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I must admit I find the EU pretty progressive and thought-leading lately - ironically using the tool progressives despise the most: Regulation. When they banne

I must admit I find the EU pretty progressive and thought-leading lately - ironically using the tool progressives despise the most: Regulation. When they banned all filament lightbulbs, everyone was saying how bad it would be for the economy, but the industry was just forced to innovate and just a couple years later everyone is 95% on LEDs. Farmers will cope - and the demand they create for new solutions will accelerate supply much faster than any voluntary solution.

plopz 9y ago
Its funny how you say everything is sunshine and rainbows with lightbulbs, but just yesterday I was reading comments here about how its impossible to find lightbulbs with good temperature anymore. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16929470 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16929470
- Faaak 9y ago
  I don't know where you buy your led light bulbs but here in switzerland you usually have three choices (white, warm white, and something yellow-ish). I find the warm-white nuance quite pleasant. Then, if you still want another colour, internet is here for you.
  - awakeasleep 9y ago
    However, if you want good full spectrum LEDs (that approach what an incandescent bulb provides) I believe you must buy really expensive ones that are only manufactured in Japan https://www.yujiintl.com/high-cri-led-lighting https://www.yujiintl.com/high-cri-led-lighting
    - justinclift 9y ago
      You're not understating things when you say "really expensive"... https://store.yujiintl.com/collections/high-cri-led-lights https://store.yujiintl.com/collections/high-cri-led-lights Wow.
      - tigershark 9y ago
        106$ for a pack of 6 led light with CRI > 95 doesn’t seem really expensive to me... It’s less than 18$ each.
        justinclift 9y ago
        Well, it seems really expensive when I compare to the price of led lights I'm used to. eg local supermarket. :)
      - namibj 9y ago
        I can confirm the quality of the devices they send. And from the shipping it seems to be Shenzen. Their 1900K VTC (triple-phosphor) LEDs seem to be out of stock though. They have 80+CRI on candlelight. DIY Perks (youtube) got some and made a video destribing the difference between their double phosphor and 'normal' chinese LEDs. One can see the quality of the actual LEDs (not the packaging/phosphor(s)) by running them at threshold voltage, and seeing if all dies in the package light up simultaneously. If they don't, the device is of 'chinesium' quality. Ask for a refund, as it's going to burn out soon (uneven current distribution between the parallel columns). And as far as "really expensive" goes: the price of the LED is 10% of the electricity cost over a life of 50k hours, which is about what you get out of them without fancy cooling. See http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=Plot%5B(1000.+%2B+0.2+x)%2F1000,+%7Bx,+0,+50000%7D%5D http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=Plot%5B(1000.+%2B+0.2+x... , for TCO over time. Units are EUR and hours, and I calculated a price of 20ct/kWh. You can take these prices as net prices for USD, tax and forex cancel out. Yes, these are not economical if you don't use them. In that case, use cheap filament bulbs or similar. Don't cheap out on the quality of light you use. Get double phosphor (other manufacturers offer those too) for normal use, and consider triple phosphor for uses where color rendition is particularly important (photo shooting/inspecting things/etc). For the mentioned price you can get a cheap driver and the LED, but please don't burn your LED with inadequate cooling or a bad driver. They are not cheap ;)
        rashkov 9y ago
        Do you use these for home lighting, and if so, how do they compare to traditional CFLs? Or would that be total overkill?
    - iamphilrae 9y ago
      They maybe be expensive but will last a decade or longer, so price is negated. And when you replace in 10 years, price will be minuscule as to what it is now.
    - sergiosgc 9y ago
      You may be viewing the past with a rose filter. Incandescent light bulbs are nowhere near full spectrum. You have a decent analysis of the emitted frequencies here: https://www.comsol.com/blogs/calculating-the-emission-spectra-from-common-light-sources/ https://www.comsol.com/blogs/calculating-the-emission-spectr...
      - the8472 9y ago
        > You have a decent analysis of the emitted frequencies here: That still shows something approaching a black body radiatior. The difference is just the planckian locus. In other words it does emit a full spectrum, just with a power distribution that mimics sunset light and not midday sunlight.
      - lightedman 9y ago
        "Incandescent light bulbs are nowhere near full spectrum." If you're considering microwave, radio, X-ray, and UV-C as part of full spectrum, sure. Otherwise, incandescents emit across the entire visible spectrum as a result of being a blackbody radiator. I'm even working with Scripps Institution of Oceanography on an experiment regarding exactly this right now.
      - jupp0r 9y ago
        I assumed that full was always a relative term. You surely don't want devices that emit on the whole EM spectrum.
      - closeparen 9y ago
        I remember the transition, and “A/B testing” different rooms in my parents house as our last incandescents died, quite vividly. It was awful. It still is, but people no longer have good quality light for comparison.
        GuiA 9y ago
        And you no longer have a room lit with incandescent to compare with the current, much improved offerings :)
    - njarboe 9y ago
      For daytime hours I would like something approximating the suns spectral output. Something like a black body at around 5800K. Lots of blue but pretty flat in the visual spectrum. For the evening I would prefer more of a wood fire or candle light spectrum. That seems to help with people's sleep cycle. Something with a black body temp of about 1500 K. Or cool incandescent if you are reading; around 2400K. Majority red spectrum.
      - luckydata 9y ago
        It already exists. https://www.usa.philips.com/c-m-li/warm-glow-dimmable-led-lighting https://www.usa.philips.com/c-m-li/warm-glow-dimmable-led-li...
        daveFNbuck 9y ago
        It's weird that their website gives no indication that they function this way. They don't say anything about blue light or sleeping better.
    - herbst 9y ago
      Phillips and some other known brands sell a wide spectrum of different LED bulbs these days. Some are way better than others. I am sure someone is making the 'best' but the better average is not as bad anymore IMO.
- the8472 9y ago
  On amazon you'll find a plethora of LED bulbs with their color temperature in kelvin, CRI (or R-alpha), lumens and directivity listed. I have picked a wide range of different ones for different needs. A few years ago there was limited choice but the palette has broadened since then. The item titles, often listing incandescent equivalent wattages and fuzzy categories like warmness, are kind of irrelevant. You need to look at the fact sheets.
  - DubiousPusher 9y ago
    Disagree. I just swapped a 2700k bulb for another 2700k bulb and the room went from eery green to warm just off white yellow. You have to try them. The ratings are suspect, IMO.
    - tigershark 9y ago
      The warmth has no relation whatsoever with the CRI. If your first led had an awful CRI you should blame yourself for not checking it rather than saying that all the spec sheets are useless.
      - DubiousPusher 9y ago
        Oh! I didn't know about this property. Thanks, this will be very helpful in picking bulbs in the future.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
- DubiousPusher 9y ago
  No way. Tons of warm, white or cool bulbs. You just have to try a few and be sceptical of the kelvin rating. Trust me, the wife and I are very picky about color temp.
- PhasmaFelis 9y ago
  Well, if you have extremely specific desires for light temp.
- Tepix 9y ago
  Buy good LED lights with a CRI of >95. They are not hard to find.
stfp 9y ago
