system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
All I heard the day of the eclipse was NOT to look at the sun directly or you'll get permanent, noticeable eye damage. I believe that's hyperbolic, like saying smoking one cigarette will give you lung cancer. What is the likelihood of permanent noticeable eye damage?

Edit: I don't dispute that it's not a good thing to do, just like smoking isn't a healthy thing to do.

The question is: What is the likelihood of **permanent** **noticeable** eye damage?

I'm not asking if it's dangerous. I'm asking **how** dangerous.

Edit: Also, anybody know of any studies that show frequency of **noticeable** eye damage?  (meaning noticeable by the owner of the eyes' vision, not an optometrist looking at the eye and seeing damage).

Yet another edit: My analogy to smoking one cigarette is really bad. Maybe not putting on sunscreen if you're very fair skinned is a better analogy. It's dangerous to get a sunburn. Getting a sunburn will damage your skin. You shouldn't go outside without sunblock. It's a warning. But if you *do* get a sunburn once, your skin will most likely recover. If you look at a partial eclipse once, unprotected, your eyes will get damaged, that isn't disputed. Will I notice it by impaired vision? Will my eyes recover? (Skin is resilient, but aren't eyes also? - that's what my eye surgeon said when they performed LASIK on me).
gpt
You can get permanent eye damage from a single exposure to intense UV light, no doubt about it. (I got permanent damage to one retina by a short accidental look at a hollow-cathode lamp in a AAS spectrometer)

Your analogy to cigarettes is plain wrong. Cancer is usually caused by probabilities and _cumulative_ DNA damage, which is nothing at all like the _acute_ damage caused by short but intense UV radiation.