Comment by hilbert42 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by hilbert42 | Hacker News Reader

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"She told us that they used to clean their lab bench with benzene solvent to make it sparkling clean. Of course, she also told us it was carcinogenic and then finished by saying a lot of her contemporary"

That was about the same time I was learning the subject. We didn't get an anecdote about cleaning lab benches with benzene but were told it was very dangerous and carcinogenic.

Our teacher brought out a little bottle of the stuff—about 50ml or so—and told us that this was one aromatic hydrocarbon we weren't going to sniff and we should never attempt to do so. He also went on to stress that carbon tetrachloride was nearly as bad and said that none of the methyl chlorides could be 'trusted' as safe and with every extra Cl atom they became more toxic.

Advice I've always heeded. If this was common advice in lab science 50+ years ago then why is it even an issue today? All our chemical tech should have been built around this knowledge, the default should have been that benzene and humans should not mix—this paper ought to be a hypothetical as such exposure should not happen.

Incidentally, around that time there was controversy about removing carbon tetrachloride from dry cleaners, owners of these operations were complaining the new substitutes didn't remove grease as well.

>If this was common advice in lab science 50+ years ago then why is it even an issue today?

[...]

>this paper ought to be a hypothetical as such exposure should not happen.

Of course it shouldn't happen. We all wish bad things didn't happen...

I am having trouble wrapping my head around this comment. I don't think people are purposefully exposing themselves to the chemical... Like yeah, of course everyone hopes that they won't need to know what happens when someone is exposed to benzene, but that doesn't mean we don't study it anyway. I don't think "hypothetical" is the word here since the possibility of benzene exposure is very real.

The implication here seems to be that, as soon as you discover the negative effects of exposure to a certain chemical, that chemical is instantly no longer a threat to anybody. Just because we may have known about this ~50 years ago, doesn't mean that we can just stop worrying about it.

I'm sorry you missed my point that regulation lags the tech and can do so for a very long time—usually because commercial and vested interests block safety regulations.

Where would you like me to start? Perhaps asbestos, it's well known and well documented. 2000+ years ago the Romans were well aware of its dangers and called is effects 'the wasting disease', that's why they only sent slaves and prisoners to asbestos mines.

It was then the subject of several Admiralty inquiries in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries that came to the conclusion that it was dangerous and significantly shortened lives but the reports were overlooked as those lagging pipes on ships were expendable, getting ships ready for war wasn't. And we are still dealing with the stuff 100+ years on.

We could end with the dangers of social media and AI, but the populous at large is so enamored with them it can't even yet see the dangers let alone consider regulating them.

Well I'm not sure that's the point I would have taken away from your comment, but oh well...

What it comes down to (which is what it always comes down to in capitalism), is capital. Accruing (and facilitating the accrual of) and protecting capital is the main function of the state, so it's only natural that regulations to protect regular people at the cost of a fraction of profits of the bourgeoisie, would take decades to be put in place. If ever.

Same thing goes for social media and AI. We sit back and watch as it corrodes and destroys our societies, so a handful of multi-billion dollar corporations can report profits to their shareholders every quarter.

This isn't anything new, there are people way smarter than you and I that figured this out a long time ago... Just don't say his name or else nobody will take you seriously.

Right, that hairy unmentionable and his mate. It's not surprising that 'those in charge of the means of production' and a fucked revolution in the hands of ruthless opportunists have made their names mud.

What truly grates me in this centuries-long battle is that those to whom you refer always end up on top. Capital is like a bobbing cork, no matter how far you sink it, it always has the power to resurface.

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