Amen, except on "the tool progressives despise the most: Regulation" - you're thinking of libertarians.
- da_chicken 9y ago
  That or neoliberalism (aka, Thatcherism) using the meaning that Wikipedia uses for that term < https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism >.
lemoncucumber 9y ago
> ironically using the tool progressives despise the most: Regulation They do? Are you sure you're not thinking of conservatives?
- oconnor663 9y ago
  Yeah I don't know what progressives they've been hanging out with...
- PeterStuer 9y ago
  Neo-liberals and Anarchists, which are very close in ideology
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - miragle 9y ago
    Were you dropped on your head as a child?
  - PeterStuer 9y ago
    Maybe I was to short on explanation here. what I mean is that regarding regulation, both neoliberal and anachistic policies have a 'laiser faire' approach of minimizing or abolishing government intervention. Both do so from widely opposing points of view. Neoliberals see regulations as needlessly restrictive and inhibiting the 'natural' efficiency of the market. Anarchists see regulations as 'protecting the privileged'.
    - miragle 9y ago
      I repeat my question
exabrial 9y ago
I wouldn't be so quick to pat them on the back about that... First came CFLs, which put literal tons of mercury in landfills. ...not to mention their terrible power factor almost negated any efficiency improvements. LED solves many of these issues thankfully,
- samstave 9y ago
  How much [toxic stuff] goes into making LEDs? If any? We shall, in short order respectively have trillions of LEDs in landfill. Old LEDs were a dollop of glass/plastic over the device, but sme/rgb LEDs are a bit more complex than the old LEDs of the past.
  - DubiousPusher 9y ago
    Due to their long life, they probably won't enter into landfills in the same quantities as other bulbs. However, I believe many of the newer bulbs have silicoln chips in them and there's trouble with runoff from the metals on those chips if I recall. Don't take my word for it though, this is old creaky info from deep in the recesses of my brain that I'm too lazy to validate right now.
    - toomuchtodo 9y ago
      LED lighting can be recycled the same as e-waste. The challenge there is to ensure you have a proper e-waste stream recycling system setup, but it's a solved problem on the technical side. Luckily, due to LED longevity, we have a decade or two to get better at recycling e-waste for the majority of bulbs out there.
      - userbinator 9y ago
        due to LED longevity The Phoebus cartel may be long gone but planned obolescence is a stronger force than ever before. Low-power indicator LEDs do have extremely high longevity, but the type used for illumination certainly don't, because they are operated far closer to their limits; plus they need special driver circuitry which also limits lifespan. Components like electrolytic capacitors have lifetimes far shorter than the LED itself in typical LED lamp applications.
adamsea 9y ago
Aren't progressives fans or regulation? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressivism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressivism "Progressivism is the support for or advocacy of improvement of society by reform.[1] As a philosophy, it is based on the Idea of Progress, which asserts that advancements in science, technology, economic development, and social organization are vital to the improvement of the human condition. Progressivism became highly significant during the Age of Enlightenment in Europe, out of the belief that Europe was demonstrating that societies could progress in civility from uncivilized conditions to civilization through strengthening the basis of empirical knowledge as the foundation of society.[2] Figures of the Enlightenment believed that progress had universal application to all societies and that these ideas would spread across the world from Europe"
- forty 9y ago
  Yes, that's my understanding as well. It could depends on what country you are though. For me left wing means progressive and social and right wing means liberal and conservative. I guess in some countries the progressive are also the liberal, in which case the previous comment make sense
  - hn0 9y ago
    I hate the one-dimensional taxonomy generally used. I wish one of these would be adopted in the media: https://www.politicalcompass.org https://www.politicalcompass.org https://8values.github.io https://8values.github.io (there’s more) Classical Liberalism is sometimes considered left wing because it originated as a response to aristocracy, and alongside their preference for free markets (which originally meant markets free from economic rent, not free from regulation) over the rigidly hierarchical model of feudalism with it’s caste system, some founders were broadly socialistic in their thinking. It’s somewhat ironic capitalism emerged in England where it began as a massive social engineering effort by the central authorities, putting large parts of the population in precariousness and poverty. “Laissez-faire was planned, planning was not.” To quote economic historian Karl Polanyi. “Capitalism” is nowadays often conflated with “markets”, which can be found in about every agricultural society. Capitalism was coined by Marx and he meant basically a society where the population can be divided in two classes: those who own capital (capital = means of (industrial/mass) production = machines, factories, things-that-make-things, etc) and those who don’t. Those who own capital make their income out of profit, those without have to sell their labor for a wage to the capitalist. Remember that mass production dropped the prices of goods considerably, so artisanal production went out of the window. Basically the inequality in potential to make money resulted in a strong reduction in individual freedom for large parts of the population. This is where the paradoxal dichotomy of liberty and equality becomes clear, where equality in it’s purest sense can be considered the maximum amount of individual liberty for the materially worst off in society — freeing the individual from the constraints put upon him by his environment. That’s the same as saying everyone gets exactly the same. Wonder how well that works in the real world... Note that “Socialism” is often equated with Marxism, which actually came rather late to the party. Many new school “Classical Liberals” were created by marginalist economic theory, which was a response to the rising popularity of Marxist justifications for wealth distribution. It’s just as nonsensical, sadly, and it seems we’re stuck with it. “Keyensianism” is another horribly misunderstood term. Keynesianism as historically known was actually developed by Paul Samuelson, and is based upon economic models that were published by him before Keynes published his major works. Keynes was a classical liberal with a streak of conservatism which despised Marxism. Keynesianism is nowadays equated with “money printing” which is not at all what he argued. I also recently read Harari’s Sapiens, where at one point he makes the following distinction, which I thought was neat: * Liberal humanism which holds that the individual, and liberty of the individual, is the most important priority. * Socialist humanism which holds a notion of humanity as collective and for which equality is the main priority. * Evolutionary humanism, which holds that Sapiens might either degenerate as a species, or evolve into “super-humans” Calling Nazi’s “humanist” might seem strange, but in some wicked sense they were, they cared for humanity as some kind of meta organism that could evolve or devolve. Thankfully modern biology put all that to bed. It’s interesting to note that humanism is based on the notion of “natural rights” which is another way of saying “rights given by God”. People often don’t realize just how religious the axioms of their preferred moral framework are. (Bit long and tangential probably...)
entee 9y ago
