5 ms·

Exactly, they need to switch to a whitelisted approach.

by jpgvm 4y ago

euroderf 4y ago
I've read that this is the EU's approach, altho I don't know how it works out in practice.
- gruez 4y ago
  The downside is that novel technologies (eg. GMOs) take forever to get approved.
  - pwdisswordfish9 4y ago
    How is that a bad thing?
    - pragmatic 4y ago
      People starving to death in the mean time, perhaps?
      - suture 4y ago
        As a result of GMOs the carrying capacity of the world increased. Isn’t it the case that the population tends toward the carrying capacity? If so then the delay of GMOs would only mean that the world’s population today would be lower and not that the amount of overall starvation would be higher. We still have episodes of starvation in the world even with GMOs.
        gruez 4y ago
        >As a result of GMOs the carrying capacity of the world increased. Isn’t it the case that the population tends toward the carrying capacity? This model assumes that human population will grow forever. Carrying capacity is one constraint on total population, but it's not the only constraint. Nowadays population growth is slowing down because demographic factors (ie. falling fertility), not because we've reached the earth's carrying capacity and famines are killing people off.
        suture 4y ago
        Sure, those factors come into play and are dominant. It seems to me that one can’t assume there would have been more starvation had GMOs not been invented. And the factors you mentioned haven’t yet had an effect in India and Africa. The population of there has greatly increased alongside the rise of GMO. I’m not saying GMOs are the cause of sad increase but I am suggesting that the population in India and Africa might have been lower today without GMOs without being the result of starvation.
      - jpgvm 4y ago
        People in the EU aren't starving to death though. Appropriate laws for appropriate circumstances. Given high standard of living in EU they can afford to take the long road with many improvements to food security favoring safety over reduced cost or expediency.
      - euroderf 4y ago
        The problem is not a shortage of food. The problem is its distribution. Like many things.
  - manuelabeledo 4y ago
    Which makes sense. New technologies should be approached using a precautionary principle.
    - gruez 4y ago
      >New technologies should be approached using a precautionary principle. But what happens in reality is: When we apply the precautionary principle, it's because technology is dangerous and The Responsible Thing to Do is to be careful. When our opponents apply the precautionary principle, they're luddites who hate change and just want an excuse to drag their feet. Here are some examples to illustrate that effect * nuclear power * vaccines * self-driving cars/AI * gmo
      - GekkePrutser 4y ago
        Nuclear power was plenty dangerous in its first iterations and there was in fact too little precaution. Chernobyl and three mile Island really shouldn't have happened. Fukushima was much later in the game but was also bad design. I think the tech is safer now but the nuclear industry really has itself to blame. It's no wonder anti-nuclear sentiments increased after each disaster. With the other ones I agree more.
        adhesive_wombat 4y ago
        > Chernobyl and three mile Island really shouldn't have happened. Fukushima was much later in the game but was also bad design. Fukushima was an older reactor then Chernobyl, by 6 years (commissioned 1971 vs 1977). Very old nuclear reactors are common partly because it's been politically untenable to build new ones, even if the new ones are safer.
        GekkePrutser 4y ago
        Ok I did not know that, but I thought Chernobyl was already an old design when it was commissioned?
jjoonathan 4y ago
What's your plan to ensure the whitelist is responsibly curated? My guess: it'll either have everything on it, or every N years we'll get a new brand of government mandated Asbestos Free Cereal. No thanks.
- jpgvm 4y ago
  Same plan we use for drugs. Test if it's safe, if it's safe we allow it's use, if not we don't. Initially it will probably need to grandfather stuff in but having a whitelist will make it easier to ensure unsafe things aren't replaced by even worse things.
  - kongolongo 4y ago
    The problem is you can't practically do that for many compounds either because of ethical reasons or because it would take far too long and would in the mean time impede progress significantly. Take plastics for example, they're as acutely non-toxic as you can get you're not having any readily measurable adverse health outcomes from handling it, touching it, and even consuming foods directly in contact with it. And yet there are still things we would have missed even if we adopted this whitelisting approach. We would have never captured the problem of microplastics that we see today, the mechanical and chemical breakdown of plastics in the environment leading to far higher consumption and presence of it in our bodies could not have realistically been studied or predicted even if we took a whitelisting approach. Now you have to consider what the effects of whitelisting everything would mean for productivity and progress. Imagine how much more everyday things would cost if plastics had to be whitelisted before being allowed in any products. Even now knowing about the existence of microplastics, it isn't clear that the effects they have decisively outweigh the benefits of plastics.
    - jpgvm 4y ago
      First of all I am mostly talking about plastics in the context of food packaging. I would be more inclined to agree with your argument regarding progress/innovation if there were more novel plastics coming to the market for food packaging but that isn't really the case and there hasn't been anything ground-breaking since PET. Whitelisting at this stage of maturity isn't just the right thing to do, it's also easy and beats playing whackamole if you decide something needs to get phased out.
refurb 4y ago
Then what you end up with is Prop 65 - everything causes cancer. The right response is a risk-based approach. Nothing is every 100% safe, so it's not a reasonable filter. Basically each new product should be judged for the risk versus the benefit. If it can be easily substituted with a known safer product, then it's forced to go through testing. If there is no known substitute and the benefit is high, then it can tentatively be approved with follow up tests later.

