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It makes me angry to think of how wreckless the generations before millenials were. Lead's risks and damages were well-known long before 1996. And they still di

It makes me angry to think of how wreckless the generations before millenials were. Lead's risks and damages were well-known long before 1996. And they still didn't ban it until then.

SimplyUnknown 5y ago
I agree that people have been reckless with population safety in past, but your comment seems to imply that the Millenial generation are somehow flawless with regards with this subject. While safety is now more stringent than in the past, I very much doubt that this is the case.
- qorrect 5y ago
  Yeah if anything millennial's were _taught_ to be less reckless. They didn't just come out of the womb that way :/.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  Physical safety is more stringent. You can't swing a dead cat without a horde of people with safety vests and clipboards writing you up for it. However, the planet is arguably the most ideologically polluted it's ever been. First world cultures have developed an aversion to individual and organization/group responsibility. Democracy is not doing great. Many institutions are bankrupt. Hardship is looming. We're in for a wild ride.
- banana_maker 5y ago
  As of 2021, out of 432 members in the house of congress, a scant 31 are millenials. In the senate, just 1. Millenials are -not- the ones responsible for disastrous policies (yet). They haven't been around long enough yet. It's mainly boomers, some gen x, and a few silents. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/02/12/boomers-silents-still-have-most-seats-in-congress-though-number-of-millennials-gen-xers-is-up-slightly/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/02/12/boomers-sil... edit: Added "(yet)" because it's not obvious, I suppose. My point here is that the actual policymakers in congress, right now, are majority "not-millenials". So stop blaming millenials and/or gen-z when they're not the ones currently writing legislature...
  - rootusrootus 5y ago
    Who is the largest single voting bloc? Edit: That struck a chord with millenials, ha! Tell your friends that bitching does not help, voting does. Boomers seem to understand this and so they have a disproportionate amount of influence. You want it to stop? VOTE.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      Generations don't vote as blocks, but of the named generations the largest number of actual voters are Boomers, still. 2018 was the first election where Gen X and younger together outvoted Boomers and older.
    - banana_maker 5y ago
      It's my understanding that millenials and gen-z make up 31% [0], as of -2020-. Boomers and older still make up 44%. So sure, go ahead and blame millenials and gen-z for policies made in 2020 and onward. 0: https://catalist.us/wh-national/ https://catalist.us/wh-national/
    - blaser-waffle 5y ago
      > Edit: That struck a chord with millenials, ha! Tell your friends that bitching does not help, voting does. Boomers seem to understand this and so they have a disproportionate amount of influence. You want it to stop? VOTE. There is, still, a statistical bump in the boomers, hence the baby boom. There is just more of them, and they vote. They've only just started dying in big numbers. Plus the older voters get the more they tend to vote, for various reasons.
  - vlunkr 5y ago
    So what you're saying is, millenials aren't responsible for disastrous policies yet. They'll get their turn.
    - ncr100 5y ago
      Absolutely. It's difficult to be omniscient about the impact of everything to everything else for all future outcomes. Smacks of Ageism, to my mind.
- ajuc 5y ago
  Compared to ignoring global warming - ignoring lead exposure is a minor negligence.
  - cmrdporcupine 5y ago
    Both are a product of the same process of privileging of commodity production for profit over overall collective well-being. And yes, I'm aware that said commodity production produces wealth which also improves well-being. But there's a contradiction there in our economic model that is not serving us well. EDIT: I should add to my point above that what's common with both these is one overarching world altering product that has completely transformed the world: the automobile. Ribbons of tarmac lace the earth (it wouldn't surprise me if this is a long term environmental problem, too), even in some of the most remote sections of the planet. Cities are built around them, privileging automobile use above a bunch of other aspects of quality of life. Road transport is 75ish% of global CO2 emissions. And, yeah, leaded fuel poisoned our bodies, minds, and the environment for decades.
    - lern_too_spel 5y ago
      Economics has a term for this: negative externalities. A buys a snowblower from B, gaining 4 health for not shoveling and reducing everybody's health by 3 from pollution. B buys a leaf blower from C, gaining 4 health from not raking and reducing everybody's health by 3 from pollution. C buys a lawnmower from A, gaining 4 health from not scything and reducing everybody's health by 3. Each seller gets 4 health from the money. Every trade is beneficial to both parties by 1 health unit, but now, everybody is worse off by 1 health unit than they would be had the trades not happened. In practice, we're usually D-Z, who participated in no trades and get a net reduction in health of 9.
      - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
        That is an incredibly naive way of looking at it. The way it usually goes is "everyone is +5, except the village that shares the watershed with the mine" On anything but the shortest timeline things like like wealth, health and productivity are fungible at the societal level. If the net cumulative effect of the externalities wasn't smaller than the benefits of the progress then the progress wouldn't happen because more people would be worse off and things would grind to a halt because the gains would be more than offset.
miketery 5y ago
