4 ms·

I wish we had a public database of who approved lead pipes after a date when they were known to be dangerous. Same with all of the other health and environmenta

I wish we had a public database of who approved lead pipes after a date when they were known to be dangerous. Same with all of the other health and environmental threats we face with micro plastics, PFAS, glyphosate, freon, etc etc etc, going back 100 years. With that database, we could create liens on the corporations/families/individuals which profited from passing their externalities onto the public. Then they could pay for the cleanup and/or go bankrupt. Where I'm going with this is that the current power structure in the US is built on ignorance. Many millionaires and billionaires are only wealthy because they've gamed the legal system to dodge most claims against them. Examples are the Sackler family, the Koch family, the Walton family, the list is long: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kerryadolan/2020/12/17/billion-dollar-dynasties-these-are-the-richest-families-in-america/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/kerryadolan/2020/12/17/billion-... Now, I have nothing against wealth creation through hard work and building things. But when it's done by corrupting the system, at some level that must be considered unpatriotic. Yet a politician wears a lapel pin and claims to love America while accepting money from the people who hurt us. This is a failure of leadership. I'd propose that wealthy individuals can start setting an example by doing the right thing in a very public way, or risk bringing the wrath of the masses against them. And it wouldn't take much to pull the wool off people's eyes, especially with AI. How hard would it really be to use historical precedents as training data? We're in the midst of a Global Awakening where everyone can see in real time that the mainstream news doesn't match what they see reported by real people on social media. We've also reached a level of technological development where people are starting to provide resources for themselves outside the system via renewable energy, automation, hydroponics, 3D printing, etc. Those trends point to a reduction in wealth concentration and authoritarianism. Yet the wealthy and powerful manipulate the system even harder, running authoritarian candidates, spreading anti-intellectual propaganda, starting proxy wars.. and soon using AI to trick people to vote against their own self-interest at even more unbelievable levels. At a time when people are barely able to earn enough money to make rent and put food on the table. You don't do that when people are struggling, you do it in the boom times like the mid-2000s. I almost wonder if they have a guilt complex, like they want to get caught?

pas 3y ago
Glyphosate is one of the most studied chemicals, and it's okay. (The issue is that farm workers are not given protective gear.) Lead in pipes is also not that big of a problem as it was in gasoline. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38500123 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38500123 We still don't know much about PFAS. It's definitely not great that we have strange stuff in our blood and food, but eating charred food is a lot more carcinogenic. Just to keep that in mind. Especially when you are throwing around the charge of ignorance.
- zackmorris 3y ago
  That's not the point though. The point is that companies and individuals continue to profit long after dangers are discovered, then we have to foot the cleanup bill. I looked it up and the US didn't ban lead pipe until 1986: https://www.epa.gov/sdwa/use-lead-free-pipes-fittings-fixtures-solder-and-flux-drinking-water https://www.epa.gov/sdwa/use-lead-free-pipes-fittings-fixtur... 1986! Which means that someone lobbied for lead's continue use for decades. Most likely fossil fuel companies for leaded gas, and lead manufacturers, but maybe even plumbers unions. Looks like the dangers of lead were well understood by the 1950s but probably as far back as 2000 BC: https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/get_the_lead_out/pdfs/health/Needleman_1999.pdf https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/get_the_lead_o... There is overwhelming evidence on the dangers of the other substances I mentioned. And the list of dangerous substances is too long to list here, easily going into the hundreds or thousands. Your point about the dangers of eating charred meat, while potentially true, doesn't discount these other dangers. What concerns me is that ignorance is so prevalent in our discourse now that my mention of it triggers people more strongly than the topic at hand. It's become the very tool that the wealthy and powerful use to manipulate us. They know that equivocating arguments like yours are given equal airtime with the facts. And a public not trained in civics or critical thinking skills is easily manipulated into voting against its own self-interest. That process forms the basis of center-right political strategy (adopted by republicans and establishment democrats), especially when aligned with regulatory capture of the government by corporations. Whereas the direct strategy I mentioned, of auditing and billing the guilty parties is considered laughably naive, even cruel to the hardworking snake oil salesmen. So the narrative becomes: We should wait and see if there's more evidence. Too much work, might as well give up. It's all grandfathered in now, nothing we can do anyway. And the really great part about all of this is that any guilty parties actually were grandfathered in by the EPA's 1986 SDWA amendment, exempting them from any liability from the time before then, to the tune of I don't know, $100 billion or $1 trillion or something. So it wouldn't surprise me if people in the lead business read the writing on the wall and pushed for the amendment to protect themselves. Many laws are like that, where the puppeteer can't be seen while the public focuses on the marionette. Leaving me with the inevitable conclusion that maybe we shouldn't grandfather in anything. Which is impractical, and why I say that in a very real way, great wealth is built on ignorance.

pas 3y ago

Glyphosate is one of the most studied chemicals, and it's okay. (The issue is that farm workers are not given protective gear.) Lead in pipes is also not that big of a problem as it was in gasoline. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38500123 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38500123 We still don't know much about PFAS. It's definitely not great that we have strange stuff in our blood and food, but eating charred food is a lot more carcinogenic. Just to keep that in mind. Especially when you are throwing around the charge of ignorance.

zackmorris 3y ago
That's not the point though. The point is that companies and individuals continue to profit long after dangers are discovered, then we have to foot the cleanup bill. I looked it up and the US didn't ban lead pipe until 1986: https://www.epa.gov/sdwa/use-lead-free-pipes-fittings-fixtures-solder-and-flux-drinking-water https://www.epa.gov/sdwa/use-lead-free-pipes-fittings-fixtur... 1986! Which means that someone lobbied for lead's continue use for decades. Most likely fossil fuel companies for leaded gas, and lead manufacturers, but maybe even plumbers unions. Looks like the dangers of lead were well understood by the 1950s but probably as far back as 2000 BC: https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/get_the_lead_out/pdfs/health/Needleman_1999.pdf https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/get_the_lead_o... There is overwhelming evidence on the dangers of the other substances I mentioned. And the list of dangerous substances is too long to list here, easily going into the hundreds or thousands. Your point about the dangers of eating charred meat, while potentially true, doesn't discount these other dangers. What concerns me is that ignorance is so prevalent in our discourse now that my mention of it triggers people more strongly than the topic at hand. It's become the very tool that the wealthy and powerful use to manipulate us. They know that equivocating arguments like yours are given equal airtime with the facts. And a public not trained in civics or critical thinking skills is easily manipulated into voting against its own self-interest. That process forms the basis of center-right political strategy (adopted by republicans and establishment democrats), especially when aligned with regulatory capture of the government by corporations. Whereas the direct strategy I mentioned, of auditing and billing the guilty parties is considered laughably naive, even cruel to the hardworking snake oil salesmen. So the narrative becomes: We should wait and see if there's more evidence. Too much work, might as well give up. It's all grandfathered in now, nothing we can do anyway. And the really great part about all of this is that any guilty parties actually were grandfathered in by the EPA's 1986 SDWA amendment, exempting them from any liability from the time before then, to the tune of I don't know, $100 billion or $1 trillion or something. So it wouldn't surprise me if people in the lead business read the writing on the wall and pushed for the amendment to protect themselves. Many laws are like that, where the puppeteer can't be seen while the public focuses on the marionette. Leaving me with the inevitable conclusion that maybe we shouldn't grandfather in anything. Which is impractical, and why I say that in a very real way, great wealth is built on ignorance.