I feel like if asbestos was banned today there'd be a huge pro-asbestos movement

There'd be motherfuckers on TikTok snorting lines of asbestos

Trumpers would start eating asbestos for breakfast just to pwn the libz
- I wish they would
- This makes me wonder if we can make a really convincing deepfake video to manipulate the Trumpets.

When seatbelts were introduced to cars, there was a big movement against them. Some by car manufacturers to keep costs down, but a lot of backlash was from good ol' natural born idiots so contrarian and averse to change they'd let themselves die just to give a smug look about not doing what someone asked of them. The sort of dumbass who during the height of pre-vaccine Covid would drown in the fluid buildup in their lungs and refuse treatment because doing so would be an admission of fault.
These past 9 years have made me DEEPLY cynical about my fellow man. There is no bottom. No level of malicious stupidity is low enough. It's not even disappointment anymore, I'm resigned to it. Some people are so beyond hope, so beyond redemption, it's like trying to get a fucking deer to recognize itself in a mirror. Just ZERO awareness, no theory of mind, object permanence is a fucking coin flip. If it weren't for my principles, my absolute refusal to engage in dehumanization, I'd be tempted to write them off as another species just to cope with the dissonance that comes from seeing people acting that self destructive. Like it doesn't make sense. You'd expect at some point some form of pattern recognition and harm avoidance to develop. "Hey, putting my hand on the stove hurt. It hurt every time I did it. It hurt everyone I saw someone else do it too. I'm gonna put my hand on the stove and it won't hurt this time.".
- I was annoyed about the seatbelt laws, but I was a little kid at the time. I came from an era of riding in the back of dad's truck and enjoying the breeze. Hell, I went from New England to Canada in the back of a capped truck. I was eight years old and never thought anything of it.
  However, as I got older into my teens I got more adamant about using a seat belt, even when the laws were still sorta gray here (you were let off with no warning most times). Now its second nature, even if I'm heading 3 mins to the store. Some people still don't because they think that they're only endangering themselves. Thing is, I have a brother in law that's a first responder. He's seen people torpedo out of windows in head-on collisions and into the other car, injuring the other driver/passengers.
  Honestly, I don't get what the whole problem is. You barely even notice them on you. Most people who don't put on a simple and comfortable safety belt are just being fucking stubborn children who don't like being told what to do. I'm glad I grew out of that way of thinking. Some my family are those "good ol' natural borns". They'll tell me I don't have to put my seatbelt on and every time I adamantly say, "I always do". My other brother in law will literally crank the radio so he can't hear the seatbelt alarm. Drives me insane, but I love the idiot.
  
  I hated them as a kid because they were uncomfortable and didn't fit right. My mom made is wear it but I used to put the chest belt behind my back as soon as she turned around because it dug into my neck. I probably should have been in a car seat for way longer than I was. As an adult I don't even notice it.
  
  Untethered occupants are a serious danger to other occupants in their own car. I wouldn't agree to drive with someone who wouldn't put one on tbh, partly because it hints at a lack of judgement and I wouldn't want that person in charge of the car.
- There are still people that buy "belt silencers" or sit on their seatbelts to drive without. Newer cars will alarm, and mine even shuts down if you drive without a seatbelt
  
  My sister's boyfriend bought an oldtimer with no seatbelt. The previous owner installed some and he took them out again. I think there is nothing that brings him more joy than to tell people how he doesn't need a seatbelt. He also drives his children around in this deathtrap. But he also refuses to wear a helmet when they ride their ebike. My sister nagged so long about it that he now takes the helmet with him, but he doesn't wear it, that's the compromise they reached. Some people are just fucking weird.
  
  I think those are mostly for super obese people because seat belts are really uncomfortable if you're really, really fat. At least that's what I always assumed because everyone I know who has one is really fat.
- I enjoyed reading this. Well put. I also share this recent realization. It's made me feel a bit less imposter syndrome. Among other things.
- I think there is a growing divide between the most and least intelligent in society, and it has been growing with tech advancement (the gap wouldn't have been that big in the middle ages). If we ever develop superintelligent AI, I can see that becoming an inflection point in this divide because we (Lemmy dwellers) will become as fallible to that AI as the people you mentioned are today in what is still a human-dominated society. Introducing AGI will vastly exasperate the gap between the most and least intelligent and I can't see society surviving that in its current form.
  
