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It's about the burden of proof. If you try to place the burdenof proof on anything that changes the status quo, it causes two problems: 1. You can't prove a ne
by chmod600 3y ago
It's about the burden of proof. If you try to place the burdenof proof on anything that changes the status quo, it causes two problems:
1. You can't prove a negative.
2. What constitutes a change from the status quo? The status quo is a vague concept in a dynamic world.
So you have to use some judgement. Plastic is really, really safe in small amounts. Same with CO2 emissions. It's only in huge quantities that they are a problem.
- brookst 3y ago> It's only in huge quantities that they are a problem. This is the critical thing. People are really really bad at nuances like “harmless in small quantities, harmful in large”. People tend to want to argue whether X is good or bad in a totally contextless abstract, like sports fans taking fandom too far. HN doesn’t seem better than reddit or fox news in this respect. It seems to be fundamental to human nature. And yes, I know I do it as well. Such a frustrating bug in human cognition.