7 ms·

When I read about the toxic products and practices of the past, I can't help but wonder what the yet undetected ones are?

woeirua 4y ago
PFAS and PFOA are going to be huge in the next few decades. Additionally, lots of pharmaceutical compounds are going to end up highly regulated in waste effluent.
- sideshowb 4y ago
  Our local river now harbours antibiotic resistant bacteria thanks to all the meds used by chicken factories upstream
  - hedora 4y ago
    Big farms feed (fed?) chickens arsenic, so heads up.
- leonidasv 4y ago
  I've recently discovered that my computer mouse is coated in PTFE. Those sealing tapes that goes into pipe threads are pure made of it too. Microwave popcorn contains it. Dental floss. I've been trying to track sources of PFAS in my home and always end up discovering something unexpected that contains it. Those compounds are literally everywhere nowadays, this is scary.
jollyllama 4y ago
Cell phones. Not necessarily radiation, but information access/social media.
bee_rider 4y ago
This is totally unwarranted, completely unfounded speculation not at all based in any science whatsoever: I dunno sunscreen just seems a little too good to be true IMO.
- iaabtpbtpnn 4y ago
  This is already an issue, the fancy chemicals in modern sunscreens contribute to the destruction of coral reefs. When anywhere near these places, you are supposed to wear reef-safe sunscreens that are much simpler, basically zinc oxide or titanium dioxide (white pigments).
- lambdadmitry 4y ago
  Why speculating then? There is plenty of hard data on skin testing of various sunscreens. There are physical sunscreens, too, which were around even longer. We have MUCH better understanding of biological processes as well than in asbestos times. What is this drive that makes supposedly technologically literate people flock to the GP question and come up with unfounded paranoid theories?
  - bee_rider 4y ago
    The thing that makes people answer with unfounded theories is that GP is literally asking for undetected issues. So, if it was a well founded theory, it wouldn’t be undetected, right? Sunscreen has had environmental issues, contamination issues, and effectiveness issues (the whole UVA/UVB thing). None of those indicate a problem with the underlying product when used properly, and it is definitely better than nothing! I prefer to cover up with clothes and just avoid the noon-time sun, though. https://time.com/6084625/sunscreen-safety-regulations/?amp=true https://time.com/6084625/sunscreen-safety-regulations/?amp=t...
- lm28469 4y ago
  Probably still better than skin cancer overall. There are also inert mineral sunscreens. I still go for long clothes over sunscreen personally, I never liked roasting in the sun
mildchalupa 4y ago
Bi phenol's aka plasticizers within plastics. Endocrine disruptors in plastics are a civilization sized problem. Every year the plastic micro debris gets smaller and the problems grow larger.
- Syonyk 4y ago
  Yeah... plastics are another one that's not going to be looked on fondly by future generations. Nasty bioactive stuff that's small enough to get everywhere and get into everything. And we literally make so much of it so it can be thrown out easily.
  - nemo44x 4y ago
    They’re so undeniably useful though. It’s a real shame.
    - Syonyk 4y ago
      So is asbestos. It's wonderfully useful in a huge range of ways. Just rather violently human toxic when broken down. Much like plastics.
    - hypertele-Xii 4y ago
      Plastic is economically incredible, not because you get more of what you were already buying (though that's cool too), but rather because entirely new problem-solving products enter your purchase power level. Wealthy nations have a distorted view not because plastic is cheap (though it is), but because we're so rich that we no longer remember what it's like to be able to afford your first pair of shoes. Plastic was a miracle material.
  - stephc_int13 4y ago
    Plastics and microwave, I've seen this combination too many times. Room temperature plastics are bad enough...
  - winReInstall 4y ago
    The Fastfood plastic coated Drinkcontainer, thrown into a potatoe field, literally comes back next year in everyones fries. Might aswell eat it directly..
Syonyk 4y ago
White LED light bulbs. They're cheap (at least, subsidized), they're long lasting (maybe), they're energy efficient (certainly), and they emit a huge amount of blue, squarely in the wavelengths that the human eye uses to determine if it's day or night. The practical effect is that if you're using LED lighting, it's quite hard to go to sleep at night - and we know that sleep deprivation is really bad for humans across pretty much any metric you might care to examine. The way that white LEDs work is simple enough: They're a blue LED. Bright, efficient, and very much not anything "white." So, the package is coated with various sorts of phosphors that take some of the energy from the blue wavelengths, and move it down into the reds and yellows and greens. Presto, white light of your desired color temperature! Daylight, warm, it can be done. Unfortunately, it's not the same spectrum as an incandescent emitter at the same color temperature - there's still a huge chunk of blue over at one end. Color temperature is just an average - you need to look at the CRI (color rendering index) to get a better feel for it, and most LEDs, while better than the utterly ugly light of compact florescent (seriously, yuck - and the spectrum shows why), still aren't great. They have a lot of blue. The cheaper ones, common in homes, have a lot of blue. Even the "red shift dimming" one still have a lot of blue when dimmed. And this blue is right in the range that your body uses to inhibit melatonin production. There are separate receptors in the eye that pick up light in the ~440-480nm range, and go "Oh, hey, it's day - stay awake!" If you have LEDs, these are doing the same thing in the evening. And perhaps as you head to bed, if you've got LEDs. We all broadly know that screens are bad for sleep because of the blue, but modern LED bulbs are exactly the same thing. Worse, actually, because they tend to be above us - in the "sky" field of view, which is what these detectors are optimized for. If you have the resources to try it, try replacing some of your evening bulbs with incandescent bulbs on a dimmer, and dim them down pretty hard as you're starting to wind down and head to bed. Or use kerosene lanterns or something - you want an incandescent emitter, which, in the dimmer ranges, emits almost no blue at all. And then avoid screens entirely for a few hours before bed. See how you sleep. If it's not improved, bug me, I'll buy your bulbs from you. Of course, cell phones and modern social media are the easy one that we're already seeing backlash to. But that's easy. LED bulbs are more subtle in their manner of being toxic to humans.
- microsoftdoes 4y ago
ghostly_s 4y ago
Ultrasonic humidifiers.[1] 1. https://dynomight.net/humidifiers/ https://dynomight.net/humidifiers/
- someweirdperson 4y ago
  Toilets. [0] [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33906251 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33906251
bitlax 4y ago
It stands to reason that there will be as many unknown negative long-term effects of the mRNA vaccines as there were unknown negative short-term effects.
- musicale 4y ago
  Surprised this hasn't been downvoted to oblivion yet. It is certainly tricky to balance short-term potential benefits (such as a better chance of surviving a covid infection) against long-term potential (and possibly unknown) harms (such as a higher chance of developing a chronic autoimmune disease.)
shubb 4y ago
I'm completely dependent on them, but electric cigarettes are going to be remembered badly one day