  Not quite.
  Tech's facilitated a lot of things, but not a schism in intelligence. That requires systemic destruction of education systems, especially those that focus on critical thinking and comprehension.
  No matter how smart you are, we're still herd animals. Get enough loud drivers and it infects everyone.
  Boomers have their odd naivete and emotional immaturity from intergenerational trauma, but Zoomers have something i consider worse - a self-righteousness that demands the appearance of purity and correct behaviour. It's more important to be seen to say nothing wrong than do the right thing. It's the weird US paradigm of posturing puritanism on steroids - and unfortunately the interconnectivity of the internet has facilitated that infection

I was surprised to find out that people also were against seatbelts. Weird
- Oh god yes. They all literally invented a fake illness called "seat belt burn." I kid you not. And this was the 80s before commercial Internet, so it spread organically.
- My mother in law would complain about wearing one while I was driving her around, so I'd just refuse to move the car until she either got out or put the seatbelt on. She wears it without complaining now. I give no fucks if people like wearing it or not, when they're in my car, I'm responsible for their safety and I won't have their blood on my hands because they think it'll never happen to them.
- Yeah, one of my grandpas always chafed against wearing one, especially the part that comes across the chest. He was always "forgetting" to put it on, and holding it down so it wouldn't like press against him.
  Meanwhile I don't even think about the seatbelt. Actually it feels wrong if I forget to put it on for some reason.
  
  "ding... ding... ding..."
- Oh yeah. "You're safer being ejected from the car in a crash. My cousin's ex husband's sister's daughter survived a crash that way!"
  
  Those people have never seen someone who has been hit by an air bag. It's not a gentle pillow it's a punch to the face and if you aren't strapped in you're probably gonna bounce around a bit off the interior.
- they do make it significantly harder to grab items from the back seats when at red lights, especially if they are the bs locking type.
  
  They do. But for that just pull over and do what you've got to do. Stop trying to multitask while you're in command and control of a device that can wipe out an entire family in a split second of distraction.

My country banned smoking in all public indoor spaces almost 20 years ago. As a smoker at the time I thought it was ridiculous, felt that my rights were being violated and thought it would never last. The quality of life improvement it made is massive. Today I vape rather than smoke but wouldn't dream of doing either indoors or being where someone else is. It was 100% the right move. Not quite the same thing but you sometimes can't really understand the benefits of an alternative to the status quo, even if you understand it logically.
- Smokers can never smell themselves so they don't think it's a big deal.
- I don't generally mind the smoking bans, but I wish there existed some indoor spaces where it could be done. They are very limited and mostly exclusive.

Contracting silicosis to own the libs. Then use some sort of donkey enema as a cure.
- Is that giving a donkey an enema or preforming an enema with a donkey or is it utilizing a donkey to perform an enema..
  
  I think it means using an enema made for donkeys for yourself.
  
  For donkeys, by donkeys.
  
  I was thinking of taking an enema meant for donkeys, but I guess whichever method is approved by RFK Jr "works".

LOL, libs are trying to ban asbestos! They want us all to catch fire! Asbestos causing cancer is a conspiracy, do your own research. Besides, Ivermectin will cure any cancer caused by asbestos.
/s (because the USA is crazy and someone would really post this and mean it)
- Post it on reddit, and that will end up as a google AI recommendation next week.
  
  Asbestos is a great way to prevent the glue on your pizza from catching on fire !
- I can see them railing a line of asbestos just to own the libs. Better than vaccine denial I suppose, at least it limits the damage.
  
  A guy I went to HS with definitely did this one time on a dare. A piece of insulation fell out of the kiln in shop class n another kid smashed it n told this kid he'd give him $5 to snort it. No one thought he would, but this dude absolutely railed it. Someone asks the shop teacher later what the tiles were made of and he says asbestos mostly, but it's fine as long as you don't mess with it. 💀
  I keep checking on his Facebook every couple of years to see if lung cancer got him. So far, he's still kicking lol.

Hate to break it to you: https://www.archpaper.com/2018/08/epa-asbestos-manufacturing/
- Asbestos was used because of it's flame retardation and it's easy to make. Provided it's properly encapsulated and does not become damaged risk can be mitigated. Preventing damage is the hard part, no one plans for a tree to fall on their house. Maybe if everyone just wears a air mask all the time we wouldn't have to worry about it.
  
  The mask really gets in the way of eating ass, though.
  
