Amazon is so completely irresponsible for their marketplace that recently, shopping for a glass oral thermometer (because the digital ones suck) I stumbled on reviews with photos showing products that had no mercury inside and actual blobs of mercury stuck to the tip that goes in your mouth. These were still for sale.
I feel like even 10 years ago, online marketplaces would have taken measures to prevent stuff like this.
From that perspective, all of these services that rate products still place all the onus on the individual consumer. What would be really "luxury" in the modern context would be an online marketplace that vetted every product and whose primary product was trust, as opoosed to logistics and convenience. I'd much rather pay $150/yr for a service that vetted its products and took a week to deliver them, than to have a bunch of worthless or dangerous junk delivered the next day.
> Amazon is so completely irresponsible for their marketplace that recently, shopping for a glass oral thermometer (because the digital ones suck) I stumbled on reviews with photos showing products that had no mercury inside and actual blobs of mercury stuck to the tip that goes in your mouth. These were still for sale.
I did wonder about how this kind of thing was handled in the UK, and (a) Amazon will happily offer a mercury thermometer for sale and (b) it has been illegal to sell mercury thermometers in the UK since 2009.
The absolute poster child for ubiquitous illegal toxic products though? Disposable vapes.
I'm convinced the major tobacco companies will do well if the government ever manages to crack down on sketchy and illegal vaping products and stores. But this seems very hard to do.
Amazon is straight up evil at this point. People have pointed out they are selling fake fuses that have most likely gotten people killed, Amazon has done nothing. I am sure the same is occurring across other product categories like your example.
The 'luxury' you are talking about was called Brands, with the idea being that a company's Brand was worth more than lure of profits/shortcuts that could result in ruining the Brand.
>> The 'luxury' you are talking about was called Brands
I dunno. Branding was my gig for a long time. I think brands were a weak substitute for artisans / bespoke makers who had to personally stand by their work. Once upon a time there was a guy named Levi Strauss who made sturdy jeans, some guy named McDonald who made good hamburgers, a couple guys named Johnson who sold talcum powder. And that guy Nobel who invented new ways to blow up the coyote. If any of their products failed, it was on them. Then branding came along and quality declined, but people paid for inferior products because they had the name and stamp of the founder on them. The notion that brands have to maintain the quality associated with their namesake is the central illusion that trillions of dollars spent on branding seeks to create. It turns out that it's cheaper to prop up the name with advertising than it is with selling quality products.
And that doesn't even touch on brands like DuPont or Chevron, where all the positive connotations are purely from brand marketing built as a shroud around selling mass death.
I wondered that as well, but they are. I've started to think there's an organized effort by a government with a lot of state-owned enterprises to actually dispose of toxic waste by shipping it to gullible American consumers. Not that it isn't also poisoning people there.
I've thought about that too, but in the end, price always wins - this is why the Amazons and Walmarts of the world have out-competed local small businesses.
The major flaw in your example is that you have a site saying product X is good and trusted, but people will then go look online for a competitor that sells it for cheaper.
This is where capitalism clashes with consumer rights / safety. What should be the case is that all products sold on all stores are safe. That's what consumer safety organizations are for, but it seems like they have lost the battle against the flood of Chinese crap coming in.
At least in Europe, this is mainly because these companies ship for cheap directly to customers. Customs and the like can check a container full of the same USB chargers easily and efficiently, but if that container full crosses the border in 10.000 individual packages it's impossible.
Thankfully they're putting the brakes on it, but it took forever.
>The major flaw in your example is that you have a site saying product X is good and trusted, but people will then go look online for a competitor that sells it for cheaper.
Product X is good and trusted, except:
- due to mixed inventory you were sent product Y, which is poison
- product X has a complex supply chain, and it was previously good and trusted, and now it's poison and you had no idea anything changed
> I've thought about that too, but in the end, price always wins - this is why the Amazons and Walmarts of the world have out-competed local small businesses.