Same goes for sugar. We know the dangers it poses, we are also seeing how much it increases risk of death due to covid. I don't think we should be surpsied, as much as pushing to regulate this garbage. As an aside, Michelle Obama's campaign when Obama was in office was about improvement children's health. Her focus was going to be on nutrition (lunch food). Shortly thereafter Coke and Pepsi came in with "donations" and the whole thing became about exercise, no focus on nutrition. There should be no surprise that capital takes precedent over health in our current system / culture. Arguably, we should care more about sugar than we do about covid.
- api 5y ago
  It's absolutely amazing how much we shovel sugar into our kids even at school, then wonder why they can't pay attention. Sugar is our generation's tobacco for sure.
  - tomxor 5y ago
    > Sugar is our generation's tobacco for sure. This might seem far fetched, but I think it's pretty accurate. When tobacco was at it's height most people didn't really think it was bad for you - which gradually turned into a denialistic "yeah but it's not that bad" - it took a long time for society to come to terms with just how harmful it is. The quantity of sugar in every day food has increased dramatically over time, and our attitude to it has been similar to the denialistic phase for tobbaco - "yeah it might hurt my waistline a little bit but it tastes too good" - Making people think if they aren't fat then it's ok, when really the consequences are far worse, sugar is pretty much poison for our bodies, it's bad for every single part of it (melts teeth, causes gum disease which poisons your bloodstream, ages skin, causes inflammation, causes heart disease, causes diabetes, affects the immune system, messes with cognition, makes you more hungry by sharply switching off ketosis, and finally displaces nutritional food making your body even more susceptible to aforementioned ailments). I wish I understood this better when I was growing up. Thankfully I had a parent who never encouraged sugary food, and put in the effort to cook good meals... but many people don't and are at the mercy of what super markets sell, which is increasingly extremely sugary food. If there is a single leading harmful substance that is as prevalent as leaded petrol was - i think it's probably sugar (in the west at least).
rootusrootus 5y ago
I don't think it helps to make this a generational warfare issue. Especially since it's not like every person in a particular generation had a say in these decisions. It's also too easy to cast judgement backwards in time, given the lack of context and the benefit of hindsight. Better to look forward.
- Jach 5y ago
  As true in 1888 as now, Froude: "Each age would do better if it studied its own faults and endeavoured to mend them, instead of comparing itself with others to its own advantage."
- dylan604 5y ago
  Those that ignore history are doomed to repeat it. We saw it with tobacco/lead/etc, so it's only natural/right to apply that experience to other things. Theorizing that sugar/THC could also fall into the same model is not wasting of anyone's time. If evidence is found that it is bad, then good can come from that knowledge. If evidence is found that it is not bad, then party on Wayne. But the studies should be conducted. Let's look forward to having actual knowledge rather than just blindly carrying on in the dark with no flashlight to guide.
phphphphp 5y ago
We are just as dumb. Processed meat causes cancer, micro plastics are doing all sorts to us: arguably, we are dumber, because we know all about the harm that lead and cigarettes cause and yet… we haven’t applied that lesson. Do you eat meat?
- loeg 5y ago
  We smoke less than earlier generations, actually.
alexfromapex 5y ago
Playing devil's advocate, previous generations didn't have access to the vast, coordinated information on the scale that Millennials do.
modzu 5y ago
similarly, the second leading cause of death is cancer, and yet we willingly bask in cancer-causing substances all the time. future generations will probably look back and think, wtf?
jollybean 5y ago
People didn't wear seatbelts in the 1950's. Infant mortality was 10% before the age of 1 in 1910. At the same time, homeless children would roam the streets of cities and orphanages were common. The #1 form of surgery back then was amputation. To make such a statement implies how little perspective one might have for how hard life was, the risk and tradeoffs being made, especially when there were unknown - and especially for 'how good we have it now'. I'm not even that old, but I have the lived experience from my grandparents who were born on farms without electricity and I believe without a doubt that we have crossed the line into 'civilizational wealth'. We are really rich for the first time in history. Unequal, yes, but even lower-middle class people have access to vast material bounty: actions, travel, decorative clothing, choices, opportunity, education, amazing produce throughout the year, entertainment, technology, delivery, amazing health care innovations. Heck .... people are even less afraid of getting shot these days because we know how to stabilise and save people. Getting 'shot' used to mean 'pretty much going go die'. Even 'heart surgery' is now done on an outpatient basis these days like getting an oil change. 'Millenials' have already let loose Facebook and other completely destructive technologies, and are taking absolutist views on necessarily complicated things like gender identity (and more) and I'm 100% certain that history will come back like a wrecking ball on at least those things, of course it's already happening with Social Media. The issue with lead is hard to fathom, it's still a bit grey, I'm wondering what the effect of some other things are going to be i.e. micro plastics, and the steroids they use on livestock etc.. I'm not 'organic' by ideology but I'm wary that there's a lot of risk in those kinds of things. And it goes further: lighting in the cities all night, and noise pollution in the city and with our gadgets. It should be mostly dark and quiet at night.
scottLobster 5y ago
