[rngname22]

Yep. And I wonder why we don't see more childhood cancer death images linked to the multinational chemical conglomerates and industrial corps that pollute our waterways and air continuously, it couldn't possibly have to do with corporate donors (sorry, advertising customers) to media or the incentive for media to only cover deaths that generate reader engagement and subscribers.

Kill 10,000 people 5-15 years earlier than their otherwise natural trajectory for death by dumping PCBs in the river (ignoring that additional cohorts will have an increased disease burden going forward for....decades? Centuries? Who knows if you can un-shit this bed), no one gives a shit apart from a symbolic fine of 1% of annual revenue 20 years later. Certainly no actual punishment for those involved.

Kill a couple thousand with a plane into a building and the world's most powerful country starts a war.

[rightbyte]

I know nothing about the case, but you got the lurking benefit of doubt for those more abstract killings. Like the poor guy that thought it was a good idea to put Freon in refrigerators. Oh, and also put led in gasoline.

Some people can more or only feel sorry for small children or animals, because they are obviously innocent, while a grown up could have done something to deserve it. I think that is a failure to the extreme of having a hard time dealing with more abstract (maybe indirect is a better word?) crimes.

[gerdesj]

"Oh, and also put led in gasoline."

Freon and lead were engineering decisions. Both had properties that fixed a burning issue at the time. Unfortunately they also had ... side effects that became apparent later. Neither involved "a guy", they involved entire countries, blocs and multi national enterprises.

[ZeroGravitas]

Leaded gasoline was partly a business decision too.

One of the alternatives, which we use today is to add ethanol.

Ethanol had the business problem of being an alternative fuel in its own right, which competes with gasoline.

[LasEspuelas]

A history of led in gasoline: https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/secret-history-lea...

[c54]

The guy in question knew very well about the negative effects of lead[0]. The way in which you're right is that under capitalism, the profit motive distorts and chews up any moral precepts of any individual. The machine demands efficiency no matter how many lives it consumes.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr.

[nearbuy]

The article says it was widely known that large doses of lead are toxic but says they found that 0.08% lead in gasoline was safe.

Today it's widely known that large doses of solanine (a compound in potatoes and tomatoes) are toxic, but the amount commonly in food is thought to be safe. So we haven't banned potatoes.

But even if some insane or evil scientist invents a harmful compound that becomes widely used, I'd be mainly angry at the US Public Health Services, or the equivalent public health agency in other countries. It's their responsibility to only allow safe products. They conducted a study on leaded gasoline and decided not to ban it. And every other country allowed it as well.

So we have to conclude every country's public health agency was either corrupt or incompetent, or that the harm from leaded gasoline at the dosage used wasn't obvious at the time. (Or both.)

[gls2ro]

One is not like the other.

Humans have eat potatoes for about 8000 years. So that seems to be a pretty large scale experiment.

While deciding to put a safe amount of a dangerous material on a product used in large scale is not a good decision.

Not sure how to explain (as I have little time now) but here is a simple way: - both potatoes and led have safe and dangerous levels - one - potato - was used since at least 8000 years ago - the other was not used on such large scale

It seems to me that we need to define safe levels in other way:

- safe levels on small scale and uses rarely

- safe levels on large scale or used constantly

[nearbuy]

Unfortunately it's an 8000 year experiment with no control group that can only detect large or acute effects. We don't know if regular exposure to potatoes slightly decreases IQ or increases risk of cancer or any other effects. (And, in fact, potatoes grilled over a fire are suspected to be carcinogenic.)

With leaded gas, the problem was also these small, long term effects that had never been established despite lead being used for thousands of years.

[klipt]

The Romans were using lead thousands of years ago too.

Small amounts of lead don't kill you immediately, they just make you a little dumber, a little more aggressive...

[throwaway2037]

This one:

    the harm from leaded gasoline at the dosage used wasn't obvious at the time

I think the same is true of lead in (house) paint.

[kelseyfrog]

Reading a Thomas Midgley Jr. biography might change your mind.

He was famously warned of leaded gasoline's dangers, had to take a vacation to Miami to recover from lead poisoning. And also was famously a co-inventor of CFCs.

His only saving grace is that his name is also on the list of "inventors killed by their own inventions."

[latency-guy2]

> The machine demands efficiency no matter how many lives it consumes.