The Amazons and Walmarts of the world are only able to offer those cheaper prices because they engage in practices that were, are, and/or should be illegal. Practices like violating the Robinson–Patman Act, collusion, exploiting workers, knowingly selling dangerous goods, and outright bribery are the real reason why they have out-competed local small businesses, and a large part of why so many people are only able to afford goods sold at the cheapest prices in the first place.
Getting rid of Chinese crap wouldn't solve anything. We need strong regulations with very sharp teeth to be consistently enforced in order to give consumers protection and allow small businesses to stand a chance to grow and thrive.
Amazon is rather like the Silk Road[0] of old. You're buying cinnamon from some guy in Europe who knows not even the vague direction it came from, let alone what's in it or how it came to be. This could be considered irresponsible today, or it could be considered efficient, depending on your perspective.
I also feel like Amazon should take more responsibility, but then I get angry when my ISP or government "takes responsibility" for online content. What's the difference between Amazon and an ISP? One could argue an ISP is a natural monopoly and therefore should always be a neutral carrier. But maybe Amazon is a natural monopoly too? Could the economy really support ten different Amazons? That would be like having ten different Silk Roads, but there's only one way from Asia to Europe.
It does seem odd to me that Amazon gets a free pass as a common carrier while ISPs seemingly do not. Probably because taking responsibility would affect Amazon's bottom line, while ISPs don't really care.
> I stumbled on reviews with photos showing products that had no mercury inside and actual blobs of mercury stuck to the tip that goes in your mouth.
I played with mercury a bit when I was a kid, as did every kid who could - it was COOL! From that I learned: mercury is almost omniphobic. Oil avoids mixing with water. Mercury avoids mixing with, holding on to, and generally touching anything.
So how could a blob of mercury stick to a glass tip???
I'm tackling part of the issue of food toxin remediation with my new venture, NeutraOat (neutraoat.com). It's a modified oat fiber supplement that selectively traps BPA, PFAS, and plasticizers in the gut and reduces levels in the blood serum.
The funding for this is tough, though. Everyone loves the idea, but it's difficult to find people to fund R&D to make sure the product actually works over brand building and marketing. I've had to be very scrappy. Hopefully this will change in the future as we build momentum and awareness, but for right now it's tooth and nail.
Sounds interesting. I heard about oat's ability to absorb nasty stuff in the gut for awhile. However, in the UK oats are dried out using glyphosate...a known carcinogen!
Feels like modern society makes it nearly impossible to not be exposed to harmful substances...so I hope you're successful.
The whole point of glyphosate is that it deteriorates very very quickly, and your oats should contain exactly zero of it. Obviously that's the theory, I'd love someone to test it. But in US wheat is routinely dessicated with glyphosate so either their bread is giving everyone cancer, or the compound does actually break down as expected. Or maybe it's somewhere in between.
Either way, it's like the article said - it's impossible for us consumers to figure any of this stuff out. We have to rely on public agencies, which are under constant attack from multinational corporations throwing billions of dollars at the issue, because following regulations costs money. And that's in developed countries, if you're buying stuff from places with barely functional food quality inspection then good luck I guess.
I thought glyphosate was only a danger for people applying it (something that's been denied for a long time)
Also as far as I know it goes into the weeds it kills, not in the plant you want to keep (is your food) ? Else it would also die ?
I have no connection to these people, except I have eaten their jumbo oats. They have been an organic farm since 1949. I doubt they use glyphosate, but you could ask them?
So I need to put something in my body to prevent other things in my body? I don't mean to be the party pooper but this is my first thought. Health conscious people care about plastics in their body and are probably shopping organic and what not. So you have a high hurdle to climb with any "modified" foods.
Except now I have the problem of trusting that this new supplement isn't contaminated with anything, _and_ that the "microscopic pores" resulting from this "patented process" don't turn out to have some harmful effect in the body.
This is precisely why I happily pay for an annual subscription to ConsumerLab[0]. It's largely just for supplements and a few functional foods, but with a tiny staff they are doing more work to help the public on the unregulated medicine market than the entire FDA, IMHO.