Yes but what will those new solutions be? Will they be better? How will we know? Most likely scenario: they'll be replaced by some other chemical that on the surface may be better, but will be far less understood by virtue of being new. We may well find out years later that it was worse on a whole host of criteria, and may even be worse on the "don't kill the bees" criteria after larger scale/more research. It's easy to assume banning the thing we don't like will yield better outcomes but that's not necessarily the case. If we want to get rid of chemical risk, we'll have to get rid of chemicals. If we do that, we'll have to seriously re-evaluate our agricultural systems and be likely willing to accept higher prices.
- georgebarnett 9y ago
  “We shouldn’t do anything because it might not be the right solution” has is not a productive outlook.
  - entee 9y ago
    I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying we should be careful to consider the trade-offs. There's a lot of hysteria around "chemicals" in the world, and blanket bans are the result. Similar hysteria has killed maybe the best hope we have for carbon-free baseline power load (nuclear power) because people were afraid of radiation. Coal power plants kill more people per year than all nuclear accidents to date ever will (http://reason.com/blog/2016/04/26/more-deaths-from-coal-pollution-annually http://reason.com/blog/2016/04/26/more-deaths-from-coal-poll...). We shouldn't do anything as a knee-jerk reaction against things that look bad because there are charismatic harms (bees maybe dying), without considering the larger problems (humans having more expensive food, or in the case of DDT, dying of diseases).
    - petre 9y ago
      Nuclear also bacame more expensive because of very tight over regulation that also applies to research. We are stuck with 70 year old reactor designs now of which PWRs and PHWRs are so far the safest, but we should really move on with research into MSRs and other fast reactors which allow recycling of nuclear waste.
bhnmmhmd 9y ago
I understand this is an important decision by EU, but I just can't fathom the reason this news got so upvoted here on HN. Am I missing something? Can anyone elaborate on this?
- tom_mellior 9y ago
  Insects, bees especially, pollinate plants. Without pollination many plants do not reproduce. Without plants reproducing, humans starve. Killing all the bees is therefore a bad idea amounting to collective suicide. Many people here on HN care about not being killed.
- phil248 9y ago
  The bee problem was a huge mystery for a lot of years and got a ton of press until researchers finally figured out that - Surprise! - it was all the literal poisons we saturate our landscapes with that was killing them of.
  - gascan 9y ago
    The literal insect poisons, specifically.
- ThurmaUman 9y ago
  It's probably the hope that it would generating conversation about new discoveries rather than drawing out the loonies (which is all it has done).
bendbro 9y ago
> ironically using the tool progressives despise the most: Regulation I've always pessimistically thought progressives rely exclusively on regulation to succeed at their goals. What situations make you say otherwise?
- downandout 9y ago
  That was my first thought when I read this comment. Progressives tend to believe that the government knows best (e.g. please tell me what size soda I should be allowed to buy), while conservatives tend to believe that the free market will naturally regulate itself (e.g. amusement parks will voluntarily keep their rides safe, because people won’t buy tickets otherwise). There are pros and cons to both sides. But it is simply inaccurate to say that progressives “despise” regulation - they love regulation and would do far more of it if left to their own devices.
  - DFHippie 9y ago
    Progressives don't love regulation, but they also don't have a superstitious dread of it. Progressives want to use the right tool for the job. In some cases, that is regulation. In particular, when the consequences of a decision cannot be internalized, so the pursuit of self-interest is not sufficient to produce societally optimal solutions, regulation can correct this market failure.
  - incompatible 9y ago
    I always understood it as a progressive wants to change things and a conservative wants things to stay the same.
    - annabellish 9y ago
      Kind of, but it's more nuanced than that. A traditionally conservative ideology isn't opposed to change, but rather states that revolutionary changes are extremely likely to have unintended and unpredictable concequences, and so we should be extremely sparing with that. If change is necessary, it's better to to let it arise organically through societal pressures or the invisible hand of the free market, which can happen in a slower way with more controlled self-corrective measures. Both "conservative" and "progressive" ideologies generally allow for change, but in different ways. I don't subscribe to conservative ideology myself, but traditional conservatism is an understandable outlook.
solarkraft 9y ago
> ironically using the tool progressives despise the most: Regulation "Progressives" are in the US most often characterized as proposing an overreach in regulation, so I find it weird that you call it something they don't want. Political terms are hard. I for one, as an EU citizen, strongly support and am proud of the pro-human (often by being pro-environment and limiting companies) politics of the EU (GDPR, bans of overly toxic substances, USB for smartphones ...).
- briandear 9y ago
  USB for smartphones? How is the government telling people what kind of ports to have a good thing? The market should make that decision, not a regulator. Toxins kill stuff, a lack of USB could be considered and annoyance if you think USB is important. USB regulation is precisely the definition of “progressive” overreach. I don’t want any government dictating my device specifications (unless those specs are designed to reduce health risks or radio interference.)
  - akie 9y ago
    He was talking about standardizing phone chargers to use (one of the) USB standard ones so you don’t end up with a drawer full of outdated and incompatible chargers.
  - FranzFerdiNaN 9y ago
    No, it was extremely good and cool that the EU told corporations to stick to one standard. The market is terrible in making things convenient for consumers if they want to switch phones, as it doesn't make them money. Same with not creating bee-killing pesticides. The markets created them and never stopped despite them being extremely harmful to the environment. But who cares, under capitalism profits matter above all so let's continue producing them.
  - SllX 9y ago
    Someone chime in and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but here's how I understand the "regulation". The EU decided that having a single standard port to charge a smartphone was a good idea and in the long run, save a little bit of money and a little bit on electronic waste since people would be able to go to any store and purchase for sale 1 Standard Smartphone Charger™ and 1 Standard Smartphone Cable™. Then they conferred their preference to the Smartphone Industry™ and said "Okay, you guys sort it out. Pick a standard, incorporate it going forward, or we will bring down the regulatory hammer and not even we want to do that." At that point USB was proving to be more or less a de facto standard anyway, so the industry said okay, settled on that, and somehow Apple got away with being able to just bundle in an adapter for the Standard Smartphone Cable™. The benefit of this approach rather than the EU swinging the regulatory hammer is it leaves the industry free to update it, say from micro-USB to USB-C, as improvements come along, rather than the EU decreeing that all smartphones use micro-USB which would be Terrible. Thus we have a Standard by Agreement, rather than a Standard by Law and life goes on pretty okay. For good or for ill, the EU has a massive amount of soft power in their lawmaking alone with repercussions that go beyond the 28 (soon to be 27 again) member states. Any smartphone designer is free to take their phone and go home, but that's a lot of money to leave on the table and its not like anybody particularly liked the old crappy connectors of the past.
sbenitoj 9y ago
To be clear the widespread use of LEDs has caused significant health issues for many people, especially shift workers, due to disrupting their circadian rhythms and decreasing their sleep quality. With that said, even though I’m against regulation as a means to effect change, I can’t say I’m upset about fewer pesticides being used on our food, it’s literally poison.