Speaking as a millennial, don't praise us too soon. We haven't really gotten the reins of power yet, so it's easy to claim that we'd do it better. In reality I imagine we'll still succumb to various corrupting forces just like every other generation. Granted I still think we have a more enlightened perspective on some issues as a generation just due to better education overall, but at best we might manage a marginal increase in overall quality of life for people. Plus the basket of crises we've faced starting with the Great Financial Crisis has allowed many to blame external factors for their situation and not take personal responsibility, even when they clearly should. I've met plenty of unwise/stupid millennials who could do more to better their situation, but are happy to just sit still and bitch about everything but their self-destructive habits. It's like how the Boomers got associated with Woodstock/the hippies/counter-culture, but in reality most Boomers didn't rebel all that much. Boomers elected Reagan, and he ran in part as an anti-counter-culture figure.
- nus07 5y ago
  Fantastic answer. In 30 years time we have no idea how the youth then will view our race for urban living, yoga, tech hustles and high inequality, juice and vegan diets, electric cars, open concept houses, social media, tech surveillance and screen addiction and various other things which are less cutesy and more sinister. One thing that already gets me thinking of future generations looking down on us will be this quest for travel and high living especially for social media glamor and the new keeping up with Jones'. This increases more flights, polluting untouched places and how bad it is for the climate.
sidewndr46 5y ago
Lead still isn't banned in the US. You can go buy 100LL and burn it in your plane all day long showering it over the land below. Completely legal.
- conradev 5y ago
  Yep https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/leaded-gas-was-phased-out-25-years-ago-why-are-n1264970 https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/leaded-gas-wa...
- weaksauce 5y ago
  yeah i live under the flightpath of a lot of flight school traffic and this weighs a bit on my mind. pretty busy flight area too. Who knows the damage really? are there tests you can take?
  - TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
    Yes, you can get a blood test done that measures lead level. I asked my doctor for the test and got it done. Covered by insurance.
  - sidewndr46 5y ago
    If it is larger jet planes, you're mostly safe. Those burn lots of fuel, but it is "jet fuel" which is more like kerosene or diesel.
    - weaksauce 5y ago
      yeah the area overhead is very literally a training path where they do a lot of circling stuff in small planes. they do have a decent amount of jets flying very high though.
- Cerium 5y ago
  We should definitely move away from leaded gasoline and housing should not be allowed to develop near airports. Phrasing the conversation around "showering it over the land below" is to the point of fearmongering. The airplanes burning 100LL today consume gasoline at the same rate as an old pickup truck - they go about 12 miles per gallon. Lead pollution today due to aviation is a fraction of what it was in the past and is unlikely to even be the largest environmental exposure for most children.
deleted 5y ago
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sjg007 5y ago
Diesel is just as bad and I see plenty of millennials driving diesel trucks around here.
ArnoVW 5y ago
This is what my grandchildren will say about us, and our ambivilant attitude to our use of CO2 and disposables.
JPKab 5y ago
It's pretty insane. I was born in 1981, and near as I can tell, I'm likely a bit luckier than most other Americans my age because I grew up in such a sparsely populated, rural area. Still, there's no question that even people living in areas like me were impacted since most of the population drove old trucks, including my family. It's crazy to think about having a lower IQ than I was capable of having for something that could have been solved a few decades previously.
tlss 5y ago
Recreational marijuana and JUUL is very much a millenial/gen Z hobby, and it is being pushed with a fervor that glosses over serious studies any potential health risks. IMO weed will be in 50 years where "big tobacco" is right now.
- mountainriver 5y ago
  Not a chance, maybe smoking marijuana, but not edibles. I know plenty of people that have done them their entire lives and are in great shape
  - ifyoubuildit 5y ago
    That sounds a lot like "my grandmother smoked 2 packs a day and lived til she was 99." I think the whole point is that it hasn't been studied yet, so we can't say definitively if its safe or not.
    - mountainriver 5y ago
      Smoking something is obviously bad for your health, I don't need a study to tell me that, you are literally inhaling smoke. Followed by masses dying of cancer. Eating marijuana can have some negative cognitive effects but its pretty obvious it doesn't do anything terrible looking at all the old hippies.
      - ifyoubuildit 5y ago
        For one thing, has anyone actually looked at all the old hippies? And if they have, the old hippies probably didn't have access to anything as potent as we do, and I'm assuming today's edibles are (or eventually will be) full of all sorts of nonsense additives, because that's what we do. I'm not saying I know either way, but this seems like an easy thing to be wrong about.
        mountainriver 5y ago
        I mean we're not talking about additives, there are additives in lots of stuff that makes it harmful. And yes the old hippies didn't have as strong of weed, and there may be some threshold at which bad things happen more frequently, but just looking at the big picture it doesn't look all that dire. It definitely hurts parts of cognition, and is linked to certain mental illnesses, there are other odd and end health concerns that pop up rarely. Overall marijuana is pretty gentle when ingested, you can just tell from your own health when consuming it. When I smoked cigarettes I felt terrible all the time, and when I stopped it was night and day. Consuming edibles I feel pretty darn good actually, less stress, better sleep, and when I get off them I don't feel like I've been harming my body. This opinion is shared by pretty much everyone I know
