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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)

#381

Post by asdff »

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…

Putting the blame on influencers makes no sense. Content creators play this game but they didn't create it, companies participating in the market created this environment and ultimately fund these influencers. A content creator is basically a paid actor.

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

#382

Post by asdff »

cwp wrote: post #251
version_five wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sho…

I guess I put more of the blame on the influencers because they are the ones making editorial decisions. Sure the platforms are optimizing for engagement too, but it's all content-agnostic. The influencers choose their words carefully, and they choose harmful words because it makes them more money.

It's a false notion that these influencers are the ones making these editorial decisions. Imagine you are in charge of ad spend for a large corporation. You majored literally in advertising with a minor in psychology, you don't give a damn about the morality beyond whether or not you leave profit on the table. You simply aren't going to hire influencers who don't play this game how you want it to be played and take advantage of these dark patterns. As a result, the market looks how it is because people who don't play the game aren't landing jobs.

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

#383

Post by asdff »

lovecg wrote: post #202
ijidak wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Environmental historian J. R. McNeill opined that Midgley "had more impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in Earth's history" I can't stop laughing when I read this. But it is shocking that one human can have such an impact on Earth. It's actually kind of scary. What's to stop the next nut, perhaps in a country outside the reach of international law, from causing the same?

It can work both ways though. A single person can also invent a scalable way to sequester CO2 for example.

It's a lot easier to burn things than to figure out how to unburn them though

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

#384

Post by acuozzo »

stjohnswarts wrote: post #71
air7 wrote: post #6

> The most compelling option was actually ethanol. But from the perspective of GM, Kitman wrote, ethanol wasn’t an option. It couldn’t be patented and GM couldn’t control its production. And oil companies like Du Pont "hated it," he wrote, perceiving it to be a threat to their control of the internal combustion engine. I'm generally an avid beliver in free markets as an agent for positive change, so these types of "r…

Free markets work as long as there's competition. When companies become so big they can kill any nascent competitor on a whim, that's when it becomes an issue. That's why trust busting and regulations and governments are necessary.

How does competition fix this? https://www.nbcnews.com/health/cancer/how-dupont-may-avoid-p...

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

#385

Post by CRConrad »

iamtheworstdev wrote: post #354
stephen_g wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently there are diesel prop engines that can run with Jet A1 (see [1]). This is apparently especially convenient given that at some airports Avgas isn't easily available compared to jet fuel (at least here in Australia, according to a pilot/aviation YouTuber that I was watching about this just yesterday). 1. https://newatlas.com/cessna-turbo-182-nxt/23465/

kerosene, diesel, and jet fuel are basically interchangeable in any motor supporting one of them. the liability becomes lubrications in the fuel. avgas is only popular in the US and Canada. jet a is universally cheaper avgas engines can be overhauled at the end of their life, which saves money. diesel engines are basically thrown away and you buy a new one, which negates the cost savings of jet fuel over avgas

> diesel engines are basically thrown away

Because they're "genuinely" absolutely broken, or "just" because of high aviation safety standards? That is, do they really have to be "thrown away" -- or could you buy one, refurbish it, and run it in your light truck, accepting a slight risk of breaking down on the highway in exchange for getting the engine really cheap?

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

#386

Post by CRConrad »

baobabKoodaa wrote: post #337
yibg wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smoking in public? Fracking?

> Smoking in public? Fracking? Are you saying that people who smoke openly state that they "should be free to profit regardless of harm to others"? Who said that? Where? I already asked you to point to a single example to support this claim that certain people think this way, and you couldn't do that. That's because there's literally no people who think like that.

The act of smoking is the statement.

And so is your insistence on pretending not to understand that. Not a pretty one.

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

#387

Post by baobabKoodaa »

wpietri wrote: post #367
baobabKoodaa wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be really going overboard with the strawman arguments here. > So if we want to understand what people care about, we can't just go with their claims about their motivations. I never claimed we should do that. Nobody else claimed such a thing either. Also, I take it as concession that you were unable to provide a single example to support your claim.

You were focused on what people say . In particular "literally no-one on earth saying". I'm saying that asking them isn't sufficient to understand their priorities. People lie, Virginia. I have provided examples elsewhere. But if they aren't sufficient for you, take it as anything you like. I long ago stopped caring that every internet on the random understood my point, especially the ones working hard to not get wha…

> You were focused on what people say [...] People lie

Not true. You're strawmanning again. I already addressed this distinction between "say" versus "think" in the sibling comment, which I'm sure you've read. To refresh your memory, I said: "That's not how people think, at all. People who do horrible things are very good at rationalizing that they are actually the good guys. This is a well studied phenomenon."

> I have provided examples elsewhere.

Ok, I searched the thread and now found your examples. Let's address one of them:

> A modern example is public health. Everything from preventing toxic waste dumping to COVID mask mandates is met with cries of "FREEDOM!" Right now there is a large constituency in the US for the right to do whatever they please even if that means they will kill people by giving them a disease.

