naremu

I didn't propose anything, I'm just nitpicking HN's nitpicking of attempts to have a real conversation.

Which, since HN is a place for technically minded people, has resulted in people arguing that chemical contamination of PFAS is categorically the same as watering my lawn.

You are technically correct, but this is called a "gotcha": it's not about continuing the conversation in earnest, if anything, it shuts down conversation about the important details by, in the writing of mike judge, "playing lawyerball" instead.

In reality we all know that none of us are writing the technical legislation, so any of us becoming enamored with defending for profit entities against hazardous chemical classification through technical usage of language is...basically the core spirit of corporate lobbyism.

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.

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.

We're not allowed to begin bailing the water out of the sinking ship until the ship is sunk.

You'd think we'd finally have gotten far enough in education to not be so easily carrot and sticked. But damn. People coming out of the woodwork in this thread to defend literal world contamination.

Do you know what the word "chemical" means?

This intentional nitpicking of the colloquial usage of the word chemicals is a favorite of both, disingenuous conversationalists who like to take a chance to feel correct rather than participate earnestly, and lobbyists.

At least one of them gets paid for it though.

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.

could become not-small amounts.

Let's not get too relaxed here. There's gigantic masses of plastic all over the world that would like to say that anything mass produced and cumulative "WILL become 'not-small' amounts".

Unfortunately Terrence McKenna (or fortunately depending on how you look at things) doesn't seem to have retained the same popularity.

He does still have some decent "pithy one liners" but if I remember right, he didn't stay in a philosophical lane and was known to indulge in pop culture conspiracies and his own pet theories (based on excruciatingly little but conjecture and didn't really respond to criticism of it)

I've honestly started to consider it a little bit unbecoming to compare people to McKenna. He's a major contributor to a romantic and oversimplified/inaccurate understanding of things like shamanhood and the roles drugs played in ancient societies, so it's probably a good thing people don't talk about him like they used to.

Almost kind of the antithesis to Watts in my mind, but seemingly from the same side of the fence: McKenna was all about what he thought, and Watts never gave me the impression he even had an agenda for me to believe in, rather wanting to help people explore the world he'd discovered, he labored to find the words to depict, not to convince.

It definitely seems to matter on an almost jewelry-level to some people, footwear.

Even if I doubt they spend more time intentionally looking at other people's shoes day to day, but I guess "louder" designs may change that a bit.

That's unusual if that's the case, in my experience. I rely on syncthing to keep my notes synced between devices/applications (and photos) and using "run according to time schedule" for "5 minutes" has never produced a problem for me, through reboot and months between opening the app sometimes.

Well quite frankly, saying "the claim that these are lies are just as disingenuous as the claims themselves" is a pretty low quality, classic stick-in-the-spokes "debate" tactic that essentially hand waves the ball back in the other person's court with minimal effort or contribution or real debate and puts maximum onus on someone else in public in the "flow" of discourse.

This is "great" for televised debates but this is kind of passive aggressive for the tone people prefer here. We're talking to people here. More directly than a formal debate.

Someone participating earnestly knows they are capable of either politely expressing interest and asking for sources, or as another mentioned: typing and clicking all by themselves.

Ironically, many of the "respectable" discord servers (i.e. revolving around hobbies people under the age of 18 aren't/can't get into) seem to not allow cross-server emojis (which mostly stops all usage of them and discourages gif-memeing as well).

Combined with "compact" mode in user settings, I find myself having a vaguely IRC-like experience in the servers worth participating in.

Terrible shame how many of us have come full circle just to do the same things on the corpo's surveillance state owned land instead of our own.

Well if OP's original "missing the forest for the trees" analogy is to be revisited (which I tend to agree with), it's that pedantry is sort of by (some) definition focusing on the letter rather than the spirit of what's at hand, and due to its often lack of necessity, comes across as taking the opportunity to "one up" or criticize something that doesn't end up making any pragmatic differences.

I've heard some people describe the compulsion something along the lines of "I don't think of it that way, I just noticed something they said was incorrect and so I presented them the correct information", often assuming it would be appreciated.

I mean, it's probably good for engineers in the engineering room, but the culture outside of maker's spaces probably won't consider it smashing conversation.

Stress seems best for the primordial hunt and battles of my ancestors who needed a powerful drive to see through an ideally short term situation with more response than they might have otherwise been able to muster, I have always found it living hand in hand with adrenaline.

Stoicism seems to also provide plenty examples of people finding stress and emotion to be first reactions muddying the waters of perception necessary for loftier goals and work than simple hunter gatherers.

Stress long term is unusual for the body and a major disadvantage imo.

And stoicism seeing some quantifiable research into aiding in depression leads me to believe the individual in the current cultural hegemony of western culture is simply a victim, a child never truly raised.

"Work, play - at sixty our powers and tastes are what they were at seventeen." - Brave New World

It turns out reality is slightly more complicated than raw game theory, which is basically just what you described.

To be honest, it sounds like you might be internally cynical and externally giving, and exhausted seeing the results.

Most of us quite frankly weren't raised to optimize our own social networks, but over time I've realized it's not that difficult to create a mutual understanding from which everyone can better respect/build themselves and each other up. (e.g. this favor you asked requires a lot more of me than it saves for you, therefore, it's an impolite ask and it's a no)

Frankly though most people don't think that far ahead. Without "training" or manners, the common man is generally prone to his selfishness. It's never been a secret or a revelation, but people enjoy their extremisms.

The Perennial Philosophy (both the concept and the book) focuses on more these types of things.

It brings up that even in Christianity you can easily point at the non-personified elements of the theology and find conceptual relation to geographically unrelated beliefs.

