> This is a thought terminating cliche and pedantically destroys the conversation.
It is not. Quite contrary. The thought it provokes is "what chemicals do you want to ban?" Do you want to ban water? Should we throw anyone in a prison who transports it? It is a chemical after all. One which is quite dangerous in many circumstances.
But surely that is not what edgyquant meant. Should we prohibit people selling soap? It is a chemical! But that is silly. We would probably lose more by banning that than by not banning it.
Should we ban plastics? Maybe? Which types? All types? All uses?
Should we sell hydrazine in grocery stores? Oh, we better not. Can we use hydrazine in special applications like fuelling satellites? If so what do we require from people who handle/store/dispose of it?
So many thoughts provoked by that simple observation.
What is the difference between lye (dangerous), sand (not dangerous unless it suffocates things or gets crushed and inhaled), water (can cause flooding or drowning, otherwise harmless), and sodium bicarbonate (quite basic, generally harmless), and hydrazine (mutagenic, highly toxic, highly flammable)?
All of these have hazards in specific circumstances, and huge benefits in others. All are chemicals.
All are well known and characterized. Many other compounds are too new for that level of knowledge and characterization. They are chemicals too.
If we allow someone to make new chemicals (it’s hard to stop, frankly!), either we say ‘no, not until they are fully understood and characterized’, or ‘yes, unless we learn it’s too hazardous’.
Saying no first is a bit of a catch-22 since how are you going learn anything and characterize the dangers if you don’t make and use it a bunch?
If you say ‘yes, unless we learn it’s too dangerous’ then we learn a huge amount quite quickly - but inevitably have something too dangerous causing problems.
It’s a fundamentally conservative vs liberal development strategy debate.
>What is the difference between lye (dangerous), sand (not dangerous unless it suffocates things or gets crushed and inhaled), water (can cause flooding or drowning, otherwise harmless), and sodium bicarbonate (quite basic, generally harmless), and hydrazine (mutagenic, highly toxic, highly flammable)?
The MSDSes will elaborate on this and you probably know that.
This thread chain has gotten impressively disingenuous very fast. We aren't arguing the colloquial definition of chemicals which if we're not being pedantic, we know brings up ideas of substances damaging to other substances or life itself.
Which is fairly obviously the line that you're giving a good traditional "but where would we POSSIBLY STOP?!" gambit that comes out of paid lobbyist's mouths more often than hello or goodbye.
The line to be crossed is obviously at least a few blocks up the way from "what is the difference between water and hydrazine though".
And also, anything cumulative becomes "too hazardous" within years. But by then profits are made, and war chests are filled to keep the spice flowing.
The world got by for thousands of years sustainably without a lot of these "huge benefits" and I'm willing to take a hit or two within my lifetime to ensure there's still lifetimes at all down the road.
> the colloquial definition of chemicals which if we're not being pedantic, we know brings up ideas of substances damaging to other substances or life itself.
From the comment you're responding to. Damage is quantifiable, if it wasn't, the OP (EPA proposing hazardous substance classification) wouldn't even exist.
one presumes it is not when there is any quantifiable damage, no matter how slight. I assume nobody is proposing banning water, etc. But even plain water can result in large amounts of environmental damage in certain contexts.
If the point is just to ban things when the risks outweigh the benefits, that is simply the status quo.
The challenge is, one can usually only make that kind of trade off when something is well known enough to know the risks and benefits in a wide variety of environments.
The first real problematic PFAS compounds were in fire fighting foam used to put out aircraft fires for example, and took decades for their problems to show up.
Which requires either extremely exhaustive (or essentially impossible economically) testing, or yolo’ng it. Or only using already known compounds.
How do you create a MSDS for a chemical that hasn’t been made yet?
How do you decide it’s safe to create a large enough quantity of a chemical to figure out what even should be in that MSDS?
How can you know if something is mutagenic without exposing it to DNA? Or cancer causing without exposing it to a living organism? Or causes reproductive harm without exposing it to organisms and seeing how it impacts reproduction?
Those all are potential harms.
Traditionally, some enterprising alchemist/chemist would just try it - and if they lived, would write a paper on it. Further research and experience would then inform if a better alternative should be used.
The Haber-Bosch process that allowed the creation of artificial fertilizers has allowed for the massive expansion of the human race. Roughly 3/4 of the humans on this planet right now would starve to death without it. Assuming they didn’t get nuked first. That was in 1909.
It also allowed for the creation of modern high explosives (and propellants) at scale, and the horrors of WW1 and WW2. And the mining revolution, which has provided the raw materials necessary to build our modern economies at vastly cheaper prices than were ever possible before for humanity.
Chemistry is a fundamental building block of modern society, and removing it would literally cause its sudden and violent collapse.
Deciding if ‘freezing’ it in place, or letting it continue to develop new and interesting applications is the discussion - because no, we weren’t sustainable before (unless you count constant and ongoing genocides as ‘sustainable’), and we’ve long passed the point where trying to return to that would be anything but apocalyptic.
Literally.
And keeping in mind that just because we agree to stop research in one area doesn’t mean anyone else (competitors) will do so. Regardless of if that is in the realm of drugs, or weapons, or soaps, or foods, or whatever.
So, let me get this straight: I've claimed reducing everything to "chemicals" is disingenuous, and in response, I'm immediately told "no, you" and then challenged with debates over topics or ideas I haven't actually talked about like
>How do you create a MSDS for a chemical that hasn’t been made yet?
What argument that I've made do you present this logical fallacy to?
> Deciding if ‘freezing’ it in place, or letting it continue to develop new and interesting applications is the discussion
This is not my viewpoint and was never mentioned by me. This is an argument you're either making in reference to another comment, a point not addressed by myself, or you're talking to your own strawman, who doesn't seem to have a significant stance other than "well, it's basically unsolveable!".
That is the discussion I was having. You're doing exactly what I mentioned, being disingenuous about the literal technical definition of chemicals and muddying waters because water is a chemical too, man!
Well watering my lawn doesn't kill it or give organisms that live mere decades cancer. That's a reasonable measurement to start.
And if you're really saying there can't be more in depth, slower research to chemicals that people will end up having in their bloodstream, then I don't even know what to say to that, other than Andrew Ryan would be proud.
It doesn’t seem like you’re reading your comments or my replies?
The concern about the chemicals we’re talking about is that they are in the water you are using to water your lawn, anmong other things, and have been getting made at scale for over 50 years. And is a family of 6 million something chemicals, some of which we suspect now may be dangerous - including causing cancer - and some we have no idea.
We can only test for things we suspect are an actual issue and have a test for. And for which we actually test.
Which we don’t really have reasonable tests for ‘doesn’t bio degrade over decades+ and bio accumulates to potentially dangerous levels’ yet. Except watching nature, anyway, which is how we discovered this problem. There are millions more chemicals that this hasn’t happened either.
So what do you propose doing here besides freezing it until such tests can be put in place and developed?
It is not. Quite contrary. The thought it provokes is "what chemicals do you want to ban?" Do you want to ban water? Should we throw anyone in a prison who transports it? It is a chemical after all. One which is quite dangerous in many circumstances.
But surely that is not what edgyquant meant. Should we prohibit people selling soap? It is a chemical! But that is silly. We would probably lose more by banning that than by not banning it.
Should we ban plastics? Maybe? Which types? All types? All uses?
Should we sell hydrazine in grocery stores? Oh, we better not. Can we use hydrazine in special applications like fuelling satellites? If so what do we require from people who handle/store/dispose of it?
So many thoughts provoked by that simple observation.