this post was submitted on 07 Mar 2024
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ShowerThoughts
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Sometimes we have those little epiphanies in the shower.. sometimes they come from other places. This is a home for those epiphanies.
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lead
I've been wondering why I'm not a fucking genius.
The dude who first thought to put lead in gasoline is genuinely responsiblw for so much harm. I hate him passionately.
How much easier would my differential equations course be if he never did that? /s
The guy who put lead in it (Thomas Midgley), came up with a few solutions. Ethanol was actually the better additive for the task (stopping engine knock), but General Motors couldn’t patent the use of ethanol so they ended up going with lead.
Midgley even knew lead poisoning was dangerous and had poisoned himself by accident previously. Much like climate change, the companies didn’t care.
Blame him for selling it as safe, but the real blame lays with General Motors and capitalism for wanting to make sure only they could profit off of the solution.
After working at General Motors he'd go on to bring safe refrigeration to the world by finding a safe replacement for previous refrigerants, ammonia and propane. Decades later, we'd find out that his CFCs were destroying the ozone layer.
Dude basically had the worst effect on the atmosphere ever brought on by a single person.
The face you make when all your interests are detrimental to humanity.
Nominated for pun of the year. It was a solution (aqueous lead) and they did profit off of it.
It always comes back to capitalism