User23 5y ago
So is fluoride’s neurotoxicity[1], especially for developing brains, and we still insist on using it, to just give one example. We’re no less reckless than prior generations and our children will be just as baffled looking back at us as we are now. Yes I’m aware that idiots are also fixated on fluoridation. That doesn’t make the science wrong though. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6923889/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6923889/ Neurotoxicity appeared to be dose-dependent , and tentative benchmark dose calculations suggest that safe exposures are likely to be below currently accepted or recommended fluoride concentrations in drinking water. That the authors felt the need to pack four weasel words into the sentence saying maybe it’s ok doesn’t indicate that they believe it’s safe.
- selimthegrim 5y ago
  Do you have other citations? How is this different from fluoridated toothpaste or topical application at the dentist?
  - trockbort 5y ago
    The fortification properties afforded by fluoride are entirely topical, meaning that fluoride-containing toothpaste can be considered beneficial. You use it and then spit it out. Drinking fluoridated water can hardly be considered helpful. Most of the fluoride content of water goes directly into the stomach where its effects are strictly not studied, and if you know anything about the fluoride ion, the effects are most likely detrimental, and possibly horrendous.
- trockbort 5y ago
  Fun fact: America fluoridates its water supply because notorious propagandist Edward Bernays convinced them to, for money https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_relations_campaigns_of_Edward_Bernays#Water_fluoridation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_relations_campaigns_of_... .
tombert 5y ago
I hate that everything has to devolve into some kind of "this generation sucks" debate. Whether or not we can blame boomers does not matter, at least not until we have a time machine to go remedy stuff. The fact is that the decisions have been made, the damage is done, and we need to figure out what to do now, regardless of whose fault it is. It seems like so many of these conversations end at the "who is responsible" part, without the understanding that we really shouldn't care.
- BlargMcLarg 5y ago
  I wouldn't complain if they were already unable to do anything, but many of them are actively preventing further improvements. Often due to it coming at a cost for them. Their unwillingness trickles down to other generations both in teachings and in pressuring the next generation what can and can't be done, and how to respond. Most of late gen X has also thrown in the towel, leaving the future generations to solve it themselves. This despite the fact leaders are overwhelmingly at/past middle age, as is wealth required to make moves as an individual.
  - tombert 5y ago
    Sure, but I think that it's needlessly divisive to pin it on a generation, particularly when I can find counterexamples for each. I have no issue whatsoever with complaining about individuals who are destroying the world right now [3], I'm certainly not going to sit here and defend basically any fossil fuel executive, but I think saying it's a generational thing is needlessly reductive and doesn't buy us anything. I don't think Noam Chomsky [1] or Bernie Sanders are destroying the world [2], and I don't think millennial/gen-z bozos like Charlie Kirk are helping it. [1] I realize he's older than a boomer, but I think my point still fits. [2] At least not advocating for stuff that's destroying the planet. I am not trying to take a directly political stand. [3] clarification edit.
jmugan 5y ago
That comment seems to blame a large group of people for something a small group did. The problem with lead is the same problem it always was and still is, a small group of people benefit and are able to make everyone else suffer. We clearly need to fix that, probably with specific measures to limit undue influence in congress. We should focus on those specific measures instead of divisive generalizations.
yojo 5y ago
It didn’t even stop then. My own city (Portland) has been regularly exceeding EPA lead action levels since 1998[1]. All they need to do is treat the water to raise ph like every other city with a large lead solder install base, but they’ve been dragging their feet for literally decades while the people they serve get lead exposure. 1: https://www.opb.org/article/2021/11/30/lead-portland-oregon-drinking-water/ https://www.opb.org/article/2021/11/30/lead-portland-oregon-...
- selimthegrim 5y ago
  You mean the anti-fluoridation fanatics didn't know when to get off the train? (channeling Richard Pryor here)
  - nintendo1889 5y ago
    What is provable is that the type of fluoride that they are using is NOT the supposedly 'healthy' type that is good for teeth.
ncr100 5y ago
> wreckless the generations before millenials were Premise is off... This assuming millenials are not reckless. We're humans and our behavior is not defined by our generation.
oversocialized 5y ago
xeromal 5y ago
It's easy to point the finger at boomers, but where they maybe killed us with lead, we're killing the next generation with plastics. Sure, plastics were started in earlier generations but we're showing no signs of slowing down in usage.
loudtieblahblah 5y ago
were no better these days with pfas, bpa, bps, badge, phthalates, etc. And we still have supplements and pots and pans that have lead in them, along with other heavy metals.
jeremyjh 5y ago
There are a lot of things wrong with this take that others have pointed out, but for some reason no one noted that as the article points out, the people most impacted by this were born in the late 60s and 70s, and those people are Gen X. We didn't choose this, we just suffered for it. Someone born in 1976 didn't vote until 1994.