Congress are the ones who define what the FDA does. Blame them and the 1994 Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act. Congress could easily tell the FDA to do something different.
Blaming people for a problem only helps if you have the power to take away their ability to cause the problem. In this case, the most effective way to keep Congress from causing you health problems by giving you misinformation about supplements would seem to be to get your information from a source that Congress doesn't control, such as ConsumerLab. Hopefully it's a better source than the FDA rather than a worse one; but, if not, maybe you can switch to a better one, or start one yourself.
I also recently subscribed to ConsumerLab, and I'm glad I did. I wish they could test products more frequently as things are bound to change from batch to batch, but it's a whole lot better than nothing.
I don't take a lot of supplements, but I won't buy even one without some form of third party testing.
Independent lab testing for contaminants and actual active ingredient levels vs. what's stated. They also publish summaries of studies on the active ingredients that test the effectiveness against claimed therapeutic value. (It's depressing how few studies actually show benefit over placebo.)
Looks like something I'd love to support / become member in, but I wonder how many brands outside US the lab tests? Do they also test products available in Europe/Asia?
You should read their methodology. For one, they are entirely subscriber supported. Secondly, they send out people to buy the product at random stores off the shelf, not solicit manufacturers to send possibly biased batches. Thirdly, manufacturers often write in to them when they receive bad reviews, urging a retest. (The back and forth of those letters gets published.)
Sure, it could all be a hoax. But we don't have too many alternatives.
Yes, the answer is not some business plan by which some can dodge disaster in an untrustworthy market, the answer is to recognize that this planet is a spaceship i.e. materially closed, and we are massively soiling the nest, microplastic is in steak because it's literally everywhere on the surface of the earth, etc.
Therefore, good ecological governance is a requirement, as is the analysis, as a public service, of the resources and ecosystems, and the services they provide human beings and our dependents, i.e. a democratic and just policy, not a lucrative plan to privatize yet more of public health
If one is convinced the best vehicle for the above in the near term is a business, then it had better have a different approach than is typical of personal health tech startups
Empowering individuals isn't worthless by any means but pitting one against another with asymmetric information is worse than worthless
The fundamental constraint the article alludes to is the powerlessness of consumer choice. You can’t make a better choice because you don’t have any better option. When there is a better option, you lack the tools to verify that the option is truly better vs scamming you to pay more for something which either doesn’t matter or is simply a lie.
Prior to free trade, you could reasonably sue the manufacturers or distributors for egregious harms. You could also reasonably expect domestic regulatory authorities to intervene before these harms entered the market.*
In principal, this could be done in a free trade system with counterparties who implement and enforce similar rules. But then you need all parties to agree on any new rules and enforcement mechanisms. You only need one bad actor to nuke the arrangement by growing without these burdens.
* Assuming regulations and laws are equitably and incorruptibly enforced in the local government.
> Empowering individuals to solve collective problems rarely work.
In Canadian elementary school in the 2000s, we spent a long time talking about our carbon footprint. The hope was that by carpooling and turning off lights when you left the room, we might still have an Earth to live on by 2030.
Even at the time I felt a little patronized. Having read enough literature on the subject now the math does become clear: we won't solve our climate issues by guilt tripping children on their individual consumption. It's a problem that needs international government attention.
Leaded gasoline was known to be problematic from day 1. The science was suppressed for years. Look up what happened immediately after that iconic tv stunt where the guy washed his hands in leaded gasoline (he had a psychotic break from lead exposure and was institutionalized)
Forever chemicals were known to be problematic and far more prevent than expected. 3M suppressed the science for literally decades. Senior leadership at 3M deliberately suppressed the data.
We should crush without mercy those who rob us of the right to protect ourselves when they suppress the science that is supposed to provide warning. Make penalties for suppressing science so severe that nobody attempts to do it. How specifically? If you hide information that your product kills, you get prosecuted for murder. If there are financial damages make them treble damages. Make it hurt so bad it’s not worth doing.