  Asbestos is kind of a wonder material.
  Easy to manufacture in complex shapes, inert (acid resistant, so great for chemical pipes), flame retardant, great insulator, and fairly cheap.
  Shame that it causes really bad cancer...
  
  Yea, but doesnt everything get damaged? And even if its while breaking it down when disposing/recycling/dumping it?
- O.O
- Russia has a town named after asbestos and lobbies for asbestos.
- They’re getting rid of silicosis protections now too.
  Black lung for all!

If CFCs were banned today you would see people spraying them in the air to own the libs, also spraying their children with DDTs because RFK Jr told them to
- worth giving it a try....do NOT, I repeat do NOT spray RFK Jr with DDT every time you see him. I am a liberal and this would really make me cry. Don't do it!
- What about thalidomide?
- Fun fact: They did. Rush Limbaugh had a proud "keep spraying" campaign.
  
  Of course he did, goddam

I used to live in a city called Asbestos, the mine was closed back in 2012 and older folks are still angry about it, they'll even tell you that the workers handling it weren't in worse health than anyone else in the city... The worst part is that it was banned in the construction industry 30 years prior, so they kept exploiting the mine only to export it to countries that hadn't banned it, even if it meant killing people there...

I'm a little surprised Trump hasn't signed the "Asbestos Fibers Are Our Friends" Executive Order.

Depends who would ban it. From my life experience, we have one side that definitely would because they get mad at anything the other side. ANYTHING. While the other side is typically more rational and has critical thinking skills.
- I have heard that Obama supports breathing.
  
  I also heard Obama supports Trump, so if you like Trump it means you like Obama and that makes u a dumb librul. Checkmate, everyone.
  
  I heard Obama and Biden are anti mask and anti universal healthcare now.
- Are you talking about liberals being dumb?
  /j
  
  Yeah, dumb liberals with their dumb vaccines and pasteurized milk and fluoridated water and science. 🙄
- What other side? Sure there are always a few rational people. However the vast majority choose a side and then blindly oppose anything the other side says/does. When their side happens to have critical thinking on their side they are for that, but that isn't a factor in why they choose something.
  Trying to convince yourself otherwise proves that you are ignoring the issues on your own side. If you really were a rational thinker you would have to choose your side separately for every single issue - nobody has time for that which in turn means you sometimes rely on someone who turns out to be irrational but because they have proved rational in other areas you trust them here too.
  
  If you really were a rational thinker you would have to choose your side separately for every single issue - nobody has time for that
  This really is not that difficult nor time consuming.
  
  I'm an independent thinker. In the past republicans and democrats had both good and bad ideas.
  In today's world democrats are more for the people as a country and care more about citizens, example, making sure kids in schools get free lunches, "no child should go hungry" as they understand not everyone is rich and can afford proper meals for dinner later in the day, the cause being maybe medical debt or other unforseen hardships, example. A car accident and need a sudden co-payment of $2000 to fix or replace their car. While republicans want to stop free lunches to save 12¢ extra in a state/county tax. So I've seen Republicans only show greed for themselves which in turn completely halts advancements in a society. Example, private healthcare. You would pay significantly less in a raise in federal tax compared to a monthly premium+ medical bills. The math isn't that hard to do, but Republicans are so blinded by the thought of "my hard earned money is for me and not for Susan who has 3 kids and her husband has terminal cancer. Now she has to pay $250,000 when he dies.
  So in short. Democratic party in my eyes has been for people. Republican party in my eyes has been for themselves and everyone else can live in the streets.
  
  If you have morals and standards, its not hard to take a stance on every issue. If you support education, it doesnt take much looking into anything about education to understand how decisions fit into your worldview. And even if you support some aspects of one side and some from the other, you still have to pick a side because welcome to Americas 2 party system.
  My experience with many users on lemmy who support "critical thinking" are not actually advocating critical thinking. Theyre trying to justify their mental gymnastics while simultaneously feeding their self-righteous egos
  
  If you really were a rational thinker you would have to choose your side separately for every single issue
  You should already do this for anything you care about? It really, really doesn't take long for the important stuff. For everything else -
  You don't need to take a side on things you don't understand. If you haven't had the time to assess something... don't share an opinion about it. It's perfectly functional and rational for humans to specialize and leave problems for other humans to deal with. It is only social media that convinced people they should care about literally everything.
  
  I also think it hasn't helped that the news as become more of a propaganda outlet. They probably live in a bubble.
- Thats however what everybody thinks about themselves
  
  Nope. Both sides are not the same. Period.
  
