5 ms·

This is the inevitable process of humanity's understanding of technology.

VyseofArcadia 3y ago
My understanding is that in a lot of countries, the perspective is backwards from what we have in the US. We have, "prove it's harmful." They have "prove it's safe". You can still progress technologically without being reckless.
- pkaye 3y ago
  > My understanding is that in a lot of countries, the perspective is backwards from what we have in the US. Which countries do it that way?
  - pimlottc 3y ago
    The EU uses a whitelist approach for food additives, vs the US's blacklist approach: > Europe has chosen a precautionary approach in regulating, while the U.S. governing bodies tend to be more reactive. In other words, in the United States, food additives are innocent until proven guilty, while in Europe, only those additives proven not to be harmful are approved for use. http://www.germinalorganic.com/2018/02/eu-versus-us-a-closer-look-at-food-standards/ http://www.germinalorganic.com/2018/02/eu-versus-us-a-closer...
- CodeWriter23 3y ago
  > in the US. We have, "prove it's harmful." They have "prove it's safe Until you get into pharmaceuticals, then the world standard is a step beyond "prove it's harmful" to "no evidence of harm is proof that it is safe".
  - Kuinox 3y ago
    You have to prove that the benefits is worth the potential harm. Vaccines are known to be harmful to very few persons, yet we vaccine because the benefits outweigh the very small potential of harm.
    - CodeWriter23 3y ago
      No, especially with vaccines in the US (and some other places) science doesn’t have to meet that burden because they are indemnified for product liability by the government by law.
      - Kuinox 3y ago
        Good thing I'm not in the US then.
        CodeWriter23 3y ago
        Chances are then you live in a country that says “the FDA is good enough for us”. India not being one such country.
        nomoreusernames 3y ago
        [dead]
- varelse 3y ago
  There are a ton of contaminants in our drinking water that the EPA recommends you remove and we know they are harmful but they are not mandated to do so. Get yourself a water filter because they're not going to filter it for you.
  - Semaphor 3y ago
    Do you have a list?
    - reissbaker 3y ago
      If you live in California you likely have an enormous amount of chloroform in your water (I tested my water, was horrified, and bought a whole-house water filter; apparently this is just generally true in the Bay Area, and I suspect SoCal as well since we pipe our water down there).
      - Semaphor 3y ago
        Yeah, I had a bit of a brain fart, the E in EPA made me think Europe, despite me actually knowing what it stands for. I luckily have nothing like that in my water.
- hanniabu 3y ago
  > We have, "prove it's harmful." They have "prove it's safe". Don't be silly, US has "prove it's profitable"
zug_zug 3y ago
I don't think it's remotely inevitable. I think that's an outrageous mindset. Think of it like an engineer. We try to test products before deploying them to production (e.g. make all of humanity ingest it). If our tests are wrong some significant portion of the time, or if being wrong is much more damaging than we realized, then absolutely it's time to start the conversation of "How do we get better test coverage?" I bet if you put some paltry amount of money, say 100B (compare this to a bailout) into devising tests around the long-term safety of various chemicals some creative solutions would come up. For example, off the top of my head, if reproductive health is a concern, perhaps do a study where some animal that reproduces frequently is exposed to it for 10+ generations. We can validate if this is a viable way of testing by taking some known endocrine-disruptors and validating this test catches them effectively. For whatever reason, some people don't seem to see engineering chemicals that are safe for humanity to be a worthy enterprise, but I think it's as important as any tech company and we should make the financial incentives to reflect that and get the right minds on this problem.
- mensetmanusman 3y ago
  Those tests exist already, but no ethical tests can determine the full truth. Also, tests where minute traces of anything, like coffee, are purified to extreme amounts and injected into animals to cause cancer only add confusion, especially when California considers adding cancer warnings to coffee.
  - zug_zug 3y ago
    > Those tests exist already Do you actually know which tests the EPA runs and if so could you cite your source? > no ethical tests can determine the full truth. That's an all-or-nothing fallacy. Also you didn't respond to the core of my remark, which is about increasing the financial incentives by an order of magnitude. Lastly I take your complaint about coffee as support my argument that the current testing mechanisms are likely too simple.
    - robocat 3y ago
      > fallacy No. Ethical tests cannot determine the full truth - that is just a simple fact. How can anything be tested on on enough humans ethically? We can use animal models to detect some negatives. But if animal tests show a substance is "safe", doubt would still remain until tested on humans. It is normal that humanity creates new technology without knowing the future impact. Some people think that we shouldn't introduce new technology since we can't afford the risks. But technology has ethically positive outcomes - not only negative risk. Doing nothing has risks too.
the8472 3y ago
Not inevitable at all. It's entirely feasible to specify categories of chemicals. E.g. see the german law on novel psychoactive substances[0] that lumps substituted molecules together with their primitive variants. One could even go a step further and mandate outcomes instead of means, that substances must be proven to either have a low environmental half-life or to not bio-accumulate. [0] https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/npsg/anlage.html https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/npsg/anlage.html
edgyquant 3y ago
No we overcomplicate it with overly complex regulations. It’s pretty simple, don’t dump chemicals in water or on land period. Assuming chemicals are totally fine until proven otherwise is backwards as hell and clearly corrupt.
- amarant 3y ago
  Do you know what the word "chemical" means? We do need to be a bit more specific than that, or we're not gonna get anywhere. Also, once we've specified which chemicals shouldn't be dumped, I'd like to include the atmosphere in the list of places where one shouldn't dump them. Seems to be a very popular place to dump really harmful stuff, we should stop that.
  - naremu 3y ago
    > Do you know what the word "chemical" means? This intentional nitpicking of the colloquial usage of the word chemicals is a favorite of both, disingenuous conversationalists who like to take a chance to feel correct rather than participate earnestly, and lobbyists. At least one of them gets paid for it though.
    - bawolff 3y ago
      Its hardly a nitpick, you're being so vauge that its impossible to understand what you are actually proposing. Why not just use more specific language? If indeed everyone is acting in bad faith, using clear language would shut them up. If instead they are being ernest and cannot understand you because of the "colloquial" language, then being rigorous would further your stated goal of ernest participation. Either way seems like a win-win for you.
      - naremu 3y ago
        I didn't propose anything, I'm just nitpicking HN's nitpicking of attempts to have a real conversation. Which, since HN is a place for technically minded people, has resulted in people arguing that chemical contamination of PFAS is categorically the same as watering my lawn. You are technically correct, but this is called a "gotcha": it's not about continuing the conversation in earnest, if anything, it shuts down conversation about the important details by, in the writing of mike judge, "playing lawyerball" instead. In reality we all know that none of us are writing the technical legislation, so any of us becoming enamored with defending for profit entities against hazardous chemical classification through technical usage of language is...basically the core spirit of corporate lobbyism.

