[dangus]

What's your point? Just because natural dangers exist doesn't mean we should go ahead and create human-made dangers of our own.

Under this logic we shouldn't have structural engineering standards because rock falls happen all the time in nature.

[animatethrow]

I never said the EPA ban was bad. My point was to point out that natural asbestos sources remain a threat. I was quickly massively downvoted though because readers assumed I was criticizing the EPA when I in fact was not. I will have to be more careful in the future to understand that many readers don't carefully read what one actually writes, but rather read what they think someone might be implying.

[dangus]

Are you sure that the multiple people who are assuming your implication and downvoting as a result are wrong?

I think it’s quite clear and obvious that your comment’s intention was to downplay the importance of the EPA’s ban and frame it against or redirect it toward the topic of naturally occurring threats.

If that’s NOT what you were doing, then your comment was essentially irrelevant.

[animatethrow]

Again, my intention wasn't to downplay the importance of the EPA's ban. My intention was to point out that natural sources of pollution remain, as natural sources of pollution is something I have been fascinated with for a long time. For example, certain tree forests can emit sufficient unhealthy levels of hydrocarbon smog that the smog becomes visible in the air, kinda like Los Angeles before catalytic converters. But I certainly think eliminating man-made smog is a great thing, even if tree-made smog remains. And again, I have come to see now that my wording to the effect of, "An EPA ban on pollution X can't prevent natural sources of pollution X" has been interpreted as a statement logically identical to "EPA bans of pollutant X are pointless because natural pollutant sources of X still remain." But those two statements are not, in fact, logically equivalent. And again, I need to better learn that humans frequently suspect implications and insinuations in words that the speaker did not intend.

[dangus]

I still think there’s more suggestiveness in your words than you’re giving them credit for:

It’s in the very first sentence: “An EPA ban can't do anything about natural mineral asbestos that occurs near many residential areas.”

You’re saying an EPA ban can’t do something. That’s a place where you’ve pointed out a weakness of the ban, right in the first sentence. None of the remainder of your comment mentions any redeeming value to this EPA policy, so we have to assume that your main objective is to criticize it. After all, your very first sentence is a criticism of the policy’s effectiveness.

If you recall persuasive writing from grade school, we put our overarching opinion/objective right in the first sentence/paragraph as an introduction and then follow it up with supporting evidence throughout the rest of the piece. That’s exactly how your comment was structured.

It’s not some kind of flaw of human nature to assume that your main objective was to criticize the merit of this EPA policy, because you essentially directly stated that it was.