The answer is knowing. Individuals and institutions knowing the real dangers and acting appropriately. The place of governance is punishing those who knowingly hide the dangers and prevent us from taking appropriate proactive action.
But also education; one major shift is that measures that were taken in the past (e.g. vaccination campaigns) were so successful that a generation or three of people have grown up without any of the vaccinated diseases, so now they're like "...why do we even need these?". Add some scaremongering of chemicals and demonizing of autism aaand there's epidemics of measles again.
That's not a solution. There is no practical solution for this, and has not been for the millennia on human history; it's only been in the recent decades where we've been able the hallucinate about knowing about toxins in our daily lives.
Legislation is just paper, you have no enforcement mechanism beyond what you already have currently: suing companies on a case by case basis.
> Legislation is just paper, you have no enforcement mechanism beyond what you already have currently: suing companies on a case by case basis.
Well, you can have a better enforcement mechanism then. One that involves things like fines and jail time for executives of companies that perpetrate harms on the public via their products.
Uh, it used to be until it was gutted in the last 30 years. Legislation and bureaucracy has been one of the most successful interventions for public health for centuries.
Read about the hole in the ozone layer. Banning lead paint. Read about the invention of public water authorities. Read Silent Spring and read about its aftermath. Look into the history of air pollution and the EPA. These are some of the crown jewels of human history.
This is nonsense, regulation has forced huge improvements in food quality. You don't need lawsuits if agencies are regularly testing and authorized to levy penalties based on the results.
I disagree with this. There are plenty of counterexamples where an individual can have a measurably positive impact on their own life. Solar + batteries comes to mind.
Also in your linked example, you brought up reading and literacy as something that would not improve collective problems, and I couldn't disagree more.
Feels like you're on a different tack here: improving your "own life" is different from solving "collective problems".
Further, setting up solar + batteries solves a non-modest individual problem, but is not by itself (i.e. reducing carbon footprint; an example mentioned in the parent's link) the solution to climate change. (yes it helps; but incentives leading to people installing solar have a much bigger impact; and the biggest incentive was maybe China building a solar panel industry, but I'm not trying to go down that tangent)
Unfortunately, individual action doesn't have significant effects - the article mentions leaded fuels, that wasn't something that could be done by individuals alone. You mention solar + batteries but to be blunt, that's only something middle class homeowners can afford, and they're a minority. Maybe some landlords in housing projects but they want government funding for that.
When I was a baby we lived virtually directly under the Sydney Harvour Bridge, I got lead poisoning as a result of runoff from the bridge. The combination of leaded petrol and leaded paint runoff poisoned the soil in playgrounds and the area more generally.
My case and probably those of others lead to a huge cleanup of the bridge.
My life has been absolutetly plagued with chronic health and "developmental" problems. Neurodivergence and other conditions litter my family tree, but they seem to effect me much more severely than they do most of my relatives.
I often find myself wondering these days if my life would have featured significantly less hardship were it not for the lead poisoning.
Good article. But just to note, lead was already a known poison at the time when it was added to gasoline. Significant concerns were raised. Production was even halted for a while in the US due to health incidents.
That guy's entire wikipedia page is an almost surreal read. For introducing lead into gasoline and the proliferation of CFCs, he was termed a "one-man environmental disaster". His death is equally fascinating. He invented a mechanical device to help him out of bed because of his polio-related infirmity, and ended up getting strangled by it.
> Environmental historian J. R. McNeill opined that Midgley "had more adverse impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in Earth's history", and Bill Bryson remarked that Midgley possessed "an instinct for the regrettable that was almost uncanny".
The article doesn't mention it, but at some point the yellow paint on the pencils that young students often chew on would have likely been pigment having high lead content.
The solution here is the Government regulating and managing the situation. It has been recognized for a century - if not more - that the onus is on the State.
It’s true. It’s also great that we have companies that want to do better. All it takes is a board & executive who don’t care for public good, but only for short term profit, and the entire mission of the company goes up in flames. And since profit is essentially the only thing that executives & boards are allowed to care about, it’s essentially inevitable unless the company founders stay laser focused on their mission, never take on arbitrary investors, and even consider PBCs.