closeparen 9y ago
The loss of incandescents made human habitats into colder, harsher, less welcoming places. We’re turning our nighttime cityscapes bright blue. We’ve almost completely erased the joy of coming home to warm soft lighting from the human experience (and no, the piss-yellow emitted by “warm” LEDs isn’t a substitute). We aren’t stuck with darkness, at least, but something very real and valuable was lost and not replaced.
- deleted 9y ago
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arrrg 9y ago
Regulation is the core task of the EU, more or less its reason to be. There are many squishy goals the EU has, but its core and non-squishy task is to create and take care of a common market among all member states. That relates to boring and straightforward things like tariffs (just don’t have them, duh), but also to other trade barriers, like differing regulation between different member states. (If a French company can’t sell their wine picker without modification in Spain because of mutually exclusive regulation in the two countries then that’s a trade barrier and the EU aims to get rid of it by harmonising the regulation in France and Spain and all the other member countries.) As such the EU also takes over the continuing duties of regulating companies from the member states. It is no surprise that much of what the EU does relates to regulation, since that is its reason to be.
- _o_ 9y ago
  Yes, and this is how the normal state should behave. US messed it up big time by giving control to the corporations, but if you do some thinking: managers get their rewards based on some time based results. If they achieve better "money bases" results by screwing up customers or anyone else, they still profit. The corporations don't care if they poison half of world population as long as they profit. Make another war, few hunderd thousand killed? No problem, we made money. The only institution that can stop this insane logic is state and EU Commission is really suprisingly good in acting in good of EU cityzen, quite oposite in regard to what US is doing - acting for the corporations. I am sorry for US. People there got gang raped without the lubricant, but they are still too much brain washed to figure it out and are still living in fantasy world of "american dream", we have a saying "nation will write its own desteny by themself" and it fits for the US nicely, but I think years od dumbification are paying the toll.
  - _o_ 9y ago
    Here is a nice example, how US is handling nature preservation: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/yellowstone-national-park-grizzly-bear-protections-will-not-be-restored-by-us-2018-04-28/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/yellowstone-national-park-grizz...
amriksohata 9y ago
Though I like this new regulation and I live in the EU. The EU creates a lot of useless waste and red tape, just look at the EU cookie law
- ben-schaaf 9y ago
  The cookie law only affects you if you'd otherwise be tracking your users/visitors. So if you're just using cookies for login sessions and other primary functions of your site you don't need to ask for permission. And honestly, I'm happy to be aware of the tracking websites do.
  - herbst 9y ago
    This still means it affects 99% of (popular) websites out there (Google analytics, ads, social sharing stuff,...). Sure these websites could just find better solutions for that, however how it was and is that cookie warnung is just to common to even give it a second thought as average user.
- jacquesm 9y ago
  I don't have a cookie banner on my site. I decided I didn't need the cookies and I didn't need the tracking either. The EU only creates a lot of waste and red tape if you want to ride close to the line, if you decide to go with the spirit of the law rather than the letter it actually reduces waste and red tape. If you want to give a real example of waste then the VAT rules would come to mind, the cookie law was meant well but the majority of the web operators decided they were going to pass the burden on to the consumer instead of to actually take the hint. And if they had taken that hint the GDPR most likely wouldn't be here tomorrow.
epigramx 9y ago
It also made the old bulbs extremely cheap for a while which was hilarious.
deleted 9y ago
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hutzlibu 9y ago
"When they banned all filament lightbulbs, everyone was saying how bad it would be for the economy, but the industry was just forced to innovate and just a couple years later everyone is 95% on LEDs." First they started by mandating enviroment and if broken, human "friendly" mercury lamps as a replacement. And even without the regulation, LED's were about to make the breakthrough. And since energy(money) saving is a factor for many people, I would argue it would have come anyway. Maybe even some time later, but with people willingly accepting it and without hating the EU for mandating light for them which was ugly and dark. Because the common energy saving lamp at that time was a catastrophe aesthetically and practically. But this is different, pesticides are activly damaging the enviroment for everyone. Classic case for what regulation was invented - and this should never get mixed up with regulations which mandate certain energy savings to everyone. This is something people do anyway, if not for the global effect, but for their wallet. So you can maybe assist progress in that area, but never mandate it as people will then start to hate energy saving because now they are forced to do it by the evil government.
cs02rm0 9y ago
When they banned all filament lightbulbs, everyone was saying how bad it would be for the economy, but the industry was just forced to innovate and just a couple years later everyone is 95% on LEDs. And now we hear from a study in the EU that LEDs cause cancer. Yay. https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/ehp1837/ https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/ehp1837/
- ethelward 9y ago
  From what I understand, they found a correlation between disturbed circadian cycles and hormone-caused cancers, the mean of lighting doesn't seem to play a role.
  - platelminto 9y ago
    That seems right - they only mention LEDs as a possible factor for the increase in disturbance of circadian cycles, as people keep them on at night more than they used to with filament bulbs. The study isn't about LEDs themselves.
  - cs02rm0 9y ago
    It was reported elsewhere that it was the increased level of blue light. So perhaps something that can be addressed. Still, unintended consequences.
hackbinary 9y ago
>> I must admit I find the EU pretty progressive and thought-leading lately - ironically using the tool progressives despise the most: Regulation. Who said it is necessary for 'progressives' hate regulation? Progressiveness, I think, is a contextual thing. Capitalism, free-marketism, socialism, theocracism, and indeed any political and social movement can all advocate progressivism toward their own ideologies. So, in my view, progressivism has more to with general change to an idealogical view, whatever that idealogical view is, and not got anything to do with change to a certain idealogical view. As in one person may view a change being progressive, eg reduction in regulation, and another might view that change as being regressive, eg removal of regulation of toxic chemicals into a river system.
hedora 9y ago
I think you’re confusing corporatists (more commonly called neocons or neoliberals these days), and progressives. Corporatism is the idea of government by corporation. In practical terms, this means that government functions should be privatized, and all laws that restrict companies repealed. Puerto Rico is a great example of how this plays out in practice. People also frequently confuse conventional libertarianism, which argued that monopolistic/large corporations are simply an arm of the state, and present day libertarianism, which is basically just corporatism.
walshemj 9y ago
But it also lead to the rise of diesel cars not all the EU's technical regulations work very well - cookie laws for example.

