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For all of those who are so amazed at the current state of technology in the world, it's articles like these that help bring us back to Earth. It was less than
by perpetualcrayon 8y ago
For all of those who are so amazed at the current state of technology in the world, it's articles like these that help bring us back to Earth.
It was less than 100 years ago that we thought it was a good idea to (1) put lead in paint, (2) put asbestos in building materials, (3) put x-ray machines in shoe stores so people could casually look at their feet (learned this from a relative).
We are only a few generations away from some literal dark age shit.
- scarecrowbob 8y agoWell, the fun thing is to look at what we do know and wonder what horrible stuff people will see that should have been more obvious to us in the present day.
- deelowe 8y agoI think coal burning power plants are the next big one. There's been some studies that have come out lately which link coal plants to tons of modern ailments.
- jaggederest 8y agoDiesel engines also. Black carbon smoke in all its forms is toxic to life, in general.
- SlowRobotAhead 8y agoModern Diesel engines don’t smoke. And black Diesel is mostly just muck and not pollution in the way you think it is, clear diesel exhaust has the NOX in it. Sorry, but it seems you don’t actually know anything about diesels.
- TheSpiceIsLife 8y agoIf we have data, let's go with the data. If all we have is opinions, let's go with mine. Diesel exhaust is a Group 1 carcinogen, which causes lung cancer and has a positive association with bladder cancer.[2][3][4][5][6] It contains several substances that are also listed individually as human carcinogens by the IARC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_exhaust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_exhaust
- SlowRobotAhead 8y agoThat's great! Except that your post was about black smoke which is just unburnt fuel, the actual diesel exhaust is invisible.
- TheSpiceIsLife 8y agoI’m going to disagree here, the black smoke that comes out of diesel engines isn’t just unburnt diesel. And if it comes out of the exhaust ports on a dieeel engine is actual diesel exhaust. All that aside, airosoled diesel still wouldn’t be something you’d want to inhale much of.
- Maken 8y agoDo you work for Volkswagen?
- SlowRobotAhead 8y agoNo, but I do work for a different vehicle supplier.
- lallysingh 8y agoThe put cell phones in their front pockets? How did they have any kids? /s
- hjek 8y agoEating animals.
- graphitezepp 8y agoYou can't call out the meat eaters so directly, it makes them upset and there are a lot of them.
- pjc50 8y agoPutting immigrants in camps?
- macawfish 8y agoindiscriminate use of systemic antibiotics
- stefs 8y agoNot only this, but also having the almost identified horrible stuff right now but still using it and discussing its ups and downs because of the convenience and lower price. In the vein of: i know 98.5% of scientists agree X will harm me, my children, my loved ones and neighbors. The other 1.5% have questionable sponsors, but X is not yet illegal and costs half the price of X-alternative ... so i'm using it one last time. Anyway, if it was really that bad, the gov't would have banned it by now anyway, so ... and then i take another free plastic bag.
- jstewartmobile 8y agoFew generations away from? Ha!
- eksemplar 8y ago“We” still think it’s a good idea to use asbestos in less fortunate countries. The way Americans may see that is the way Scandinavia sees lead pipes. I mean, flint was so many years ago, why haven’t you improved things?
- gruez 8y agoAFAIK the issue in flint was that the increased acidity from the new water source destroyed the protective coating in the lead pipes. Lead pipes should be safe under normal conditions.
- Gibbon1 8y agoI think part of the problem is lead containing deposits in pipes that accumulated over decades. And then they switched water sources and it started leaching out. The guys that did that knew that would happen and typical of conservatives didn't care.
- SlowRobotAhead 8y ago>and typical of conservatives didn't care. I’d ask how it feels to be such a puppet of someone else’s game... but that would require some self awareness.
- uxp100 8y agoI’d say the people who handled the switchover, state engineers, were likely liberals, not that it matters. It’s not as if treating the water incorrectly was a cost saving measure, they just screwed up.
- Gibbon1 8y agoGov Rick Snyder is a conservative that appointed managers to run Flint and they are the ones that did that. Sorry
- 8y ago
- the_cat_kittles 8y agowhatever shit they put in "vape juice" is gonna be the new lead
- Gibbon1 8y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronchiolitis_obliterans#Diacetyl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronchiolitis_obliterans#Diace...
- stephengillie 8y agoWe literally have to drive ourselves around. It's like we're still living in the stone ages!
