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U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

reuters.com

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Re: U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

#171

Post by peterwwillis »

coldtea wrote: post #163
chongli wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think democracy was always problematic. Its original form, direct democracy, was vulnerable to the tyranny of the masses. Representative democracy, long described as the solution, really isn’t. Representatives are self-interested, just like everyone else, and so we cannot expect them to be purely faithful executors of their respective mandates. What we did not expect, and perhaps are now beginning to, is that human…

> I think democracy was always problematic. Its original form, direct democracy, was vulnerable to the tyranny of the masses. Who deemed that a problem? The elites wanting specific decisions out of the masses.

I'm pretty sure the Jews have something valuable to say about tyranny of the masses.

Re: U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

#172

Post by driverdan »

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #117

A reminder that you can remove these and many other contaminants from your water with a simple undersink RO filter. They are quite inexpensive and start at about $160 on Amazon for a lifetime of clean drinking and cooking water. https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/list-of-household-filters-appr...

PFAS can be filtered by simple activated carbon filters. You don't need RO.

They can be absorbed through the skin so if you really want to avoid them you need a whole house filter.

Re: U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

#173

Post by ek750 »

goda90 wrote: post #141
intopieces wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many gallons of water do you have to throw away to get 1 gallon of pure water with this system?

Looks like 4 to 1. Not great, but probably not a huge hit if you hook it up only for drinking water. I wonder how hard it would be to pump that waste water to your toilet tanks instead.

you can also pick an ro system with a permeate pump (https://www.purewaterproducts.com/articles/how-permeate-pump...)

proper inlet pressure also improves efficiency.

Re: U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

#174

Post by pinkfoot »

coldtea wrote: post #163
chongli wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think democracy was always problematic. Its original form, direct democracy, was vulnerable to the tyranny of the masses. Representative democracy, long described as the solution, really isn’t. Representatives are self-interested, just like everyone else, and so we cannot expect them to be purely faithful executors of their respective mandates. What we did not expect, and perhaps are now beginning to, is that human…

> I think democracy was always problematic. Its original form, direct democracy, was vulnerable to the tyranny of the masses. Who deemed that a problem? The elites wanting specific decisions out of the masses.

Or vulnerable minorities who make nice scapegoats. See Indonesia, Malaysia, Zimbabwe, Myanmar, etc…

Surely you could have figured this one out?

Re: U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

#175

Post by SamBam »

techslave wrote: post #91
chongli wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think democracy was always problematic. Its original form, direct democracy, was vulnerable to the tyranny of the masses. Representative democracy, long described as the solution, really isn’t. Representatives are self-interested, just like everyone else, and so we cannot expect them to be purely faithful executors of their respective mandates. What we did not expect, and perhaps are now beginning to, is that human…

> Representative democracy, long described as the solution, really isn’t. Representatives are self-interested, just like everyone else, and so we cannot expect them to be purely faithful executors of their respective mandates. That’s irrelevant isn’t it? You elect based on your own self-interest and expect your candidate to follow theirs. There isn’t a single “what’s best for society” anyway so the pull between compe…

I think the parties part is the key, especially how it has infected the judicial branch as well.

Madison claimed that the defense against the tyranny of the majority was that

"...the society itself will be broken into so many parts, interests, and classes of citizens, that the rights of individuals, or of the minority, will be in little danger from interested combinations of the majority.

In a free government the security for civil rights [...] consists in the one case in the multiplicity of interests, and in the other in the multiplicity of sects. The degree of security in both cases will depend on the number of interests and sects."

It seems that parties, and particularly blind obedience to the head of the party (whether the president, the speaker, etc), has diminished the "number of interests and sects."

(Note, this is my understanding of Madison, but not as a scholar of US history.)

Re: U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

#176

Post by driverdan »

airesearcher wrote: post #167

You MUST watch the amazing film, “Dark Waters” .... it’s about the origin of this problem. DuPont knowingly poisoned the public. And the effects will never go away. And then people wonder why cancer rates are so high? Duh!!!

[citation needed]

Dark Waters is not a documentary.

Re: U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

#177

Post by driverdan »

astura wrote: post #15
forgotmypw wrote: post #13

If there was a magical way of convincing every single person in the U.S. to stop buying X, what would we have to stop buying to stop this pollution?

I don't think there's much a consumer can do and it seems many of them are no longer in active use yet are still in the environment from when they were used. >The chemicals were used in products like Teflon and Scotchguard and in firefighting foam. Some are used in a variety of other products and industrial processes, and their replacements also pose risks.

While true their replacements are very similar and have almost the same risks.

Re: U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

#178

Post by Stubb »

blaser-waffle wrote: post #103
matthewdgreen wrote: post #48

It is constantly amazing to me that "cover up the existence of poisonous chemicals in your drinking water" is a viable position for a democratically-elected officeholder to have. What a world we live in.

Sure, but what about The Economy?

"Son, it doesn't matter if the oceans turn to acid, the land turns to desert, millions of species go extinct, or if billions of people suffer and die. All that matters is we make that line go up and I will get my bonus, we need to do everything we can to keep that line going up."

https://twitter.com/thefaceberg/status/1030550915348975616

Re: U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

#179

Post by chongli »

techslave wrote: post #91
chongli wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think democracy was always problematic. Its original form, direct democracy, was vulnerable to the tyranny of the masses. Representative democracy, long described as the solution, really isn’t. Representatives are self-interested, just like everyone else, and so we cannot expect them to be purely faithful executors of their respective mandates. What we did not expect, and perhaps are now beginning to, is that human…

> Representative democracy, long described as the solution, really isn’t. Representatives are self-interested, just like everyone else, and so we cannot expect them to be purely faithful executors of their respective mandates. That’s irrelevant isn’t it? You elect based on your own self-interest and expect your candidate to follow theirs. There isn’t a single “what’s best for society” anyway so the pull between compe…

There isn’t a single “what’s best for society” anyway

A lot of people believe that though. They see democracy as the key to discovering this idea and bringing everyone on board with it. I’ve heard this position described as “mistake theory,” in contrast to conflict theory [1]. In other words, for some people the goal of government is to find the right balance of incentives and disincentives.

For others, government will always be a power struggle between mutually incompatible interests. Democracy makes little sense in such a situation.

[1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/01/24/conflict-vs-mistake/

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