It makes me angry to think of how wreckless the generations before millenials were. Lead's risks and damages were well-known long before 1996. And they still didn't ban it until then.

SimplyUnknown 5y ago

I agree that people have been reckless with population safety in past, but your comment seems to imply that the Millenial generation are somehow flawless with regards with this subject. While safety is now more stringent than in the past, I very much doubt that this is the case.

qorrect 5y ago
Yeah if anything millennial's were _taught_ to be less reckless. They didn't just come out of the womb that way :/.
throwaway0a5e 5y ago
Physical safety is more stringent. You can't swing a dead cat without a horde of people with safety vests and clipboards writing you up for it. However, the planet is arguably the most ideologically polluted it's ever been. First world cultures have developed an aversion to individual and organization/group responsibility. Democracy is not doing great. Many institutions are bankrupt. Hardship is looming. We're in for a wild ride.
banana_maker 5y ago
As of 2021, out of 432 members in the house of congress, a scant 31 are millenials. In the senate, just 1. Millenials are -not- the ones responsible for disastrous policies (yet). They haven't been around long enough yet. It's mainly boomers, some gen x, and a few silents. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/02/12/boomers-silents-still-have-most-seats-in-congress-though-number-of-millennials-gen-xers-is-up-slightly/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/02/12/boomers-sil... edit: Added "(yet)" because it's not obvious, I suppose. My point here is that the actual policymakers in congress, right now, are majority "not-millenials". So stop blaming millenials and/or gen-z when they're not the ones currently writing legislature...
- rootusrootus 5y ago
  Who is the largest single voting bloc? Edit: That struck a chord with millenials, ha! Tell your friends that bitching does not help, voting does. Boomers seem to understand this and so they have a disproportionate amount of influence. You want it to stop? VOTE.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    Generations don't vote as blocks, but of the named generations the largest number of actual voters are Boomers, still. 2018 was the first election where Gen X and younger together outvoted Boomers and older.
  - banana_maker 5y ago
    It's my understanding that millenials and gen-z make up 31% [0], as of -2020-. Boomers and older still make up 44%. So sure, go ahead and blame millenials and gen-z for policies made in 2020 and onward. 0: https://catalist.us/wh-national/ https://catalist.us/wh-national/
  - blaser-waffle 5y ago
    > Edit: That struck a chord with millenials, ha! Tell your friends that bitching does not help, voting does. Boomers seem to understand this and so they have a disproportionate amount of influence. You want it to stop? VOTE. There is, still, a statistical bump in the boomers, hence the baby boom. There is just more of them, and they vote. They've only just started dying in big numbers. Plus the older voters get the more they tend to vote, for various reasons.
- vlunkr 5y ago
  So what you're saying is, millenials aren't responsible for disastrous policies yet. They'll get their turn.
  - ncr100 5y ago
    Absolutely. It's difficult to be omniscient about the impact of everything to everything else for all future outcomes. Smacks of Ageism, to my mind.
ajuc 5y ago
Compared to ignoring global warming - ignoring lead exposure is a minor negligence.
- cmrdporcupine 5y ago
  Both are a product of the same process of privileging of commodity production for profit over overall collective well-being. And yes, I'm aware that said commodity production produces wealth which also improves well-being. But there's a contradiction there in our economic model that is not serving us well. EDIT: I should add to my point above that what's common with both these is one overarching world altering product that has completely transformed the world: the automobile. Ribbons of tarmac lace the earth (it wouldn't surprise me if this is a long term environmental problem, too), even in some of the most remote sections of the planet. Cities are built around them, privileging automobile use above a bunch of other aspects of quality of life. Road transport is 75ish% of global CO2 emissions. And, yeah, leaded fuel poisoned our bodies, minds, and the environment for decades.
  - lern_too_spel 5y ago
    Economics has a term for this: negative externalities. A buys a snowblower from B, gaining 4 health for not shoveling and reducing everybody's health by 3 from pollution. B buys a leaf blower from C, gaining 4 health from not raking and reducing everybody's health by 3 from pollution. C buys a lawnmower from A, gaining 4 health from not scything and reducing everybody's health by 3. Each seller gets 4 health from the money. Every trade is beneficial to both parties by 1 health unit, but now, everybody is worse off by 1 health unit than they would be had the trades not happened. In practice, we're usually D-Z, who participated in no trades and get a net reduction in health of 9.
    - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
      That is an incredibly naive way of looking at it. The way it usually goes is "everyone is +5, except the village that shares the watershed with the mine" On anything but the shortest timeline things like like wealth, health and productivity are fungible at the societal level. If the net cumulative effect of the externalities wasn't smaller than the benefits of the progress then the progress wouldn't happen because more people would be worse off and things would grind to a halt because the gains would be more than offset.

