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No I think you’re looking at this wrong. They thought too much sun was bad for you because back then tanned skin was considering a mark of being poor and pale

No I think you’re looking at this wrong. They thought too much sun was bad for you because back then tanned skin was considering a mark of being poor and pale skin was a mark of being wealthy since rich people didn’t have to work outside. They also had puritanical Victorian notions of modesty and covering up. There was no knowledge linking sun exposure to cancer or negative health effects. People in the past indeed were ignorant on many things.

SoftTalker 2mo ago
Pretty sure a bad sunburn sucked back then as much as now, and was something one tried to avoid.
- bluGill 2mo ago
  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...)
  - foco_tubi 2mo ago
    I don’t think this is correct, Black people still get sunburns
    - bluGill 2mo ago
      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.
      - foco_tubi 2mo ago
        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.
        pazimzadeh 2mo ago
        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.
      - SoftTalker 2mo ago
        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.
    - pessimizer 2mo ago
      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.
      - foco_tubi 2mo ago
        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.
      - kstrauser 2mo ago
        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.
        giglamesh 2mo ago
        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.htm https://www.fs.usda.gov/t-d/pubs/htmlpubs/htm07672313/index....
  - pigeof 2mo ago
    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...
    - bluGill 2mo ago
      I've been outside at lots of different latitudes. I don't live in Stockholm, but I've been there.
  - petesergeant 2mo ago
    Fascinating. Now come and try that on the Arabian peninsula and see how you get on
    - bluGill 2mo ago
      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.
  - deaton 2mo ago
    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.
    - bluGill 2mo ago
      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.
  - laurencerowe 2mo ago
    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.
    - hateful 2mo ago
      The same thing happens to me - I call it a low-res tan because it's all pixelated.
deleted 2mo ago
[deleted]
qlte 2mo ago
Or rather, linked to completely wrong negative health effects that were just “common knowledge” thus requiring no actual evidence like: People with light skin should always wear a hat that fully covers the head/face in tropical/equatorial climates (okay, good so far) or else the powerful sun rays will penetrate the skull (?) causing brain damage that will make you go insane (!?!?) Victorians may have inadvertently protected themselves against excess mortality due to melanomas with their pith helmets, but it’s pretty hard to argue they were actually “correct” with modern hindsight considering the entire chain of reasoning was wrong. (For example, you see this in Kipling’s writing where he’ll randomly include an ominous case of some guy who forgot/lost his hat and promptly had to be committed to an insane asylum, as one does).
- radicalbyte 2mo ago
  They were too busy dying from typhoid, cholera, "consumption" (TB + other lung diseases) and probably lung cancer caused by all the coal / asbestos.
- phs318u 2mo ago
  Only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Dogs_and_Englishmen_(song) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Dogs_and_Englishmen_(song)
ardit33 2mo ago
This is silly.... most of the world didn't live in england. All cultures (including mine), have a way to warn kids, or adults for not to stay too long in the sun. From normal sunburn, to feeling light-headenes/fainting due to heat excaustion, etc. In the winter was the opposite. (stay in the sun to get some sunlight and not get sick). So, they knew, and had nothing to do with 'class'. Also, they knew some sun was good/beneficial, especially during the winter.
- hobojojo 2mo ago
  Pale beauty is a phenomenon across geography. What correlation a society works out is largely lost in the cycles of avoiding the sun being a relative luxury until you get expensive air travel.
  - ardit33 2mo ago
    Again... you are confusing second order effects, with the primary reason. We have an old saying "te rafte pika e diellit", may you get a spot, sun spot, aka cancer from the Sun. People knew excessive sun is unhealthy.... if you could you avoid it during the summer. It was not necessary to make you look 'rich'. Ability to avoid it, meant you were rich. And people wanted to be pale, because you look rich, that is a second order effect, that came because of the original reason (aka, too much sun is unhealthy).
    - hobojojo 2mo ago
      The correlation looks right so all people who have rituals like telling their children not to look poor really understand and later communicate the truth? Is this true for religious stigmas related to food too? I think you are retro analyzing and presuming individual intelligence because this collective result looks right to you. Really, some people understand some risks and many people who can follow taboos they can afford are not exactly sure what they would learn first hand and what part is superstition.
Georgelemental 2mo ago
That's the thing about traditions and Chesterton's fences, you don't need to know why they work for them to work.
_joel 2mo ago
People were aware of heatstroke and sunstroke before the Victorians. There's biblical references to heatstroke and even in Roman and Greek texts.
mhh__ 2mo ago
The idea that humans were basically retarded prior to about 1901 is a little hubristic
- jjk166 2mo ago
  They were no dumber then than in 2026, but they fundamentally had much less access to information. How much do you trust the medical advice of an uneducated person in 2026?
  - thereforegrin 2mo ago
    actually depends on the age and life experience of the advisor - if it's an old woman I'd be inclined to listen to what she may want to say. A young MD full of himself? I may be a bit sceptical about his know-it-all attitude.
  - mhh__ 2mo ago
    How much do you trust the medical advice of a doctor in 2026?
    - slater 2mo ago
      how is that remotely comparable? "Hm, whom to trust, a person who went to university and follow-on education for nigh a decade, oorrrrrrrrrr.... something someone posted on Facebook that just so happens to confirm what my own ignorance told me was likeliest?"
SlightlyLeftPad 2mo ago
Still very much the case in East Asia.

