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The delivery mechanisms for a nitrogen-free air – be they personal respiration devices or sealed environments – could be onerously regulated, or effectively ban

by gojomo 3y ago

The delivery mechanisms for a nitrogen-free air – be they personal respiration devices or sealed environments – could be onerously regulated, or effectively banned for certain places/purposes. It can be hard to confine helium, and its presence can make some electronics malfunction: https://www.ifixit.com/News/11986/iphones-are-allergic-to-helium https://www.ifixit.com/News/11986/iphones-are-allergic-to-he... Occasional helium shortages, and the characterization of terrestrial helium as a 'non-renewable' resource, has also made it the subject of industrial policy, with the federal government maintaining a reserve whose planned privatization is controversial. Plus, there's often widespread resentment of performance-enhancers – hormones, stimulants, etc – when they are only accessible to a select few. So I'd not be so sure that, if helium proved an essential part of some novel cognitive enhancement practices, its acquisition & use would remain legally-unencumbered.

nradov 3y ago
Where are you coming up with that nonsense? You can get helium from any gas supplier, confine it indefinitely in tanks, and breathe it using any pressure regulator. No one cares.
- gojomo 3y ago
  A number of municipalities have already banned all helium balloons simply due to litter concerns. Major suppliers rationed helium sales as recently as 2022, after the Ukraine war limited supplies from Russia. Helium has often been the subject of proposed legislation for increased government management of prices or supplies, or special discounts for favored uses. Now imagine a major new use – displacing nitrogen completely, for cognitive enhancement, for an entire work day – arrives. Some can tolerate traditional pressure regulators, but others dislike their bulk/discomfort – so novel delivery strategies, with more leak/loss (like full-room environments), proliferate. Prices would be driven up for traditional (& government-favored) medical/industrial/research users. Helium leak detectors in industrial settings would face more false-alarms. Exhalation/outgassing would sometimes cause electronic malfunctions in neighboring offices/apartments. And even if almost everyone gets it right, someone somewhere will err in their processes, injuuring or even killing people. New supply regulations against this novel, & politically disfavored use, would then be a risk – even if the net performance gains still significant. As informative precedents, in the US, consumer access to pseudoephedrine, flavored cigarettes, & plastic straws has been noticeably restricted in the last decade, on flimsier rationales. It's become more difficult to acquire racetams & other nootropics in just the last few years. California is in the process of banning all gas appliances, despite a long tradition of cheap/easy access via household utility hookups. So, while I'd hope you're right that no new restrictions on helium-purchasing would arrive, your certainty seems naive, in a childlike & history-oblivious way, to how reactionary supply-control regulations often develop.

by gojomo 3y ago

nradov 3y ago

Where are you coming up with that nonsense? You can get helium from any gas supplier, confine it indefinitely in tanks, and breathe it using any pressure regulator. No one cares.

gojomo 3y ago
A number of municipalities have already banned all helium balloons simply due to litter concerns. Major suppliers rationed helium sales as recently as 2022, after the Ukraine war limited supplies from Russia. Helium has often been the subject of proposed legislation for increased government management of prices or supplies, or special discounts for favored uses. Now imagine a major new use – displacing nitrogen completely, for cognitive enhancement, for an entire work day – arrives. Some can tolerate traditional pressure regulators, but others dislike their bulk/discomfort – so novel delivery strategies, with more leak/loss (like full-room environments), proliferate. Prices would be driven up for traditional (& government-favored) medical/industrial/research users. Helium leak detectors in industrial settings would face more false-alarms. Exhalation/outgassing would sometimes cause electronic malfunctions in neighboring offices/apartments. And even if almost everyone gets it right, someone somewhere will err in their processes, injuuring or even killing people. New supply regulations against this novel, & politically disfavored use, would then be a risk – even if the net performance gains still significant. As informative precedents, in the US, consumer access to pseudoephedrine, flavored cigarettes, & plastic straws has been noticeably restricted in the last decade, on flimsier rationales. It's become more difficult to acquire racetams & other nootropics in just the last few years. California is in the process of banning all gas appliances, despite a long tradition of cheap/easy access via household utility hookups. So, while I'd hope you're right that no new restrictions on helium-purchasing would arrive, your certainty seems naive, in a childlike & history-oblivious way, to how reactionary supply-control regulations often develop.