  A lot of those people are correct.

I’m in a comment war with a nicotine denialist on here now!
In the 90s, there were still tons of people angry about seat belt laws. It’s every American’s God Given Right to fly out of the windshield and probably kill someone else.
- There is this meme about:
  
  "There are 30,000 people that have been killed with seat belts, where they've gotten into accidents, the cars were on fire, they've been knocked out, they haven't been able to get out of the vehicle," he said. "My point is, even if the majority of people are saved, why do we keep forcing people to do things that they feel it's their own individual right to make a decision?"
  Rhode Island state rep, 2011.
  
  Where'd you get a picture off all my elder family members in one place!? (j/k)
- People are emotional. They feel things, and then make up justifications for it afterwards. We all do this to some extent, in some contexts or others, but some people seem to do it the majority of the time.
  Someone who smokes and has a choice between admitting they fucked up, they're hurting themselves and those around them, OR denying it so they're just a persecuted innocent? A lot of people will go for the latter. It's weakness and cowardice, but saying that won't change their mind. If results are wanted we have to do the very arduous task of massaging their emotions and I kind of resent that thankless, endless, work. Even though I almost certainly am the same way about other things.
  Humans are a mess.
  
  As a former smoker (now vaper) I understand and agree with non smokers about smoking inside.
  However the people who bitch about smokers outside in public piss me off.
  Yes my cigarette (now vape) is soooooo much worse than the exhaust of the thousands of cars /generators/construction equipment and so on that are constantly running all around us.
  But out of sight out of mind. They can't see all that exhaust shit so it doesn't exist - But those fucking smokers how dare they.
- Even better, people in the 80s when drinking and driving was made illegal: https://youtu.be/2xcQIoh3FQQ
  
  Still meet plenty of people who drink beer in the car
- Real men aren't held back by anything! The belt restricts blood flow through the body! It's a globalist conspiracy to turn our men into women!
  
  Imagine having a heart so weak that a little piece of fabric over your chest restricts your blood flow.
  
  Real Chad's don't let some dumb straps stop them from pumping blood like a REAL PATRIOT! B)
- My father was an anti-seatbelter up until 2010-ish, when he got a newer car with a better seatbelt system.
- Aren’t belts not required in Utah
  Also there are pro-asbestos movements
  
  Required as of 2015 looks like.
- I am evil for this and I admit it.
  Seat belts laws should not be enforced on adults. A windshield dive is a good cure for stupid, I bet a lot of MAGA would literally go out like that.
  
  Trauma, potential physical harm to others. A whole set of reasons they should be enforced. I get what you're saying though.

Hey guys! Today we will talk about Asbestos 🤯😵😱 Scary! I know!
But I'm here to tell you that actually, asbestos is super useful and the health hazards are so out of proportion! And this brings me to my sponsor, Asbet Health! Asbet Health have given my viewers a 20% discount for the next 30 days on ALL of their 100% asbestos clothing! We are talking about light, breathable, fire resistant and stain resistant clothing that has been proven to support your health!*
*Not FDA approved
- It probably would be FDA approved now.
  
  Soon we will have "FDA approved pre-2025" to know if it's not BS
- It'd be one of those shitty AI voices too.
- And also you wash it down with radithor! The healthfully radioactive water.

Here in Australia we just banned engineered stone because it tends to cause silicosis
And yep, lots of shitty business owners whined and a few shit customers on Facebook
Silicosis is what's killing people at the moment, and business owners in particular don't seem to care, despite the fact there's is alternatives
- I have no idea engineered stones causes silicosis. Is it the manufacturing or the installation or the home owner getting too close to it that causes it?
  
  When it's cut for bench tops and such , that's what exposes people.
  Lots of stonemasons here in Australia now have silicosis because of it.
  Natural stone has far less issues and there is stone available which doesn't cause it
  Business owners were also claiming they weren't given enough time to switch. Everyone including me (I have a friend with silicosis now) has known engineered stone was dangerous to work with for years.
  So they had years of warning that it was dangerous But they pretend like it was unexpected.

"When we had asbestos there was less autism. Big pharma teamed up with big construction to screw us up"
- No, that’s big autism teaming up with big contracting to help facilitate the increase of people with superpowers!

The Dipshit tried to bring it back his last term. Guess which country is the top producer of asbestos?
- It's got to be either Russia or the US.
  
  It's not the US. When has he ever done anything to benefit the US?

