Smoking does have a physical upside. It's a wonderful nootropic. Sparkling water has the exact same chemical makeup as regular water. Formula is trying to replace something that evolution has come up with that is purpose made to feed and develop the brains of infants and young children. That is not a good comparison at all.

Fine it has some cognitive benefits, but in terms of physical health it's absurdly net negative. Long term smokers have a huge likelihood of dying from a smoking-related illness. That's what people mean when they say it's bad... they're not internally comparing it to caffeine.

Sparkling water has a significantly lower ph than still water.

> Formula is trying to replace something that evolution has come up with...

Sure but the vast majority of what people use and consume is a replacement for what "evolution has come up with". That doesn't inherently make it "bad".

> Sure but the vast majority of what people use and consume is a replacement for what "evolution has come up with". That doesn't inherently make it "bad".

This is not true at all. What are you talking about? In general most people eat regular foods that come from the ground not ultraprocessed foods.

I don't know why you are nitpicking so much about the smoking example. I said it was an extreme example of something that is relatively worse but some people are comfortable calling categorically bad.

Maybe I misunderstood, but it seemed to me that the smoking example was evidence for your claim:

> colloquially, people say something is bad when they mean worse than the alternative [as opposed to absolutely bad]

I don't think it does support that claim, for the reasons I've given.