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Leaded gas was a known poison the day it was invented (2016)

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Re: Leaded gas was a known poison the day it was invented (2016)

#221

Post by streamofdigits »

For every Thomas Midgley Jr. [0] there is a Clair Patterson [1] - and thats the problem.

Artistic talent seems to have strong correlation with empathy and a sense of social responsibility. Scientific and technical (STEM) talent much less so.

While the very pinnacle of science (people like Einstein) display (or convincigly fake) deep humanistic traits, the army of scientists / engineers that got educated since the early 20th century are basically just run-of-the-mill willing executioners, cogs in the machine, eager to turn in the prevailing direction, support whatever power structruce exists, with no strong conviction as to what "good" looks like.

How digital technology has been developed and used is just the latest manifestation of this amoral stance. If we consider areas like biotech, the risks those over-eager idiot-savants help bring to life are potentially existential.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clair_Cameron_Patterson

Re: Leaded gas was a known poison the day it was invented (2016)

#222

Post by SavantIdiot »

DenisM wrote: post #179
paulkrush wrote: post #91

I guess we live on the shoulders of nastiness and things get better. So TEL was part of our boot sequence. What nastiness are we subjecting ourselves to today? BTW: The guy that invented TEL also invented CFCs! See Thomas Midgley Jr: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr . This guy who invents awesome working chemicals that are tragically bad for people on a worldwide scale manages to exit life dues to his…

- Sugar. - Social networks. - The coddling of the mind. I think you will find that all three have vicious cycles built into them.

What is "the coddling of the mind"?

Re: Leaded gas was a known poison the day it was invented (2016)

#223

Post by cwp »

afavour wrote: post #140
paulkrush wrote: post #91

I guess we live on the shoulders of nastiness and things get better. So TEL was part of our boot sequence. What nastiness are we subjecting ourselves to today? BTW: The guy that invented TEL also invented CFCs! See Thomas Midgley Jr: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr . This guy who invents awesome working chemicals that are tragically bad for people on a worldwide scale manages to exit life dues to his…

> What nastiness are we subjecting ourselves to today? Maybe an overwrought comparison but I genuinely do feel like we’ll look back on this age of social media and disinformation in the same way we did leaded gas. The people making money knew exactly how dangerous it was and the problems it caused but they did everything in their power to cover it up in the name of profit. Originally it felt like a social annoyance a…

Yeah, the analogy between toxic media and toxic chemicals is pretty good. However, I'd put they blame for that somewhere you might find surprising: influencers.

Everybody likes to hate on "big tech" these days, but if there's anyone that knows the dangers and all the ill effects but ignores them to make a profit, it's content creators. They are hyper-attuned to the way people respond to their content, and they'll do anything to get a reaction, the more intense the better. And if that means siccing a mob on somebody, so be it. If it means doing stunts that endanger people in the real world, fine. And polarization is the best technique they've stumbled onto yet: say stuff that enrages people to get them to engage with the post, and then pick up followers among those that watch the rage with glee.

Just about every successful influencer has done a post about how hard it is to be internet-famous. It's almost always about how the negative effects of their work get reflected back at them. They know how the things they say harm people, they just want the negativity to be directed elsewhere.

There's a lot of debate about how social media companies should be regulated, how much censorship should be allowed, how much platforms should subsidize legacy media etc. But none of it will matter if we don't rein in what's considered acceptable in the creator economy.

Re: Leaded gas was a known poison the day it was invented (2016)

#224

Post by artificial »

clusterfish wrote: post #156
artificial wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excellent! Together we can ban fast food and sugar consumption for the greater good. Heart disease and diabetes from the scourge of empty calories finally eliminated. Hundreds of thousands saved each year from poor choices. Up next: sedentary lifestyle enablers :). It’s such a rabbit hole, who should know best?

You can harm yourself with junk food and lack of exercise all you want, it doesn't affect others the same way pouring poison into our shared environment does. What you're doing is called whataboutism. Trying to muddy clear waters by bringing in muddy issues that aren't directly related, just for the sake of muddying.

All of these increase healthcare costs for everyone involved.

Re: Leaded gas was a known poison the day it was invented (2016)

#225

Post by yibg »

baobabKoodaa wrote: post #204
jdgoesmarching wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“I should be free to profit regardless of harm to others.” Better?

How is that better? Can you point to a single example where a person made such a claim? Just a single example. Go ahead, I'll wait.

Smoking in public? Fracking?

Re: Leaded gas was a known poison the day it was invented (2016)

#226

Post by adambard »

cwp wrote: post #223
afavour wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What nastiness are we subjecting ourselves to today? Maybe an overwrought comparison but I genuinely do feel like we’ll look back on this age of social media and disinformation in the same way we did leaded gas. The people making money knew exactly how dangerous it was and the problems it caused but they did everything in their power to cover it up in the name of profit. Originally it felt like a social annoyance a…

Yeah, the analogy between toxic media and toxic chemicals is pretty good. However, I'd put they blame for that somewhere you might find surprising: influencers. Everybody likes to hate on "big tech" these days, but if there's anyone that knows the dangers and all the ill effects but ignores them to make a profit, it's content creators. They are hyper-attuned to the way people respond to their content, and they'll do…

Sure, it's the influencers pumping the oil, but it's social media networks running the pipelines, and they're splitting the profits.