Aside from typical drivel, what evidence do you have of lowered quality of life compared to other modes of economic structure? Of all the economic systems in the world, capitalist societies have had life expectancy (from birth, age 10, age 20, etc.) trend upwards. Famously, the Soviet Union dropped life expectancy in a time of peace, as did East Germany.

The US of A is known for its individualism in stark contrast to many other societies, so you're going to have to prove a lot with this statement:

> the profit motive distorts and chews up any moral precepts of any individual

[6510]

There are countless ways to use the machine.

If citizens have little or no influence on their government it might be better not to horrify them with... shall we say... reality(?) If all we have is poisonous water for you then you can just drink it without knowing what is in it.

If we are going to do some kind of democracy we need you to have access and/or exposure to the full horror of the situation.

The market machinery needs a good definition of profit. If it must all be measured in one unit we can do that, money, gold, sea shells or quality of life, it doesn't really matter to the game.

We ironically build the proverbial hospital then go look for ways to profit from it. It follows that treatment must be as expensive as possible in order to maximize profit. You could consider the hospital the profit.

If we are going to modify your reality for you then your opinion is anything money can buy and we wont have the advantages of totalitarianism either.

There would be no difference between building or bombing hospitals. It would just be a matter of which is more profitable.

Other models of economic structure is a fun topic but we are not in a position to do it. We might want to rewrite it in Rust but the best we can hope for is some small modifications, close some of the worse bugs. It is hard to let the imagination run wild if it's not going to happen.

[3seashells]

What evidence do you have that the sensor(human experience) is adequate to detect incremental or longterm change?

We could literally nuke the entire planet and 30 years later have a generation for which cancer, long winters and ruined before time cities are normal. The species sucks at perceiving reality

[latency-guy2]

What?

[lithos]

Lead was chosen over ethanol as it could be patented and licensed out.

[4death4]

> Some people can more or only feel sorry for small children or animals, because they are obviously innocent, while a grown up could have done something to deserve it.

Now that I've had a kid, I understand what it means when people say kinds are innocent. Children are innocent in the way animals are innocent; they don't possess the mental faculties to understand morality. That doesn't means kids are good. They can be cruel, mean, and annoying, and to a very high degree. But, just like we don't consider it a moral failure of a dog when it jumps up and steals a piece of bacon from the table, so too do we not consider the things children do moral failures.

This differs from an adult. Adults understand morality, and thus can never be innocent in the same way, even if they act with the upmost character.

[Gibbon1]

Well you got 400,000 children dying of Malaria every year. Between the time you wrote your post and I responded 400 children died.

Since there isn't any way to use their deaths to further a political agenda no one cares.

[refurb]

Ouch.

But accurate.

[xkekjrktllss]

>Since there isn't any way to use their deaths to further a political agenda no one cares

Stats and images of sickly children have motivated (and "motivated") donations to countless non-profits and NGOs that lobby for the Democratic party, and religious organizations that lobby for Republicans. This is straight out of Contemporary Politics 101.

[mcpackieh]

Children with cancer seem to get more than their fair share of coverage and attention already, although that attention generally doesn't include attributing their cancers to industry.

[haswell]

This is just it.

When the subject is children with cancer, cancer is the enemy. A faceless threat that everyone can stand “against” without hesitation. And this completely misses the critical fact that cancer is often a downstream effect.

I think that cancer awareness really needs to expand to include underlying causes. As it stands, the cause and effect are so disconnected that awareness often leads only to sympathy/empathy/compassion instead of driving people to anger and to push for systemic changes.

[mcpackieh]

I think it's because on an individual basis, attributing cancers to a particular cause is very difficult. It's only when you're dealing with large populations that statistical trends become damning (as happened with cigarettes), otherwise it's usually very difficult to point to a specific kid and say his cancer came from a specific business.

[haswell]

And the twisted thing about all of this is that when we start seeing large numbers, humans tend to stop caring. We care about an individual's story, but our ability to care diminishes the moment there are two, and all but vanishes when it's a large group.

So I'm not really sure what the answer is. If the individual cases chosen for awareness campaigns could be selected based on their traceability, it might provide a bridge from cause to effect.

Or maybe it really needs to be a multi-pronged effort. Present individual cases to people care. Separately, present aggregate cases so people start linking those individual stories to systemic factors.