Isn't everything harmful, even distilled water?
3M knew its chemicals were harmful decades ago, but didn't tell the public
221–230 of 245 posts
Re: 3M knew its chemicals were harmful decades ago, but didn't tell the public
#222Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Death sentence is probably a bit much Why? If you knowingly decide to poison thousands of people, that makes you a mass murderer. Since when are we so lenient about those?
Most countries in the world have abolished the death penalty, for good reason.
How is that working out for you?
Re: 3M knew its chemicals were harmful decades ago, but didn't tell the public
#223Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Death sentence is probably a bit much Why? If you knowingly decide to poison thousands of people, that makes you a mass murderer. Since when are we so lenient about those?
... but they're in suits! (nah joking burn them in hell, they are all bunch of power hungry sociopaths, normal folks wouldn't survive a day among such C-suites due to being decent human beings). But realize that list for whatever action would be done would be... very long. Monsanto, bunch of Wall street guys (if you trace actions to real consequences), this and probably many more. I think life sentence in maximum sec…
You can start by the most obvious cases. For the rest long term prison will work as an intermediate as well as complete bankruptcy of said individual.
Re: 3M knew its chemicals were harmful decades ago, but didn't tell the public
#224Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly. And maybe we should make sure that crimes against humanity that go unpunished today can (and will) be punished in the future. Some climate activist kids on tiktok call this "Nuremberg 2046". Doing illegal stuff and lobbying your best to get away with it has become so normal nowadays that maybe an appeal to the honor of the people involved does not cut it.
You would need to be very careful when defining "crimes against humanity" to not be post-facto law. It is like the maxim of it being better to let a hundred guilty go free than punish one innocent: if being innocent is no defense then why would anyone bother to be innocent?
What the Nazis did was totally legal in the Third Reich, back when they did it. They made sure of that. Yet it was totally clear just how against the humanity it was afterwards. Should the victors have let them go at the Nuremberg trials? No, so they used international law and saw this as a starting point for the universal declaration of human rights.
I think it is good that people and companies should think about what will be seen as a crime against humanity afterwards. I'd say anything that goes against the universal declaration of human rights now is a good start, even if there are national loopholes right now. Actors that know now that they are e.g. poisioning the environment/people or actively prevent a solution to climate crisis with millions of starving people on the other side of the scale, know today that what they do is wrong. They just think they will get away with it.
The question is about spirit of the law VS letter of the law. Just because all you did was legal doesn't mean you are innocent or right. Just because you did something illegal doesn't mean you are wrong (e.g. it was illegal to hide a jew in the Third Reich).
So some of the things individual actors so is already illegal under international law and/or a violation of human rights. And I think we would all profit from the faint possibility of that ever becoming a thing.
Re: 3M knew its chemicals were harmful decades ago, but didn't tell the public
#225Earlier quoted context omitted.
They do go away, but it depends on numerous factors. In humans, if you have polymorphisms in various genes relating to GSH detoxification, the half life could increase. (in theory) half-lives of long-chain PFAS were longer than those of short-chain compounds, reaching almost 3 years in some cases. Some studies estimated the average half-lives for PFHxS at 2.86 years and L-PFOS (a specific form of perfluorooctane sulf…
Does this mean that if we stopped producing any new forever chemicals today, it would take more or less three years for organisms to expel them from their systems? Are they destroyed or simply taken out of the organisms and ready to be reabsorbed by the same or another organism for ever?
Environmental half lives are a different animal. I vaguely recall some obs studies that estimate a half life of PFOA to be 90 (water), 114 days for
PFOS, their half-life in water is greater than 90 years for PFOA and
greater than 41 years for PFOS, according to a 2014 publication from the EPA.
There's also a study from Europe showing vastly different half-lives based on soil temperature (colder temps -> longer half life), but I cannot locate the paper at the moment.
US EPA. (2014). Emerging Contaminants Perfluorooctane Sulfonate (PFOS) and Perfluorooctanoic Acid (PFOA), https://www.wqa.org/Portals/0/Government%20Relations/factshe... arch2014.pdf
Re: 3M knew its chemicals were harmful decades ago, but didn't tell the public
#226Earlier quoted context omitted.
That was you? I wouldn't have made the observation had I not read that comment! Maybe we should make a list of topics where people frequently miss the point in this way? Like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconceptions though this is probably not in scope for Wikipedia.
I'm up for it, though off the top of my head, I'm not sure how to make it the right size - short enough to be useful, but longer than "1) learn about feedback loops, 2) think in dynamic systems, not static ones, 3) meditate on “Meditations on Moloch”". A different list I believe I could use is one that's listing some working mitigations to tough problems. Like, checklists are effective at this-and-this in medicine[li…
Moloch things are solvable. They're a relatively recent issue. The despairing tone of Scott Alexander's essay only applies because it assumes we've got an unlimited number of people – but we've got an unknown, finite, and small number of people. That puts the game closer in nature to the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma, where you don't even need superrationality for the best decision to be "cooperate / cooperate".
The problem isn't some kind of game theory issue. The problem is the cultural phenomenon where people believe cruelty is a virtue. The solution is kindness, like people have been saying for thousands of years. (Also reorganising society somewhat.)
In Scott Alexander's terminology: we can build a garden, and keep Moloch out of it, because we are the only ones in our vicinity capable of being powerful agents of Moloch, and we can just… decide not to do that. So many societies have managed that over the years: it's just historical coincidence they didn't end up with industrial metallurgy, lots of boats, and a penchant for proselytism. But now, we don't have any other societies that could come from across the sea and influence us: we're globalised.
