Alle Dinge sind Gift, und nichts ist ohne Gift; allein die Dosis macht, dass ein Ding kein Gift ist.
All things are poison, and nothing is without poison; the dosage alone makes it so a thing is not a poison.
Paracelsus, 1538
The word for poison in German is Gift?!
The word has been used as a euphemism for “poison” since Old High German, a semantic loan from Late Latin dosis (“dose”), from Ancient Greek δόσις (dósis, “gift; dose of medicine”). The original meaning “gift” has disappeared in contemporary Standard German, but remains in some compounds (see Mitgift). Compare also Dutch gift (“gift”) alongside gif (“poison”).
I thought about this a bit and concluded that it only applies to physical materials and forces.
For example: There certainly are lethal ideas, but most of them are not, and much like bosons they can overlap, so filling a person with multiple copies of the same (benign) thought has a diminishing effect.
But yeah, anything physical has a lethal concentration.
Just about anything including water or salt
Not just about. Literally everything is lethal at a high enough concentration.
LD50’s are fun!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_lethal_dose
The word for poison in German is Gift?!
Well that’s dumb.
“gift” means both “poison” and “married” in swedish. languages are fun :)
Some people would not see a difference in those words, so why not use the same and decide on context xD
The first part of the question asks what is safe in small amounts
I thought about this a bit and concluded that it only applies to physical materials and forces.
For example: There certainly are lethal ideas, but most of them are not, and much like bosons they can overlap, so filling a person with multiple copies of the same (benign) thought has a diminishing effect.
But yeah, anything physical has a lethal concentration.
I love nerds.