without any sunscreen and I won't burn on the parts of my body normally not covered (my arms), but other parts would burn in a few minutes (If I took off my hat or shirt...)

I don’t think this is correct, Black people still get sunburns

Black people who spend all their time indoors or covered up will get sunburned if they go outside. If that black person gradually increases their sun exposure they can (in a few weeks) reach the point where they can be outside without sunscreen and they will not get sun burned.

Note that I'm making no claims on how natural sunburn resistant affects skin cancer.

Increased melanin provides some protection against burns, but it doesn’t make you immune. There’s also the aspect of UV damage without burns, which is still harmful and is not affected by melanin levels.

that's his point. anyone can get sunburned, and almost anyone can prevent sunburn through gradual exposure. except albinos, who are especially susceptible.

melanin is also not the only factor in preventing sunburn/cancer. there are many repair pathways and genes, which are present to differing levels in various populations.

The same is true for me, a white person of northern European heritage. If I have a few weeks and time to work at building up a tan, I can get to the point where I won't burn. I did this during the pandemic when I was home all day. I would go out and lie in the sun, starting at 15 minutes, turn over, go another 15 minutes, and go back inside. Increased the time as my skin darkened. Felt nice, never burned.

This is an illusory statistic because "black people" isn't a real category. People who self-identify as "black" have a wide-range of skin tones. Even a moderate bit of brown completely eliminates the risk of sunburn. You can have two "black" parents and be lighter skinned than the average southern Italian.

I say this from experience. I am a black person who is not particularly dark skinned, and have only had the slightest sunburn once in my life, after I had been working in a field for 16 hours straight in full sun under clear sky detasseling corn. When I got back to camp, the back of my neck seemed slightly sensitive, which was unusual. It was fine the next morning, and never peeled at all. I did the same for 2 weeks, and this was the only time I felt this. This was the worst sunburn (if it was one) that I've gotten in 50 years of life. I've spent plenty of time outside, and plenty of time inside being a code monkey and never going outside. I've never worn sunscreen.

I've never met a black person as brown as a paper bag who ever got a sunburn, at least that I know of. My dad is pretty pale, I think I would have heard about it.

I’m overwhelming white ancestry but with some remnant traces of melanated ancestry (> 1%) and I tan very easily. I’ve been mistaken for hispanic or Black before during the summer. My mom is much darker than me.

We both get sunburns. My even darker grandmother got sunburns. My Black friends get sunburns. I am not sure that you are correctly correlating your experience with actual facts about the sunburn resistance offered by melanin.

As a counterexample, my bestie is "brown as a paper bag", and he was convinced he couldn't get a sunburn, up until he did.

Unrelated, he also swore he couldn't get poison ivy, until he literally rolled in it to prove it to me. I found the aftermath more amusing than he did.

Sensitivity to poison ivy can change over time. Your friend may have been correct about his past experience.

https://www.fs.usda.gov/t-d/pubs/htmlpubs/htm07672313/index....

It was explained to me that there are people who react to it, and people who don’t react to it yet.

It's bizarre that you cite being outside at 60 degrees latitude as evidence related to high UV exposure.

That's like a resident of Porto saying most people don't get frostbite walking around outside in winter...

I've been outside at lots of different latitudes. I don't live in Stockholm, but I've been there.

Fascinating. Now come and try that on the Arabian peninsula and see how you get on

Are you paying for my mid life crisis? Otherwise my boss expects me back in the office before I could build up the needed tolerance (I'm expecting this to take a month) such that I'd expect to spend all day in the sun without burning.

I don't know about that. I'm a fairly tanned individual, but where I live, in Texas, if I spend all day in the sun, I'm getting sunburned bad everywhere.

That "if" makes me understand that spending all day in the sun is not something you normally do. I've been told by others who live in Texas that you can build up tolerance and spend all day in the sun.

Naturally darker skin does not automatically provide sunburn protection. It is spending time in the sun that adds the missing part that provide that protection. I don't know how this differs from dark skin, but I've seen it myself.

Note that my claims are only about sunburn. The article/topic is skin cancer which may well have different factors from sunburn.

As someone from Britain with Scottish ancestry I don’t really tan at all. The melanin in my skin clumps in freckles, severely limiting its effectiveness at blocking UV. I can spend time outside in a t-shirt during the long summer evenings in Britain/Scandinavia but will burn during the midday sun. Living in California now the sun is stronger for longer so I just cover up.

San Francisco is at a southern European latitude. It’s a lot worse in the tropics.

The same thing happens to me - I call it a low-res tan because it's all pixelated.

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