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The whole lead poisoning scandals are really great examples of how capitalism/free markets have serious limits to what they can achieve. They should should be s
by s_dev 2y ago
The whole lead poisoning scandals are really great examples of how capitalism/free markets have serious limits to what they can achieve. They should should be seen as a useful tool to help make certain markets more efficient and not as an ideology to embraced without limitations.
Even when consumers understood that leaded petrol for example was contaminating the air and water with carcinogens that harmed many many people especially babies and small children the market still had demanded leaded petrol and that demand was catered to by companies making huge profits and scientists deemed that there was no safe threshold.
It's been speculated that the fall of the Roman Empire can be partially attributed to prevalence of lead pipes and leaded drinking vessels. When a critical mass of elites/rulers have lead poisoning there was a subsequent collapse of those societies.
In short it's basically a national security issue even if it does make fuel cheaper and more effective.
- Anotheroneagain 2y ago[flagged]
- lupusreal 2y agoHow much lead do you supplement with?
- lfaw 2y agoCan you please point to a source where it says that 'lead is an essential nutrient'? Or a source to any of your other extraordinary claims?
- sjsdaiuasgdia 2y agoLOL what is this nonsense? "Lead’s toxicity was recognized and recorded as early as 2000 BC and the widespread use of lead has been a cause of endemic chronic plumbism in several societies throughout history. The Greek philosopher Nikander of Colophon in 250 BC reported on the colic and anemia resulting from lead poisoning. Hippocrates related gout to the food and wine, though the association between gout and lead poisoning was not recognized during this period ( 450-380 BC). Later during the Roman period, gout was prevalent among the upper classes of Roman society and is believed to be a result of the enormous lead intake." https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/get_the_lead_out/pdfs/health/Needleman_1999.pdf https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/get_the_lead_o...
- FeteCommuniste 2y agoProbably the oddest comment I’ve seen on HN, endorsing not just lead but mercury and arsenic as well. Does he/she huff asbestos for health, too?
- potato3732842 2y agoI think it's satire of the typical "well akshually" comment you see on HN wherein one dishonestly portrays some minuscule exception as though it's the rule for a few cheap virtue score points from internet nobodies.
- Anotheroneagain 2y agoThe quotes are literally just made up. I looked it up once and the exact same person provided several recipes with heavy metals. Rome fell after they stopped using it, because its deficiency causes schizophrenia. People are not intelligent, they are making things up.
- sjsdaiuasgdia 2y agoOk dude, sure. What's your daily lead intake, and in what forms?
- Anotheroneagain 2y agoI just take a bit of red lead or lead sugar, whatever I have at hand. A huge dose by any modern claim. Look, why do we suffer from all those intractable "lifestyle diseases", need glasses and in general are the most unhealthy population in recorded history, and why is everything falling apart? People are literally insane, its toxicity is the lie.
- lupusreal 2y agoRelevant context for this guy: https://warosu.org/sci/?task=search&ghost=false&search_text=Lead+is+an+essential+nutrient https://warosu.org/sci/?task=search&ghost=false&search_text=...
- dennis_jeeves2 2y agoYou got to explain yourself _considerably_, is that a fair ask? To people replying to the guy with snaky comments - you THINK you know because somebody ( media, school) taught you, correct? That's being being a parrot, not a thinker/investigator.
- lupusreal 2y agoThis guy is a notorious troll/schizo who has been at it for years. He's had ample time to back up his claims with some evidence but never has. Of course you are welcome to give him the benifit of doubt and try to engage with him in good faith. I sincerely doubt it will lead anywhere, many have tried before you with no productive results.
- Anotheroneagain 2y agoTo be honest, I never figured out what the evidence could even look like. Normally, you would try to falsify the existing theory, but, that is not an option, since it never existed - the proponents came with the claim that it had always been known and insisted relentlessly. It has subtle, nondescript symptoms, the only clear sign of the poisoning is its presence in the blood. There are some other measurable chamges, but that would only get stuck on me claiming that it proves its essentiality, vs you claiming that it proves the poisoning. All the evidence like the presence in bones, 250kyo neanderthal teeth, phosphates, coal and so on has supposedly been somehow proven irrelevant. The lack of improved health and intellect, rather the increasingly undeniable presence of the inverse is being ignored. It's essentially unfalsifiable.
- buttercraft 2y ago> To be honest, I never figured out what the evidence could even look like. Right on cue.
- amelius 2y agoWhat if your elites/rulers have symptoms of lead poisoning without exposure to lead?
- potato3732842 2y agoBasically all the boomers grew up huffing leaded car exhaust. The ones who didn't become statistical fodder for the lead crime hypothesis are running the world right now. The quality of leadership in the west will probably improve overall as the boomers and early gen X get to kicking the bucket.
- aucisson_masque 2y ago> It's been speculated that the fall of the Roman Empire can be partially attributed to prevalence of lead pipes and leaded drinking vessels. When a critical mass of elites/rulers have lead poisoning there was a subsequent collapse of those societies. I agree with the other part of your text but this lead contributing to downfall of roman society is not spoken about by serious historians. Plagues, societal evolution, mass migration, change of climate are what caused downfall of Roman empire. As far as I know, lead would be marginal at best.
- bluGill 2y agoHe said speculated. I've heard that speculation many times, enough to say it is true that people speculate about it. However as you say, there is no reason to believe it is true. People should stop speculating about it.
- aucisson_masque 2y agowell... yes, he was only referring to speculations but at some point if you speculate enough, it becomes true for the general population. There need to be a 'naysayer' answering this speculation anytime it appears or with such a good story, it spreads like wild fire.
