Polio was absolutely terrible for those who had it. I wouldn’t blame him for having it. Or for ending it. However, for other reasons, I agree with you.

http://acshist.scs.illinois.edu/bulletin_open_access/v31-2/v...

I did not mean to blame him for having polio.

I just meant to say that his solution to his mobility problems came with significant tech debt that came to hang him later.

It was not a tech debt issue. He used it to commit suicide.

I thought it was an accident?

Publicly it was an accident. Privately it was a suicide.

Really? So the guy had some sort of conscience after all?

Interestingly most cases are asymptomatic or extremely low acute consequence and the problems only emerge years later. There is nothing to be learned from this and we should not give it any more thought.

Propane is a shockingly better refrigerant. Sure, it's flammable, but is it really unsafe? It's widely used in commercial units.

Propane is a very good refrigerant for many common uses like AC, heat pumps, or refrigerators, yes. But yes, AFAIU initially CFC's were hailed as a significant safety advancement and quickly replaced older refrigerants that were poisonous (ammonia) or flammable (hydrocarbons). But subsequently we've become better at making refrigerant machinery that needs less refrigerant and is less prone to leakage, and the natural refrigerants have made a comeback as subsequent generations of the flourocarbon family refrigerants have been banned (CFC bans, F-gas regulations etc.) and become more and more expensive.

> It's widely used in commercial units.

That right here is the point. With commercial units, you can be relatively sure only trained professionals will touch it, it will be somewhat decently maintained, and installation will be done with decent quality. With anything consumer-retail? As a manufacturer, you'll have to include absolutely ridiculously dumb people into your risk estimation, and you don't want to risk headlines like "Exploding brand XYZ AC unit kills family in house fire" because the father who had installed it caused a leak in the propane circuit - people won't care about that distinction, they'll see your brand as tarnished and unsafe.

Don't forget decades of advancements in manufacturing procedures, engineering, tighter tolerances, improved materials science, and so on that have happened to help ensure the propane remains in the coolant circuit.

Speaking of DuPont, they also were among the first to introduce PFAs with Teflon - although in this case I don't think anybody suspected what implications that may have at the time...

On a high level, this story looks similar to CFC: when environmental issues arise, deny and defend profits. [0]

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bilott#Initial_actions_...

I'm going to reiterate a point that needs to be repeated very loudly, as often as possible:

Corporations are malignant paperclip maximizers. We are already in an "AI apocalypse". How many people did leaded fuel kill? Lead exposure makes people stupid and violent - how many wars did it indirectly contribute to, how far back has society been held? That's one corporation. One!!

"Corporations bad" is a sort of tired left wing trope at this point but I think that's because the scale of the problem is difficult to wrap one's head around - it's hard to imagine an alternate world. But we didn't choose to inhabit a world run by corporations, it just happened through a process of blind natural selection, and it will kill us all unless we do something about it now. Our current governments are clearly inadequate - we need to be consciously, deliberately, constructing alternate ways of organizing ourselves, as rapidly as possible, to combat the threat of this new lifeform. And make no mistake, it is combat - they will fight back! They will fight back on a level so subtle and insidious that you will be convinced that there is no fight, or that you are powerless, or that the anti-corporate movement is on the wrong side.

What can you do about it? You're an HN reader, you can probably make websites. Build something designed to facilitate collective action. Bring out the best in people. Make it so that when we all know that something is bad, no fucking corporation can pay off the government to be allowed to do it anyway.

W. Dow Reider's "Doc Future" e-novels went in this direction, particularly the last not yet finished one. Recommended!

https://docfuture.tumblr.com/post/62787551366/stories

Nobility used to have the highest lead levels, while violent tribes used to have the lowest. How do you explain that?

You explain that by understanding that nobility had the resources and influence to get utensils and other kitchenware that were ceramics decorated with lead containing glaze and metals that contained lead. You have causality entirely backwards, eating lead does not somehow turn someone into nobility. That's an absurd conclusion

I can't reply to you because you've posted such nonsense that all your comments are dead. Being born into nobility has nothing to do with anything as people who dine with nobility will use the same utensils. I'm not sure how you so t understand something so simple. Not to mention you haven't posted a shred of evidence that any of your assertions are even accurate

It's almost as if a governing body should exist that's by the people, for the people, wherein corporations are not equivalent to more powerful people....

Yes, and? Yes, governments are supposed to protect us. No, they are not adequate to the task[0] - they were designed before this became an obvious problem. We need to move forward from simply complaining about it, and think structurally.

[0] (although that varies by country and having a government is almost invariably better than not having one)