In 2018, the U.S. idiot-in-chief tried to bring it back again.
- Yes! How do people not remember this?
  
  Because a thousand other crazy things happened.

“Don’t Tread on Mesothelioma”
- Gosh, Don’t tread on me-sothelioma
  We were here when history was made
  
  Indexed by google (not bing or ddg's array of crawlers yet) now.
- Steve McQueen would be their hero. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_McQueen#Illness_and_death
- Until lemmy gold is a thing please have these medals, I wish I could offer more: 🏅🏅🏅🏅🏅🏅
  
  We can let Reddit go, I think.

lead too.
- It is actually astonishing it took so long for lead to be banned in the US. Even Ben Franklin railed against the use of lead in daily life and he was someone who lived and died in the 18th century.
  
  Even Ben Franklin railed against the use of lead in daily life
  whoa, TIL. 1786 NO LESS
  https://www.environmentaleducation.com/documents/Lead%20Resources/Ben%20Franklin%20Letter%20on%20Lead.pdf
  TY!

There's still some pro-asbestos people, so it didn't go away 100%. I remember reading a completely mental Conservapedia article blaming 9/11 on not using asbestos.
- That was Rush Limbaugh, may he rot in piss.
- They used asbestos in the towers though?

People are just going to have to re-learn just how fucking scary the measles and polio are, I guess.
- I'm curious if America children dying will weaken the anti vax movement in other countries.
  
  God I hope so. Don't hope for the US to learn.
  We didn't on guns after Sandy Hook so get some popcorn for the horror show to come for us.

I'm still in favor of asbestos. It's an amazing material for preventing fires AS LONG AS you never disturb it. The people that were most at risk of cancers were the people involved in the mining, manufacturing, and installation of asbestos products, but once the asbestos-containing products were installed, they were almost entirely safe for the occupants of the building. You could, in theory, largely mitigate the risks to the miners, manufacturers, and installers, but that is... Well, expensive. And people have a really bad tendency to ignore health and safety warnings when they're inconvenient. You see the same issue with quartz countertops; they're known to cause silicosis in people that are doing the cutting unless they do wet cutting for everything, and wear PPE, but a lot of people don't, because wet-cutting is messy and slow, and PPE is hot and uncomfortable.
There was a big movement in the late 90s to remove asbestos from old buildings; the current advice is to encapsulate it, and leave it in place.
- You also have to consider removal at the end of life. Or safety risks if another country drops bombs randomly on your cities.
  
  Fair point about removal; but if you're being bombed, I think asbestos is going to be low on your list of worries.
- they were almost entirely safe for the occupants of the building
  So would you live in a house your whole life that's "almost" entirely safe? I don't think I would
  
  There are plenty of things that you deal with on a daily basis that are significantly more dangerous than asbestos. And if it had been treated like the hazardous material that it is as soon as we knew it was hazardous, then it would still be used just like all the other hazardous shit we deal with daily. However, as is the usual story, companies not only hid what they knew, but outright lied about its dangers. They called it a miracle material with no downsides. And it is amazingly good at what it does, so it was put in fucking everything, much like AI is today. And so people died for profit. A lot of people.
  
  I did in Chicago. And I absolutely would again, because it makes my house much less likely to burn down from e.g. an electrical fire.
  I quit smoking a decade ago; my risk of lung cancer was--is--far, far higher from smoking than it ever would have been from living in a house with asbestos insulation in the walls and around pipes.
  
  Millions of people do and have. They are again almost entirely fine.
  
  I do. My ceiling almost certainly has asbestos in it. I just don't touch it. Also uncovered a few chunks that looked kinda asbestossy when breaking up the concrete in the garden, it was only a few chunks so I assume something containing it had been dumped there many decades ago. I just disposed of it with everything else and pretended I didn't see anything.
  It was a very dusty job in the first place so I started spraying it with water to help prevent the dust getting into the air.
- Yup. It's a pretty wondrous material, except the bit about causing cancer.
- Aren't there ways to treat the asbestos and prevent the fibers from becoming airborne and posing a serious risk?
  
  Encapsulation, yeah. That's usually what they do now, since encapsulation is usually cheaper, and generally less disruptive.

We DoN't NeEd VaCcInEs We'Ve GoT aSbEsToS!