woeirua 4y ago

PFAS and PFOA are going to be huge in the next few decades. Additionally, lots of pharmaceutical compounds are going to end up highly regulated in waste effluent.

sideshowb 4y ago
Our local river now harbours antibiotic resistant bacteria thanks to all the meds used by chicken factories upstream
- hedora 4y ago
  Big farms feed (fed?) chickens arsenic, so heads up.
leonidasv 4y ago
I've recently discovered that my computer mouse is coated in PTFE. Those sealing tapes that goes into pipe threads are pure made of it too. Microwave popcorn contains it. Dental floss. I've been trying to track sources of PFAS in my home and always end up discovering something unexpected that contains it. Those compounds are literally everywhere nowadays, this is scary.

jollyllama 4y ago

Cell phones. Not necessarily radiation, but information access/social media.

bee_rider 4y ago

This is totally unwarranted, completely unfounded speculation not at all based in any science whatsoever: I dunno sunscreen just seems a little too good to be true IMO.

iaabtpbtpnn 4y ago
This is already an issue, the fancy chemicals in modern sunscreens contribute to the destruction of coral reefs. When anywhere near these places, you are supposed to wear reef-safe sunscreens that are much simpler, basically zinc oxide or titanium dioxide (white pigments).
lambdadmitry 4y ago
Why speculating then? There is plenty of hard data on skin testing of various sunscreens. There are physical sunscreens, too, which were around even longer. We have MUCH better understanding of biological processes as well than in asbestos times. What is this drive that makes supposedly technologically literate people flock to the GP question and come up with unfounded paranoid theories?
- bee_rider 4y ago
  The thing that makes people answer with unfounded theories is that GP is literally asking for undetected issues. So, if it was a well founded theory, it wouldn’t be undetected, right? Sunscreen has had environmental issues, contamination issues, and effectiveness issues (the whole UVA/UVB thing). None of those indicate a problem with the underlying product when used properly, and it is definitely better than nothing! I prefer to cover up with clothes and just avoid the noon-time sun, though. https://time.com/6084625/sunscreen-safety-regulations/?amp=true https://time.com/6084625/sunscreen-safety-regulations/?amp=t...
lm28469 4y ago
Probably still better than skin cancer overall. There are also inert mineral sunscreens. I still go for long clothes over sunscreen personally, I never liked roasting in the sun

mildchalupa 4y ago

Bi phenol's aka plasticizers within plastics. Endocrine disruptors in plastics are a civilization sized problem. Every year the plastic micro debris gets smaller and the problems grow larger.