If you actually engage with these people, you will find that these people don't believe that they are causing significant harm to others. You're comparing their actions to literally killing people, as if going to the grocery store without a mask (as a person who has no symptoms and may even be vaccinated) is placing the public to a risk that is comparable to literally homicide. You're trying too hard to rationalize your belief that republicans are evil. They're not. They're normal people like you and I. Most of them care about their fellow humans, even if they see different risk/benefit tradeoffs to decisions than you do.

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

#388

Post by baobabKoodaa »

CRConrad wrote: post #386
baobabKoodaa wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Smoking in public? Fracking? Are you saying that people who smoke openly state that they "should be free to profit regardless of harm to others"? Who said that? Where? I already asked you to point to a single example to support this claim that certain people think this way, and you couldn't do that. That's because there's literally no people who think like that.

The act of smoking is the statement. And so is your insistence on pretending not to understand that. Not a pretty one.

> The act of smoking is the statement. And so is your insistence on pretending not to understand that. Not a pretty one.

You're the one pretending. There's a difference between these 2 things:

1) Taking actions (like smoking) that put others at some level of risk

2) Thinking that placing any level of harm onto others is justifiable as long as it's profitable

You know very well there's a difference between those things, and yet you're pretending to not understand, while claiming that I'm "pretending not to understand".

Or are you claiming that the average smoker cares so little about fellow humans that they'd be willing to push a person over a cliff ("any level of harm") in order to steal a half-empty beer can from them ("a profit")? Even if we assume a situation where they would be guaranteed to profit the half-empty beer can, I think it's safe to say almost no-one would think this level of harm would justify this level of profit.

Yes, a smoker will put your life at risk by smoking near you. In related news, a driver will put your life at risk by driving near you. Doesn't mean that smokers or drivers will do literally any level of harm to humans in order to gain the tiniest of profit to themselves.

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

#389

Post by kennywinker »

kube-system wrote: post #241
kennywinker wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the gp post was not suggesting “get rid of copyright and leave oss unprotected” - by “OSS should be the default” i read that it should continue to be protected while copyright is removed. It would not be hard for new laws to enshrine + protect OSS licenses

> it should continue to be protected while copyright is removed. It would not be hard for new laws to enshrine + protect OSS licenses Those things are logical opposites. If someone has a right to place any conditions at all on the way people copy their software, that is a copyright. Maybe they meant to suggest copyright reform. I make this point because people often like that GPL forces republishing of derivative wor…

They're only opposite goals in as much as you see copyright and open source licenses as synonymous. I'm not a lawyer, but there are other forms of IP protections that are not copyright (patents, trademarks, etc). Seems like a new form of IP protection could be created to protect open source - i.e. "if someone says you can only modify this code if you re-share it, it is illegal to modify the code without re-sharing".

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

#390

Post by wpietri »

baobabKoodaa wrote: post #387
wpietri wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You were focused on what people say . In particular "literally no-one on earth saying". I'm saying that asking them isn't sufficient to understand their priorities. People lie, Virginia. I have provided examples elsewhere. But if they aren't sufficient for you, take it as anything you like. I long ago stopped caring that every internet on the random understood my point, especially the ones working hard to not get wha…

> You were focused on what people say [...] People lie Not true. You're strawmanning again. I already addressed this distinction between "say" versus "think" in the sibling comment, which I'm sure you've read. To refresh your memory, I said: "That's not how people think, at all. People who do horrible things are very good at rationalizing that they are actually the good guys. This is a well studied phenomenon." > I h…

I am not straw manning.

I have read oceans of anti-masker afguments. Some claim they don't believe they are harming people, and some of those may actually believe it. But the question is whether they have a justified, true belief. They don't. They are all clearly aware of the potential of harm, and the science is pretty clear. Even for the ones who truly believe it, they have to admit that they could be wrong and are going ahead anyhow, so we are back in the "regardless of harm to others" bucket.

And that's not even counting the large number of people who are aware of the possibility of death and are perfectly fine with it. You could look at the Texas Governor speaking proudly about it's ok to sacrifice some old people as long as we're preserving American freedom. Or the Florida governor who banned mask mandates saying, "That’s ultimately an individual's choice to be able to do [vaccines]... And so, I think the question is, we can either have a free society or we can have a biomedical security state. And I can tell you, Florida, we’re a free state."

And masking is just the most dramatic recent example. The history of slavery is super clear. Ditto the history of workplace safety. Or we could look at the societal shifts against drunk driving and secondhand smoke. Both of those were indulged for decades despite high body counts. The shift for each took decades and was fought all the way by people who valued their freedom to do whatever they wanted without regard to harm to others. Including by executives and lobbyists who were well placed to be informed about the actual harm but still worked to keep the laws in their favor without regard to body count.

I agree that all of these people care about some of their fellow humans. They're not monsters. But what they do have is a (learned and often cultivated) lack of empathy for people seen as "other". Which is why we are slowly seeing mask and vaccine resistance decline, along with plenty of deathbed pleas to get the vaccine and for others to get the vaccine.

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