Given almost anything can do something bad to you I've got a rule of thumb not to worry much about things unless they can quantify how many years they take off your life. There are still quite a lot of those around - smoking, air pollution and obesity being some of the top ones that can do >10 years. I'm not to bad on smoking and air pollution but could lose a pound or two. I figure central London has dropped from a couple of years off to maybe a couple of months over the time I've been around here.
Poison, Poison Everywhere
151–160 of 211 posts
Re: Poison, Poison Everywhere
#152I wonder how much this is causing the worldwide swing toward authoritarianism. Lead exposure can cause lower conscientiousness, lower agreeableness, and higher neuroticism.[1] Especially considering the age of people who actually vote and who the politicians in power are (at least in the U.S.) [1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8307752/
Is lead exposure going up or down? I assume it's going down, because lead gasoline was banned, lead paint was banned, and the lead that was in the environment due to those 2 source is slowly being cleaned up.
I at least assume lead exposure now is lower than when leaded gas was primarily used. In the US it started to be phased out in 1973 and finished in 1996.
Re: Poison, Poison Everywhere
#153Climate change seems to be a topic that's "OK" to be skeptical about because you can't see it right now, today, with your own eyes.
I wonder if folks who aren't so keen on the idea of climate change would be more open to the idea of population-level poisoning?
These two issues seem to get lumped in the same bucket but it does seem that population-level poisoning seems to be more of an acute threat. Lead, asbestos, microplastics, PFAs, pesticides... Who knows what these will do over generations, and there is certainly more chemical poisons we've introduced into our environment that we haven't even discovered.
Re: Poison, Poison Everywhere
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
Children eat and chew on lots of things you’d never imagine, even up into elementary and middle school years. A smaller number of adults do too.
So don’t give them your headphones to chew on. Let me just save you the effort of further rounds of responses here: if you chew on plastic, you will be exposed to the chemicals in plastic. If you’re truly worried about this, don’t buy plastic items.
Right, and I agree and I don’t. I’d o my best to explain to my kids they should never put anything in their mouth that isn’t made to be eaten.
But this should be considered when we make blanket claims about it’s okay because we’re just touching them, not eating them. We have to think about how people actually behave, not ideal usage.
By the way, headphones are required in elementary school here and are used at least an hour a day.
Re: Poison, Poison Everywhere
#155I'm tackling part of the issue of food toxin remediation with my new venture, NeutraOat (neutraoat.com). It's a modified oat fiber supplement that selectively traps BPA, PFAS, and plasticizers in the gut and reduces levels in the blood serum. The funding for this is tough, though. Everyone loves the idea, but it's difficult to find people to fund R&D to make sure the product actually works over brand building and mar…
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Re: Poison, Poison Everywhere
#156Climate change seems to be a topic that's "OK" to be skeptical about because you can't see it right now, today, with your own eyes. I wonder if folks who aren't so keen on the idea of climate change would be more open to the idea of population-level poisoning? These two issues seem to get lumped in the same bucket but it does seem that population-level poisoning seems to be more of an acute threat. Lead, asbestos, mi…
In my experience, in the US, harmful chemicals in products are a lot more credible than climate change, to people who listen to the Right. An example that has been in the news: pregnant women taking Tylenol.
For whatever reason, a “natural” lifestyle is more compatible with American conservative politics than an environmentally responsible lifestyle. I think the two can easily overlap, but the former would have to emphasized for it to get any traction with that audience.
EDIT: Replace “for whatever reason” with “due to the influence of the fossil fuel industry”
Re: Poison, Poison Everywhere
#157Amazon is so completely irresponsible for their marketplace that recently, shopping for a glass oral thermometer (because the digital ones suck) I stumbled on reviews with photos showing products that had no mercury inside and actual blobs of mercury stuck to the tip that goes in your mouth. These were still for sale. I feel like even 10 years ago, online marketplaces would have taken measures to prevent stuff like t…
Isn't this a new concept of this era ?
We profit from letting others be free to harm you but we cannot be held responsible.
disruptism ? platformism ?
Re: Poison, Poison Everywhere
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree with this. There are plenty of counterexamples where an individual can have a measurably positive impact on their own life. Solar + batteries comes to mind. Also in your linked example, you brought up reading and literacy as something that would not improve collective problems, and I couldn't disagree more.
Feels like you're on a different tack here: improving your "own life" is different from solving "collective problems". Further, setting up solar + batteries solves a non-modest individual problem, but is not by itself (i.e. reducing carbon footprint; an example mentioned in the parent's link) the solution to climate change. (yes it helps; but incentives leading to people installing solar have a much bigger impact; an…
That's fair. I think I had read the parent a little differently. I was interpreting this as situations where an individual can improve their own experience of a collective problem, in a way accessible to most. But I acknowledge that's a bit different.
With the solar+battery, I was thinking of solving grid issues and energy prices, which it does do.
Re: Poison, Poison Everywhere
#159I'm curious, how many more years do we need to get decent data points to have a controller experiment between "people who min/maxed their health" vs an average person? Life expectancy here in Tokyo is 81/87 years (for men/women), and if constant chase for the "peak health" results in the same average... I'm not sure if it's worth it other than the general 80/20 rule of suggestions?
Re: Poison, Poison Everywhere
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder about lead levels in soil near gen aviation airports for this reason, and in the neighborhoods that sometimes get built on decommissioned runways.
I assume it's pretty inconsequential because if it weren't I'd hear real people talking about it (like with lead paint, and various forms of soil contamination) and as it stands I only hear fake internet comment section hand wringers hand wringing about it.
Per the article we're all commenting on that's maybe not the wisest assumption.
What makes the difference between a fake hand wringer and a real one, by the way? Whether or not this happen to be standing near you at the moment?