8 ms·

I think the more apt metaphor is lead in Roman pipes. They knew lead exposure made you crazy but they still used it in their pipes, on their plates - and it dro

I think the more apt metaphor is lead in Roman pipes. They knew lead exposure made you crazy but they still used it in their pipes, on their plates - and it drove them mad. After the planet has warmed beyond a point of no return, after antibiotic resistant bacteria make routine surgery a life-or-death decision, after we have squandered away our resources and used what little we had left to wage futile wars, we will find ourselves looking back at these Bernaysian psychological tricks of mass consumerism...and I wonder if we will use the same excuse then as we do today: "But it was good for GDP!"

reasonattlm 10y ago
The lead hypothesis for Roman decline is disputed. http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2014/04/lead-pipes-polluted-roman-drinking-water http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2014/04/lead-pipes-pollute... The demise of antibiotics is much overwrought. It won't happen, since researchers have basically solved the problem of cost-effectively finding an unlimited supply of new ones. https://www.edge.org/response-detail/26701 https://www.edge.org/response-detail/26701 In general people like seeing doom everywhere. To the extent this motivates some of them to do something about it, this is probably good. But it is very irritating when the doomsayers don't adjust their doomsaying based upon current scientific work.
- closed 10y ago
  > But it is very irritating when the doomsayers don't adjust their doomsaying based upon current scientific work. I love this line. It's like somebody just submitted doomsaying homework, and you are not taking issue with their premise per se, but taking off points for the sources they used.
  - rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
    Heh, yeah. It's like talking to climate "skeptics" - people who believe climate change is real but disagree on the level of human agency. You can show them graph after graph of greenhouse gas emissions being pumped into the atmosphere at alarming rates and they'll say "I'm not that alarmed, we don't know how much of an impact it will have." Meanwhile, coral reefs are bleaching, Florida is flooding, and we are experiencing record heatwaves AND snowfall. At the very least, it doesn't take much to make clear that we should still DO SOMETHING.
    - cpt1138 10y ago
      But what? The problem with the constant doom is that we get exhausted. At least in the US all we truly care about is war and old people (looking at where the money goes; http://whatwepayfor.com/ http://whatwepayfor.com/). The problem with the doom sayers is they have no solutions or actionable items that we can say yes or no to. Its just lions and tigers and bears 24/7.
      - Jtsummers 10y ago
        Reduce our emissions. This has one potential and one actual effect. 1) Potential: If climate change is significantly affected by human output, then we may curb or counter the current climate trends. 2) Actual: Healthier environment for life on this planet. We won't have cities like Los Angeles used to be, or Beijing is now where people can barely go outside without taking a year off their life. This is, without a doubt, a good thing unless you explicitly want poorer health to be the norm.
        rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
        Reminds me of a comic I see floated around Facebook from time to time of an auditorium of scientists seated beneath a banner reading "Climate Change Conference," and someone raises their hand and says something to the effect of "But what if we're wrong about climate change and we make a better world for nothing?"
        refurb 10y ago
        What happens if we spend hundreds of billions of dollars on reducing CO2 emissions and it turns out it was all for naught? That money has to come from somewhere. It could be spent on healthcare, getting people clean water, etc. To me that would be a tragedy.
        Jtsummers 10y ago
        Yes. It would be tragic to cut out polluting forms of energy production that destroy rivers and lives.
- philovivero 10y ago
  I'm worried about bacteria that are antibiotic-resistant. So I was excited to read the article you cited. > Don’t get me wrong—there is certainly no case for complacency at this stage. Oh. Okay. So unwarranted optimism is... unwarranted.
y0ast 10y ago
Actually, the Roman pipe store is a bit of an urban legend. According to this PNAS [0] paper: "Lead pollution of “tap water” in Roman times is clearly measurable, but unlikely to have been truly harmful." [0] http://www.pnas.org/content/111/18/6594.full http://www.pnas.org/content/111/18/6594.full
- Retric 10y ago