My understanding is that in a lot of countries, the perspective is backwards from what we have in the US. We have, "prove it's harmful." They have "prove it's safe". You can still progress technologically without being reckless.

pkaye 3y ago
> My understanding is that in a lot of countries, the perspective is backwards from what we have in the US. Which countries do it that way?
- pimlottc 3y ago
  The EU uses a whitelist approach for food additives, vs the US's blacklist approach: > Europe has chosen a precautionary approach in regulating, while the U.S. governing bodies tend to be more reactive. In other words, in the United States, food additives are innocent until proven guilty, while in Europe, only those additives proven not to be harmful are approved for use. http://www.germinalorganic.com/2018/02/eu-versus-us-a-closer-look-at-food-standards/ http://www.germinalorganic.com/2018/02/eu-versus-us-a-closer...
CodeWriter23 3y ago
> in the US. We have, "prove it's harmful." They have "prove it's safe Until you get into pharmaceuticals, then the world standard is a step beyond "prove it's harmful" to "no evidence of harm is proof that it is safe".
- Kuinox 3y ago
  You have to prove that the benefits is worth the potential harm. Vaccines are known to be harmful to very few persons, yet we vaccine because the benefits outweigh the very small potential of harm.
  - CodeWriter23 3y ago
    No, especially with vaccines in the US (and some other places) science doesn’t have to meet that burden because they are indemnified for product liability by the government by law.
    - Kuinox 3y ago
      Good thing I'm not in the US then.
      - CodeWriter23 3y ago
        Chances are then you live in a country that says “the FDA is good enough for us”. India not being one such country.
      - nomoreusernames 3y ago
        [dead]
varelse 3y ago
There are a ton of contaminants in our drinking water that the EPA recommends you remove and we know they are harmful but they are not mandated to do so. Get yourself a water filter because they're not going to filter it for you.
- Semaphor 3y ago
  Do you have a list?
  - reissbaker 3y ago
    If you live in California you likely have an enormous amount of chloroform in your water (I tested my water, was horrified, and bought a whole-house water filter; apparently this is just generally true in the Bay Area, and I suspect SoCal as well since we pipe our water down there).
    - Semaphor 3y ago
      Yeah, I had a bit of a brain fart, the E in EPA made me think Europe, despite me actually knowing what it stands for. I luckily have nothing like that in my water.
hanniabu 3y ago
> We have, "prove it's harmful." They have "prove it's safe". Don't be silly, US has "prove it's profitable"

