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Poison, Poison Everywhere

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Re: Poison, Poison Everywhere

#161

Post by isolay »

noduerme wrote: post #46

Amazon 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…

> I feel like even 10 years ago, online marketplaces would have taken measures to prevent stuff like this.

By now the market has "matured" to pure profit orientation. Health or even survival are irrelevant. /s

Re: Poison, Poison Everywhere

#162

Post by ghtbircshotbe »

pjc50 wrote: post #144
noduerme wrote: post #46

Amazon 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…

> Amazon 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 did wonder about how this kind of thing was handled in the UK, and (a) Amazon will happily offer…

I'm convinced the major tobacco companies will do well if the government ever manages to crack down on sketchy and illegal vaping products and stores. But this seems very hard to do.

Re: Poison, Poison Everywhere

#163

Post by joenot443 »

teddyh wrote: post #6

Empowering individuals to solve collective problems rarely work. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31178680 > The appropriate solution is legislation.

> Empowering individuals to solve collective problems rarely work.

In Canadian elementary school in the 2000s, we spent a long time talking about our carbon footprint. The hope was that by carpooling and turning off lights when you left the room, we might still have an Earth to live on by 2030.

Even at the time I felt a little patronized. Having read enough literature on the subject now the math does become clear: we won't solve our climate issues by guilt tripping children on their individual consumption. It's a problem that needs international government attention.

Re: Poison, Poison Everywhere

#164

Post by mrob »

hexbin010 wrote: post #129
Flere-Imsaho wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds interesting. I heard about oat's ability to absorb nasty stuff in the gut for awhile. However, in the UK oats are dried out using glyphosate...a known carcinogen! Feels like modern society makes it nearly impossible to not be exposed to harmful substances...so I hope you're successful.

Flahavans are the best oats (£3/kg). ~200 year old Irish company > We specifically prohibit the use of Glyphosate spraying at any stage of the growing of oats by our farmers. https://www.flahavans.com/inside-flahavans/our-oats/gmo-glyp...

I'll try some. For a long time I've been wary of organic oats because of concern about mycotoxins. I first thought about this after buying some Tesco non-organic oats that tasted of mould. I thought maybe pesticides reduced that risk and organic oats would be even worse. I later tasted mould in non-organic Sainsburys oats (which I suspect were from the same supplier as the Tesco ones), and then again from non-organic Mornflake oats (which were presumably not from the same supplier because they tasted different). I eventually switched to non-organic Quaker oats, which for several years had no perceptible mould taste, but not so long ago I had a box of Quaker oats that tasted of mould too.

It now occurs to me that the mould could have grown post-harvest, and maybe reliance on herbicides to desiccate crops could encourage a sloppy attitude toward drying. Maybe organic crops actually have lower risk of mycotoxin contamination because the farmers are forced to take more care with moisture levels. I carefully taste a small portion of each new batch, but I don't think taste is a reliable means of detecting mould contamination. It's also possible that mould grew because of improper storage after the oats were packaged, which is made worse by the modern trend of cardboard/paper packaging.

I'm still not confident with any brand, but I like oats too much to stop eating them.

Re: Poison, Poison Everywhere

#165

Post by mrob »

hammock wrote: post #47
noduerme wrote: post #46

Amazon 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…

Why are they even selling mercury thermometers for oral use when an alcohol one (the red liquid) does fine

Mercury has higher thermal conductivity than alcohol. The temperature reading stabilizes faster with mercury.

Re: Poison, Poison Everywhere

#166

Post by M95D »

4gotunameagain wrote: post #92
coppsilgold wrote: post #89

Bloodletting is a solution. Donate blood as frequently as they allow you. Plasma donation works even better (higher frequency) if you trust the machines and the process. Sadly, it's not a complete solution as some harmful substances bio-accumulate in other tissues. A benefit may be had regardless as some substances leach back into the blood if the concentration gradient is sufficient.

Source?

2 millennia of bloodletting medical practice. /s

Re: Poison, Poison Everywhere

#167

Post by omgbear »

Thorrez wrote: post #152
omgbear wrote: post #150

I 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.

Down a lot now, but likely peaked in the 70s -- Kids growing up then are likely 50-60 which are the higher turnout voting brackets.

There's a lagging effect from lead exposure, so it's difficult to pinpoint when those exposed would be most impacted.

https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-americans-vote-and-ho...

Re: Poison, Poison Everywhere

#168

Post by kragen »

consp wrote: post #79
kragen wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It surely reduced it by a tiny amount compared to just straight octane, but ethanol reduced it by something like 10%. So using TEL instead of ethanol gave you about 10% higher gas mileage.

At worst to get equivalent octane rating you lose about 4 percent in power density. In practice you won't notice due to the slightly more efficient burning of alcohol.

I don't think that is correct.

Re: Poison, Poison Everywhere

#169

Post by jimnotgym »

notachatbot123 wrote: post #130
jimnotgym wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, before you demonise glyphosate too much, it is worth realising its role in the widespread adoption of low/no till farming, which reduces fertilizer usage, reduces carbon emissions from the soil, and uses tractor power and time, therefore reducing carbon again. Basically by killing all of the weeds with something that won't kill the crop you are about to plant, means you don't have to plough. It is a classic tra…

Or you could use electric tractors. Or humans. Or grow less crop just as food for animals to be eaten again, it is so horribly inefficient.

Electric tractors aren't a thing. That is because a battery big enough to power a tractor pulling a plough all day is infeasibly large. Pulling a constant load is a very different thing to a car that coasts most of the time.

Humans are not strong enough to pull ploughs. You could grow food and feed it to draught animals, but as you point out, that is horribly inefficient.

Mythical Electric Tractor or not, you still have carbon being released from the ground by ploughing to control weeds. You can avoid ploughing to control weeds with glyphosate.

When a better solution for weed control comes along we can say goodbye to glyphosate too, I believe it is about as far off as Desktop Linux, as in 'next year'.

Just remember, glyphosate costs farmers money. They wouldn't use it if there was a better way

Re: Poison, Poison Everywhere

#170

Post by 542354234235 »

cakealert wrote: post #84
hiddencost wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, it used to be until it was gutted in the last 30 years. Legislation and bureaucracy has been one of the most successful interventions for public health for centuries. Read about the hole in the ozone layer. Banning lead paint. Read about the invention of public water authorities. Read Silent Spring and read about its aftermath. Look into the history of air pollution and the EPA. These are some of the crown jewels…

There has never been a point where tipping point public demand for regulation did not lead to regulation (if it was for example unconstitutional to regulate). Which makes the assertion that regulation is the solution unprovable. If the FDA never got established, would firms emerge that put their seals of approval on medicine and become trusted? We will never know. It's pointless to point out what happened before the…

You say regulation solving problems is unprovable when we have many examples of it doing so, then you claim that without regulation, we would solve things other ways, without any examples of that ever happening, let alone on a large scale. To “pierce the corporate veil both civilly and criminally” is legislation, as laws determine what is criminal. We also had exactly that in the US, where corporations lobbied for reduced regulation, saying that lawsuits would keep them honest through monetary losses. They then immediately went about lobbying to reduce lawsuit liability, cap payouts, and launched a vast PR campaign to paint lawsuits as money grabs by unscrupulous people looking for a payout.

And why wouldn’t a company “whose only product is trust” not be incentivized to sell that trust to the highest bidder? Companies sell out all the time and continue to do good business for a decade or more on customer trust they built up or came with the brand name they bought.

The saying “regulations are written in blood” comes to mind. So where are all the examples of things getting fixed through other means when regulation isn’t written to fix something?

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