EPA is allowing asbestos back into manufacturing • Hacker News Board

Re: EPA is allowing asbestos back into manufacturing

#341

Post by a3n » Wed, Aug 08, 2018, 1:31 AM UTC

TimTheTinker wrote: post #246

a3n wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any attempt to ban lobbying would be heavily lobbied against.

Haha, yes - but so true. Lobbyism forms a power structure that effectively cuts off and circumvents the will of the people. So by definition, it's actually a form of tyranny.

Mike Mulvaney, former House Rep and Trump's destroyer of agencies, said out loud that when he was in Congress he said out loud that he wouldn't talk to anyone unless they made a donation to his campaign. He also said out loud that other members of Congress should do the same.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mick_Mulvaney#Pay-to-play

Re: EPA is allowing asbestos back into manufacturing

#342

Post by BoiledCabbage » Wed, Aug 08, 2018, 1:44 AM UTC

CivBase wrote: post #162

NickM wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The electoral college and equal Senate representation acts as a tempering force on said mob. So rather than tyranny of the majority, now we have tyranny of an arbitrary minority. I fail to see how that improves things. As others have pointed out, the constitution and the court system are the features that are supposed to counteract tyranny of the majority, not the EC or the Senate. The EC and the Senate aren't there…

> So rather than tyranny of the majority, now we have tyranny of an arbitrary minority. I fail to see how that improves things. There's nothing arbitrary about it. The United States is a federated government and the electoral college is a system designed to ensure smaller state governments maintain some influence. We have granted more and more power to the federal government over the years. You could argue that's a g…

> smaller state governments maintain some influence.

Which is another way of saying, having some people's voices worth 3 or 4 times more than others. And the sparser the region you live in, the higher the multiplicative effect.

Rocks, trees, grass don't get a say in govt, people do. And all people should be weighted equally. Unfortunately, our current system does the opposite of that.

Re: EPA is allowing asbestos back into manufacturing

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Post by perl4ever » Wed, Aug 08, 2018, 1:45 AM UTC

prolikewh0a wrote: post #338

perl4ever wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Both parties are the same" made sense in 2000, when there were two generic white guys running, if you were too young to remember Watergate or Iran-Contra much, and also because the trillion dollar wars and deficits to come were unimaginable. After the invasion of Iraq, let alone the ACA, and what's happened post 2016, it seems to me like hollow propaganda. It's fundamentally no longer possible to have a productive d…

>two generic white guys running Two generic white people ran in 2016. Obama left in 6 or 7 wars/major conflicts. He dropped 26000 bombs in 2016 alone [1]. He used the espionage act against journalists more than any president in history [2]. He let protestors get their heads smashed in by oil companies in North Dakota right before he left [3]. He expanded the surveillance state [4]. Obama seemed sincere and then ended…

My initial reaction to your posting is reinforced.

If the parties are significantly different when it comes to existential threats to the US, then most issues are a distraction. If we're not talking about millions of lives or trillions of dollars or the political destruction of the country, they may in fact be very harmful distractions when the issue is voting correctly.

I interpret comments like yours as not genuinely engaging person-to-person, but rather demonstrating how to submit to a certain way of thinking, perhaps to normalize it for third party readers.

Re: EPA is allowing asbestos back into manufacturing

#344

Post by tortasaur » Wed, Aug 08, 2018, 2:07 AM UTC

omegaworks wrote: post #270

rayiner wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The unhinged emotional reaction to asbestos in this thread is a good example of why lobbying is important. There is a cost-benefit analysis to be done for products containing asbestos, just like for any other product. Lobbyists present that analysis to the regulator. The alternative is regulation by knee jerk reaction, which undermines to point of regulatory agencies.

This would be fine if the dollar-cost value of usage of these toxic materials actually represented the health and wellbeing of a population. Putting a dollar value on health has never been a simple proposition. In many of these cases, these costs are externalized; they are borne by (healthcare, communal, familial) systems outside the industry where the asbestos is used. Only where a link can be definitively traced ba…

How is this a shift in our society? When in recent history has this not been the standard?

Re: EPA is allowing asbestos back into manufacturing

#345

Post by RobertRoberts » Wed, Aug 08, 2018, 2:51 AM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #327

RobertRoberts wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good question, does it? I know that there was a time when not a single doctor in the world believed there was such a thing as latex allergy. My family is in the chemical business and my father (chemist) won't put chlorine in his pool, he uses a bromide of some kind. But, if something is popular (asbestos was at one point) it must be just fine.

If something is popular, problems tend to become apparent. It can be an unknown with a new chemical, but for something like chlorine which has had massive public exposure for a very long time, it’s fairly safe to say that it doesn’t have much in the way of negative effects at low levels of exposure.