SoftTalker 2mo ago

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

bluGill 2mo ago
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...)
- foco_tubi 2mo ago
  I don’t think this is correct, Black people still get sunburns
  - bluGill 2mo ago
    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.
    - foco_tubi 2mo ago
      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.
      - pazimzadeh 2mo ago
        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.
    - SoftTalker 2mo ago
      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.
  - pessimizer 2mo ago
    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.
    - foco_tubi 2mo ago
      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.
    - kstrauser 2mo ago
      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.
      - giglamesh 2mo ago
        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.htm https://www.fs.usda.gov/t-d/pubs/htmlpubs/htm07672313/index....
- pigeof 2mo ago
  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...
  - bluGill 2mo ago
    I've been outside at lots of different latitudes. I don't live in Stockholm, but I've been there.
- petesergeant 2mo ago
  Fascinating. Now come and try that on the Arabian peninsula and see how you get on
  - bluGill 2mo ago
    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.
- deaton 2mo ago
  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.
  - bluGill 2mo ago
    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.
- laurencerowe 2mo ago
  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.
  - hateful 2mo ago
    The same thing happens to me - I call it a low-res tan because it's all pixelated.

deleted 2mo ago

[deleted]

qlte 2mo ago

Or rather, linked to completely wrong negative health effects that were just “common knowledge” thus requiring no actual evidence like: People with light skin should always wear a hat that fully covers the head/face in tropical/equatorial climates (okay, good so far) or else the powerful sun rays will penetrate the skull (?) causing brain damage that will make you go insane (!?!?) Victorians may have inadvertently protected themselves against excess mortality due to melanomas with their pith helmets, but it’s pretty hard to argue they were actually “correct” with modern hindsight considering the entire chain of reasoning was wrong. (For example, you see this in Kipling’s writing where he’ll randomly include an ominous case of some guy who forgot/lost his hat and promptly had to be committed to an insane asylum, as one does).

radicalbyte 2mo ago
They were too busy dying from typhoid, cholera, "consumption" (TB + other lung diseases) and probably lung cancer caused by all the coal / asbestos.
phs318u 2mo ago
Only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Dogs_and_Englishmen_(song) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Dogs_and_Englishmen_(song)

ardit33 2mo ago

This is silly.... most of the world didn't live in england. All cultures (including mine), have a way to warn kids, or adults for not to stay too long in the sun. From normal sunburn, to feeling light-headenes/fainting due to heat excaustion, etc. In the winter was the opposite. (stay in the sun to get some sunlight and not get sick). So, they knew, and had nothing to do with 'class'. Also, they knew some sun was good/beneficial, especially during the winter.

hobojojo 2mo ago
Pale beauty is a phenomenon across geography. What correlation a society works out is largely lost in the cycles of avoiding the sun being a relative luxury until you get expensive air travel.
- ardit33 2mo ago
  Again... you are confusing second order effects, with the primary reason. We have an old saying "te rafte pika e diellit", may you get a spot, sun spot, aka cancer from the Sun. People knew excessive sun is unhealthy.... if you could you avoid it during the summer. It was not necessary to make you look 'rich'. Ability to avoid it, meant you were rich. And people wanted to be pale, because you look rich, that is a second order effect, that came because of the original reason (aka, too much sun is unhealthy).
  - hobojojo 2mo ago
    The correlation looks right so all people who have rituals like telling their children not to look poor really understand and later communicate the truth? Is this true for religious stigmas related to food too? I think you are retro analyzing and presuming individual intelligence because this collective result looks right to you. Really, some people understand some risks and many people who can follow taboos they can afford are not exactly sure what they would learn first hand and what part is superstition.

Georgelemental 2mo ago

That's the thing about traditions and Chesterton's fences, you don't need to know why they work for them to work.

_joel 2mo ago

People were aware of heatstroke and sunstroke before the Victorians. There's biblical references to heatstroke and even in Roman and Greek texts.

mhh__ 2mo ago

The idea that humans were basically retarded prior to about 1901 is a little hubristic

jjk166 2mo ago
They were no dumber then than in 2026, but they fundamentally had much less access to information. How much do you trust the medical advice of an uneducated person in 2026?
- thereforegrin 2mo ago
  actually depends on the age and life experience of the advisor - if it's an old woman I'd be inclined to listen to what she may want to say. A young MD full of himself? I may be a bit sceptical about his know-it-all attitude.
- mhh__ 2mo ago
  How much do you trust the medical advice of a doctor in 2026?
  - slater 2mo ago
    how is that remotely comparable? "Hm, whom to trust, a person who went to university and follow-on education for nigh a decade, oorrrrrrrrrr.... something someone posted on Facebook that just so happens to confirm what my own ignorance told me was likeliest?"

SlightlyLeftPad 2mo ago

Still very much the case in East Asia.