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Fun fact, the inventor of leaded gasoline, Thomas Midgley Jr., also invented chloroflourocarbons (CFC's). See: https://interestingengineering.com/thomas-midgley

Fun fact, the inventor of leaded gasoline, Thomas Midgley Jr., also invented chloroflourocarbons (CFC's). See: https://interestingengineering.com/thomas-midgley-jr-the-man-who-harmed-the-world-the-most https://interestingengineering.com/thomas-midgley-jr-the-man...

zionic 5y ago
He was also strangled to death by his own bed-hoist invention.
- datavirtue 5y ago
  That is awesome
  - tgtweak 5y ago
    Are you in the celebrating death camp or not?
    - oats 5y ago
      There's a certain level of bastardhood at which it becomes hard to feel sympathy for someone's demise. I don't know which side of the line Thomas Midgley Jr. is on, but he's reeeaaal close to it.
      - tgtweak 5y ago
        Do you think he intentionally invented it to harm people? I don't think you can logically position that it is good for a person to die but not those which they indirectly (and likely involuntarily) harmed. CFCs are a pretty important invention even today and leaded paint and fuel probably seemed like a good idea at the time since no evidence suggested otherwise for a long while after it's introduction and commercialization. Unless he concealed information about known dangers, I think it's illogical to fault him to the point of celebrating his untimely death due to it.
  - dang 5y ago
    Can you please stop posting flamebait and unsubstantive comments? We tried unbanning you awhile ago, and for the most part it has worked ok, but if you keep this up we're going to have to ban you again. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
BoxOfRain 5y ago
This article's understandably very critical of the man but is there much in the way of hard evidence he knew just how dangerous these inventions were and wilfully ignored the risks? Geninely asking, it just feels like the article is a bit of a hatchet job. Nobody's disputing that his inventions were awful in the long run for humanity and the Earth but it seems a little harsh to criticise someone for lacking the gift of prophecy. As far as I'm aware we only figured out how harmful CFCs were for the environment in the 1970s for example.
- 0xbadc0de5 5y ago
  There is plenty of evidence that he at least new that TEL was extremely toxic - Midgley himself was poisoned by it. Despite this knowledge, he went on to insist it was safe for the public. As for CFC's, the evidence would suggest he did not know of their effects on atmospheric ozone. My reading of the article left me with the impression that Midgley's work on TEL and subsequent marketing was enough to condemn. His work on CFC's appears to be a very unfortunate follow-up.
- mcguire 5y ago
  "Facing sceptical reporters at a press conference in October 1924, Thomas Midgley dramatically produced a container of tetraethyl lead - the additive in question - and washed his hands in it. ""I'm not taking any chance whatever," Midgley declared. "Nor would I... doing that every day." "Midgley was - perhaps - being a little disingenuous. He had recently spent several months in Florida, recuperating from lead poisoning." (https://www.bbc.com/news/business-40593353 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-40593353) I believe after that press conference he spent several more months in Europe detoxing. High-concentration exposure was known to be dangerous ("On the Thursday of the week before Midgley's press conference, at a Standard Oil plant in New Jersey, a worker named Ernest Oelgert started hallucinating. By Friday, he was running around the laboratory, screaming in terror. On Saturday, with Oelgert dangerously unhinged, his sister called the police. He was taken to hospital and forcibly restrained. By Sunday, he was dead. Within the week, so were four of his colleagues - and 35 more were in hospital. Only 49 people worked there.") and quite a few people were concerned about long-term, low-level exposures.
mhh__ 5y ago
CFCs were really important for making fridges safe, though right?
ngold 5y ago
Reminds me of the German that invented pulling nitrogen out of the air to be used in fertilizers, saving hundreds of millions of lives. WW1 rolls around and he invents gas warfare.

zionic 5y ago

He was also strangled to death by his own bed-hoist invention.

datavirtue 5y ago
That is awesome
- tgtweak 5y ago
  Are you in the celebrating death camp or not?
  - oats 5y ago
    There's a certain level of bastardhood at which it becomes hard to feel sympathy for someone's demise. I don't know which side of the line Thomas Midgley Jr. is on, but he's reeeaaal close to it.
    - tgtweak 5y ago
      Do you think he intentionally invented it to harm people? I don't think you can logically position that it is good for a person to die but not those which they indirectly (and likely involuntarily) harmed. CFCs are a pretty important invention even today and leaded paint and fuel probably seemed like a good idea at the time since no evidence suggested otherwise for a long while after it's introduction and commercialization. Unless he concealed information about known dangers, I think it's illogical to fault him to the point of celebrating his untimely death due to it.
- dang 5y ago
  Can you please stop posting flamebait and unsubstantive comments? We tried unbanning you awhile ago, and for the most part it has worked ok, but if you keep this up we're going to have to ban you again. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

BoxOfRain 5y ago

This article's understandably very critical of the man but is there much in the way of hard evidence he knew just how dangerous these inventions were and wilfully ignored the risks? Geninely asking, it just feels like the article is a bit of a hatchet job. Nobody's disputing that his inventions were awful in the long run for humanity and the Earth but it seems a little harsh to criticise someone for lacking the gift of prophecy. As far as I'm aware we only figured out how harmful CFCs were for the environment in the 1970s for example.

0xbadc0de5 5y ago
There is plenty of evidence that he at least new that TEL was extremely toxic - Midgley himself was poisoned by it. Despite this knowledge, he went on to insist it was safe for the public. As for CFC's, the evidence would suggest he did not know of their effects on atmospheric ozone. My reading of the article left me with the impression that Midgley's work on TEL and subsequent marketing was enough to condemn. His work on CFC's appears to be a very unfortunate follow-up.
mcguire 5y ago
"Facing sceptical reporters at a press conference in October 1924, Thomas Midgley dramatically produced a container of tetraethyl lead - the additive in question - and washed his hands in it. ""I'm not taking any chance whatever," Midgley declared. "Nor would I... doing that every day." "Midgley was - perhaps - being a little disingenuous. He had recently spent several months in Florida, recuperating from lead poisoning." (https://www.bbc.com/news/business-40593353 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-40593353) I believe after that press conference he spent several more months in Europe detoxing. High-concentration exposure was known to be dangerous ("On the Thursday of the week before Midgley's press conference, at a Standard Oil plant in New Jersey, a worker named Ernest Oelgert started hallucinating. By Friday, he was running around the laboratory, screaming in terror. On Saturday, with Oelgert dangerously unhinged, his sister called the police. He was taken to hospital and forcibly restrained. By Sunday, he was dead. Within the week, so were four of his colleagues - and 35 more were in hospital. Only 49 people worked there.") and quite a few people were concerned about long-term, low-level exposures.

mhh__ 5y ago

CFCs were really important for making fridges safe, though right?

ngold 5y ago

Reminds me of the German that invented pulling nitrogen out of the air to be used in fertilizers, saving hundreds of millions of lives. WW1 rolls around and he invents gas warfare.