Our fate is in our hands, if we can step back from isolationist ethics and be kind (and stop trying to take over the world).
Re: 3M knew its chemicals were harmful decades ago, but didn't tell the public
#227Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would suggest you read up on the history of both communism and socialism and their relationship with pollution and their environment. In a capitalist systems at least there are incentives to get businesses to create better systems over time, that doesn't exist in any other system.
> their relationship with pollution and their environment turns out they had a pretty marginal role in it, compared to the grand total, except maybe the first generation of nuclear weapons USSR produced, that were sealed off and very hard, if not impossible, to defuse. Anyway communism and socialism are not exactly the same thing, you can't put them together in the same basket and can't generalize. Communism in Italy…
They had a marginal role compared to the west only in so far as they didn't produce as much as we did in the west.
But relatively compared to the west they were absolute swine and had no accountability towards their population.
The proof is in the very article we are discussing here. This would never happen in north korea or former soviet union.
You are trying to come up with some redefinition of terms. We all know what communism is, we know what socialism is, we know what capitalism is, we even know what social democratic nations look like (Grew up in one) we also know that most western countries are mixed economies.
I am not sure why you are trying to make up some argument there.
But it all boils down to accountability. In a system where the government is in control of the market it has less incentives as there is nothing that punishes them where as in a system where the companies is accountable to their citizens and then citizens are backed by the government there is a much better incentive structure. Furthermore in market driven systems the companies have an incentive in improving their product on all it's axis as that improves not only their bottom line but also their ability to compete with others.
Noan Chomsky lived in academia his whole life and never had to actually be accountable to any of the many wrong things he claimed.
Re: 3M knew its chemicals were harmful decades ago, but didn't tell the public
#228Minnesota Reformer is the best local news source I've seen.
>To donate via check, please make it out to “States Newsroom,” our parent organization, and write "Minnesota Reformer" on the check's memo line. Mail to:
States Newsroom, 50 F St NW, Ste 460, Washington, DC
Re: 3M knew its chemicals were harmful decades ago, but didn't tell the public
#229Earlier quoted context omitted.
OSHA may have the lowest # of inspectors in ~45 years, but the rate of worker deaths is also at just about its lowest over that same time period - so not sure the # of inspectors is really relevant. More is not always better. Worker deaths in America are down—on average, from about 38 worker deaths a day in 1970 to 13 a day in 2020. Worker injuries and illnesses are down—from 10.9 incidents per 100 workers in 1972 to…
I mean, we lost all our manufacturing in that time period. We have far more service jobs (e.g. not inherently dangerous) in the economy now compared to 1970.
I agree - which is why less inspectors seem reasonable to m, there are a smaller number of dangerous jobs, less inspectors needed, AND imo, most importantly, the ever-present threat of a very expensive jury award keeps some companies on the straight-and-narrow.
Re: 3M knew its chemicals were harmful decades ago, but didn't tell the public
#230Earlier quoted context omitted.
> their relationship with pollution and their environment turns out they had a pretty marginal role in it, compared to the grand total, except maybe the first generation of nuclear weapons USSR produced, that were sealed off and very hard, if not impossible, to defuse. Anyway communism and socialism are not exactly the same thing, you can't put them together in the same basket and can't generalize. Communism in Italy…
They had a marginal role compared to the west only in so far as they didn't produce as much as we did in the west. But relatively compared to the west they were absolute swine and had no accountability towards their population. The proof is in the very article we are discussing here. This would never happen in north korea or former soviet union. You are trying to come up with some redefinition of terms. We all know w…
> They had a marginal role compared to the west only in so far as they didn't produce as much as we did in the west
Yep, exactly, they had a marginal role.
> This would never happen in north korea or former soviet union
Those are not socialist countries though, just plain old dictatorships. It would also not happen in Pinochet's Chile or Franco's Spain or any other fascist dictatorship supported by the US.
> We all know what communism is, we know what socialism is
My point: I don't think most on HN do.
> I am not sure why you are trying to make up some argument there.
Because socialism is not what the first comment was implying it is. And socialism doesn't mean State capitalism USSR style.
What is the role of the Arab countries in the World's pollution?
Are they not capitalist?
What is the role of the capitalistic countries such as the USA in the World's pollution?
Are they not capitalist too???
The argument presented is a fallacy, not supported by facts and it does not even present the argument correctly.
To be perfectly clear
> you live in a capitalist society not some socialist nightmare. Giving it to the government would be much much much worse.
That whole sentence is one big straw man.
- The opposite of capitalist society is not "some socialist nightmare"
- a capitalist society is not the opposite of a nightmare
- socialist doesn't mean "giving it to the government"
- giving it to the government is not proven to be worse, it is in fact the opposite, we are specifically commenting on "3M knew its chemicals were harmful decades ago, but didn't tell the public". Because the public, the government, is the one in charge of not letting these kinds of things happen. This story is proof against the private sector, not the opposite, which, again, is a "No true Scotsman" at this point.
To be even more clear, no government would kill its people to profit and even if they did, sooner or later the people would overthrown it.
But a private company will without doubt do it, using every trick in the book to cover up their responsibilities, because they do not respond to the people.
We have tons of evidence in support of the thesis.
And that's why we have laws to avoid it and agencies devoted to controlling that nothing like that happens.
Unfortunately they can be powerless against corporations with huge budgets and reach.
> Noan Chomsky lived in academia
This is called ad hominem. Noam Chomsky is a highly respected researcher, you should disprove his works, which are public and available to everyone BTW, if you really believe he's wrong, not attack the person.