Asbestos must have seemed like a fucking miracle material. Suddenly, our tinderbox world was fireproof. You can build bricks, lightweight cladding, roofing and fences for houses, car parts, curtains, electrical switchboards and protective clothing out of it without the incessant fear of a house fire or clothing fire that was constantly killing people and maiming kids. It wasn't synthetic or petroleum based, you could just dig it out of the ground. Yeah it would absolutely have supporters. They would be dumb, but they would exist.
I remember my dad being angry that they were phasing out leaded petrol and he had to buy a seperate additive to put in the Datsun fuel.
- Still used in a lot of fireproof applications. Lab tables you see in chemistry and biology classrooms are a good example, most of those are made out of asbestos. Really, as long as it's well bonded and handled appropriately, it's perfectly safe. It's just costly to do so, and greedy companies don't care if their lax standards cause cancer 20 years later, so it really can't be trusted in the hands of private businesses.
  
  Most lab tops today are not asbestos based. There's plenty of 40 plus year old ones still around that are and as long as you don't break them they're perfectly fine. But newer tops are all either epoxy or phenolic resin based.

In fact, the industry did sue and win a lawsuit in 1991 narrowing the range of asbestos compounds banned by the EPA. There have always been huge waves of resistance to every harmful compound banned by the government, from leaded gas to cigarettes to chlorofluorocarbons that harmed the ozone layer. The difference is that the present consolidation of wealth in the hands of a small group of billionaires, who control a consolidating group of media corporations, allows for unprecedented ability to control public opinion. Meanwhile, the amount of junk information floating around in social media, and failing public education, has disordered our systems of discourse. There is much more limited ability to vet quality sources of information, leaving people to worry more about fictional chemtrails than about the very real pesticides in their food
- Leaded gas still isn't banned. Small airplanes still use it, and homes around airfields (including mine, which my family lived in before the airfield) are contaminated with lead. My daughter failed her 12 month lead test because of it despite us excluding her from outdoor activities in our neighborhood.
  
  100UL (Unleaded avgas) has finally been approved for spark-ignition aviation engines just in the past couple years.
  Manufacturers have finally gotten approval to build/retrofit popular small aircraft with compression-ignition engines. These can burn Jet-A in a diesel cycle instead of 100LL. Jet-A is more energy dense than 100LL, and it is cheaper.
  We're finally in a regulatory position where the GA fleet can actually transition to unleaded fuels.
  
  It's messed up that there are still ways lead is used in this country. Ammunition, also, is a huge scourge on our environment, and sometimes people. I'm very sorry about your daughter having that problem.
- Changed it a little.
  In fact, the industry did sue and win a lawsuit in 1991 narrowing the range of profits banned by the EPA. There have always been huge waves of resistance to every profitable compound banned by the government, from leaded gas to cigarettes to chlorofluorocarbons that harmed the ozone layer.

Back when asbestos was banned, everyone trusted the government. Nobody trusts the government anymore because of its constant foreign wars, corrupt candidates, and human rights abuses. We cannot do things like mandate vaccines and ban cars if the very government that would enforce that ban is this tyrannical and shitty.
- Also, there are people who make money (or even just fake internet points) off of telling gullible people the opposite is true.
  They should be held accountable for what they claim online.
  
  And I mean someone who claims cigarettes don't cause cancer are financially responsible if anyone who smokes a cigarette gets cancer. No need to prove they watched the channel or started smoking after seeing their video.

People would be making TikTok videos eating asbestos and cramming it up their bums claiming it cures COVID

Implication is that there are things about as bad as asbestos that should be banned, but aren't.
- Cigarette, sir?

At least using asbestos has some value. If we had not found alternatives we would still be using it. One reason measures were taken to improve safety in manufacturing rather than just banning from the get go was lack of alternatives. What im trying to say is pro-asbestos is not as coocoo crazy as anti vax and such.
- We do have alternatives to vaccines though:
  You simply ban abortion and sex education which increases the birth rate and therefore it doesn't matter that a few babies die from preventable illnesses.
  
  Damn, take my vote in any presidental election.
- It's still pretty bonkers to know something will kill you if you use it, and we just ignore all the science.
  
  That would be tobacco.
  Asbestos is not dangerous when it is in a solid form and left alone, which is the vast majority of the use cases. It becomes dangerous when it is damaged, since that lets the fibers into the air. That is why in residential areas we leave it alone, but if it needs to be removed then hazmat type safety equipment is required. We leave it alone, which is the normal use, because removing it is the unsafe situation.
  Asbestos should be banned for anything other than extremely well regulated industrial situations that may need it like any other hazardous material.
  