What about cigarettes, lead pipes, lead paint? There's quite a few chemicals/toxins that were in use for thousands of years before any did anything about them. Even something as simple as hygiene is new to doctors as of the 18th century.

Re: EPA is allowing asbestos back into manufacturing

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Post by RobertRoberts » Wed, Aug 08, 2018, 2:53 AM UTC

CydeWeys wrote: post #295

RobertRoberts wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good question, does it? I know that there was a time when not a single doctor in the world believed there was such a thing as latex allergy. My family is in the chemical business and my father (chemist) won't put chlorine in his pool, he uses a bromide of some kind. But, if something is popular (asbestos was at one point) it must be just fine.

This is argument based on a counter-factual though. Chlorine as used for keeping our water supply safe does appear to be warranted (i.e. the benefits outweigh the costs), whereas the use of asbestos is the other way around; the health effects clearly outweigh the benefits. Public policy should be based around what we know, not what you wish to be true but isn't.

>"...the benefits outweigh the costs.."

I agree with this sentiment, but it seems the costs are only considered after public outcry, not from scientific understanding or economics. It's often cheaper to let people get hurt.

Re: EPA is allowing asbestos back into manufacturing

#347

Post by cam_l » Wed, Aug 08, 2018, 3:15 AM UTC

staunch wrote: post #258

ekianjo wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lobbying is just a legal form of corruption. Ban it, and it will still continue to exist underground anyway. What we need is to stop voting for idiot politicians.

What about creating a "Direct Democracy Lobbying Group" that lets citizens donate/vote online on issues and then (legally) bribes the appropriate people with total transparency? The depressing thing about most bribery is how small the amounts of money are. Politicians take bribes in the form of campaign financing because they want to stay in power. It's easy for them to rationalize if they think they're serving the g…

We have a group sort of like that in Australia, Getup (not bribing but lobbying). The current sitting party is trying to get it deemed as a political party as it consistently lobbies against government policy (policy which is consistently against the will and interests of the public).

Re: EPA is allowing asbestos back into manufacturing

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Post by burfog » Wed, Aug 08, 2018, 4:19 AM UTC

jccalhoun wrote: post #69

crankylinuxuser wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, what exactly happened? The EPA was founded by a republican (Nixon). Yet environmental efforts are now attributed to democrats. And combined with that, is that republicans was to destroy the very org they made? What am I missing out of this? Why did the parties completely change their face?

The political parties did largely switch sides on many issues. As Republicans love to remind people, Lincoln was a Republican and he freed the slaves. Additionally the politicians who opposed civil rights legislation were largely Democrats. http://factmyth.com/factoids/democrats-and-republicans-switc...

Had there been an actual switch, you would have seen numerous politicians changing party. Virtually none of them did.

The one senator: Strom Thurmond

The one representative: Albert Watson

The whole "party switch" idea is slander and an excuse. It's a rewrite of history intended to evade the ugly truth of an unbroken continuity to behavior that is now considered unacceptable.

Re: EPA is allowing asbestos back into manufacturing

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Post by Drdrdrq » Wed, Aug 08, 2018, 6:27 AM UTC

lb1lf wrote: post #282

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the friend of your customer's wallet. Trade-offs are everywhere.

Depends on the time span; a once mentor of mine always quipped that the ultimate act of laziness was to do things properly the first time and be done with it; much the same goes for the economics of cost savings - long term, quality tends to lead to longer maintenance intervals and simpler maintenance at that. The ultimate cheapness is to buy quality items and be done with it. (Obviously, there will be cases where th…

"I am not rich enough to buy cheap stuff."

Re: EPA is allowing asbestos back into manufacturing

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Post by zaarn » Wed, Aug 08, 2018, 6:52 AM UTC

gus_massa wrote: post #145

peterwwillis wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So your argument is, because people get mesothelioma from living near natural deposits of asbestos, we should put more of the stuff in our homes? "What's a little more cancer?" Your own source material shows just living near asbestos gives you higher risk of cancer. You're trying to argue that we aren't at significant risk without prolonged exposure. Living with asbestos is prolonged exposure. Increasing the amount u…

Smoke detectors have a radioactive source, and we put them inside our homes, because the radiation level is so low that the increase of the risk is minimal. Walls have a tiny amount of radioactive material, but they protect you from the radiation of the exterior. I don't know if the walls increase or decrease your cancer risk. There are many thinks that may cause cancer. It's important to calculate the risk of each o…

Only industrial smoke alarms use radioactive sources and even then only some types (you need different types for different situations).

The radioactivity in a smoke alarm is already negligible when you hold it in your hand, never mind when it's mounted on a ceiling.

Additionally the americium-241 used in smoke detectors is mainly alpha decay and a sheet of paper will stop it, the remaining radiation that is dangerous is gamma and it's exposure is so far below annual average background that you might not even bother. Flying in a plane will expose you to a thousand times more radiation.