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Comment by module0000 | Hacker News Reader

Would these people refuse to drink water 200 years ago? If not, they would most likely die. It's almost as if there is some evolutionary element at work here...bad decisions take you out of the gene pool the rest of us are splashing around in. Unfortunately at this day in age, we find ways to keep these humans alive, and empower them to share their suicidal preferences via the internet.

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I think 200 years ago people were mostly trying to stay away from water as much as possible not to get sick. They were drinking beers, meads and all kind of stuff that was somehow preprocessed. Still in a lot of places good water from tap is not reality.

Indeed. Cholera was a serious problem. in 1854, Dr John Snow, suspecting that contaminated water rather than "miasma" was the cause, mapped the cholera deaths in Soho, London: https://www1.udel.edu/johnmack/frec682/cholera/

The closer to the Broad Street pump, the higher the death rate, with one exception: the nearby brewery. The workers at the brewery drank beer instead of water. (The water used to brew beer is boiled, killing the bacteria.)

Dr Snow had the handle removed from the pump, ending the epidemic. There's now a pub nearby called the John Snow (in what is now called Broadwick Street), and a kerbstone made of pink granite where the pump was.

That's not really fair. It could be entirely true (and not hypocritical) that they would drink water if their lives depended on it. (Well, maybe except the one who keeps ending up in the ER.)

There's countless modern niceties that are incompatible with 19th century life. I know lots of people working in technology today who would die in 1818, too, unless they drastically changed their lifestyle, and learned dozens of new skills.

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