zug_zug 3y ago

I don't think it's remotely inevitable. I think that's an outrageous mindset. Think of it like an engineer. We try to test products before deploying them to production (e.g. make all of humanity ingest it). If our tests are wrong some significant portion of the time, or if being wrong is much more damaging than we realized, then absolutely it's time to start the conversation of "How do we get better test coverage?" I bet if you put some paltry amount of money, say 100B (compare this to a bailout) into devising tests around the long-term safety of various chemicals some creative solutions would come up. For example, off the top of my head, if reproductive health is a concern, perhaps do a study where some animal that reproduces frequently is exposed to it for 10+ generations. We can validate if this is a viable way of testing by taking some known endocrine-disruptors and validating this test catches them effectively. For whatever reason, some people don't seem to see engineering chemicals that are safe for humanity to be a worthy enterprise, but I think it's as important as any tech company and we should make the financial incentives to reflect that and get the right minds on this problem.

mensetmanusman 3y ago
Those tests exist already, but no ethical tests can determine the full truth. Also, tests where minute traces of anything, like coffee, are purified to extreme amounts and injected into animals to cause cancer only add confusion, especially when California considers adding cancer warnings to coffee.
- zug_zug 3y ago
  > Those tests exist already Do you actually know which tests the EPA runs and if so could you cite your source? > no ethical tests can determine the full truth. That's an all-or-nothing fallacy. Also you didn't respond to the core of my remark, which is about increasing the financial incentives by an order of magnitude. Lastly I take your complaint about coffee as support my argument that the current testing mechanisms are likely too simple.
  - robocat 3y ago
    > fallacy No. Ethical tests cannot determine the full truth - that is just a simple fact. How can anything be tested on on enough humans ethically? We can use animal models to detect some negatives. But if animal tests show a substance is "safe", doubt would still remain until tested on humans. It is normal that humanity creates new technology without knowing the future impact. Some people think that we shouldn't introduce new technology since we can't afford the risks. But technology has ethically positive outcomes - not only negative risk. Doing nothing has risks too.

the8472 3y ago

Not inevitable at all. It's entirely feasible to specify categories of chemicals. E.g. see the german law on novel psychoactive substances[0] that lumps substituted molecules together with their primitive variants. One could even go a step further and mandate outcomes instead of means, that substances must be proven to either have a low environmental half-life or to not bio-accumulate. [0] https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/npsg/anlage.html https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/npsg/anlage.html

edgyquant 3y ago

No we overcomplicate it with overly complex regulations. It’s pretty simple, don’t dump chemicals in water or on land period. Assuming chemicals are totally fine until proven otherwise is backwards as hell and clearly corrupt.

amarant 3y ago
Do you know what the word "chemical" means? We do need to be a bit more specific than that, or we're not gonna get anywhere. Also, once we've specified which chemicals shouldn't be dumped, I'd like to include the atmosphere in the list of places where one shouldn't dump them. Seems to be a very popular place to dump really harmful stuff, we should stop that.
- naremu 3y ago
  > Do you know what the word "chemical" means? This intentional nitpicking of the colloquial usage of the word chemicals is a favorite of both, disingenuous conversationalists who like to take a chance to feel correct rather than participate earnestly, and lobbyists. At least one of them gets paid for it though.
  - bawolff 3y ago
    Its hardly a nitpick, you're being so vauge that its impossible to understand what you are actually proposing. Why not just use more specific language? If indeed everyone is acting in bad faith, using clear language would shut them up. If instead they are being ernest and cannot understand you because of the "colloquial" language, then being rigorous would further your stated goal of ernest participation. Either way seems like a win-win for you.
    - naremu 3y ago
      I didn't propose anything, I'm just nitpicking HN's nitpicking of attempts to have a real conversation. Which, since HN is a place for technically minded people, has resulted in people arguing that chemical contamination of PFAS is categorically the same as watering my lawn. You are technically correct, but this is called a "gotcha": it's not about continuing the conversation in earnest, if anything, it shuts down conversation about the important details by, in the writing of mike judge, "playing lawyerball" instead. In reality we all know that none of us are writing the technical legislation, so any of us becoming enamored with defending for profit entities against hazardous chemical classification through technical usage of language is...basically the core spirit of corporate lobbyism.