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

smithsonianmag.com

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

#341

Post by skocznymroczny »

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…

I disagree. The "disinformation" is exaggerated. Many conspiracy theories turn out to be true after time. The problem is, there is a vocal group of people, who take the government/big corporation official stance as gospel, and anyone who even dares to question the status quo is branded as a harmful influence.

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

#342

Post by culopatin »

skocznymroczny wrote: post #341
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…

I disagree. The "disinformation" is exaggerated. Many conspiracy theories turn out to be true after time. The problem is, there is a vocal group of people, who take the government/big corporation official stance as gospel, and anyone who even dares to question the status quo is branded as a harmful influence.

So you think the Earth will be proven to be flat and the vaccines will be proven to have nanobots and 5G modems in the future?

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

#343

Post by cascom »

nemacol wrote: post #155
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? Among the list of nasty things we are doing, fracking stands out. Fresh water is scarce in much of the world. Ground water is drying up and massive aquafers are eroding. Simultaneously we are pumping cancer directly in the ground, breaking up rocks, and mixing the cancer stuck in the rocks into the ground water. Pumping that cancer back out and ... god only knows…

Slightly off topic: I’ve asked several people I know in the energy industry how they’d feel about having fracking done on their land where they drank the well water, and the response was pretty universal, no problem, as long as they knew which companies were doing the work - they view the whole thing simply from a quality standpoint, reputable operators/service providers were going to produce a safe outcome, people cutting corners was where the risk was.

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

#344

Post by golergka »

culopatin wrote: post #342
skocznymroczny wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. The "disinformation" is exaggerated. Many conspiracy theories turn out to be true after time. The problem is, there is a vocal group of people, who take the government/big corporation official stance as gospel, and anyone who even dares to question the status quo is branded as a harmful influence.

So you think the Earth will be proven to be flat and the vaccines will be proven to have nanobots and 5G modems in the future?

I think that Covid will have been proven to come out of Chinese virus lab. Which doesn't sound as a crazy conspiracy theory right now, but for a time during 2020, was suppressed just as the conspiracy theories you've listed.

Have you considered a possibility that may be, the outright idiotic conspiracy theories that you're talking about don't actually have that much supporters, and could be used as scrape-goats to excuse the censorship and information control which would actually be targeted at much less insane stuff?

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

#345

Post by MichaelZuo »

tempestn wrote: post #290
MichaelZuo wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What has higher probability of causing contaminated groundwater than nearby fracking?

It's not known that the groundwater is contaminated in this case.

In the general case do you know of a higher probability source of contamination?

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

#346

Post by mcherm »

skocznymroczny wrote: post #341
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…

I disagree. The "disinformation" is exaggerated. Many conspiracy theories turn out to be true after time. The problem is, there is a vocal group of people, who take the government/big corporation official stance as gospel, and anyone who even dares to question the status quo is branded as a harmful influence.

> Many conspiracy theories turn out to be true after time.

I would be interested to know what evidence you have for this. Of course, given the billions of ideas in the world there are necessarily a few conspiracy theories that were later shown to be true. But it has always been my impression that the percentage of conspiracy theories that later turn out to be true is vanishingly small... perhaps one in a million or less?

Do you know of any evidence of the prevalence of ideas seen as conspiracy theories at first but later shown to be true?

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

#347

Post by darkerside »

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.

Is nuclear energy "bad"? You'll find people arguing both sides of the issue today, but nobody argues that it is 100% safe. Sure, lead was a poison, but that didn't mean that its inhaled long term effects were known, and to say it was obvious in hindsight demonstrates a lack of empathy due to the curse of knowledge.

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

#348

Post by twistedpair »

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…

Aluminum and metal particles. There are various (inconclusive) studies suggesting a tie between metal particles in the blood/brain and dementia. Ever notice that foods now say thing things like "Ingredients: baking powder (aluminum free)", that you can get "Aluminum free" deodorant, etc?

Liking to stack the deck in my favor, I've moved to all stainless steel and cast iron cookware.

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

#349

Post by twistedpair »

photochemsyn wrote: post #86

Pure gasoline is not that great of a motor fuel because it knocks (explodes when it's not supposed to during the internal combustion engine cycle). This is a major problem with high-compression airplane engines. However, tetra-ethyl-lead (think one lead atom bonded to four ethanols minus the oxygen atoms) was never necessary to combat the problem. Ethanol's anti-knock properties at a blend of 85% gasoline 15% ethanol…

Don't forget UL94 as well. You can already buy it at select airfields.

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

#350

Post by stewx »

twistedpair wrote: post #348
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…

Aluminum and metal particles. There are various (inconclusive) studies suggesting a tie between metal particles in the blood/brain and dementia. Ever notice that foods now say thing things like "Ingredients: baking powder (aluminum free)", that you can get "Aluminum free" deodorant, etc? Liking to stack the deck in my favor, I've moved to all stainless steel and cast iron cookware.

Stainless steel cookware typically contains aluminum for the part that retains heat, whether that be a disc on the bottom of the pan or sandwiched in the walls of the vessel. Steel doesn't retain heat well but is prettier and more durable, so it goes on the outside. In any case, it should be a safe choice if you want to avoid ingesting aluminum.
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