• sadbehr@lemmy.nz
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    1 year ago

    Have you heard of Dihydrogen monoxide? It literally kills hundreds of thousands of people every single year all over the world, including young children.

    You don’t hear about it in the news though do you…

      • piece@feddit.it
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        1 year ago

        It’s an old (early-internet?) joke iirc. And yes, I think that’s the answer

        • islandofcaucasus@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Oh shit, I was thinking there was no way that hundreds of thousands of people did from drowning every year, but they actually do.

          WHO estimates that every year over 200k people die from drowning

          • sadbehr@lemmy.nz
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            1 year ago

            Yea I did my 10 seconds of research before I quoted my number! I could have said ‘200k’ but ‘hundreds of thousands’ sounds much more dramatic don’t you think? Which is the whole point of the Dihydrogen monoxide thing.

        • sadbehr@lemmy.nz
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          1 year ago

          According to its Wikipedia page, this joke was first published in 1983! I suspect most people know it from the early 2000’s when it made a resurgence again.

      • BoomBoom@lemmy.amyjnobody.com
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        1 year ago

        What I think it is, is that every single person who ever consumes it, will eventually die. We are also literally dependant on it. If you stop ingesting it for too long, it can also cause you to die… That’s how it went around here, at least.

      • Spaceman Spiff@lemmy.fmhy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Look at all of the related “risks” and add them up. I’m sure that drowning is a small number, but then add in all of the deaths from scalding, acid rain, poisons (that contain water), etc etc and it eventually gets to be a very big number. Probably in the millions

        • sadbehr@lemmy.nz
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          1 year ago

          The WHO estimates 236k deaths per year worldwide due to drowning. There’s other ways to die to Dihydrogen monoxide other than drowning, so my numbers hold up!

        • TopRamenBinLaden@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          Acid rain has never killed anyone. It can kill plants and destroy farms, so I guess it can kill indirectly by causing famine, but that’s about it.