miketery 5y ago

Same goes for sugar. We know the dangers it poses, we are also seeing how much it increases risk of death due to covid. I don't think we should be surpsied, as much as pushing to regulate this garbage. As an aside, Michelle Obama's campaign when Obama was in office was about improvement children's health. Her focus was going to be on nutrition (lunch food). Shortly thereafter Coke and Pepsi came in with "donations" and the whole thing became about exercise, no focus on nutrition. There should be no surprise that capital takes precedent over health in our current system / culture. Arguably, we should care more about sugar than we do about covid.

api 5y ago
It's absolutely amazing how much we shovel sugar into our kids even at school, then wonder why they can't pay attention. Sugar is our generation's tobacco for sure.
- tomxor 5y ago
  > Sugar is our generation's tobacco for sure. This might seem far fetched, but I think it's pretty accurate. When tobacco was at it's height most people didn't really think it was bad for you - which gradually turned into a denialistic "yeah but it's not that bad" - it took a long time for society to come to terms with just how harmful it is. The quantity of sugar in every day food has increased dramatically over time, and our attitude to it has been similar to the denialistic phase for tobbaco - "yeah it might hurt my waistline a little bit but it tastes too good" - Making people think if they aren't fat then it's ok, when really the consequences are far worse, sugar is pretty much poison for our bodies, it's bad for every single part of it (melts teeth, causes gum disease which poisons your bloodstream, ages skin, causes inflammation, causes heart disease, causes diabetes, affects the immune system, messes with cognition, makes you more hungry by sharply switching off ketosis, and finally displaces nutritional food making your body even more susceptible to aforementioned ailments). I wish I understood this better when I was growing up. Thankfully I had a parent who never encouraged sugary food, and put in the effort to cook good meals... but many people don't and are at the mercy of what super markets sell, which is increasingly extremely sugary food. If there is a single leading harmful substance that is as prevalent as leaded petrol was - i think it's probably sugar (in the west at least).

rootusrootus 5y ago

I don't think it helps to make this a generational warfare issue. Especially since it's not like every person in a particular generation had a say in these decisions. It's also too easy to cast judgement backwards in time, given the lack of context and the benefit of hindsight. Better to look forward.

Jach 5y ago
As true in 1888 as now, Froude: "Each age would do better if it studied its own faults and endeavoured to mend them, instead of comparing itself with others to its own advantage."
dylan604 5y ago
Those that ignore history are doomed to repeat it. We saw it with tobacco/lead/etc, so it's only natural/right to apply that experience to other things. Theorizing that sugar/THC could also fall into the same model is not wasting of anyone's time. If evidence is found that it is bad, then good can come from that knowledge. If evidence is found that it is not bad, then party on Wayne. But the studies should be conducted. Let's look forward to having actual knowledge rather than just blindly carrying on in the dark with no flashlight to guide.

phphphphp 5y ago

We are just as dumb. Processed meat causes cancer, micro plastics are doing all sorts to us: arguably, we are dumber, because we know all about the harm that lead and cigarettes cause and yet… we haven’t applied that lesson. Do you eat meat?

loeg 5y ago
We smoke less than earlier generations, actually.

alexfromapex 5y ago

Playing devil's advocate, previous generations didn't have access to the vast, coordinated information on the scale that Millennials do.

modzu 5y ago

similarly, the second leading cause of death is cancer, and yet we willingly bask in cancer-causing substances all the time. future generations will probably look back and think, wtf?

jollybean 5y ago

People didn't wear seatbelts in the 1950's. Infant mortality was 10% before the age of 1 in 1910. At the same time, homeless children would roam the streets of cities and orphanages were common. The #1 form of surgery back then was amputation. To make such a statement implies how little perspective one might have for how hard life was, the risk and tradeoffs being made, especially when there were unknown - and especially for 'how good we have it now'. I'm not even that old, but I have the lived experience from my grandparents who were born on farms without electricity and I believe without a doubt that we have crossed the line into 'civilizational wealth'. We are really rich for the first time in history. Unequal, yes, but even lower-middle class people have access to vast material bounty: actions, travel, decorative clothing, choices, opportunity, education, amazing produce throughout the year, entertainment, technology, delivery, amazing health care innovations. Heck .... people are even less afraid of getting shot these days because we know how to stabilise and save people. Getting 'shot' used to mean 'pretty much going go die'. Even 'heart surgery' is now done on an outpatient basis these days like getting an oil change. 'Millenials' have already let loose Facebook and other completely destructive technologies, and are taking absolutist views on necessarily complicated things like gender identity (and more) and I'm 100% certain that history will come back like a wrecking ball on at least those things, of course it's already happening with Social Media. The issue with lead is hard to fathom, it's still a bit grey, I'm wondering what the effect of some other things are going to be i.e. micro plastics, and the steroids they use on livestock etc.. I'm not 'organic' by ideology but I'm wary that there's a lot of risk in those kinds of things. And it goes further: lighting in the cities all night, and noise pollution in the city and with our gadgets. It should be mostly dark and quiet at night.

