[somenameforme]

I would also emphasize a more social issue to this. There's also a tendency for society to discount the dangers of something when the impact is sporadically distributed or long-term. Beyond the endless corporate lobbying and sold out scientists/politicians working to convince everybody that leaded fuel was 100% safe, I think there was also probably a mindset of many in society that 'Well, if leaded fuel is so poisonous and I'm breathing it in everyday, then why am I perfectly fine?' And with such "logic" dismiss any concerns about its safety.

[starkparker]

The Nation's story on it dives much deeper. There was an out and out panic about lead and leaded gasoline in the 1920s that GM and Ethyl/du Pont had to squash, which Midgely happily participated in. https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/secret-history-lea...

[acuozzo]

> which Midgely happily participated in

Which moves him from the category of buffoon to evil.

[Arrath]

> There's also a tendency for society to discount the dangers of something when the impact is sporadically distributed or long-term.

Doesn't US regulation still approach novel chemicals with a "Safe until proven otherwise" stance? Surely this doesn't help.

[dsfyu404ed]

It's infinitely more convenient to assume that the leaders in the past were evil and the masses of the past ignorant than it is to assume they weren't let alone assume they were mostly just like us.

It must be nice to be able to make those assumptions and believe them...

[somenameforme]

Midgley had to be treated for lead poisoning following one of his demonstrations of how safe leaded fuel was. The fact leaded fuel was unsafe would not have come as a surprise to him or anybody else familiar with its development and risks. I don't give much of any consideration to good or evil, but I do to ethics and values. And our society's leaders, corporate and political, have been woefully absent of them for some time, in a trend that seems to be clearly rapidly worsening.

So in that regard I do agree that people of times past were, more or less, the same as today. Yet even the most cursory glance of our history, outside of what is taught in history class, is something that would emphasize that that belief is anything but nice to hold!

[JohnFen]

It's easy to believe because I see similar things happening in real time, right now.