VC-backed companies in the tech space have an especially horrid track record on this stuff. I was reading about how cool Blueprint seems as a company, but couldn’t help thinking “at least until they get bought out or fucked by investors”
Which is exactly why the government should be involved. Companies simply do not have incentives to protect humans in almost any way without the government stepping in. It’ll always be cheaper to fuck humans over, and always more expensive to do right by them.
Incentives. I use consumerlab because trust is their product, if they break their trust once - they will ruin their business.
I inclined to trust the business which earns money from me - this means they are aligned with value I get and there is little incentive to break the trust and a high stakes to keep the trust when you get paid to be trustworthy.
I trust more the greedy capitalists than politicians in this question because I don't understand incentives of the latter. At least the business model is fairly transparent - you can check the company and how it makes money, in reverse incentives of the governments and their officials is broken - to get elected, get rich, get power, not lose job and keep producing new laws and regulations because if you want to keep your job you can't say “Everything is working, the best thing I can do right now is to monitor the system, collect the data and do nothing for a few years”.
Readit News
I feel like even 10 years ago, online marketplaces would have taken measures to prevent stuff like this.
From that perspective, all of these services that rate products still place all the onus on the individual consumer. What would be really "luxury" in the modern context would be an online marketplace that vetted every product and whose primary product was trust, as opoosed to logistics and convenience. I'd much rather pay $150/yr for a service that vetted its products and took a week to deliver them, than to have a bunch of worthless or dangerous junk delivered the next day.
I did wonder about how this kind of thing was handled in the UK, and (a) Amazon will happily offer a mercury thermometer for sale and (b) it has been illegal to sell mercury thermometers in the UK since 2009.
The absolute poster child for ubiquitous illegal toxic products though? Disposable vapes.
The 'luxury' you are talking about was called Brands, with the idea being that a company's Brand was worth more than lure of profits/shortcuts that could result in ruining the Brand.
I dunno. Branding was my gig for a long time. I think brands were a weak substitute for artisans / bespoke makers who had to personally stand by their work. Once upon a time there was a guy named Levi Strauss who made sturdy jeans, some guy named McDonald who made good hamburgers, a couple guys named Johnson who sold talcum powder. And that guy Nobel who invented new ways to blow up the coyote. If any of their products failed, it was on them. Then branding came along and quality declined, but people paid for inferior products because they had the name and stamp of the founder on them. The notion that brands have to maintain the quality associated with their namesake is the central illusion that trillions of dollars spent on branding seeks to create. It turns out that it's cheaper to prop up the name with advertising than it is with selling quality products.
And that doesn't even touch on brands like DuPont or Chevron, where all the positive connotations are purely from brand marketing built as a shroud around selling mass death.
The major flaw in your example is that you have a site saying product X is good and trusted, but people will then go look online for a competitor that sells it for cheaper.
This is where capitalism clashes with consumer rights / safety. What should be the case is that all products sold on all stores are safe. That's what consumer safety organizations are for, but it seems like they have lost the battle against the flood of Chinese crap coming in.
At least in Europe, this is mainly because these companies ship for cheap directly to customers. Customs and the like can check a container full of the same USB chargers easily and efficiently, but if that container full crosses the border in 10.000 individual packages it's impossible.
Thankfully they're putting the brakes on it, but it took forever.
Product X is good and trusted, except:
The Amazons and Walmarts of the world are only able to offer those cheaper prices because they engage in practices that were, are, and/or should be illegal. Practices like violating the Robinson–Patman Act, collusion, exploiting workers, knowingly selling dangerous goods, and outright bribery are the real reason why they have out-competed local small businesses, and a large part of why so many people are only able to afford goods sold at the cheapest prices in the first place.
Getting rid of Chinese crap wouldn't solve anything. We need strong regulations with very sharp teeth to be consistently enforced in order to give consumers protection and allow small businesses to stand a chance to grow and thrive.