  Water will kill you if you don't use it with care, but everybody older than a baby uses it despite clear science on how deadly it is.
  The relevant question is can we mitigate risk enough.
  
  I'm full of microplastics but I keep buying food and drink packaged in plastic (--)/
  Sometimes there's just no realistic alternative. As nice as it would be to only buy fresh, unpacked food I don't have the time, money or energy to deal with that
  EDIT: oh no, the Lemmy markup has ruined my shrugging face :(

I'm SO glad I live in a city with a decently functioning tram system. If something like that was proposed today, there'd be thousands of people complaining about being forced out of their cars or the city losing its charm or whatever nonsense.
- Texas just defunded their rail project

Banning asbestos is like discarding our heritage! 🦸 It's American ingenuity, jobs, safety in its most patriotic form. Asbestos has protected us for generations—why abandon this true-blue hero for trendy orthodoxy? Let's celebrate our history and defend what truly makes America great. #AsbestosPatriotism 🗽✨
- My pa knows a guy who lost his job installing asbestos and if we stop using it you know CHINA is gonna use and make big fools of us, it's pathetic. Plus the news SAYS it's a witch hunt boiled up by BIG LUNG to steal money from hard working asbestos loving Americans 🇱🇷🇱🇷🇱🇷

If it didn't cause cancer, asbestos is a fucking miracle material, there are people TODAY who are hugely pro-asbestos
- People have been pro-asbestos dating back to Roman times, and even back then it is said they knew it was harmful as well. But used it anyway. 😆
  
  I mean you do have to wright in thr pros and cons. Like asbestos is crazy good in what it does. if you have it in your building and don't fuck with it, it doesn't matter. I'm not some pro asbestos nut or anything, but they banned asbestos because of health concers, but smoking and alvohol is still fine, which has absolutely no positive side effects

Sponsored by the freedom initiative or something with a similar name to cover up it’s a social media campaign for a billionaire.

Old car guys are still bitter over unleaded gas. Some will drive to airports to buy the leaded stuff.
- Old car drivers drive cars that need additives in the gas. The lead was a lubricant, and old engines ran better, and longer, on leaded gas.
  They didn't just add lead because it made the gas prettier; there was a reason. I would suppose that today there are other additives that can reproduce the lubricating effects for those old cars, but old car hobbyists are niche and you're not going to find those products at Walmart, whereas there's always a local airport somewhere nearby.
  I'm not defending leaded gas, but I think vintage car enthusiasts do it not because they're being stupididly misinformed and contrarian, but because they're trying to keep their engines running well.
  
  The reason was TEL stopped engine pinging.
  
  Thomas Midgley Jr is the same guy that invented leaded gas and also invented freon (chlorofluorocarbons). Imagine being the architect of not one but two of the greatest environmental calamities of the industrial age.
  
  The lead was a lubricant, and old engines ran better, and longer, on leaded gas.
  There were two issues. First, tetraethyl lead increased the effective octane level. That, in turn, reduced the probability of pre-ignition, e.g., the fuel-air mixture igniting before the compression cycle was completed. Higher octane allows for higher compression, which is more efficient. The other issue was the valves specifically; the lead provided a 'cushion' between the valves and the valve seats, which minimized valve wear.
  The octane issue is easily solved by both better refining or by adding alcohol. It was known that you could add alcohol to gas to improve octane rating even when TEL was first added, but TEL could be patented, and alcohol couldn't. The valve issue has largely been solved by better metallurgy and manufacturing.
  The one are where it hasn't been solved is small aircraft. Some small planes still use leaded gas, and it's mostly for the octane boost. TEL can give them a better octane rating than alcohol or better refinement can, which allows them to operate at much high compression. Take that away, and the engines are too underpowered to keep the plane in the air. Over 150,000 small airplanes still use leaded AvGas; thankfully, newer turboprop planes and all jet planes mostly use Jet A or Jet B fuel, which is closer to kerosene.
  In theory, I think that you could convert older cars to run on unleaded fuels, but you would need new parts rather than OEM.
  
  I ones I know are putting it in new generators.

- As always, Simpsons did it...

I love two towns over from Manville, which was the asbestos capital of America, and I can unequivocally say those morons would vote to bring asbestos back if they could.