plopz 9y ago

Its funny how you say everything is sunshine and rainbows with lightbulbs, but just yesterday I was reading comments here about how its impossible to find lightbulbs with good temperature anymore. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16929470 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16929470

Faaak 9y ago
I don't know where you buy your led light bulbs but here in switzerland you usually have three choices (white, warm white, and something yellow-ish). I find the warm-white nuance quite pleasant. Then, if you still want another colour, internet is here for you.
- awakeasleep 9y ago
  However, if you want good full spectrum LEDs (that approach what an incandescent bulb provides) I believe you must buy really expensive ones that are only manufactured in Japan https://www.yujiintl.com/high-cri-led-lighting https://www.yujiintl.com/high-cri-led-lighting
  - justinclift 9y ago
    You're not understating things when you say "really expensive"... https://store.yujiintl.com/collections/high-cri-led-lights https://store.yujiintl.com/collections/high-cri-led-lights Wow.
    - tigershark 9y ago
      106$ for a pack of 6 led light with CRI > 95 doesn’t seem really expensive to me... It’s less than 18$ each.
      - justinclift 9y ago
        Well, it seems really expensive when I compare to the price of led lights I'm used to. eg local supermarket. :)
    - namibj 9y ago
      I can confirm the quality of the devices they send. And from the shipping it seems to be Shenzen. Their 1900K VTC (triple-phosphor) LEDs seem to be out of stock though. They have 80+CRI on candlelight. DIY Perks (youtube) got some and made a video destribing the difference between their double phosphor and 'normal' chinese LEDs. One can see the quality of the actual LEDs (not the packaging/phosphor(s)) by running them at threshold voltage, and seeing if all dies in the package light up simultaneously. If they don't, the device is of 'chinesium' quality. Ask for a refund, as it's going to burn out soon (uneven current distribution between the parallel columns). And as far as "really expensive" goes: the price of the LED is 10% of the electricity cost over a life of 50k hours, which is about what you get out of them without fancy cooling. See http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=Plot%5B(1000.+%2B+0.2+x)%2F1000,+%7Bx,+0,+50000%7D%5D http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=Plot%5B(1000.+%2B+0.2+x... , for TCO over time. Units are EUR and hours, and I calculated a price of 20ct/kWh. You can take these prices as net prices for USD, tax and forex cancel out. Yes, these are not economical if you don't use them. In that case, use cheap filament bulbs or similar. Don't cheap out on the quality of light you use. Get double phosphor (other manufacturers offer those too) for normal use, and consider triple phosphor for uses where color rendition is particularly important (photo shooting/inspecting things/etc). For the mentioned price you can get a cheap driver and the LED, but please don't burn your LED with inadequate cooling or a bad driver. They are not cheap ;)
      - rashkov 9y ago
        Do you use these for home lighting, and if so, how do they compare to traditional CFLs? Or would that be total overkill?
  - iamphilrae 9y ago
    They maybe be expensive but will last a decade or longer, so price is negated. And when you replace in 10 years, price will be minuscule as to what it is now.
  - sergiosgc 9y ago
    You may be viewing the past with a rose filter. Incandescent light bulbs are nowhere near full spectrum. You have a decent analysis of the emitted frequencies here: https://www.comsol.com/blogs/calculating-the-emission-spectra-from-common-light-sources/ https://www.comsol.com/blogs/calculating-the-emission-spectr...
    - the8472 9y ago
      > You have a decent analysis of the emitted frequencies here: That still shows something approaching a black body radiatior. The difference is just the planckian locus. In other words it does emit a full spectrum, just with a power distribution that mimics sunset light and not midday sunlight.
    - lightedman 9y ago
      "Incandescent light bulbs are nowhere near full spectrum." If you're considering microwave, radio, X-ray, and UV-C as part of full spectrum, sure. Otherwise, incandescents emit across the entire visible spectrum as a result of being a blackbody radiator. I'm even working with Scripps Institution of Oceanography on an experiment regarding exactly this right now.
    - jupp0r 9y ago
      I assumed that full was always a relative term. You surely don't want devices that emit on the whole EM spectrum.
    - closeparen 9y ago
      I remember the transition, and “A/B testing” different rooms in my parents house as our last incandescents died, quite vividly. It was awful. It still is, but people no longer have good quality light for comparison.
      - GuiA 9y ago
        And you no longer have a room lit with incandescent to compare with the current, much improved offerings :)
  - njarboe 9y ago
    For daytime hours I would like something approximating the suns spectral output. Something like a black body at around 5800K. Lots of blue but pretty flat in the visual spectrum. For the evening I would prefer more of a wood fire or candle light spectrum. That seems to help with people's sleep cycle. Something with a black body temp of about 1500 K. Or cool incandescent if you are reading; around 2400K. Majority red spectrum.
    - luckydata 9y ago
      It already exists. https://www.usa.philips.com/c-m-li/warm-glow-dimmable-led-lighting https://www.usa.philips.com/c-m-li/warm-glow-dimmable-led-li...
      - daveFNbuck 9y ago
        It's weird that their website gives no indication that they function this way. They don't say anything about blue light or sleeping better.
  - herbst 9y ago
    Phillips and some other known brands sell a wide spectrum of different LED bulbs these days. Some are way better than others. I am sure someone is making the 'best' but the better average is not as bad anymore IMO.
the8472 9y ago
On amazon you'll find a plethora of LED bulbs with their color temperature in kelvin, CRI (or R-alpha), lumens and directivity listed. I have picked a wide range of different ones for different needs. A few years ago there was limited choice but the palette has broadened since then. The item titles, often listing incandescent equivalent wattages and fuzzy categories like warmness, are kind of irrelevant. You need to look at the fact sheets.
- DubiousPusher 9y ago
  Disagree. I just swapped a 2700k bulb for another 2700k bulb and the room went from eery green to warm just off white yellow. You have to try them. The ratings are suspect, IMO.
  - tigershark 9y ago
    The warmth has no relation whatsoever with the CRI. If your first led had an awful CRI you should blame yourself for not checking it rather than saying that all the spec sheets are useless.
    - DubiousPusher 9y ago
      Oh! I didn't know about this property. Thanks, this will be very helpful in picking bulbs in the future.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
DubiousPusher 9y ago
No way. Tons of warm, white or cool bulbs. You just have to try a few and be sceptical of the kelvin rating. Trust me, the wife and I are very picky about color temp.
PhasmaFelis 9y ago
Well, if you have extremely specific desires for light temp.
Tepix 9y ago
Buy good LED lights with a CRI of >95. They are not hard to find.