One interesting bit he mentions is how dangerous it could be to be one of those people without being in some prophetic or theologically defensible position; Meister Eckhart being quoted heavily talking about the divinity of god being in all things, in a similar way as hinduism or etc might talk about divinity/all being in all things.

Of course he eventually was tried as a heretic in the papal courts, as it seems the beauty of unity revealed to the sage is often the nightmare of the local conqueror.

I suppose if you're a cold hard logic type only just dipping your toes into it, the Stoicism of old might be more your speed, as they considered logic and reason their hammer and nails, yet still retain a certain universal appreciation that I find vaguely similar to Taoism from China (along with a concept that change is the only constant)

Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius has quite an interesting journal that also illustrates some of the thoughts and theories of the time (unable to confirm or deny it, he merely repeatedly brings up the possibility of atomism.)

Atomism also apparently makes an appearance in some Indian philosophical texts, though I don't know them off hand.

Philosophy was originally married to the "natural sciences", and so you'll find many scientific concepts originating in mystical thinking if you look past whatever simple version that suburban cavepeople of the area have decided is king.

People seem quick to forget that religion/philosophy was originally married to the quest to discover more about our world.

Carl Sagan, before lamenting about modern astrology, reminds us in Cosmos that astrology was once an actual attempt to make heads or tails of an impercievably large cosmic system and understands these are largely attempts at answers that simply lack the information/ability to falsify them yet.

What psychological tendencies the common man has about those beliefs/theories presented to them is a whole other topic.

I've finally read enough texts from various sources to feel ready to start Aldous Huxley's book on The Perennial Philosophy which I'm finding a refreshingly well researched alternative to, as you say, propaganda from whoever passes by in conversation.

Many of these texts have been around long enough for many dedicated people to put forth their own translations, and if relevant (like with many Chinese texts) with some kind of further researched commentary/citations to better explain linguistic concepts/cultural references that may not immediately be obvious otherwise.

It helps a lot of texts without/before involving deities can actually be quite short and sweet, comparatively. Personally, I've found the greek classics to be much more difficult to get into than most of these "sacred texts".

I think many people here probably use Firefox to some degree and are concerned at the sustainability of the entity that makes it, especially since it seems to follow a for-profit trend of higher executive pay even though it's non-profit and not on the most stable, defensible grounds compared to competing software.

Punk rock was very simple but it still required a skillset; most punk rock fans probably hadn't invested the time and effort to be able to participate past supporting those that did.

Punk movements seem to have always suffered from this sort of unacknowledged lack of unified or organized abilities.

And their aversion to the mainstream and anarchic tendencies often leave them and their goals in absolute limbo.

Punk rock at least had the benefit of "if you can listen and agree, you're in" though. To be remotely included in cypher/cyberpunk practically requires an education of some kind, especially in the post-"mobile OS is all I need" world.

Incidentally I've actually found "natural" solutions like boric acid and diatomaceous earth to be wildly effective (in killing/reducing established populations, not preventing new ones), if a bit unsightly and inconvenient to have lying around in piles to actually force the critters into crawling into them.

I probably ought still spend a day off sealing everything I can, though. Probably more pragmatic and less technically barbaric.

This seems like the sane, boring reality. People with modern dental routines probably don't benefit from the original purposes of fluoridation the same way people in the early 1900s only just getting electricity did.

But people only just getting electricity in the early 1900s easily benefited more than were harmed by such things. Poor dental health gets scary quick.

I guess the question becomes how low do you lower the bar for those who would willingly devoid themselves of sane things to include in their lives. How much freedom does one man have to harm his self, though he thinks as a self, costs to him are more often than not also costs incurred to society (and usually a society that'd prefer to not see people do self harmful things)

At least in the US though, it seems that popular opposition to fluoridation started with cold war era conservative conspiracies (precious bodily fluids). So, you know.

Isn't that taste chlorine from the sanitation process?

Either way I actually do assume water filter companies lobby to keep public water as subpar an option as possible, there's certainly no incentive not to.

The impression I get from friends living in TX who have been sympathetic to TX for their entire lives, is that it's been a slow process working towards effectively only having behavioral laws for poor people.

And yes, a common trope of their complaints is a kafkaesque system where it seemingly exists exclusively to be underfunded, under performing and practically intended to breed more resentment from the general population so that they're more amenable to just completely dismantling the civilian system altogether since they now see no incentive or convincing argument for it.

It's genuinely scary. Especially since you get to pretend like you're trying and the system just doesn't work, so we need to get rid of it to "save money".

I assumed this is what parental controls are invented for, but all too many parents don't seem to even have the knowledge to activate those in the first place.

Maybe they should learn how they work instead of supporting a thin veil of totalitarianism.

Considering many cities were actually retrofitted to become car/sprawl centric, I'm going to say that's a political will/lobbying problem rather than a real one.

Although it may have become a problem with all this sunken cost.

I have a feeling that if people made one of those pros and cons sheets and did the crossing off equal things, these conversations would go easier

I can't imagine equating things like the smell of weed and having to share a train with a homeless person, with death, death, accident clean up, new barriers added, and then more death anyways

I know it should be a warning sign to just not drink coke, but I've instead taken it as a "this is literally for filling a glass already prefilled to the brim with ice like in the ads" kind of thing.

Because undiluted coca cola is just honestly not very good, and extremely uh, I'm not sure how to put it, practically pungent

It may again be placebo effect, but I can still taste the difference in bottled water poured into my steel water bottle and my usual filtered tap water.

I also can't stand plastic bottled sodas, and can tell they've been sitting in one even if drank out of something else after opening.

I fear the bottling/canning process and length of time spent in it gives it a bit of a whiskey-barrel style finishing taste alteration.