Of course he is for it.
It will make him money
And none of the thousands who will get sick and or die
Are people he knows personally

It actually was just recently (a year ago) banned fully in the US. Before that, it was just prohibited to be used in new construction.
- What do you mean with fully banned in this example?
  Pretty sure here in Europe there are also still plenty of cases where you're not forced to remove asbestos, like inaccessible old plumbing that's embedded in the utility shafts of apartment blocks. So it's also not fully banned here yet either, in that sense.
  
  Well it can't be sold anymore, but if you have it in your house then it's not illegal in any way

Wasn't Trump literally trying to bring it back last time?
https://whyy.org/articles/trump-wants-to-make-asbestos-great-again/
- The use of asbestos in the US was only banned in 2024.

Like Transfats. I remember the idiots complaining, not realizing they were getting something inferior.
- Something with trans in there? That should not even come up in his mind.
- TRANSfats?!??!!!?? The wokes are trying to force us to be trans by putting 'transfats' in our food!!
- they didnt go away just lowered amount for servings, an annoying amount of food still has them, like costco dogs

What do you mean ... if?
- Satire article? Please tell me that's a satire article?
  
  It is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bell_Tower_Times
  
  Oh lol, it actually is. That wasn't intended.

He'd drive a truck fogging asbestos dust out the back

LOL. Imagine seeing asbestos truthers coughing on their deathbed swearing that it’s completely harmless and that there’s a global conspiracy against it.
- I mean, we can probably just find/replace asbestos for Covid - it will be the same people making the same crazy claim.
  
  Many crazy ideas seem to go hand in hand. If you’re into flat earth nonsense, there’s a pretty good chance you also oppose vaccines, drink colloidal silver and believe in intergalactic lizards.
- They are probably coughing because of the ~~cigarettes~~ ~~car exhaust fumes~~ ~~air pollution~~ goddamn libs

The use of it in the US was banned only last year and I'm not aware of there having been such movement.
- Donald Trump has already called asbestos "100% safe". His cultist followers will eagerly become pro-asbestos if he tells them to. And he will tell them to if someone pays him enough to tell them so.
  
  They are already lead infested and thus dumb enough to believe anything Cheeto Benito says.

AI version of this, because I found it funny:
In Defense of Asbestos: The Mineral We Love to Hate
Look, everyone’s got their vices. Some people sip whiskey to "relax," others puff cigars to feel "distinguished." But heaven forbid you mention asbestos—suddenly, you're the villain in a 1980s PSA.
But let's be honest: asbestos walked so modern insulation could run. Before we had fancy synthetic fireproofing and high-tech soundproofing, asbestos was out here doing it all. Fire-resistant? Check. Insulating? Absolutely. Durable? Like the cockroach of minerals—won’t burn, won’t break, just vibes.
“Oh, but it causes health problems,” they say, as they light their third cigarette of the day and sip their third oat milk IPA. Everything causes health problems if you inhale it long enough. Ever tried breathing in glitter? Death trap.
And what happened to personal responsibility? You don’t see us eating asbestos sandwiches. We just want a little cozy, non-flammable nostalgia in our ceilings. It’s not like we’re snorting the stuff—though, let’s be real, if someone did that in the 70s, it was probably the same guy who invented disco.
Let’s stop pretending asbestos was some mustachio-twirling villain and start recognizing it for what it was: the gritty, misunderstood hero of 20th century construction. Sure, it had a dark side—but so did lead paint, and we don't see that getting canceled on social media.
So here’s to asbestos: May your fibers be forever airborne in the halls of history, and your reputation just slightly less shredded than it deserves.
- Did you llm this
  
  yea, there is a disclaimer at the top.
- This is oddly convincing.

Simpson's did it!

https://youtu.be/2ooj5Jhx-yI

I'm surprised there isn't a "pro poison in food" If only for those who feel
"No one tells ME what to do!"
- I humbly direct you towards the raw milk crowd
  
  A friend of a friend is a dairy farmer, and we were at his place and I was introduced to raw milk for the first time, and I did not enjoy the experience, nor do I understand people who seek it out.
- As if the processed food industry doesn't already lobby Congress spendinf millions annually.

Asbestos? More like Asworstos! Am I right?

I need my full lead gasoline

Didn’t they have asbestos shovelling competitions? 1962 Right around the time major studies confirmed the concerns from a decade earlier:
1960s: Studies, particularly by Dr. Irving Selikoff in the U.S., showed clear links between asbestos exposure and mesothelioma, lung cancer, and other illnesses, prompting greater public health concern.