- haizhung 2y agoMy personal stance on this: Capitalism is extremely good at hill climbing within a certain constraint set. Almost like a constraint satisfaction algorithm. However, if the constraints are ill-posed (eg. it is possible to externalize certain costs, by outputting co2, using lead, etc.) it WILL eventually do that. IMHO capticalism CAN work but it needs a strong government that sets the constraints to the benefit of its people. And updates those constraints once new information becomes available. This is in stark contrast to the often seen „just deregulate everything and line goes up“ stance. This will just create a degenerate solution (monopolies, climate change, financial crises, etc).
- sjsdaiuasgdia 2y agoYou're correct. Without strong externally-imposed restraint, capitalism will happily externalize its costs and crush some people.
- api 2y agoThat can be said for every system. They are tools. They all become pathological when transformed into ideologies and used to try to solve every problem in one way.
- dennis_jeeves2 2y ago>capitalism/free markets have serious limits to what they can achieve Why do you have to take shots at capitalism/free markets? Capitalism/free markets does not automatically imply that you can harm someone health. Capitalism/free markets solely implies financial/trade freedom.
- bluGill 2y ago> Why do you have to take shots at capitalism Capitalism was a straw-man invented by Marx to take shots at. Of course he has to take shots at it, that is the whole point. Mean while what people really do is far more complex and not suitable a 30 second pot shot. The real people doing "capitalism" are too busy doing to try to make sense of just how complex human behavior is, and so don't have time to defend it in philosophy.
- dennis_jeeves2 2y ago>Capitalism was a straw-man invented by Marx to take shots at. Of course he has to take shots at it, that is the whole point Make perfect sense indeed...
- __MatrixMan__ 2y agoCapitalism is more than just free trade. Trade happens between two parties. Capitalism happens between three parties. The additional party is the capitalist who neither produces the traded goods nor consumes them, but is entitled to a share of control/profit due to some kind of abstraction (e.g. property rights). It's pretty directly related lead poisoning because in the case of mere trade both parties are close enough to the lead to have incentives to avoid it. It's quite plausible that the dynamics change significantly when you add a third party at sufficient remove to feel safe from the hazard, yet who still has a controlling stake in the transaction.
- dennis_jeeves2 2y agoI cannot even relate to your line of reasoning - a simple concept stretched beyond it's simple original intent.
- jijijijij 2y agoSometimes the overall trend in quality-of-life improvements (democratization, healthcare, education, ...) are attributed to capitalism, when in reality almost all of these positive developments happened despite the capitalistic influences, at best, but usually in grave opposition to it. Capitalism has never brought us public infrastructure and education, environmental, food and workplace protections, social welfare, or universal healthcare. All these have been heavily fought for against capitalist interests, paid for with suffering, blood and tears. Where regulation is weak, life is hell. Outspoken free market absolutists/apologists tend to be people, who think of themselves as top predators, entitled to power and influence, always privileged, yet sooo unfairly treated in a more egalitarian system. (Everybody is gangster until they get punched in the face...) I think, these days political economy is, contrary to popular belief in entrepreneurial circles, mostly in agreement about the dynamics at work here: For the general case, free markets don't work without regulation. The most important markets (existential goods) are prone to natural monopolies. This shouldn't be surprising really, since profit doesn't relate to broader human welfare directly, how could putting selective pressure on this single metric directly cause prosperity?! It's coincidence or human confounding factors/intervention leading to good outcomes, despite any free market ideology. Without the causal link, any argument about efficiency or stability is void. Ideological capitalism, or free market absolutism is the Torment Nexus of Goodhart's Law. Case in point, while politically we're perpetually negotiating the extent of social darwinistic fallout of the capitalistic order, knowingly, but below the radar of affect, we're spending our planet, our long-term existential foundation three times over. Now, you don't need an academically forged "capitalistic system" in place to get self-inflicted crisis, as any preindustrial culture which transformed their prosperous island into desert rock can attest (over-consumption leading to terminal erosion), it's the lack of informed regulation in the interest of humankind.
- Nasrudith 2y agoIf you think profit doesn't relate to human welfare directly then I welcome you to head into any economically depressed third world village and turn it into a utopia. Oh wait, you can't maintain the sizable bureaucratic structure and intellectual workforce when over 90% of the population is engaged in subsidence farming by necessity in order to not die of starvation. You quite literally take the productivity of capitalism for granted and assume that its products are simply the natural state of existence, and that in the absence of the evil capitalist you would have instant magical utopias. Such folly is like thinking that if you got rid of the evil and heavy pollution-spewing engine burdening your car, you would then go even faster without any of that pollution. The work being performed is vital, even though it is outside of your ideologically blinkered willful inability to understand. The rapid growth of education depended upon capitalism and the rise of paper-making and printing operations which themselves are dependent upon profit seeking and the price discovery mechanisms. More importantly it depended upon there being a market for books a middle class which could usefully apply those results. If you find yourself wondering "why didn't revolutionary invention X, Y, or Z take off at this period even further in the past" the usual answer you get is that they lacked an essential prerequisite for its deployment.
- enaaem 2y agoFormer libertarian here. One the principals of libertarianism is that you cannot do others harm and if you do so you have to compensate them. The issue with that idea is risk management. How do you compensate someone whose products and services has killed or handicapped someone? A life for a life? Bring back the Code of Hammurabi? The best thing we could come up with is that as long as you follow a set of risk limiting rules then you will be spared from the highest punishment.