stfp 9y ago

Amen, except on "the tool progressives despise the most: Regulation" - you're thinking of libertarians.

da_chicken 9y ago
That or neoliberalism (aka, Thatcherism) using the meaning that Wikipedia uses for that term < https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism >.

lemoncucumber 9y ago

> ironically using the tool progressives despise the most: Regulation They do? Are you sure you're not thinking of conservatives?

oconnor663 9y ago
Yeah I don't know what progressives they've been hanging out with...
PeterStuer 9y ago
Neo-liberals and Anarchists, which are very close in ideology
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- miragle 9y ago
  Were you dropped on your head as a child?
- PeterStuer 9y ago
  Maybe I was to short on explanation here. what I mean is that regarding regulation, both neoliberal and anachistic policies have a 'laiser faire' approach of minimizing or abolishing government intervention. Both do so from widely opposing points of view. Neoliberals see regulations as needlessly restrictive and inhibiting the 'natural' efficiency of the market. Anarchists see regulations as 'protecting the privileged'.
  - miragle 9y ago
    I repeat my question

exabrial 9y ago

I wouldn't be so quick to pat them on the back about that... First came CFLs, which put literal tons of mercury in landfills. ...not to mention their terrible power factor almost negated any efficiency improvements. LED solves many of these issues thankfully,

samstave 9y ago
How much [toxic stuff] goes into making LEDs? If any? We shall, in short order respectively have trillions of LEDs in landfill. Old LEDs were a dollop of glass/plastic over the device, but sme/rgb LEDs are a bit more complex than the old LEDs of the past.
- DubiousPusher 9y ago
  Due to their long life, they probably won't enter into landfills in the same quantities as other bulbs. However, I believe many of the newer bulbs have silicoln chips in them and there's trouble with runoff from the metals on those chips if I recall. Don't take my word for it though, this is old creaky info from deep in the recesses of my brain that I'm too lazy to validate right now.
  - toomuchtodo 9y ago
    LED lighting can be recycled the same as e-waste. The challenge there is to ensure you have a proper e-waste stream recycling system setup, but it's a solved problem on the technical side. Luckily, due to LED longevity, we have a decade or two to get better at recycling e-waste for the majority of bulbs out there.
    - userbinator 9y ago
      due to LED longevity The Phoebus cartel may be long gone but planned obolescence is a stronger force than ever before. Low-power indicator LEDs do have extremely high longevity, but the type used for illumination certainly don't, because they are operated far closer to their limits; plus they need special driver circuitry which also limits lifespan. Components like electrolytic capacitors have lifetimes far shorter than the LED itself in typical LED lamp applications.

adamsea 9y ago

Aren't progressives fans or regulation? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressivism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressivism "Progressivism is the support for or advocacy of improvement of society by reform.[1] As a philosophy, it is based on the Idea of Progress, which asserts that advancements in science, technology, economic development, and social organization are vital to the improvement of the human condition. Progressivism became highly significant during the Age of Enlightenment in Europe, out of the belief that Europe was demonstrating that societies could progress in civility from uncivilized conditions to civilization through strengthening the basis of empirical knowledge as the foundation of society.[2] Figures of the Enlightenment believed that progress had universal application to all societies and that these ideas would spread across the world from Europe"

forty 9y ago
Yes, that's my understanding as well. It could depends on what country you are though. For me left wing means progressive and social and right wing means liberal and conservative. I guess in some countries the progressive are also the liberal, in which case the previous comment make sense
- hn0 9y ago
  I hate the one-dimensional taxonomy generally used. I wish one of these would be adopted in the media: https://www.politicalcompass.org https://www.politicalcompass.org https://8values.github.io https://8values.github.io (there’s more) Classical Liberalism is sometimes considered left wing because it originated as a response to aristocracy, and alongside their preference for free markets (which originally meant markets free from economic rent, not free from regulation) over the rigidly hierarchical model of feudalism with it’s caste system, some founders were broadly socialistic in their thinking. It’s somewhat ironic capitalism emerged in England where it began as a massive social engineering effort by the central authorities, putting large parts of the population in precariousness and poverty. “Laissez-faire was planned, planning was not.” To quote economic historian Karl Polanyi. “Capitalism” is nowadays often conflated with “markets”, which can be found in about every agricultural society. Capitalism was coined by Marx and he meant basically a society where the population can be divided in two classes: those who own capital (capital = means of (industrial/mass) production = machines, factories, things-that-make-things, etc) and those who don’t. Those who own capital make their income out of profit, those without have to sell their labor for a wage to the capitalist. Remember that mass production dropped the prices of goods considerably, so artisanal production went out of the window. Basically the inequality in potential to make money resulted in a strong reduction in individual freedom for large parts of the population. This is where the paradoxal dichotomy of liberty and equality becomes clear, where equality in it’s purest sense can be considered the maximum amount of individual liberty for the materially worst off in society — freeing the individual from the constraints put upon him by his environment. That’s the same as saying everyone gets exactly the same. Wonder how well that works in the real world... Note that “Socialism” is often equated with Marxism, which actually came rather late to the party. Many new school “Classical Liberals” were created by marginalist economic theory, which was a response to the rising popularity of Marxist justifications for wealth distribution. It’s just as nonsensical, sadly, and it seems we’re stuck with it. “Keyensianism” is another horribly misunderstood term. Keynesianism as historically known was actually developed by Paul Samuelson, and is based upon economic models that were published by him before Keynes published his major works. Keynes was a classical liberal with a streak of conservatism which despised Marxism. Keynesianism is nowadays equated with “money printing” which is not at all what he argued. I also recently read Harari’s Sapiens, where at one point he makes the following distinction, which I thought was neat: * Liberal humanism which holds that the individual, and liberty of the individual, is the most important priority. * Socialist humanism which holds a notion of humanity as collective and for which equality is the main priority. * Evolutionary humanism, which holds that Sapiens might either degenerate as a species, or evolve into “super-humans” Calling Nazi’s “humanist” might seem strange, but in some wicked sense they were, they cared for humanity as some kind of meta organism that could evolve or devolve. Thankfully modern biology put all that to bed. It’s interesting to note that humanism is based on the notion of “natural rights” which is another way of saying “rights given by God”. People often don’t realize just how religious the axioms of their preferred moral framework are. (Bit long and tangential probably...)

