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Comment by Al-Khwarizmi | Hacker News Reader

I think you're overthinking this a bit. I don't think politicians prefer seeing their children suffering illness and premature death rather than pissing off lobbies. The real problem is that most people see the results of studies like this as something abstract, not as something that affects them directly. It's clearly visible with smokers: it's not that they are especially tolerant of dying a horrible death from lung cancer or a stroke (no one is), it's mostly that they don't really think it will happen to them (yes, I know it might be an imperfect analogy because physiological addiction also factors in... but I also know a smoker that found quitting "physically impossible" until he had a stroke, and survived. Once he had saw death's face, and the risk turned from abstract to very concrete, he quit smoking overnight).

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> it's not that they are especially tolerant of dying a horrible death from lung cancer or a stroke (no one is), it's mostly that they don't really think it will happen to them

That, or perhaps something even more sinister: they'd rather enjoy a 5 minute cigarette respite from life than live without that respite.

Lawmakers, too, have hellish lives. Turn a blind eye to stuff that doesn't matter here and how, and instead focus on getting whatever will better they and their families.

It doesn't help that studies like this are also usually wrong. Don't change anything in your life until something has been replicated a dozen or more times.

Or maybe take the information as a sign that perhaps caution is warranted in some areas and it might be worthwhile to consider how you might change your behaviors based on the evidence.

I agree that scientific conclusions are sometime editorialized to convey the pressing nature of the findings (the evidence is what it is), but 100% wrong or 100% right I don't think it would do you much harm to reduce the amount of pollution you're exposed to on a daily basis.

Air pollution and smoking are both very likely to be bad for you.

There's a Pascal's wager in this situation. In the worst case, there's no cognitive effect from pollution, but you clean up the environment anyway. Even without the possibility of improving your ability to reason, there are many other obvious benefits to reducing pollution, quitting smoking, and many other major changes about which the effects have been debated and exaggerated over time.

See also "The Precautionary Principle", which environmental policy should ideally always follow but alas all too often doesn't, as in this case.

> There's a Pascal's wager in this situation. In the worst case, there's no cognitive effect from pollution, but you clean up the environment anyway.

And, as with Pascal's wager, that's unconvincing: one could spend all that money differently, on things one would like (just as in Pascal's wager, choosing to believe in God isn't cost-free: it means loving others, being charitable &c., even if one would rather not).

>there's no cognitive effect from pollution

The worst case is that there is a positive effect from pollution. When one looks at the historic data it wasn't until people started living in smog filled cities that children started attending schools.

We shouldn't fall into the trap of assuming causation and correlation just because it gels with something in your subconscious.

This is just one of many potential effects. Damage to lung formation and increased risk of asthma are very well established.

I think we can be pretty confident that air pollution is bad for your health, even if some effects in the constellation of health issues attributed to it are not as strong as claimed.

> it's not that they are especially tolerant of dying a horrible death from lung cancer or a stroke (no one is), it's mostly that they don't really think it will happen to them...

Which is true most of the time..

I mean, people getting into an automobile for no good reason also thinks that they won't be the one that would end up dying or maimed in an accident. I mean, aren't we all guilty or dumb in that way?

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