  I don't know if that shows what you suggest it does. Using lead tainted water for irrigation is also harmful because plants will transmit that lead to people though their diet. Further, lead sticks around in contaminated soils and accumulates over time. In that context, every lead source ends up becoming increasingly important.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
    If plants transmit the lead to those who eat them how can it also accumulate in the soil? The plants would bioremediate the soil.
    - Retric 10y ago
      It's not 100%. Suppose a plant absorbs 5% of the lead. Well in the first year you get 5% of the lead in all water used for irrigation. But, 95% is left in the soil. Next year you get 5% of 195%. Until, the soil has 20 years worth of lead and all new lead added in a year ends up in the plant. Drop that to 1% and it would take ~100 years to get the same effect. Note, you would really get a differential equation with several terms, but more or less the same idea just after more time and balanced with water that overflows the field etc.
      - TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
        Ah, yes, of course. I guess at some point you're supposed to develop soil testing and stop putting the toxins in to the soil. And the air. And the water. It's not looking too good is it.
- 10y ago
TeMPOraL 10y ago
Besides actual lead concentration in water being disputed (per comments in the parallel subthreads), I think this analogy isn't good for another reason - Roman aqueducts were meant to solve a problem, to get fresh water into towns, improving comfort as well as sanitation. Most apps made today are not about solving problems, they're about bundling a minimum amount of features that would trick the users into doing something (paying with money, paying with daya) that profits the app creators.
- chiaro 10y ago
  I think the majority of app developers still, at least nominally, believe that they are providing something of value.
Analemma_ 10y ago
My favorite New Yorker cartoon ever: http://www.condenaststore.com/-sp/Yes-the-planet-got-destroyed-But-for-a-beautiful-moment-in-time-we-created-a-lot-of-value-for-sh-Prints_i9318014_.htm http://www.condenaststore.com/-sp/Yes-the-planet-got-destroy... "Yes, the planet was destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders."
mrleiter 10y ago
What a beautiful comment, thanks.
andrepd 10y ago
Have you a source on that avoid the Romans?
djsumdog 10y ago
I'm so glad you mentioned Edward Bernays. It's interesting how he was very helpful in promoting his uncle's book in the US, bringing Freud some much needed cash. At the same time, Sigmund hated Bernays, and Anna, for using a lot of his psychological work to change the face of advertising into what it is today. Bernays created the very first _Public Relations_ office (he made up the term because "Propaganda" was a bad word). He helped get more women smoking (torches for freedom!). I'm sure if it wasn't him and Anna, someone else would have come along and made these discoveries anyway. Capitalism, Consumerism and Planed Obsolescence will be what brings down the current world.
- rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
  Well yeah, that was basically his argument: propaganda is too effective to be left in the "wrong" hands, so the "right" people better get on it, and quick. I'm sure it dawned on him that it wouldn't take long until everyone was using it and there would be no discernible difference between the good or bad. "Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely."
  - jamesblonde 10y ago
    And the usual reference to Adam Curtis' history of consumerism, based around Edward Bernays: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s
hueving 10y ago
How is incorrect antibiotic usage related to anyone claiming it's good for GDP? Seems like a pretty weak strawman.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
andrei_says_ 10y ago
By definition, profit is the only thing that matters to corporations. A moral corporation is a profitable one, and vice versa. Everything else is a lower priority than profit and growth. Thus, we turn everything that exists into what we measure as profit. We are the indigenous people selling our lives and attention and time and land/planet for shiny trinkets without value.
- ArkyBeagle 10y ago
  The problem is that there are good profits and bad profits. "Good profits" create consumer surplus. "Bad profits" are rents. I don't know if you've looked lately, but corporations do a lot of things differently than simply maximizing short terms profits now. Besides, that's mostly an artifact of mutual fund style public stock financing. In addition to going private, there is emphasis on dividends, stock buybacks, that sort of thing. At its simplest, a thing is profitable if it can be done efficiently and people want it. That's not a bad thing.
ArkyBeagle 10y ago
Lead pipes work just fine for most water chemistries. It was the salts of lead used as sweeteners that were much more of a problem. As they say, "the dose is the poison". If our behavior renders us extinct, then we had a good run.