I also feel like Amazon should take more responsibility, but then I get angry when my ISP or government "takes responsibility" for online content. What's the difference between Amazon and an ISP? One could argue an ISP is a natural monopoly and therefore should always be a neutral carrier. But maybe Amazon is a natural monopoly too? Could the economy really support ten different Amazons? That would be like having ten different Silk Roads, but there's only one way from Asia to Europe.
It does seem odd to me that Amazon gets a free pass as a common carrier while ISPs seemingly do not. Probably because taking responsibility would affect Amazon's bottom line, while ISPs don't really care.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road (The ancient trading route, not the darknet marketplace).
I played with mercury a bit when I was a kid, as did every kid who could - it was COOL! From that I learned: mercury is almost omniphobic. Oil avoids mixing with water. Mercury avoids mixing with, holding on to, and generally touching anything.
So how could a blob of mercury stick to a glass tip???
Sincere question.
Bulb of mercury. Fine tube extending up from it. Thermal expansion of the bulb produces a big effect on how far up the tube it goes.
They work. They're safe unless you break them. But they can break.
We profit from letting others be free to harm you but we cannot be held responsible.
disruptism ? platformism ?
Consumer protection had a brief heyday, but is far from status quo in even the last century of history.
By now the market has "matured" to pure profit orientation. Health or even survival are irrelevant. /s
Those are usually rectal thermometer, with 0.1°C precision or better. Also sometimes used to measure body temperature in armpits.
The funding for this is tough, though. Everyone loves the idea, but it's difficult to find people to fund R&D to make sure the product actually works over brand building and marketing. I've had to be very scrappy. Hopefully this will change in the future as we build momentum and awareness, but for right now it's tooth and nail.
In the US it doesn't matter. Just talk about the problem and pretend like it works. You'll be rich.
Feels like modern society makes it nearly impossible to not be exposed to harmful substances...so I hope you're successful.
> We specifically prohibit the use of Glyphosate spraying at any stage of the growing of oats by our farmers.
https://www.flahavans.com/inside-flahavans/our-oats/gmo-glyp...
Either way, it's like the article said - it's impossible for us consumers to figure any of this stuff out. We have to rely on public agencies, which are under constant attack from multinational corporations throwing billions of dollars at the issue, because following regulations costs money. And that's in developed countries, if you're buying stuff from places with barely functional food quality inspection then good luck I guess.
https://www.pimhill.com/
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[0]https://www.consumerlab.com/
I don't take a lot of supplements, but I won't buy even one without some form of third party testing.
[0] https://www.techgearlab.com/
Sure, it could all be a hoax. But we don't have too many alternatives.
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31178680>
The appropriate solution is legislation.
Perhaps more generally phrased as governance
Yes, the answer is not some business plan by which some can dodge disaster in an untrustworthy market, the answer is to recognize that this planet is a spaceship i.e. materially closed, and we are massively soiling the nest, microplastic is in steak because it's literally everywhere on the surface of the earth, etc.
Therefore, good ecological governance is a requirement, as is the analysis, as a public service, of the resources and ecosystems, and the services they provide human beings and our dependents, i.e. a democratic and just policy, not a lucrative plan to privatize yet more of public health
If one is convinced the best vehicle for the above in the near term is a business, then it had better have a different approach than is typical of personal health tech startups
Empowering individuals isn't worthless by any means but pitting one against another with asymmetric information is worse than worthless
Prior to free trade, you could reasonably sue the manufacturers or distributors for egregious harms. You could also reasonably expect domestic regulatory authorities to intervene before these harms entered the market.*
In principal, this could be done in a free trade system with counterparties who implement and enforce similar rules. But then you need all parties to agree on any new rules and enforcement mechanisms. You only need one bad actor to nuke the arrangement by growing without these burdens.
* Assuming regulations and laws are equitably and incorruptibly enforced in the local government.
In Canadian elementary school in the 2000s, we spent a long time talking about our carbon footprint. The hope was that by carpooling and turning off lights when you left the room, we might still have an Earth to live on by 2030.