scottLobster 5y ago

Speaking as a millennial, don't praise us too soon. We haven't really gotten the reins of power yet, so it's easy to claim that we'd do it better. In reality I imagine we'll still succumb to various corrupting forces just like every other generation. Granted I still think we have a more enlightened perspective on some issues as a generation just due to better education overall, but at best we might manage a marginal increase in overall quality of life for people. Plus the basket of crises we've faced starting with the Great Financial Crisis has allowed many to blame external factors for their situation and not take personal responsibility, even when they clearly should. I've met plenty of unwise/stupid millennials who could do more to better their situation, but are happy to just sit still and bitch about everything but their self-destructive habits. It's like how the Boomers got associated with Woodstock/the hippies/counter-culture, but in reality most Boomers didn't rebel all that much. Boomers elected Reagan, and he ran in part as an anti-counter-culture figure.

nus07 5y ago
Fantastic answer. In 30 years time we have no idea how the youth then will view our race for urban living, yoga, tech hustles and high inequality, juice and vegan diets, electric cars, open concept houses, social media, tech surveillance and screen addiction and various other things which are less cutesy and more sinister. One thing that already gets me thinking of future generations looking down on us will be this quest for travel and high living especially for social media glamor and the new keeping up with Jones'. This increases more flights, polluting untouched places and how bad it is for the climate.

sidewndr46 5y ago

Lead still isn't banned in the US. You can go buy 100LL and burn it in your plane all day long showering it over the land below. Completely legal.

conradev 5y ago
Yep https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/leaded-gas-was-phased-out-25-years-ago-why-are-n1264970 https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/leaded-gas-wa...
weaksauce 5y ago
yeah i live under the flightpath of a lot of flight school traffic and this weighs a bit on my mind. pretty busy flight area too. Who knows the damage really? are there tests you can take?
- TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
  Yes, you can get a blood test done that measures lead level. I asked my doctor for the test and got it done. Covered by insurance.
- sidewndr46 5y ago
  If it is larger jet planes, you're mostly safe. Those burn lots of fuel, but it is "jet fuel" which is more like kerosene or diesel.
  - weaksauce 5y ago
    yeah the area overhead is very literally a training path where they do a lot of circling stuff in small planes. they do have a decent amount of jets flying very high though.
Cerium 5y ago
We should definitely move away from leaded gasoline and housing should not be allowed to develop near airports. Phrasing the conversation around "showering it over the land below" is to the point of fearmongering. The airplanes burning 100LL today consume gasoline at the same rate as an old pickup truck - they go about 12 miles per gallon. Lead pollution today due to aviation is a fraction of what it was in the past and is unlikely to even be the largest environmental exposure for most children.

deleted 5y ago

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sjg007 5y ago

Diesel is just as bad and I see plenty of millennials driving diesel trucks around here.

ArnoVW 5y ago

This is what my grandchildren will say about us, and our ambivilant attitude to our use of CO2 and disposables.

JPKab 5y ago

It's pretty insane. I was born in 1981, and near as I can tell, I'm likely a bit luckier than most other Americans my age because I grew up in such a sparsely populated, rural area. Still, there's no question that even people living in areas like me were impacted since most of the population drove old trucks, including my family. It's crazy to think about having a lower IQ than I was capable of having for something that could have been solved a few decades previously.

tlss 5y ago

Recreational marijuana and JUUL is very much a millenial/gen Z hobby, and it is being pushed with a fervor that glosses over serious studies any potential health risks. IMO weed will be in 50 years where "big tobacco" is right now.

mountainriver 5y ago
Not a chance, maybe smoking marijuana, but not edibles. I know plenty of people that have done them their entire lives and are in great shape
- ifyoubuildit 5y ago
  That sounds a lot like "my grandmother smoked 2 packs a day and lived til she was 99." I think the whole point is that it hasn't been studied yet, so we can't say definitively if its safe or not.
  - mountainriver 5y ago
    Smoking something is obviously bad for your health, I don't need a study to tell me that, you are literally inhaling smoke. Followed by masses dying of cancer. Eating marijuana can have some negative cognitive effects but its pretty obvious it doesn't do anything terrible looking at all the old hippies.
    - ifyoubuildit 5y ago
      For one thing, has anyone actually looked at all the old hippies? And if they have, the old hippies probably didn't have access to anything as potent as we do, and I'm assuming today's edibles are (or eventually will be) full of all sorts of nonsense additives, because that's what we do. I'm not saying I know either way, but this seems like an easy thing to be wrong about.
      - mountainriver 5y ago
        I mean we're not talking about additives, there are additives in lots of stuff that makes it harmful. And yes the old hippies didn't have as strong of weed, and there may be some threshold at which bad things happen more frequently, but just looking at the big picture it doesn't look all that dire. It definitely hurts parts of cognition, and is linked to certain mental illnesses, there are other odd and end health concerns that pop up rarely. Overall marijuana is pretty gentle when ingested, you can just tell from your own health when consuming it. When I smoked cigarettes I felt terrible all the time, and when I stopped it was night and day. Consuming edibles I feel pretty darn good actually, less stress, better sleep, and when I get off them I don't feel like I've been harming my body. This opinion is shared by pretty much everyone I know