reasonattlm 10y ago

The lead hypothesis for Roman decline is disputed. http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2014/04/lead-pipes-polluted-roman-drinking-water http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2014/04/lead-pipes-pollute... The demise of antibiotics is much overwrought. It won't happen, since researchers have basically solved the problem of cost-effectively finding an unlimited supply of new ones. https://www.edge.org/response-detail/26701 https://www.edge.org/response-detail/26701 In general people like seeing doom everywhere. To the extent this motivates some of them to do something about it, this is probably good. But it is very irritating when the doomsayers don't adjust their doomsaying based upon current scientific work.

closed 10y ago
> But it is very irritating when the doomsayers don't adjust their doomsaying based upon current scientific work. I love this line. It's like somebody just submitted doomsaying homework, and you are not taking issue with their premise per se, but taking off points for the sources they used.
- rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
  Heh, yeah. It's like talking to climate "skeptics" - people who believe climate change is real but disagree on the level of human agency. You can show them graph after graph of greenhouse gas emissions being pumped into the atmosphere at alarming rates and they'll say "I'm not that alarmed, we don't know how much of an impact it will have." Meanwhile, coral reefs are bleaching, Florida is flooding, and we are experiencing record heatwaves AND snowfall. At the very least, it doesn't take much to make clear that we should still DO SOMETHING.
  - cpt1138 10y ago
    But what? The problem with the constant doom is that we get exhausted. At least in the US all we truly care about is war and old people (looking at where the money goes; http://whatwepayfor.com/ http://whatwepayfor.com/). The problem with the doom sayers is they have no solutions or actionable items that we can say yes or no to. Its just lions and tigers and bears 24/7.
    - Jtsummers 10y ago
      Reduce our emissions. This has one potential and one actual effect. 1) Potential: If climate change is significantly affected by human output, then we may curb or counter the current climate trends. 2) Actual: Healthier environment for life on this planet. We won't have cities like Los Angeles used to be, or Beijing is now where people can barely go outside without taking a year off their life. This is, without a doubt, a good thing unless you explicitly want poorer health to be the norm.
      - rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
        Reminds me of a comic I see floated around Facebook from time to time of an auditorium of scientists seated beneath a banner reading "Climate Change Conference," and someone raises their hand and says something to the effect of "But what if we're wrong about climate change and we make a better world for nothing?"
        refurb 10y ago
        What happens if we spend hundreds of billions of dollars on reducing CO2 emissions and it turns out it was all for naught? That money has to come from somewhere. It could be spent on healthcare, getting people clean water, etc. To me that would be a tragedy.
        Jtsummers 10y ago
        Yes. It would be tragic to cut out polluting forms of energy production that destroy rivers and lives.
philovivero 10y ago
I'm worried about bacteria that are antibiotic-resistant. So I was excited to read the article you cited. > Don’t get me wrong—there is certainly no case for complacency at this stage. Oh. Okay. So unwarranted optimism is... unwarranted.

y0ast 10y ago

Actually, the Roman pipe store is a bit of an urban legend. According to this PNAS [0] paper: "Lead pollution of “tap water” in Roman times is clearly measurable, but unlikely to have been truly harmful." [0] http://www.pnas.org/content/111/18/6594.full http://www.pnas.org/content/111/18/6594.full