entee 9y ago

Yes but what will those new solutions be? Will they be better? How will we know? Most likely scenario: they'll be replaced by some other chemical that on the surface may be better, but will be far less understood by virtue of being new. We may well find out years later that it was worse on a whole host of criteria, and may even be worse on the "don't kill the bees" criteria after larger scale/more research. It's easy to assume banning the thing we don't like will yield better outcomes but that's not necessarily the case. If we want to get rid of chemical risk, we'll have to get rid of chemicals. If we do that, we'll have to seriously re-evaluate our agricultural systems and be likely willing to accept higher prices.

georgebarnett 9y ago
“We shouldn’t do anything because it might not be the right solution” has is not a productive outlook.
- entee 9y ago
  I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying we should be careful to consider the trade-offs. There's a lot of hysteria around "chemicals" in the world, and blanket bans are the result. Similar hysteria has killed maybe the best hope we have for carbon-free baseline power load (nuclear power) because people were afraid of radiation. Coal power plants kill more people per year than all nuclear accidents to date ever will (http://reason.com/blog/2016/04/26/more-deaths-from-coal-pollution-annually http://reason.com/blog/2016/04/26/more-deaths-from-coal-poll...). We shouldn't do anything as a knee-jerk reaction against things that look bad because there are charismatic harms (bees maybe dying), without considering the larger problems (humans having more expensive food, or in the case of DDT, dying of diseases).
  - petre 9y ago
    Nuclear also bacame more expensive because of very tight over regulation that also applies to research. We are stuck with 70 year old reactor designs now of which PWRs and PHWRs are so far the safest, but we should really move on with research into MSRs and other fast reactors which allow recycling of nuclear waste.

bhnmmhmd 9y ago

I understand this is an important decision by EU, but I just can't fathom the reason this news got so upvoted here on HN. Am I missing something? Can anyone elaborate on this?

tom_mellior 9y ago
Insects, bees especially, pollinate plants. Without pollination many plants do not reproduce. Without plants reproducing, humans starve. Killing all the bees is therefore a bad idea amounting to collective suicide. Many people here on HN care about not being killed.
phil248 9y ago
The bee problem was a huge mystery for a lot of years and got a ton of press until researchers finally figured out that - Surprise! - it was all the literal poisons we saturate our landscapes with that was killing them of.
- gascan 9y ago
  The literal insect poisons, specifically.
ThurmaUman 9y ago
It's probably the hope that it would generating conversation about new discoveries rather than drawing out the loonies (which is all it has done).

bendbro 9y ago

> ironically using the tool progressives despise the most: Regulation I've always pessimistically thought progressives rely exclusively on regulation to succeed at their goals. What situations make you say otherwise?

downandout 9y ago
That was my first thought when I read this comment. Progressives tend to believe that the government knows best (e.g. please tell me what size soda I should be allowed to buy), while conservatives tend to believe that the free market will naturally regulate itself (e.g. amusement parks will voluntarily keep their rides safe, because people won’t buy tickets otherwise). There are pros and cons to both sides. But it is simply inaccurate to say that progressives “despise” regulation - they love regulation and would do far more of it if left to their own devices.
- DFHippie 9y ago
  Progressives don't love regulation, but they also don't have a superstitious dread of it. Progressives want to use the right tool for the job. In some cases, that is regulation. In particular, when the consequences of a decision cannot be internalized, so the pursuit of self-interest is not sufficient to produce societally optimal solutions, regulation can correct this market failure.
- incompatible 9y ago
  I always understood it as a progressive wants to change things and a conservative wants things to stay the same.
  - annabellish 9y ago
    Kind of, but it's more nuanced than that. A traditionally conservative ideology isn't opposed to change, but rather states that revolutionary changes are extremely likely to have unintended and unpredictable concequences, and so we should be extremely sparing with that. If change is necessary, it's better to to let it arise organically through societal pressures or the invisible hand of the free market, which can happen in a slower way with more controlled self-corrective measures. Both "conservative" and "progressive" ideologies generally allow for change, but in different ways. I don't subscribe to conservative ideology myself, but traditional conservatism is an understandable outlook.

solarkraft 9y ago

> ironically using the tool progressives despise the most: Regulation "Progressives" are in the US most often characterized as proposing an overreach in regulation, so I find it weird that you call it something they don't want. Political terms are hard. I for one, as an EU citizen, strongly support and am proud of the pro-human (often by being pro-environment and limiting companies) politics of the EU (GDPR, bans of overly toxic substances, USB for smartphones ...).

briandear 9y ago
USB for smartphones? How is the government telling people what kind of ports to have a good thing? The market should make that decision, not a regulator. Toxins kill stuff, a lack of USB could be considered and annoyance if you think USB is important. USB regulation is precisely the definition of “progressive” overreach. I don’t want any government dictating my device specifications (unless those specs are designed to reduce health risks or radio interference.)
- akie 9y ago
  He was talking about standardizing phone chargers to use (one of the) USB standard ones so you don’t end up with a drawer full of outdated and incompatible chargers.
- FranzFerdiNaN 9y ago
  No, it was extremely good and cool that the EU told corporations to stick to one standard. The market is terrible in making things convenient for consumers if they want to switch phones, as it doesn't make them money. Same with not creating bee-killing pesticides. The markets created them and never stopped despite them being extremely harmful to the environment. But who cares, under capitalism profits matter above all so let's continue producing them.
- SllX 9y ago
  Someone chime in and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but here's how I understand the "regulation". The EU decided that having a single standard port to charge a smartphone was a good idea and in the long run, save a little bit of money and a little bit on electronic waste since people would be able to go to any store and purchase for sale 1 Standard Smartphone Charger™ and 1 Standard Smartphone Cable™. Then they conferred their preference to the Smartphone Industry™ and said "Okay, you guys sort it out. Pick a standard, incorporate it going forward, or we will bring down the regulatory hammer and not even we want to do that." At that point USB was proving to be more or less a de facto standard anyway, so the industry said okay, settled on that, and somehow Apple got away with being able to just bundle in an adapter for the Standard Smartphone Cable™. The benefit of this approach rather than the EU swinging the regulatory hammer is it leaves the industry free to update it, say from micro-USB to USB-C, as improvements come along, rather than the EU decreeing that all smartphones use micro-USB which would be Terrible. Thus we have a Standard by Agreement, rather than a Standard by Law and life goes on pretty okay. For good or for ill, the EU has a massive amount of soft power in their lawmaking alone with repercussions that go beyond the 28 (soon to be 27 again) member states. Any smartphone designer is free to take their phone and go home, but that's a lot of money to leave on the table and its not like anybody particularly liked the old crappy connectors of the past.

sbenitoj 9y ago

To be clear the widespread use of LEDs has caused significant health issues for many people, especially shift workers, due to disrupting their circadian rhythms and decreasing their sleep quality. With that said, even though I’m against regulation as a means to effect change, I can’t say I’m upset about fewer pesticides being used on our food, it’s literally poison.

closeparen 9y ago

The loss of incandescents made human habitats into colder, harsher, less welcoming places. We’re turning our nighttime cityscapes bright blue. We’ve almost completely erased the joy of coming home to warm soft lighting from the human experience (and no, the piss-yellow emitted by “warm” LEDs isn’t a substitute). We aren’t stuck with darkness, at least, but something very real and valuable was lost and not replaced.

