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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

#191

Post by darawk »

Frost1x wrote: post #57
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.

Democracy is mostly a facade anymore, unfortunately. Don't get me wrong, we haven't gone completely south to a dictatorship--there are many protections in place to keep things from falling apart but nonetheless I feel as though we're in the decline in the respect of being democratic. The underlying failed assumption in our representative democracy was that representatives would represent their constituents' interests…

Democracy is more alive today than it ever has been in history. What you are seeing is democracy. I think in the west we've been taught that 'democracy' is by definition good, and therefore anything bad is 'not democracy'. But the reality is that people are voting for this.

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

#192

Post by logfromblammo »

ryanmercer wrote: post #53
fredley wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> distillation is only good if the boiling point of a given chemical is higher than that of water What about fractional distillation?

First, I am not a chemist but this is something I've thought aobut a lot as a camper, a "prepper", and someone interested in Mars colonization (perchlorates!). That would work but I imagine it's going to have some amount of inefficiency depending on the contaminant, you'd have to do several passes to get to really low trace levels I imagine as you're going to keep some contamination simply by what collects on the wal…

Take three fractions, the first being the "heads" or "tops" from the first condensed volume up to 5% of the original volume, the next being the "mains" from the next 90%, and the last being the "tails" or "bottoms" from the final 5%.

Wash the packed column and boiling vessel with the heads and then discard them. Discard the tails. Repeat the process with the mains.

Your twice-distilled mains are now pure water, discounting contamination from inferior distillation apparatus.

Get some food-grade calcium chloride (E509, de-icing salt), magnesium sulfate (Epsom salt), sodium bicarbonate (baking soda), and potassium chloride (NoSalt brand table salt substitute) and add some (known) minerals back into the result for your drinking water, because pure distilled water has a very poor taste profile.

The only types of chemical that cannot be easily removed by this distillation process are those that form azeotropes with water, such as ethanol, and those chemicals are unlikely to be present in quantities significant enough to be a problem.

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

#194

Post by anigbrowl »

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.

Questionable. After all, it's often the elites whipping said masses up to fury, a trend which continues today in more systematic fashion.

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

#195

Post by MeltySmelty »

quotemstr wrote: post #150
MichaelApproved wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're really curious, these answers can be found by Googling.

The burden of proof rests on the party making the positive claim.

not with leftists

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

#196

Post by dehrmann »

chongli wrote: post #75
Frost1x wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Democracy is mostly a facade anymore, unfortunately. Don't get me wrong, we haven't gone completely south to a dictatorship--there are many protections in place to keep things from falling apart but nonetheless I feel as though we're in the decline in the respect of being democratic. The underlying failed assumption in our representative democracy was that representatives would represent their constituents' interests…

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…

> tyranny of the masses

Seeing California's proposition process, I agree. It also shows how disfunctional representative democracy is.

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

#197

Post by tclancy »

darawk wrote: post #191
Frost1x wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Democracy is mostly a facade anymore, unfortunately. Don't get me wrong, we haven't gone completely south to a dictatorship--there are many protections in place to keep things from falling apart but nonetheless I feel as though we're in the decline in the respect of being democratic. The underlying failed assumption in our representative democracy was that representatives would represent their constituents' interests…

Democracy is more alive today than it ever has been in history. What you are seeing is democracy. I think in the west we've been taught that 'democracy' is by definition good, and therefore anything bad is 'not democracy'. But the reality is that people are voting for this.

I get what you mean in the larger sense, but here that would suggest there are masses of people who voted for poisoned water, which no one would do. You can certainly argue the polarization of US/ democratic politics in the time of the Internet has led to one side adopting a nihilism where they would prefer to die living "The way things were" than accept inclusive change.

And yes, I am definitely biased.

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

#198

Post by gregcrv »

darawk wrote: post #191
Frost1x wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Democracy is mostly a facade anymore, unfortunately. Don't get me wrong, we haven't gone completely south to a dictatorship--there are many protections in place to keep things from falling apart but nonetheless I feel as though we're in the decline in the respect of being democratic. The underlying failed assumption in our representative democracy was that representatives would represent their constituents' interests…

Democracy is more alive today than it ever has been in history. What you are seeing is democracy. I think in the west we've been taught that 'democracy' is by definition good, and therefore anything bad is 'not democracy'. But the reality is that people are voting for this.

The original democracy was actually designed to appoint random representatives. What we are seeing is not democracy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition

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

#199

Post by rootusrootus »

arethuza wrote: post #168
Accujack wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of hyperbole there. That mentality is more or less unique to one large generation in the US, it's not universal and not perpetual. Also, there have been democracies for more than a thousand years that have withstood this sort of thing.

Which ones? (Genuinely interested, not being snarky)

I am betting Accujack was referring to boomers. And in particular, those of the conservative persuasion.

I could be wrong, though.

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