User23 5y ago

So is fluoride’s neurotoxicity[1], especially for developing brains, and we still insist on using it, to just give one example. We’re no less reckless than prior generations and our children will be just as baffled looking back at us as we are now. Yes I’m aware that idiots are also fixated on fluoridation. That doesn’t make the science wrong though. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6923889/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6923889/ Neurotoxicity appeared to be dose-dependent , and tentative benchmark dose calculations suggest that safe exposures are likely to be below currently accepted or recommended fluoride concentrations in drinking water. That the authors felt the need to pack four weasel words into the sentence saying maybe it’s ok doesn’t indicate that they believe it’s safe.

selimthegrim 5y ago
Do you have other citations? How is this different from fluoridated toothpaste or topical application at the dentist?
- trockbort 5y ago
  The fortification properties afforded by fluoride are entirely topical, meaning that fluoride-containing toothpaste can be considered beneficial. You use it and then spit it out. Drinking fluoridated water can hardly be considered helpful. Most of the fluoride content of water goes directly into the stomach where its effects are strictly not studied, and if you know anything about the fluoride ion, the effects are most likely detrimental, and possibly horrendous.
trockbort 5y ago
Fun fact: America fluoridates its water supply because notorious propagandist Edward Bernays convinced them to, for money https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_relations_campaigns_of_Edward_Bernays#Water_fluoridation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_relations_campaigns_of_... .

tombert 5y ago

I hate that everything has to devolve into some kind of "this generation sucks" debate. Whether or not we can blame boomers does not matter, at least not until we have a time machine to go remedy stuff. The fact is that the decisions have been made, the damage is done, and we need to figure out what to do now, regardless of whose fault it is. It seems like so many of these conversations end at the "who is responsible" part, without the understanding that we really shouldn't care.

BlargMcLarg 5y ago
I wouldn't complain if they were already unable to do anything, but many of them are actively preventing further improvements. Often due to it coming at a cost for them. Their unwillingness trickles down to other generations both in teachings and in pressuring the next generation what can and can't be done, and how to respond. Most of late gen X has also thrown in the towel, leaving the future generations to solve it themselves. This despite the fact leaders are overwhelmingly at/past middle age, as is wealth required to make moves as an individual.
- tombert 5y ago
  Sure, but I think that it's needlessly divisive to pin it on a generation, particularly when I can find counterexamples for each. I have no issue whatsoever with complaining about individuals who are destroying the world right now [3], I'm certainly not going to sit here and defend basically any fossil fuel executive, but I think saying it's a generational thing is needlessly reductive and doesn't buy us anything. I don't think Noam Chomsky [1] or Bernie Sanders are destroying the world [2], and I don't think millennial/gen-z bozos like Charlie Kirk are helping it. [1] I realize he's older than a boomer, but I think my point still fits. [2] At least not advocating for stuff that's destroying the planet. I am not trying to take a directly political stand. [3] clarification edit.

jmugan 5y ago

That comment seems to blame a large group of people for something a small group did. The problem with lead is the same problem it always was and still is, a small group of people benefit and are able to make everyone else suffer. We clearly need to fix that, probably with specific measures to limit undue influence in congress. We should focus on those specific measures instead of divisive generalizations.

yojo 5y ago

It didn’t even stop then. My own city (Portland) has been regularly exceeding EPA lead action levels since 1998[1]. All they need to do is treat the water to raise ph like every other city with a large lead solder install base, but they’ve been dragging their feet for literally decades while the people they serve get lead exposure. 1: https://www.opb.org/article/2021/11/30/lead-portland-oregon-drinking-water/ https://www.opb.org/article/2021/11/30/lead-portland-oregon-...

selimthegrim 5y ago
You mean the anti-fluoridation fanatics didn't know when to get off the train? (channeling Richard Pryor here)
- nintendo1889 5y ago
  What is provable is that the type of fluoride that they are using is NOT the supposedly 'healthy' type that is good for teeth.

ncr100 5y ago

> wreckless the generations before millenials were Premise is off... This assuming millenials are not reckless. We're humans and our behavior is not defined by our generation.

oversocialized 5y ago

xeromal 5y ago

It's easy to point the finger at boomers, but where they maybe killed us with lead, we're killing the next generation with plastics. Sure, plastics were started in earlier generations but we're showing no signs of slowing down in usage.

loudtieblahblah 5y ago

were no better these days with pfas, bpa, bps, badge, phthalates, etc. And we still have supplements and pots and pans that have lead in them, along with other heavy metals.

jeremyjh 5y ago

There are a lot of things wrong with this take that others have pointed out, but for some reason no one noted that as the article points out, the people most impacted by this were born in the late 60s and 70s, and those people are Gen X. We didn't choose this, we just suffered for it. Someone born in 1976 didn't vote until 1994.