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arrrg 9y ago

Regulation is the core task of the EU, more or less its reason to be. There are many squishy goals the EU has, but its core and non-squishy task is to create and take care of a common market among all member states. That relates to boring and straightforward things like tariffs (just don’t have them, duh), but also to other trade barriers, like differing regulation between different member states. (If a French company can’t sell their wine picker without modification in Spain because of mutually exclusive regulation in the two countries then that’s a trade barrier and the EU aims to get rid of it by harmonising the regulation in France and Spain and all the other member countries.) As such the EU also takes over the continuing duties of regulating companies from the member states. It is no surprise that much of what the EU does relates to regulation, since that is its reason to be.

_o_ 9y ago
Yes, and this is how the normal state should behave. US messed it up big time by giving control to the corporations, but if you do some thinking: managers get their rewards based on some time based results. If they achieve better "money bases" results by screwing up customers or anyone else, they still profit. The corporations don't care if they poison half of world population as long as they profit. Make another war, few hunderd thousand killed? No problem, we made money. The only institution that can stop this insane logic is state and EU Commission is really suprisingly good in acting in good of EU cityzen, quite oposite in regard to what US is doing - acting for the corporations. I am sorry for US. People there got gang raped without the lubricant, but they are still too much brain washed to figure it out and are still living in fantasy world of "american dream", we have a saying "nation will write its own desteny by themself" and it fits for the US nicely, but I think years od dumbification are paying the toll.
- _o_ 9y ago
  Here is a nice example, how US is handling nature preservation: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/yellowstone-national-park-grizzly-bear-protections-will-not-be-restored-by-us-2018-04-28/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/yellowstone-national-park-grizz...

amriksohata 9y ago

Though I like this new regulation and I live in the EU. The EU creates a lot of useless waste and red tape, just look at the EU cookie law

ben-schaaf 9y ago
The cookie law only affects you if you'd otherwise be tracking your users/visitors. So if you're just using cookies for login sessions and other primary functions of your site you don't need to ask for permission. And honestly, I'm happy to be aware of the tracking websites do.
- herbst 9y ago
  This still means it affects 99% of (popular) websites out there (Google analytics, ads, social sharing stuff,...). Sure these websites could just find better solutions for that, however how it was and is that cookie warnung is just to common to even give it a second thought as average user.
jacquesm 9y ago
I don't have a cookie banner on my site. I decided I didn't need the cookies and I didn't need the tracking either. The EU only creates a lot of waste and red tape if you want to ride close to the line, if you decide to go with the spirit of the law rather than the letter it actually reduces waste and red tape. If you want to give a real example of waste then the VAT rules would come to mind, the cookie law was meant well but the majority of the web operators decided they were going to pass the burden on to the consumer instead of to actually take the hint. And if they had taken that hint the GDPR most likely wouldn't be here tomorrow.

epigramx 9y ago

It also made the old bulbs extremely cheap for a while which was hilarious.

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hutzlibu 9y ago

"When they banned all filament lightbulbs, everyone was saying how bad it would be for the economy, but the industry was just forced to innovate and just a couple years later everyone is 95% on LEDs." First they started by mandating enviroment and if broken, human "friendly" mercury lamps as a replacement. And even without the regulation, LED's were about to make the breakthrough. And since energy(money) saving is a factor for many people, I would argue it would have come anyway. Maybe even some time later, but with people willingly accepting it and without hating the EU for mandating light for them which was ugly and dark. Because the common energy saving lamp at that time was a catastrophe aesthetically and practically. But this is different, pesticides are activly damaging the enviroment for everyone. Classic case for what regulation was invented - and this should never get mixed up with regulations which mandate certain energy savings to everyone. This is something people do anyway, if not for the global effect, but for their wallet. So you can maybe assist progress in that area, but never mandate it as people will then start to hate energy saving because now they are forced to do it by the evil government.

cs02rm0 9y ago

When they banned all filament lightbulbs, everyone was saying how bad it would be for the economy, but the industry was just forced to innovate and just a couple years later everyone is 95% on LEDs. And now we hear from a study in the EU that LEDs cause cancer. Yay. https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/ehp1837/ https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/ehp1837/

ethelward 9y ago
From what I understand, they found a correlation between disturbed circadian cycles and hormone-caused cancers, the mean of lighting doesn't seem to play a role.
- platelminto 9y ago
  That seems right - they only mention LEDs as a possible factor for the increase in disturbance of circadian cycles, as people keep them on at night more than they used to with filament bulbs. The study isn't about LEDs themselves.
- cs02rm0 9y ago
  It was reported elsewhere that it was the increased level of blue light. So perhaps something that can be addressed. Still, unintended consequences.

hackbinary 9y ago

>> I must admit I find the EU pretty progressive and thought-leading lately - ironically using the tool progressives despise the most: Regulation. Who said it is necessary for 'progressives' hate regulation? Progressiveness, I think, is a contextual thing. Capitalism, free-marketism, socialism, theocracism, and indeed any political and social movement can all advocate progressivism toward their own ideologies. So, in my view, progressivism has more to with general change to an idealogical view, whatever that idealogical view is, and not got anything to do with change to a certain idealogical view. As in one person may view a change being progressive, eg reduction in regulation, and another might view that change as being regressive, eg removal of regulation of toxic chemicals into a river system.

hedora 9y ago

I think you’re confusing corporatists (more commonly called neocons or neoliberals these days), and progressives. Corporatism is the idea of government by corporation. In practical terms, this means that government functions should be privatized, and all laws that restrict companies repealed. Puerto Rico is a great example of how this plays out in practice. People also frequently confuse conventional libertarianism, which argued that monopolistic/large corporations are simply an arm of the state, and present day libertarianism, which is basically just corporatism.

walshemj 9y ago

But it also lead to the rise of diesel cars not all the EU's technical regulations work very well - cookie laws for example.