8 ms·

How do you prove water is not unsafe?

aaomidi 4y ago
This is such an intellectually dishonest question. You mean the thing that makes up the extreme majority of every living being is unsafe? Do you legitimately believe it is necessary to study and prove that?
- spywaregorilla 4y ago
  It's not dishonest at all. The proposal is to say that we cannot use materials unless they're proven safe. Proving things safe is very difficult and different from finding evidence of danger. It's easy to imagine asbestos going through the safety test and failing. Water is something we generally think of as safe and should easily pass this test. So how would you do so to a satisfying degree? How would you nuance the test for different sources of water? You probably don't want the water from Flint Michigan. We already have a list of common failure modes for water quality that we check for. What will you say if we discover another element that should be checked for in the water otherwise health risks occur? Was our proactive search to prove water safe insufficient? I guess so, but how could we possibly have done better ahead of time?
  - t_mann 4y ago
    For water you test for known contaminants like these forever chemicals and a host of others. Your question is insinuating that we don't know how to test for water safety, which is dishonest - in fact, public water (drinking water, rivers, lakes,...) is being tested very regularly, whether it's safe for drinking, swimming,... The point isn't that you have to provide a comprehensive proof of safety, which is arguably a philosophical impossibility, the point is that if you have a cool product idea like putting lead into fuel, you have to apply before you're allowed to market it. What exact tests they are going to run then will be subject to scientific debate and changes over time (so your product might get pulled if it's found to be toxic later). Some posters informed me that that's how it actually works already, in the EU at least. But in that case I guess we have to demand that they apply stricter standards if they miss chemicals that poison our rain water or kill the bee population.
    - eurasiantiger 4y ago
      Most of the mentioned tested public waters either don’t test for these forever chemicals, do so unreliably, or fail the tests miserably.
      - t_mann 4y ago
        And you think that's good the way it is? I'm saying we should change that.
        spywaregorilla 4y ago
        You literally just asserted > For water you test for known contaminants like these forever chemicals and a host of others. Your question is insinuating that we don't know how to test for water safety, which is dishonest
    - spywaregorilla 4y ago
      > The point isn't that you have to provide a comprehensive proof of safety, which is arguably a philosophical impossibility, Then don't call it 'unsafe until proven otherwise'. Safety standards are a great idea. They're not this and calling it this is just a recipe for failure when new information makes it look like the original research was insufficient and that its a policy failure.
      - t_mann 4y ago
        It's about the mindset, I called it similar to how we talk about the burden of proof in criminal law. The burden should be with producers to defend their products' safety, and in doubt we should err on the side of caution.
        spywaregorilla 4y ago
        In law you assume something is innocent until proven guilty. You are suggesting guilty until proven innocent. That's the opposite of how criminal law works (in reasonable places).
  - samus 4y ago
    You provided the answer yourself: there already is a list of limits for things we definitely don't want in our water. If we find new things that we didn't notice before, we ASAP figure out what their health impact is, and introduce appropriate limits and procedures to mitigate the hazard. And such checks are already applied to water sources and distribution facilities to ensure their safety.

This is such an intellectually dishonest question. You mean the thing that makes up the extreme majority of every living being is unsafe? Do you legitimately believe it is necessary to study and prove that?

spywaregorilla 4y ago
It's not dishonest at all. The proposal is to say that we cannot use materials unless they're proven safe. Proving things safe is very difficult and different from finding evidence of danger. It's easy to imagine asbestos going through the safety test and failing. Water is something we generally think of as safe and should easily pass this test. So how would you do so to a satisfying degree? How would you nuance the test for different sources of water? You probably don't want the water from Flint Michigan. We already have a list of common failure modes for water quality that we check for. What will you say if we discover another element that should be checked for in the water otherwise health risks occur? Was our proactive search to prove water safe insufficient? I guess so, but how could we possibly have done better ahead of time?
- t_mann 4y ago
  For water you test for known contaminants like these forever chemicals and a host of others. Your question is insinuating that we don't know how to test for water safety, which is dishonest - in fact, public water (drinking water, rivers, lakes,...) is being tested very regularly, whether it's safe for drinking, swimming,... The point isn't that you have to provide a comprehensive proof of safety, which is arguably a philosophical impossibility, the point is that if you have a cool product idea like putting lead into fuel, you have to apply before you're allowed to market it. What exact tests they are going to run then will be subject to scientific debate and changes over time (so your product might get pulled if it's found to be toxic later). Some posters informed me that that's how it actually works already, in the EU at least. But in that case I guess we have to demand that they apply stricter standards if they miss chemicals that poison our rain water or kill the bee population.
  - eurasiantiger 4y ago
    Most of the mentioned tested public waters either don’t test for these forever chemicals, do so unreliably, or fail the tests miserably.
    - t_mann 4y ago
      And you think that's good the way it is? I'm saying we should change that.
      - spywaregorilla 4y ago
        You literally just asserted > For water you test for known contaminants like these forever chemicals and a host of others. Your question is insinuating that we don't know how to test for water safety, which is dishonest
  - spywaregorilla 4y ago
    > The point isn't that you have to provide a comprehensive proof of safety, which is arguably a philosophical impossibility, Then don't call it 'unsafe until proven otherwise'. Safety standards are a great idea. They're not this and calling it this is just a recipe for failure when new information makes it look like the original research was insufficient and that its a policy failure.
    - t_mann 4y ago
      It's about the mindset, I called it similar to how we talk about the burden of proof in criminal law. The burden should be with producers to defend their products' safety, and in doubt we should err on the side of caution.
      - spywaregorilla 4y ago
        In law you assume something is innocent until proven guilty. You are suggesting guilty until proven innocent. That's the opposite of how criminal law works (in reasonable places).
- samus 4y ago
  You provided the answer yourself: there already is a list of limits for things we definitely don't want in our water. If we find new things that we didn't notice before, we ASAP figure out what their health impact is, and introduce appropriate limits and procedures to mitigate the hazard. And such checks are already applied to water sources and distribution facilities to ensure their safety.