Even at the time I felt a little patronized. Having read enough literature on the subject now the math does become clear: we won't solve our climate issues by guilt tripping children on their individual consumption. It's a problem that needs international government attention.
The appropriate solution is legislation AND individual empowerment.
But the big lobbyists hate that, so it'll never happen.
Leaded gasoline was known to be problematic from day 1. The science was suppressed for years. Look up what happened immediately after that iconic tv stunt where the guy washed his hands in leaded gasoline (he had a psychotic break from lead exposure and was institutionalized)
Forever chemicals were known to be problematic and far more prevent than expected. 3M suppressed the science for literally decades. Senior leadership at 3M deliberately suppressed the data.
We should crush without mercy those who rob us of the right to protect ourselves when they suppress the science that is supposed to provide warning. Make penalties for suppressing science so severe that nobody attempts to do it. How specifically? If you hide information that your product kills, you get prosecuted for murder. If there are financial damages make them treble damages. Make it hurt so bad it’s not worth doing.
The answer is knowing. Individuals and institutions knowing the real dangers and acting appropriately. The place of governance is punishing those who knowingly hide the dangers and prevent us from taking appropriate proactive action.
Legislation is just paper, you have no enforcement mechanism beyond what you already have currently: suing companies on a case by case basis.
Well, you can have a better enforcement mechanism then. One that involves things like fines and jail time for executives of companies that perpetrate harms on the public via their products.
"You gotta take what you can get. This level of concern is right out the CIA guidebook of how to infiltrate a group and make sure nothing gets done"
Read about the hole in the ozone layer. Banning lead paint. Read about the invention of public water authorities. Read Silent Spring and read about its aftermath. Look into the history of air pollution and the EPA. These are some of the crown jewels of human history.
Dead Comment
Everyone knows that the correct solution is to fund startup X.
Also in your linked example, you brought up reading and literacy as something that would not improve collective problems, and I couldn't disagree more.
Further, setting up solar + batteries solves a non-modest individual problem, but is not by itself (i.e. reducing carbon footprint; an example mentioned in the parent's link) the solution to climate change. (yes it helps; but incentives leading to people installing solar have a much bigger impact; and the biggest incentive was maybe China building a solar panel industry, but I'm not trying to go down that tangent)
My case and probably those of others lead to a huge cleanup of the bridge.
My life has been absolutetly plagued with chronic health and "developmental" problems. Neurodivergence and other conditions litter my family tree, but they seem to effect me much more severely than they do most of my relatives.
I often find myself wondering these days if my life would have featured significantly less hardship were it not for the lead poisoning.
Good article. But just to note, lead was already a known poison at the time when it was added to gasoline. Significant concerns were raised. Production was even halted for a while in the US due to health incidents.
The guy who owned the patent for leaded gasoline and who promoted its use even got lead poisoning himself https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr.
I'd always assumed it was some expensive-to-remove byproduct of manufacture or something, so they left it in to save costs despite the risks.
Why did this happen?
The FDA, FTC, EPA, etc should be involved here.
VC-backed companies in the tech space have an especially horrid track record on this stuff. I was reading about how cool Blueprint seems as a company, but couldn’t help thinking “at least until they get bought out or fucked by investors”
Which is exactly why the government should be involved. Companies simply do not have incentives to protect humans in almost any way without the government stepping in. It’ll always be cheaper to fuck humans over, and always more expensive to do right by them.
I inclined to trust the business which earns money from me - this means they are aligned with value I get and there is little incentive to break the trust and a high stakes to keep the trust when you get paid to be trustworthy.
I trust more the greedy capitalists than politicians in this question because I don't understand incentives of the latter. At least the business model is fairly transparent - you can check the company and how it makes money, in reverse incentives of the governments and their officials is broken - to get elected, get rich, get power, not lose job and keep producing new laws and regulations because if you want to keep your job you can't say “Everything is working, the best thing I can do right now is to monitor the system, collect the data and do nothing for a few years”.