Retric 10y ago
I don't know if that shows what you suggest it does. Using lead tainted water for irrigation is also harmful because plants will transmit that lead to people though their diet. Further, lead sticks around in contaminated soils and accumulates over time. In that context, every lead source ends up becoming increasingly important.
- TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
  If plants transmit the lead to those who eat them how can it also accumulate in the soil? The plants would bioremediate the soil.
  - Retric 10y ago
    It's not 100%. Suppose a plant absorbs 5% of the lead. Well in the first year you get 5% of the lead in all water used for irrigation. But, 95% is left in the soil. Next year you get 5% of 195%. Until, the soil has 20 years worth of lead and all new lead added in a year ends up in the plant. Drop that to 1% and it would take ~100 years to get the same effect. Note, you would really get a differential equation with several terms, but more or less the same idea just after more time and balanced with water that overflows the field etc.
    - TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
      Ah, yes, of course. I guess at some point you're supposed to develop soil testing and stop putting the toxins in to the soil. And the air. And the water. It's not looking too good is it.
10y ago

TeMPOraL 10y ago

Besides actual lead concentration in water being disputed (per comments in the parallel subthreads), I think this analogy isn't good for another reason - Roman aqueducts were meant to solve a problem, to get fresh water into towns, improving comfort as well as sanitation. Most apps made today are not about solving problems, they're about bundling a minimum amount of features that would trick the users into doing something (paying with money, paying with daya) that profits the app creators.

chiaro 10y ago
I think the majority of app developers still, at least nominally, believe that they are providing something of value.

Analemma_ 10y ago

My favorite New Yorker cartoon ever: http://www.condenaststore.com/-sp/Yes-the-planet-got-destroyed-But-for-a-beautiful-moment-in-time-we-created-a-lot-of-value-for-sh-Prints_i9318014_.htm http://www.condenaststore.com/-sp/Yes-the-planet-got-destroy... "Yes, the planet was destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders."

mrleiter 10y ago

What a beautiful comment, thanks.

andrepd 10y ago

Have you a source on that avoid the Romans?

djsumdog 10y ago

I'm so glad you mentioned Edward Bernays. It's interesting how he was very helpful in promoting his uncle's book in the US, bringing Freud some much needed cash. At the same time, Sigmund hated Bernays, and Anna, for using a lot of his psychological work to change the face of advertising into what it is today. Bernays created the very first _Public Relations_ office (he made up the term because "Propaganda" was a bad word). He helped get more women smoking (torches for freedom!). I'm sure if it wasn't him and Anna, someone else would have come along and made these discoveries anyway. Capitalism, Consumerism and Planed Obsolescence will be what brings down the current world.

rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
Well yeah, that was basically his argument: propaganda is too effective to be left in the "wrong" hands, so the "right" people better get on it, and quick. I'm sure it dawned on him that it wouldn't take long until everyone was using it and there would be no discernible difference between the good or bad. "Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely."
- jamesblonde 10y ago
  And the usual reference to Adam Curtis' history of consumerism, based around Edward Bernays: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s

hueving 10y ago

How is incorrect antibiotic usage related to anyone claiming it's good for GDP? Seems like a pretty weak strawman.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

andrei_says_ 10y ago

By definition, profit is the only thing that matters to corporations. A moral corporation is a profitable one, and vice versa. Everything else is a lower priority than profit and growth. Thus, we turn everything that exists into what we measure as profit. We are the indigenous people selling our lives and attention and time and land/planet for shiny trinkets without value.

ArkyBeagle 10y ago
The problem is that there are good profits and bad profits. "Good profits" create consumer surplus. "Bad profits" are rents. I don't know if you've looked lately, but corporations do a lot of things differently than simply maximizing short terms profits now. Besides, that's mostly an artifact of mutual fund style public stock financing. In addition to going private, there is emphasis on dividends, stock buybacks, that sort of thing. At its simplest, a thing is profitable if it can be done efficiently and people want it. That's not a bad thing.

ArkyBeagle 10y ago

Lead pipes work just fine for most water chemistries. It was the salts of lead used as sweeteners that were much more of a problem. As they say, "the dose is the poison". If our behavior renders us extinct, then we had a good run.