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U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

reuters.com

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Re: U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

#391

Post by mnm1 »

papito wrote: post #296
mnm1 wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should we have to force socialize people in a context of killing others? We force socialize people in plenty of other contexts like 12 years of schooling, most of which is mandatory. That hasn't gotten people to play in a team. Why would six weeks be any different? The only thing that will come out of mandatory boot camp is resentment and hate towards the government, institutions, and people that demand it. My pa…

I didn't say conscription. Basic 6 weeks training with zero obligation to serve. I would imagine it would actually solve the recruitment struggles as many people will love it and join right away.

I can't see the appeal of being forced to do anything for six weeks. Not to mention that from the descriptions of boot camp I've read, it's a dehumanizing, depersonalizing experience. Even if I did enjoy it, I would resent essentially being made a slave against my will and being forced into it. I think that's a very common human response to being forced to do something.

Re: U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

#392

Post by mnm1 »

GcVmvNhBsU wrote: post #269
mnm1 wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should we have to force socialize people in a context of killing others? We force socialize people in plenty of other contexts like 12 years of schooling, most of which is mandatory. That hasn't gotten people to play in a team. Why would six weeks be any different? The only thing that will come out of mandatory boot camp is resentment and hate towards the government, institutions, and people that demand it. My pa…

I’d argue that 12 years of schooling does get people to play as a team, it’s just that the team is smaller and more local. If I grow up in a smallish town in South Dakota I will go to school with and know people who mostly look like me. I won’t meet someone from a big coastal city and get to learn their worldview and how it was shaped. I won’t (probably) experience what it feels like to be in a minority role (as in r…

I think if we had a draft we wouldn't be in all these wars but we also wouldn't have much of an army. Short of an actual attack against the US like pearl harbor I cannot see people actually showing up. When you have millions of draft dodgers out in the open, what can you do? It's impossible to even arrest them all. Wouldn't even be worth trying. I think our military leaders know this. That's why we have no draft and likely why we'll never have one again.

Why for for a country that doesn't even care enough about you to provide you healthcare? Fuck that.

Re: U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

#393

Post by jp555 »

MichaelApproved wrote: post #51
jp555 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"privatization of profits and socializing losses." This is ideologically biased. You mean "externalize RISK", which governments and NGOs do all the time too.

I prefer my phrase because it’s not sterile. My intention is to spread the ideology. My comment isn’t addressing an economics class, it’s addressing an electorate.

it just seems to me to be only trading one kind of risk externalization for another. Simple top-down solutions are so very attractive, but are absolute folly for interconnected complex systems. The moral of the Tower of Babel. Or if you prefer a different ancient heuristic, simple utopian visions are always a Siren that will eat you.

Nassim Taleb's concept of scale seems to me could be one root cause. The farther away the deciders are to the implications of their decisions, the less accountability they have. The more local and "market based" systems are, the more accountability, or Skin In The Game they have, and therefore more robust the dynamic.

Example: Communism has worked wonderfully at the scale of the family for thousands of years, but has always turned monstrous at the scale of a nation.

Re: U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

#394

Post by papito »

mnm1 wrote: post #391
papito wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say conscription. Basic 6 weeks training with zero obligation to serve. I would imagine it would actually solve the recruitment struggles as many people will love it and join right away.

I can't see the appeal of being forced to do anything for six weeks. Not to mention that from the descriptions of boot camp I've read, it's a dehumanizing, depersonalizing experience. Even if I did enjoy it, I would resent essentially being made a slave against my will and being forced into it. I think that's a very common human response to being forced to do something.

You are "forced" to get a job after school. Few of us like it, but we have to do it. Also, an experience like this could potentially develop some humility in privileged human bio-waste. Jared Kushner comes to mind.

Re: U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

#395

Post by sparker72678 »

mcguire wrote: post #216
sparker72678 wrote: post #126

Can anyone help me understand how anything at a concentration of I'm not arguing, just trying to get my head around it. (And yes I realize that in some of these areas the concentrations were orders of magnitude higher; the recommendation for allowable concentration is < 1PPT according to the article)

It doesn't degrade and accumulates in the body ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfluorooctanoic_acid#Human_d... ), where it looks like it acts like a "biological handgrenade" (a nifty term I heard elsewhere). " PFOA is not rapidly eliminated from the human body, with a half-life of 3.8 years in human blood, thus raising the public concerns over the toxicological implications due to internal exposure. " ( https://www…

Got it, thanks!

Re: U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

#396

Post by sparker72678 »

theptip wrote: post #169
sparker72678 wrote: post #126

Can anyone help me understand how anything at a concentration of I'm not arguing, just trying to get my head around it. (And yes I realize that in some of these areas the concentrations were orders of magnitude higher; the recommendation for allowable concentration is < 1PPT according to the article)

I believe these chemicals get concentrated in the human body as they don’t get eliminated very fast. They are very stable too (hence “forever chemical”) so they don’t break down either.

Makes sense, thanks!

Re: U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

#397

Post by sparker72678 »

refurb wrote: post #151
sparker72678 wrote: post #126

Can anyone help me understand how anything at a concentration of I'm not arguing, just trying to get my head around it. (And yes I realize that in some of these areas the concentrations were orders of magnitude higher; the recommendation for allowable concentration is < 1PPT according to the article)

I had a similar question. I assume that these compounds aren’t readily excreted from the body, so you’d want a very low limit with the understanding it would accumulate over time? Just a guess.

That makes sense. Thanks!

Re: U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

#398

Post by kohtatsu »

kikoreis wrote: post #389
hnick wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently learned a lot of 'compostable' plasticky items are not bio-degradable. They rely on a technicality to say they can be composted after being pre-treated or broken down with another chemical or process. Or something ridiculous of the sort.

As long as there is a process in place to ensure that is done post collection, why is that a problem?

As long as there is a process in place to ensure that is done post collection, there isn't a problem.

Ensuring that process is in place is the hard part. My city doesn't do commercial composting, so partially composted cups are ending up in gardens that were labelled "compostable", but had fine-print on the bottom explaining that it's only compostable in a commercial process.

Re: U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

#399

Post by tlavoie »

kikoreis wrote: post #389
hnick wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently learned a lot of 'compostable' plasticky items are not bio-degradable. They rely on a technicality to say they can be composted after being pre-treated or broken down with another chemical or process. Or something ridiculous of the sort.

As long as there is a process in place to ensure that is done post collection, why is that a problem?

Quite a few things are compostable in industrial scale municipal compost systems, where there are higher temperatures then the bin in the back yard. We compost food scraps to use in the garden, and it generally works great.

What we found was that certain items just never broke down, like certain tea bags that have what looks like a plastic tetrahedron instead of a filter-paper bag. The bags end up getting scattered about by our chickens, and eventually picked up and thrown away by ourselves. So, we don't buy those any more.

Re: U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

#400

Post by hammock »

germinalphrase wrote: post #362
hammock wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How old are you? The key feature is not breathability but "waterproof+breathable." You might not be old enough to remember airtight rubber raingear, or questionably waterproof oilskin, or horribly "water resistant" synthetics. You also might not be into gear enough to have realized the significant spectrum of breathability between a nylon jacket, a 2.5 layer jacket, and a fully 3-ply goretex pro. It is a real thing,…

I am aware. I’ve sold this gear, have owned a spectrum of different types, and use it regularly. Humidity differentials are real. I stand by what I said.

Maybe one day they will make a rain jacket with an air compressor in it :)
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