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Thomas Midgley Jr. invented leaded gasoline and chlorofluorocarbons

nytimes.com

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Re: Thomas Midgley Jr. invented leaded gasoline and chlorofluorocarbons

#141

Post by kwere »

yesenadam wrote: post #120
inasio wrote: post #21

Not so one-sided, Fritz Haber [0] is another very interesting chemist. Got a Nobel prize for the process to synthesize ammonia (modern fertilizer production), but then also got side tracked with the 1st world war and became the father of chemical warfare [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Haber

Nobel, inventor of dynamite, created the Nobel prizes to whitewash his name. It sure worked. "by his death, his business had established more than 90 armaments factories, despite his apparently pacifist character." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Nobel How ‘merchant of death’ Alfred Nobel became a champion of peace https://www.thelocal.se/20101004/29406/

One ancestor of modern good hearted billionaires

Re: Thomas Midgley Jr. invented leaded gasoline and chlorofluorocarbons

#142

Post by omniglottal »

dTal wrote: post #119
prennert wrote: post #45

This Cautionary Tales podcast episode talks about him [0]. Both were invented in the service of DuPont. CFC at least helped making refrigeration safer and helped getting it to the masses. Leaded gasoline on the other hand was always known as a bad idea. In both cases though, DuPont fought back hard to prevent bans of these solutions. They rather kill the planet than their profits. Suitably enough he killed himself wi…

I'm going to reiterate a point that needs to be repeated very loudly, as often as possible: Corporations are malignant paperclip maximizers. We are already in an "AI apocalypse". How many people did leaded fuel kill? Lead exposure makes people stupid and violent - how many wars did it indirectly contribute to, how far back has society been held? That's one corporation. One!! "Corporations bad" is a sort of tired left…

It's almost as if a governing body should exist that's by the people, for the people, wherein corporations are not equivalent to more powerful people....

Re: Thomas Midgley Jr. invented leaded gasoline and chlorofluorocarbons

#144

Post by JohnFen »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #82
somenameforme wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would also emphasize a more social issue to this. There's also a tendency for society to discount the dangers of something when the impact is sporadically distributed or long-term. Beyond the endless corporate lobbying and sold out scientists/politicians working to convince everybody that leaded fuel was 100% safe, I think there was also probably a mindset of many in society that 'Well, if leaded fuel is so poisono…

It's infinitely more convenient to assume that the leaders in the past were evil and the masses of the past ignorant than it is to assume they weren't let alone assume they were mostly just like us. It must be nice to be able to make those assumptions and believe them...

It's easy to believe because I see similar things happening in real time, right now.

Re: Thomas Midgley Jr. invented leaded gasoline and chlorofluorocarbons

#145

Post by JohnFen »

actionfromafar wrote: post #65
di4na wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that despite suffering from it he kept doing stunt in public without realising it was a danger. Local rationality is a thing. It is not all a plot to suck money out. He believed his own shit.

Money tends to do that to people.

The love of money is the root of all evil.

Re: Thomas Midgley Jr. invented leaded gasoline and chlorofluorocarbons

#146

Post by kevviiinn »

crote wrote: post #74
lysozyme wrote: post #67

There’s a line of thought that connects the use of leaded gasoline with US crime rates. [1] The idea is that exposure to lead causes people to have problems that lead to violent behavior later in life. The evidence presented includes the correlation observed between the removal of lead from gasoline and a sharp fall in crime rates 20 years later. 1. https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/02/lead-exposur...

A similar link has been suggested for abortion. The drop in crime rate starting in 1993 happened pretty much exactly 20 years after Roe v. Wade was passed in 1973. It is called the "Donohue–Levitt hypothesis".

Interesting that there's a particular political party in the US who likes to bang the drum about crime and law and also wants to ban abortion. Gotta have something to get you votes!

Re: Thomas Midgley Jr. invented leaded gasoline and chlorofluorocarbons

#147

Post by versteegen »

dang wrote: post #140
Weneedlead wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really mean it, though. It does seem to be the other way round than what's claimed, and I really don't know what to do with it.

I know you really mean it! but that doesn't change any of the above. In fact it makes it more important, since it's harder to stop posting like this when you really mean it. It's difficult and frustrating to represent a minority view on the internet, especially one as rare as yours, which the vast majority of the audience are simply not going to understand or accept. What we often see is that contrarian/minority comm…

Thanks for writing this, Daniel. Your cool-headedness and willingness to spend time defusing an conflict is an inspiring example. Favourited this wise comment.

Thanks also Weneedlead for actually trying to argue your case in a relatively civil way after I and others attacked it, and I'm sorry if I raised the temperature. I think those of your arguments which I actually read are highly unconvincing (because toxins usually are functional analogues -- e.g. of calcium in the case of lead), but I freely admit that I'm biased against giving them a fair hearing, because a priori I predict an extremely low chance of it providing me any benefit for my time spent. Doesn't mean I'm absolutely 100% certain you're wrong.

FWIW I flagged a comment because of the potential harm in spreading misinformation, not because it was uncivil, however in hindsight maybe in a forum like this where people have proper debates it's better to discuss than to moderate misinformation.

Re: Thomas Midgley Jr. invented leaded gasoline and chlorofluorocarbons

#148

Post by Weneedlead »

dang wrote: post #140
Weneedlead wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really mean it, though. It does seem to be the other way round than what's claimed, and I really don't know what to do with it.

I know you really mean it! but that doesn't change any of the above. In fact it makes it more important, since it's harder to stop posting like this when you really mean it. It's difficult and frustrating to represent a minority view on the internet, especially one as rare as yours, which the vast majority of the audience are simply not going to understand or accept. What we often see is that contrarian/minority comm…

>The only thing I know that can help with this is accepting in one's heart that humans are nearly entirely wrong about nearly everything, and making peace with it.

I can't. Being wrong means that people exterminate themselves. It isn't something meaningless that doesn't matter.

>Also, people don't choose their views—for the most part we're conditioned by our backgrounds.

Ironically, this appears to be another symptom, just like the intensification of their existing beliefs by contrary evidence. Which also makes them intensify their belief in ever increasing progress even as the majority turns into savages.

Re: Thomas Midgley Jr. invented leaded gasoline and chlorofluorocarbons

#149

Post by Weneedlead »

eternityforest wrote: post #139
Weneedlead wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>any more than the baseline level Again. Can't you see it's a circular argument? How did you determine that it's the 'baseline'? >people are likely getting more lead than 100 years ago. People used to get much more. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03054...

"baseline" meaning "the minimal level of activation one gets without any currently-uncommon exogenous thing that activates it.". There are lots of experiments where they give mice a gene for reduced function of something, or knock something out entirely and they actually live longer. To me that shows that some functions might exist for increased performance or endurance, to a degree no longer needed in civilized soci…

[dead]

Re: Thomas Midgley Jr. invented leaded gasoline and chlorofluorocarbons

#150

Post by dTal »

omniglottal wrote: post #142
dTal wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to reiterate a point that needs to be repeated very loudly, as often as possible: Corporations are malignant paperclip maximizers. We are already in an "AI apocalypse". How many people did leaded fuel kill? Lead exposure makes people stupid and violent - how many wars did it indirectly contribute to, how far back has society been held? That's one corporation. One!! "Corporations bad" is a sort of tired left…

It's almost as if a governing body should exist that's by the people, for the people, wherein corporations are not equivalent to more powerful people....

Yes, and? Yes, governments are supposed to protect us. No, they are not adequate to the task[0] - they were designed before this became an obvious problem. We need to move forward from simply complaining about it, and think structurally.

[0] (although that varies by country and having a government is almost invariably better than not having one)

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