Unfortunately, toxic content is a lot harder to regulate than toxic chemicals, when one man's truth is another man's fake news.

Re: Leaded gas was a known poison the day it was invented (2016)

#227

Post by CharlesW »

cwp wrote: post #223
afavour wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What nastiness are we subjecting ourselves to today? Maybe an overwrought comparison but I genuinely do feel like we’ll look back on this age of social media and disinformation in the same way we did leaded gas. The people making money knew exactly how dangerous it was and the problems it caused but they did everything in their power to cover it up in the name of profit. Originally it felt like a social annoyance a…

Yeah, the analogy between toxic media and toxic chemicals is pretty good. However, I'd put they blame for that somewhere you might find surprising: influencers. Everybody likes to hate on "big tech" these days, but if there's anyone that knows the dangers and all the ill effects but ignores them to make a profit, it's content creators. They are hyper-attuned to the way people respond to their content, and they'll do…

> Everybody likes to hate on "big tech" these days, but if there's anyone that knows the dangers and all the ill effects but ignores them to make a profit, it's content creators.

This is like blaming smokers instead of Philip Morris.

Re: Leaded gas was a known poison the day it was invented (2016)

#228

Post by Rexxar »

wpietri wrote: post #26
warning26 wrote: post #2

Interesting, I had assumed they just didn’t know that lead was bad back then. What’s even weirder is how there are still people today who insist that banning leaded gasoline was an key example of government overreach. Someone once was arguing this point to me and I just had to drop the topic because it was such a baffling stance.

America has two radically different concepts of freedom that travel under the same name. Both start with "I should be free to do as I want". One ends with "as long as I don't harm others". The other ends with "regardless of harm to others". You were dealing with the latter. It of course sounds insane when you say it baldly like this, which is why it rarely gets stated openly. But a lot of traditional societal structu…

To make things more complex, some (small) harms are legitimate: If you open a new store you "harm" other store owners because they have less customers. When you build/repair your home there is some noises and dusts that can annoy other people but it's considered as a legitimate temporary problem. So the question is more where is the limit ?

Re: Leaded gas was a known poison the day it was invented (2016)

#229

Post by MisterBastahrd »

SavantIdiot wrote: post #220
paulkrush wrote: post #91

I guess we live on the shoulders of nastiness and things get better. So TEL was part of our boot sequence. What nastiness are we subjecting ourselves to today? BTW: The guy that invented TEL also invented CFCs! See Thomas Midgley Jr: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr . This guy who invents awesome working chemicals that are tragically bad for people on a worldwide scale manages to exit life dues to his…

> What nastiness are we subjecting ourselves to today? I'm gonna go with overfishing. Anyone who has been shopping since the 1990's has seen fish diversity decline and prices skyrocket beyond inflation (not to mention a sharp increase in farmed and faux-colored fish like salmon). Illegal fishing is impossible to combat. See China's illegal fleets: [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27412691 [2] https://twitter.…

My dad used to tell me stories about how when he was a kid, during the drive down to Grand Isle, you would see cars lined up on both sides of the highway for as far as the eye could see because families would park on the curb, set out some outdoor chairs, and fish for speckled trout, flounder, and redfish in the marsh. It was common when they were biting to bring home an ice chest of fish to eat.

Commercial fishing also had no hard limits back then, and so we eradicated the redfish population and most of the specks. We now have pretty substantial limits on how many of each we can keep when we go fishing, to the point where you're doing it just for the experience because you won't catch enough to recoup the gas money.

Re: Leaded gas was a known poison the day it was invented (2016)

#230

Post by version_five »

cwp wrote: post #223
afavour wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What nastiness are we subjecting ourselves to today? Maybe an overwrought comparison but I genuinely do feel like we’ll look back on this age of social media and disinformation in the same way we did leaded gas. The people making money knew exactly how dangerous it was and the problems it caused but they did everything in their power to cover it up in the name of profit. Originally it felt like a social annoyance a…

Yeah, the analogy between toxic media and toxic chemicals is pretty good. However, I'd put they blame for that somewhere you might find surprising: influencers. Everybody likes to hate on "big tech" these days, but if there's anyone that knows the dangers and all the ill effects but ignores them to make a profit, it's content creators. They are hyper-attuned to the way people respond to their content, and they'll do…

This may be a "don't hate the player hate the game" type situation. Influencers or aspiring influencers are doing what they do because they are working inside a construct that's set up to reward them for it. They are not blameless, but they are not conspiring to create that damage that social media had done to society, they are in s sense being put up to it by the platforms and users (who by the way I don't think should get a free pass either - PSA: delete twitter)
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