Syonyk 4y ago
Yeah... plastics are another one that's not going to be looked on fondly by future generations. Nasty bioactive stuff that's small enough to get everywhere and get into everything. And we literally make so much of it so it can be thrown out easily.
- nemo44x 4y ago
  They’re so undeniably useful though. It’s a real shame.
  - Syonyk 4y ago
    So is asbestos. It's wonderfully useful in a huge range of ways. Just rather violently human toxic when broken down. Much like plastics.
  - hypertele-Xii 4y ago
    Plastic is economically incredible, not because you get more of what you were already buying (though that's cool too), but rather because entirely new problem-solving products enter your purchase power level. Wealthy nations have a distorted view not because plastic is cheap (though it is), but because we're so rich that we no longer remember what it's like to be able to afford your first pair of shoes. Plastic was a miracle material.
- stephc_int13 4y ago
  Plastics and microwave, I've seen this combination too many times. Room temperature plastics are bad enough...
- winReInstall 4y ago
  The Fastfood plastic coated Drinkcontainer, thrown into a potatoe field, literally comes back next year in everyones fries. Might aswell eat it directly..

Syonyk 4y ago

White LED light bulbs. They're cheap (at least, subsidized), they're long lasting (maybe), they're energy efficient (certainly), and they emit a huge amount of blue, squarely in the wavelengths that the human eye uses to determine if it's day or night. The practical effect is that if you're using LED lighting, it's quite hard to go to sleep at night - and we know that sleep deprivation is really bad for humans across pretty much any metric you might care to examine. The way that white LEDs work is simple enough: They're a blue LED. Bright, efficient, and very much not anything "white." So, the package is coated with various sorts of phosphors that take some of the energy from the blue wavelengths, and move it down into the reds and yellows and greens. Presto, white light of your desired color temperature! Daylight, warm, it can be done. Unfortunately, it's not the same spectrum as an incandescent emitter at the same color temperature - there's still a huge chunk of blue over at one end. Color temperature is just an average - you need to look at the CRI (color rendering index) to get a better feel for it, and most LEDs, while better than the utterly ugly light of compact florescent (seriously, yuck - and the spectrum shows why), still aren't great. They have a lot of blue. The cheaper ones, common in homes, have a lot of blue. Even the "red shift dimming" one still have a lot of blue when dimmed. And this blue is right in the range that your body uses to inhibit melatonin production. There are separate receptors in the eye that pick up light in the ~440-480nm range, and go "Oh, hey, it's day - stay awake!" If you have LEDs, these are doing the same thing in the evening. And perhaps as you head to bed, if you've got LEDs. We all broadly know that screens are bad for sleep because of the blue, but modern LED bulbs are exactly the same thing. Worse, actually, because they tend to be above us - in the "sky" field of view, which is what these detectors are optimized for. If you have the resources to try it, try replacing some of your evening bulbs with incandescent bulbs on a dimmer, and dim them down pretty hard as you're starting to wind down and head to bed. Or use kerosene lanterns or something - you want an incandescent emitter, which, in the dimmer ranges, emits almost no blue at all. And then avoid screens entirely for a few hours before bed. See how you sleep. If it's not improved, bug me, I'll buy your bulbs from you. Of course, cell phones and modern social media are the easy one that we're already seeing backlash to. But that's easy. LED bulbs are more subtle in their manner of being toxic to humans.

microsoftdoes 4y ago

ghostly_s 4y ago

Ultrasonic humidifiers.[1] 1. https://dynomight.net/humidifiers/ https://dynomight.net/humidifiers/

someweirdperson 4y ago
Toilets. [0] [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33906251 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33906251

bitlax 4y ago

It stands to reason that there will be as many unknown negative long-term effects of the mRNA vaccines as there were unknown negative short-term effects.

musicale 4y ago
Surprised this hasn't been downvoted to oblivion yet. It is certainly tricky to balance short-term potential benefits (such as a better chance of surviving a covid infection) against long-term potential (and possibly unknown) harms (such as a higher chance of developing a chronic autoimmune disease.)

shubb 4y ago

I'm completely dependent on them, but electric cigarettes are going to be remembered badly one day