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Nearly half of the tap water in the US is contaminated with ‘forever chemicals,’

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61–70 of 181 posts

Re: Nearly half of the tap water in the US is contaminated with ‘forever chemicals,’

#61

Does anyone have a whole home, or under the sink water filter they'd recommend?

Get any undersink RO system. I went with a tanked system (there is a pressurized tank for storing filtered water) but I have friends who were happy with tankless (tap gives you the trickle of filtered water directly).

I live in an area with very hard tap water (500 ppm TDS); even without a water softener the output becomes ~80 ppm TDS, and the water hardness test strips check out at ~40 ppm. I then installed a water softener with its own sediment pre-filter, and now the overall RO output looks (TDS-wise) even more pure than your typical plastic-bottled water.

Re: Nearly half of the tap water in the US is contaminated with ‘forever chemicals,’

#62
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So because some people were mean to you, you just changed all your values about gay marriage, climate change, social welfare, etc? Honestly I actually don't like the "tax the rich to make them pay their fair share" narrative either because it implies that taxes are what pays for the social programs, which is reductive at best (at least with current US monetary theory). I don't make more than $400,000/year [1], but I…

I think the start of your reply is the bad faith they’re calling out — as that’s obviously not what they said. They simply prioritize their well-being and not being vilified over the social causes you view as $very_important; and I’d suggest that since you bring up issues such as minority rights, you examine why you think they should accept being othered and vilified, when clearly you object to that behavior in other…

I don't know why you put "sit down and shut up" in quotes when I very decidedly (and purposefully) didn't say that.

Re: Nearly half of the tap water in the US is contaminated with ‘forever chemicals,’

#63
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> or that does not excessively and punitively tax business and "the rich" Your bias is showing a bit there.

As someone who was a life-long liberal, but worked their ass off to become a 1%er, I 100% believe that the Democrats are using people like me as scapegoats and it makes me furious. I worked and studied when my classmates or coworkers were partying, made good choices, and now I enjoy a nice life because of it. But now all of a sudden, because I make over $400,000 I "don't pay my fair share of taxes", according to Eliz…

I don't know you so can't comment on your position. The fact of the matter is you studied hard and did something your peers did not and as such,and assuming we're going to need people with your learned skills and knowledge, you will get paid a premium as a reward. The question is how much of a reward, it's acceptable until the point it becomes exploitative. In this day and age a lot of that high compensation going around isn't due to increased value add but rather by reducing (exploiting) others compensation. Can you add value without the janitor doing his part? Its getting to the point where people doing necessary jobs are no longer able to live, despite them adding value. Can take it one step further, even if people aren't able to add value (lacking skills etc.), you still live with them in the society you live in, what happens then? Guillotines? Pogroms? Your success is not yours alone. Society got you to that place and enabled it.

The US and EU country GDP's per capita are very similar like around €60k. The inequality is what is different. $400k is just insane in European country.

But your money is still small fry, billionaires own like 30% of everything in the US. Politicians are probably hiding behind taxing your class, rather than the real issue, billionaires.

Re: Nearly half of the tap water in the US is contaminated with ‘forever chemicals,’

#64
post #57

Does anyone have a whole home, or under the sink water filter they'd recommend?

I have an APEC systems RO-90 in my parents home and an APEC RO-hi system in my house. They work fantastic and are easy to install. Brings me peace of mind knowing my drinking water is super clean

I went APEC too; can recommend, but I expect most of the look-alike systems to work equally well (filters being interchangeable).

Re: Nearly half of the tap water in the US is contaminated with ‘forever chemicals,’

#65
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the start of your reply is the bad faith they’re calling out — as that’s obviously not what they said. They simply prioritize their well-being and not being vilified over the social causes you view as $very_important; and I’d suggest that since you bring up issues such as minority rights, you examine why you think they should accept being othered and vilified, when clearly you object to that behavior in other…

I don't know why you put "sit down and shut up" in quotes when I very decidedly (and purposefully) didn't say that.

Because I’m paraphrasing your reply, which aligns with that mentality.

You didn’t explicitly say that because you know your own behavior is inappropriate — and pretend to condemn it in other contexts.

But Democrats are commonly hypocritical — eg, claiming to protect minority rights while being frothing mad they’re told they can’t use 1950s arguments about “too many Asians and Jews” to engage in systemic racism at universities.

