Leaded gas was a known poison the day it was invented (2016) • Hacker News Board

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

#371

Post by Delk » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 4:20 PM UTC

datavirtue wrote: post #362

capeterson wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Throughout the last year or so, I've seen multiple people on HN call out polyunsaturated fats, is there a specific reason for that? Google hasn't really turned up anything for me that looked particularly compelling.

Soybean oil is one prominent and very prolific and profitable example. It is everywhere. It was first developed to add to feed to fatten animals (turkeys). You can still buy it in fifty gallon drums at feed mills. Nasty stuff. It breaks down and oxidizes readily under heat (and in the body). Oxidation == free radicals. Hydrogenation (hydrogen injection) makes it thick at room temperature, otherwise it is a thin oil l…

Canola oil, some seeds and (true) nuts, as well as fatty fish also contain lots of polyunsaturated fats. Most of those are generally considered healthy. Would those also become unhealthy for the reasons you've listed?

I think arguing that "polyunsaturated fats will be seen as grossly unhealthy" requires more than an example of (ab)use of a particular oil.

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

#372

Post by colordrops » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 4:34 PM UTC

Delk wrote: post #371

datavirtue wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Soybean oil is one prominent and very prolific and profitable example. It is everywhere. It was first developed to add to feed to fatten animals (turkeys). You can still buy it in fifty gallon drums at feed mills. Nasty stuff. It breaks down and oxidizes readily under heat (and in the body). Oxidation == free radicals. Hydrogenation (hydrogen injection) makes it thick at room temperature, otherwise it is a thin oil l…

Canola oil, some seeds and (true) nuts, as well as fatty fish also contain lots of polyunsaturated fats. Most of those are generally considered healthy. Would those also become unhealthy for the reasons you've listed? I think arguing that "polyunsaturated fats will be seen as grossly unhealthy" requires more than an example of (ab)use of a particular oil.

Yes, they're all heavily processed in refineries using noxious chemicals, they have low smoke points, and get rancid easily. They are not a type of oil (omega-6 [1]) that humans have eaten much of until recently. We mainly got our source of them from food rather than pure oil.

Omega-3 polyunsaturated fats are good for you in moderation if extracted cold without processing, uncooked, and stored in opaque containers in a fridge.

In general, getting oils from foods is best, rather than using them in refined form.

The reason PUFAs are pushed so much is probably due to heavy support from the farms and industry that manufacture them.

[1] https://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(13)...

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

#373

Post by Sohcahtoa82 » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 4:39 PM UTC

golergka wrote: post #344

culopatin wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ex…

I believe COVID came out of a Chinese virus lab, but I also think that the leak of the virus was done out of incompetence, not malice.

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

#374

Post by golergka » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 4:55 PM UTC

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #373

golergka wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ex…

I believe COVID came out of a Chinese virus lab, but I also think that the leak of the virus was done out of incompetence, not malice.

That's reasonable. Also, I _think_ that it came from a lab, but it's still 80-90%, not 100% for me. And then there are some theories that I don't agree with, as I think that their probability is 5-20%, but it's important that those theories, too, aren't silenced, as they're completely different from 0% "Earth is flat" BS.

Edit: Actually, strike that: I think that none theories should be silenced, including flat Earth. Exactly because of what I described in this thread.

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

#375

Post by MisterBastahrd » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 5:34 PM UTC

SavantIdiot wrote: post #315

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

I had a laugh back in ~2000 when VP Cheney said humans weren't having an impact on the environment. I grew up on long island and we used to pull bivalves (steamers, mussels, perriwinkels (not a bivalve)) in the 60's and 70's. Then in the 90's everything was banned due to pollution. O.G. immigrants still harvested despite the bans, but it was sad to see the consequence of pollution.

Most people who are under 50 years old in the New Orleans area have NO idea whatsoever that there used to be an entire amusement park and beach on Lake Ponchartrain where people would go, enjoy the day, and enjoy the beach.

This is because the water became so polluted that families no longer thought that it was safe to be in. It's been decades now and the water quality is just starting to be clean enough to swim in again.

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

#376

Post by jbuhbjlnjbn » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 5:37 PM UTC

refurb wrote: post #333

jbuhbjlnjbn wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't know that. Also you are trying to defend this guy (from the wikipedia article): "Environmental historian J. R. McNeill opined that Midgley "had more impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in Earth's history",[21] and Bill Bryson remarked that Midgley possessed "an instinct for the regrettable that was almost uncanny"." To put his other inventions under more scrutiny seems like a smart idea,…

Your hindsight is 20/20. Congratulations.

And Midgley should also have known better, with the lead poisoning and all. Again, if you only need common sense to spot a very bad idea, there is just no excuse. Your argument has no legs to stand on.

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

#377

Post by CRConrad » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 6:42 PM UTC

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,

Yeah, because they're the Standard Oil and Aramco of this story.

> 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.

That's like blaming the owners of mom-and-pop filling ("gas") stations for the ills of leaded petrol ("gas").

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

#378

Post by MikeDelta » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 7:00 PM UTC

jmacd wrote: post #355

I have a very distinct memory of disembarking from the Budapest to Belgrade night train to the smells of leaded fuel in Belgrade. Budapest was no standard of cleanliness at the time (late 90s), however Belgrade was truly still in its post-war phase and had all of the energy, anger and edge of a place that had been pretty beaten up. We were robbed, given a pistol in a nightclub (still have no idea what was going on th…

Thank you for sharing this, what an adventure you had.

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

#379

Post by CRConrad » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 7:07 PM UTC

robertlagrant wrote: post #335

foerbert wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's quite fair to label it content-agnostic. I mean it sort of technically is, but practically it isn't. By pushing 'engagement' at all costs, it's essentially inevitable that all the terrible behaviors we see from 'content creators' happen. I agree that they are far from blameless, but when your entire platform is practically globally available to anybody and you only reward unsavory behavior... you'r…

> and you only reward unsavory behavior... you're going to get unsavory behavior They don't only reward that. They reward any engagement, and some content creators have raced to the bottom in terms of creating divisive content.

Setting up an incentives structure for racing to the bottom is still more blameworthy than reacting to the incentives by racing to the bottom. It's a question of relative power: being in a position to even be able to set up incentives for others is inherently a position of power.

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

#380

Post by daddylongstroke » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 7:16 PM UTC

Aloha wrote: post #100

bleachedsleet wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will be over, but it’s not over yet. Your link says that it will both take a while for it to come to market and also be more expensive to produce…an expense that will likely be balked at by the airlines until forced to use it at which point it will be the customers that pay.

Airlines (outside of bush planes) are not using AvGas in any substantive quantity, and have not been since the early 60's. The amount of AvGas used a year is dwarfed (several times over) by the amount of Jet Fuel (Jet A does not have TEL in it). AvGas (which uses TEL) is used by general aviation exclusively.

>AvGas (which uses TEL) is used by general aviation exclusively.

And by people who don't want to ever have to clean or rebuild a carburetor in their small motors. It's been an exceptional motor-life-extender to my chainsaws specifically.