- aslkdjaslkdj1 8y ago>(2) put asbestos in building materials http://www.newsweek.com/pruitt-trump-asbestos-chemicals-trump-962703 http://www.newsweek.com/pruitt-trump-asbestos-chemicals-trum... https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/is-epa-allowing-asbestos-products/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/is-epa-allowing-asbestos-p...
- TangoTrotFox 8y agoLook at American the sharp spike in American obesity and mental illness. People have tried to explain it by convenient things like the internet or lethargic lives, yet our deterioration is relatively unique while internet access and lethargy is not. Something we are doing or consuming is screwing us up mightily, and generations of the future will look back with bewilderment that we didn't know we shouldn't [...] . Lead had a huge lobby during its heyday. The inventor of leaded fuel [1] would have exhibitions where he would sit and huff leaded fuel, pour it on his hands, and so on. And there was extensive corporate backed science arguing that it was all perfectly safe. Incidentally he's also the guy who invented CFCs, which also ended up banned. Interesting character! [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr.
- S_A_P 8y agoThis Wikipedia article almost reads as an onion spoof. He was treated for lead poisoning at least twice. He contracted polio and invented a series of ropes and pullies to assist him and his family to get him out of bed which ended up strangling him to death. It seems that GM(who he worked for)is largely responsible for inventing what are arguably the worst compounds for the planet other than the nuclear bomb. Absolutely astonishing read.
- cryoshon 8y agoas another HN commentator said: if there is a powerful lobbying group pushing for one thing and third party scientists are saying something else, "the jury" will stay "out" for decades even if the evidence is clear. lesson: interpreting corporate funded science inversely is sometimes a faster route to the truth than waiting for them to come around.
- corey_moncure 8y agoIt's the sugar.
- phobosdeimos 8y agoI live in a wealthy Northern European country and asbestos wasn't made completely illegal until the early 90s... Never underestimate the power of lobbying. Cleaning it all up is costing society many billions.
- cryoshon 8y agolesson: reject claims which dispute safety with claims of necessity for profitability. reject claims which dispute science with lobbying. reject the idea that profitmaking is a right; profitmaking is a privilege which is permitted after preconditions of safety, social usefulness, and general propriety are satisfied.
- jonhendry18 8y agoAnd 1 guy, Thomas Midgeley Jr., played a major role in both the use of leaded gasoline and in the development of some of the first chlorofluorocarbons which were later found to be eating the ozone layer. Late in life he was disabled by polio. After inventing a system of ropes and pulleys to assist his aides in lifting him from his bed, he became entangled in it and died of strangulation. He's almost a real-world version of Pratchett's Discworld inventor Bloody Stupid Johnson.
- workinthehead 8y agoYes, the poster boy for the "choose a random chemical and see if it does anything useful" school of "engineering". What's really sad is that this method isn't too far off from the way the pharma industry works today.
- dvfjsdhgfv 8y agoThat's why it's extremely important to have unbiased scientific research and try to work on methods that would allow us to discover long-term effects of different factors on living organisms in a shorter time. A good example is electromagnetic radiation. We know quite well the effects of specific wavelengths at defined intensity on living organisms. Some wavelengths are lethal at certain doses, some seem to have no visible effect. Given how ubiquitous radio communication is these days, one would think it's in our best interests to conduct large-scale studies on long-term effects of the wavelengths most commonly used on living cells. It would be tragic to discover the effects are there but because the related EMR is so widespread it's hard to correlate these factors in the population.
- cryoshon 8y agoeh, i jumped down the EMR rabbit hole a few years ago at the behest of a friend trying to put together a research proposal. the in vitro data we have is uninspiring. you can prompt cells to lose viability if you expose them to EMR (radio from what i remember) in very contrived and artificial conditions with exposure far beyond what humans would absorb. yeah, it probably would be better for you to not have all these waves bouncing around/through us. but i think it could be much worse.
- thinkcontext 8y agoThe dangers were known at the time. The League of Nations had treaty in the 1920s to ban lead paint, knowledge of the dangers of course proceeded it by a lot. The same with leaded gas. The millions of lives affected and $trillions in damages were completely avoidable except for greed.
- dsfyu404ed 8y agoWe still haven't found good replacements for those materials (asbestos in particular) at similar price points. While I agree that we shouldn't be wrapping every hot water pipe in asbestos and painting kids bikes with led paint there's got to be a more flexible middle ground between outright ban and allowing widespread use. Leaded brass plumbing fittings are everywhere (and labeled to indicate they should not be used for potable water) and nobody complains. I wish asbestos in particular were still available for situations where you need insulation that's really hard to catch on fire, there's really no replacement for it that I'm aware of.