Re: Nearly half of the tap water in the US is contaminated with ‘forever chemicals,’

#66
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no evidence that fluoride is remotely dangerous in reasonable quantities, only in ridiculous quantities that are impossible to reach under normal circumstances.

Young children chug toothpaste

What does that have to do with water treatment?

Re: Nearly half of the tap water in the US is contaminated with ‘forever chemicals,’

#67
post #26
post #2

And not just the tap water. Eating a fish meal out of the Mississippi in Minnesota (by 3M) will give you a month's worth of PFOS if you were just drinking contaminated tap water. It's a real shame because the Mississippi mercury levels were finally down enough to eat fish.

How much is “a month’s worth” and how does that amount related to known toxicity levels? I mean, water naturally contains toxins like arsenic and lead. We don’t fret when it’s present (its present in most water) but only when the amounts cause toxicity.

Yes. Along many fishing shorelines there are signs posted that tell you how many of each type of fish you can eat per week, depending if you are a man, woman, depending on age range.

Each state publishes them. Here is the one for Minnesota for example:

https://www.health.state.mn.us/communities/environment/fish/...

Re: Nearly half of the tap water in the US is contaminated with ‘forever chemicals,’

#69
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why you put "sit down and shut up" in quotes when I very decidedly (and purposefully) didn't say that.

Because I’m paraphrasing your reply, which aligns with that mentality. You didn’t explicitly say that because you know your own behavior is inappropriate — and pretend to condemn it in other contexts. But Democrats are commonly hypocritical — eg, claiming to protect minority rights while being frothing mad they’re told they can’t use 1950s arguments about “too many Asians and Jews” to engage in systemic racism at uni…

Ok, but quotes tend to imply something literal, or nearly-literal, and it's not something I said, nor did I imply it, at least not intentionally.

I've personally always hated when certain groups are "not allowed" to have an opinion on given topics, for whatever reason, and I have pretty actively said as much when people have told others to "sit down and shut up", so in your particular case you're responding to a straw man and assigning attributes to me that are not true.

EDIT:

You edited your response after the fact and didn't disclose that. I'm responding to your edits now.

> You didn’t explicitly say that because you know your own behavior is inappropriate — and pretend to condemn it in other contexts.

Do I know my own behavior is inappropriate? What behavior is that exactly?

> But Democrats are commonly hypocritical — eg, claiming to protect minority rights while being frothing mad they’re told they can’t use 1950s arguments about “too many Asians and Jews” to engage in systemic racism at universities.

I have very mixed feelings in regards to the way that universities do their recruiting, and even in regards to the recent supreme court decision. Again, you're assigning labels to me that don't really apply. I tend to vote left, so I guess it's fair to lump me in with Democrats in a consequentialist sense.

Re: Nearly half of the tap water in the US is contaminated with ‘forever chemicals,’

#70
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> or that does not excessively and punitively tax business and "the rich" Your bias is showing a bit there.

As someone who was a life-long liberal, but worked their ass off to become a 1%er, I 100% believe that the Democrats are using people like me as scapegoats and it makes me furious. I worked and studied when my classmates or coworkers were partying, made good choices, and now I enjoy a nice life because of it. But now all of a sudden, because I make over $400,000 I "don't pay my fair share of taxes", according to Eliz…

I don't want to talk you out of opposition to the Democratic party or to vilification of ANYONE, including the wealthy. But I DO have a perspective you might be missing:

You write: > As someone who [...] worked their ass off to become a 1%er [...] I worked and studied when my classmates or coworkers were partying, made good choices, and now I enjoy a nice life because of it.

I, like you, work fairly hard and have become quite well-compensated. What I'd like to point out is that there are probably two categories of folks who are NOT "1%ers". There are those who were "partying" and making poor choices and therefore have a lower income. But there are also those who worked VERY hard but never had the opportunity to be rewarded for that work.

It is easy for me to feel entitled about my distinguished-software-engineer-level income if I think only of the first group, but if I compare myself to the second group I have to remember that many of them never had the chance to go to college, never had the opportunities I had and aren't in any way "undeserving". You probably already know everything I am saying here, but I wanted to share that this perspective is one I keep in mind when making statements so I don't come out sounding unreasonably entitled.

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