Certainly, and loads of inorganics (arsenic getting into the well water, say) are in the same boat. I don’t mean to deny the existence of subtle poisons in biological systems, just emphasize that selective pressure in favor of them is fairly low; but human interest is likely to be higher than the mere epidemiology/toxicology tech level would otherwise suggest.
Asheville is one of the most beautiful little towns in the US. And it’s filled with old hippies…I’m surprised they’re not agitating against this.
1 Like
Cause, meet effect.
I know you’re just being sarcastic, but libertarian ideals usually involve a government with courts. And laws against murder. Generally, libertarians believe that people should be allowed to do whatever they want as long as they aren’t harming someone else, so, um, killing people would still be against the law in a libertarian society.
P.S. - I know I’ve digressed, and this doesn’t have to do with the main topic, so sorry about that little interlude.
I did a bunch of digging around, and I came across this website:
http://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/summary/summary.cgi?cid=118193
, which has the most information about this particular compound that I could find. It has a section on “Biological test Results,” but I don’t really know enough to be able to interpret what the tests and results mean. Could someone who’s more familiar with the language of biology check it out?
Ah, so this is a Libertoonia with government-run courts. You know, one annoying thing about discussing with a libertarian (as if there was any non-annoying things about it), is having to find out what the True Scotsman has on his porridge.
2 Likes
Yeah, I was careful to say “usually.” Libertarianism can have a pretty broad definition, I know, but it usually involves government-run courts, which is one of the differences between it and anarchism.
I’m not a libertarian, by the way, and I’m not trying to be inflammatory or anything. And this really isn’t the right place to talk about it, so if you want to, just message me, and if you don’t, peace.
1 Like
Anecdotally, I can say that those same folks (in that same beautifully awesome town) are most definitely NOT okay with the situation and have been trying (in various forms) to get the power company to clean up the site. But, as with all such protests, there remains the problem of organization and funding–I’m guessing the Asheville folks have some difficulty with both (at least in this context).
2 Likes
, and when they turn out to be killing people and the environment, we can just… boycott them? Erm.
Much of the debate over corporate spending on elections focuses on the fact that large donors are anonymous to all but the beneficiary of such spending, as the corporations are formed for a single election cycle, christened with suitably anodyne names, and then left to die. Such anonymity makes boycotts rather difficult. If a company selling mining reagents, and nothing else of consequence, poisons the water, how is a boycott by the average consumer going to make a difference? Sure, it may be held by a shell company, controlled by another company, that owns a controlling interest in another company that does sell to the average consumer, but that seems tenuous.
2 Likes
The question “how does one boycott the power company/water company/local coal mining company/etc. anyway?” is also relevant here.
3 Likes
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