Exactly, they need to switch to a whitelisted approach.

by jpgvm 4y ago

Exactly, they need to switch to a whitelisted approach.

euroderf 4y ago

I've read that this is the EU's approach, altho I don't know how it works out in practice.

gruez 4y ago
The downside is that novel technologies (eg. GMOs) take forever to get approved.
- pwdisswordfish9 4y ago
  How is that a bad thing?
  - pragmatic 4y ago
    People starving to death in the mean time, perhaps?
    - suture 4y ago
      As a result of GMOs the carrying capacity of the world increased. Isn’t it the case that the population tends toward the carrying capacity? If so then the delay of GMOs would only mean that the world’s population today would be lower and not that the amount of overall starvation would be higher. We still have episodes of starvation in the world even with GMOs.
      - gruez 4y ago
        >As a result of GMOs the carrying capacity of the world increased. Isn’t it the case that the population tends toward the carrying capacity? This model assumes that human population will grow forever. Carrying capacity is one constraint on total population, but it's not the only constraint. Nowadays population growth is slowing down because demographic factors (ie. falling fertility), not because we've reached the earth's carrying capacity and famines are killing people off.
        suture 4y ago
        Sure, those factors come into play and are dominant. It seems to me that one can’t assume there would have been more starvation had GMOs not been invented. And the factors you mentioned haven’t yet had an effect in India and Africa. The population of there has greatly increased alongside the rise of GMO. I’m not saying GMOs are the cause of sad increase but I am suggesting that the population in India and Africa might have been lower today without GMOs without being the result of starvation.
    - jpgvm 4y ago
      People in the EU aren't starving to death though. Appropriate laws for appropriate circumstances. Given high standard of living in EU they can afford to take the long road with many improvements to food security favoring safety over reduced cost or expediency.
    - euroderf 4y ago
      The problem is not a shortage of food. The problem is its distribution. Like many things.
- manuelabeledo 4y ago
  Which makes sense. New technologies should be approached using a precautionary principle.
  - gruez 4y ago
    >New technologies should be approached using a precautionary principle. But what happens in reality is: When we apply the precautionary principle, it's because technology is dangerous and The Responsible Thing to Do is to be careful. When our opponents apply the precautionary principle, they're luddites who hate change and just want an excuse to drag their feet. Here are some examples to illustrate that effect * nuclear power * vaccines * self-driving cars/AI * gmo
    - GekkePrutser 4y ago
      Nuclear power was plenty dangerous in its first iterations and there was in fact too little precaution. Chernobyl and three mile Island really shouldn't have happened. Fukushima was much later in the game but was also bad design. I think the tech is safer now but the nuclear industry really has itself to blame. It's no wonder anti-nuclear sentiments increased after each disaster. With the other ones I agree more.
      - adhesive_wombat 4y ago
        > Chernobyl and three mile Island really shouldn't have happened. Fukushima was much later in the game but was also bad design. Fukushima was an older reactor then Chernobyl, by 6 years (commissioned 1971 vs 1977). Very old nuclear reactors are common partly because it's been politically untenable to build new ones, even if the new ones are safer.
        GekkePrutser 4y ago
        Ok I did not know that, but I thought Chernobyl was already an old design when it was commissioned?

jjoonathan 4y ago

What's your plan to ensure the whitelist is responsibly curated? My guess: it'll either have everything on it, or every N years we'll get a new brand of government mandated Asbestos Free Cereal. No thanks.

jpgvm 4y ago
Same plan we use for drugs. Test if it's safe, if it's safe we allow it's use, if not we don't. Initially it will probably need to grandfather stuff in but having a whitelist will make it easier to ensure unsafe things aren't replaced by even worse things.
- kongolongo 4y ago
  The problem is you can't practically do that for many compounds either because of ethical reasons or because it would take far too long and would in the mean time impede progress significantly. Take plastics for example, they're as acutely non-toxic as you can get you're not having any readily measurable adverse health outcomes from handling it, touching it, and even consuming foods directly in contact with it. And yet there are still things we would have missed even if we adopted this whitelisting approach. We would have never captured the problem of microplastics that we see today, the mechanical and chemical breakdown of plastics in the environment leading to far higher consumption and presence of it in our bodies could not have realistically been studied or predicted even if we took a whitelisting approach. Now you have to consider what the effects of whitelisting everything would mean for productivity and progress. Imagine how much more everyday things would cost if plastics had to be whitelisted before being allowed in any products. Even now knowing about the existence of microplastics, it isn't clear that the effects they have decisively outweigh the benefits of plastics.
  - jpgvm 4y ago
    First of all I am mostly talking about plastics in the context of food packaging. I would be more inclined to agree with your argument regarding progress/innovation if there were more novel plastics coming to the market for food packaging but that isn't really the case and there hasn't been anything ground-breaking since PET. Whitelisting at this stage of maturity isn't just the right thing to do, it's also easy and beats playing whackamole if you decide something needs to get phased out.

refurb 4y ago

Then what you end up with is Prop 65 - everything causes cancer. The right response is a risk-based approach. Nothing is every 100% safe, so it's not a reasonable filter. Basically each new product should be judged for the risk versus the benefit. If it can be easily substituted with a known safer product, then it's forced to go through testing. If there is no known substitute and the benefit is high, then it can tentatively be approved with follow up tests later.