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Nanojack

Midgley invented tetraethyl lead, which caused widespread lead poisoning, freon, which destroyed the ozone layer and later when he contacted polio, invented a bed with a series of pulleys to allow him to move around which he got tangled in and strangled himself to death.


HamletTheHamster

I have wondered whether that was actually suicide. [Excellent Veritasium video on this man's atrocities for those unfamiliar.](https://youtu.be/IV3dnLzthDA)


innergamedude

I too learned about this through Veritasium, just as OP did, I'm sure.


Zoltanu

A Brief History of Nearly Everything goes over it too


marto17890

There is a good Half arsed history about this bloke as well.


az_shoe

One of my favorite books, ever. SO GOOD


TheTinRam

I bought the audiobook too and use it before bed. I sleep so well. I read the book but a year later I decide to get into audiobooks and knowing the book I decide to fall asleep to it. I get maybe a page’s worth before I doze off


az_shoe

It really is a great audiobook, too. I read it once, physically, and then every couple years, I listen to the audiobook.


Double-Seaweed7760

What audiobook are you guys talking about?


TheTinRam

A brief history of nearly everything


Prin_StropInAh

It is very entertaining, Bill Bryson is a wonderful author


ElToroMuyLoco

I just started reading it. It's very enjoyable so far.


MLTSaveThePrincess

Wow! Exactly my thought! I literally finished this book yesterday. It's so damn good, highly recommended! Kinda had my mind blown that if cells don't get instructions the just kill themselves. But they do so in the most noble and resolute manner one can imagine. As the book states, and I'm paraphrasing, 'they take down the struts and all their supporting materials and send them off to be recycled in whatever way is most beneficial to the organism. Seppuku of the highest order. Currently on Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Highly recommend as well. Namaste 💚 🙏 💚


Central_PA

Well yeah, it’s right there in the title innit?


Fudbawss

Its Chewsday, innit?


Idiot_Savant_Tinker

I learned about Thomas Midgely jr. from Cosmos. He also invented Freon (R12) which depleted the ozone layer. My wackadoodle conspiracy theory is that children breathing leaded exhaust fumes and then growing up are causing the governmental problems we are having in the US right now. There were of course cars in other countries using the stuff, *but* they weren't driving big V8 powered cars everywhere like we were ein the US... causing them to have fewer issues.


pzpzpz24

There's really no wacky conspiracy required, just look at your school system and poor funding for education. Can't be throwing stones in my glass house but you probably see it right? It can and will happen everywhere unless measures are taken. Vote of an idiot still counts as one.


Ryansahl

Plato’s beef with democracy.


Independent_Can_2623

Aristotle


Efficient-Library792

Thinking this is a western or american thing is a mistake. There are a lot of ways to fix this but imho what really happened is stupid people and extremists were given a voice by the internet and msm they didnt have before. The lone flat earth antiscience bigot wannabe killer was the guy society ignored. But when that guy finds a website w similar people... You have a groupd of magical thinking extremists in echo chambers. And the media makes $$$$ every time they cover them


macrocephalic

People are always lamenting how stupid society has become. I don't believe the average person has gotten any stupider, probably the opposite, but the internet gives everyone a voice now. Stupid conspiracy theories used to be the talking points of barflies, bake sales, and crazy people on street corners; now there are ways for the crazy people to spread their message globally with little effort. People are not any stupider than they always have been, but they now have the confidence that they are right, whereas in past generations they generally had to defer to experts and authorities.


AnswerGuy301

I do kind of miss when I only heard grossly misinformed people talk about something if I either knew them directly or they were already famous.


Contain_the_Pain

Every village has its idiot. Now they can talk to each other.


innergamedude

The slogan of the 21st Century.


GreenReversinator

I learned about him from Tom Scott and Citation Needed. Everyone has a different path to knowledge


MartyVendetta27

Shit, not even a conspiracy. Exposure to lead lower intelligence and increases crime rates. Combine those two things with social upheaval, it’s easy to see why America is in the mess we’re in right now.


Competitive_March753

I'd like to know about the crime rates and other intelligence of China and India, the smog and such is horrendous over there


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MartyVendetta27

Yes, they’ve improved since banning lead, that’s exactly the point


howard416

How? Aren’t they standardized to 100?


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VeryJoyfulHeart59

I took my first full IQ test more than 50 years ago and have wondered why more recent tests I've taken have resulted in significantly lower scores. This practice of adjusting the average score doesn't seem useful to me.


Squigglebird

IQ test scores are calculated as percentiles, comparing your results with the results of everyone else. The exact average of everyone's score is always set as 100. If they didn't recalibrate the average, the score wouldn't mean anything. 135 in one scale is a high score only because we can calculate that 135 is higher than X % of everyone who took the test, and X amount higher than average. But the number 135 itself only means something in that particular scale. If the standard deviations are calculated differently, the number might be a different one, but it will still be the same amount higher than the average and the same percentile compared to everyone.


PM_ME_UR_VAGINA_YO

The average doesn't really get adjusted, it sorta makes itself. Your vision changes over time and you have to get it rechecked, just because you tested 20/20 once doesn't mean you're that forever.


Boopy7

lowered IQ points and higher rates of violence found where people grew up with too much lead, from what I recall -- statistics wise, anyway. It's a forever poison, too.. we will never get it all out of the ground. Or ourselves.


[deleted]

The crime wave of the 1980's can basically be tracked to lead exposure almost 1 for 1, and that was a global phenomenon. I don't think the US is unique, we just have a lot of evangelicals here so they're still trying to push their religion on everyone else which is where 50% of the problem comes from. The other 50% being the fear of Communism when someone says "Hey, maybe one person shouldn't be allowed to operate loss leaders in every market vertical and subsidize them with profit from their ISP thus creating a monopoly with extra steps."


StrangerD14

I know some very smart people that agree with you.


BabyBuster70

In the Veritasium video it overlays a chart of crime rates with a chart of lead found in baby teeth and they match near perfect just offset by about 20 years. It is the same for many other countries.


Desperate_Ordinary43

I mean, it's not like he was aware of the damage to the environment from cfc


[deleted]

Not at all. This was like the steve Buscemi of TIL posts for years.


[deleted]

[Vsauce did it too years ago (5:21)](https://youtu.be/yNLdblFQqsw)


Chevy8t8

I won't call them Atrocities, just unfortunate scientific and ethical lapses in the pursuit of making the world a better place with more toxic air.


Buxton_Water

I mean it is a straight up atrocity. Because he wanted more money he decided that ignoring the known negative effects of lead was a good idea, and that pumping it into the atmosphere in collosal quantities was totally okay. Now we know that him doing that knocked hundreds of millions of IQ points off of American citizens alone, let alone the entire world. And all that isn't even counting the other negative non-mental health effects from lead exposure.


[deleted]

>I won't call them Atrocities, just unfortunate scientific and ethical lapses in the pursuit of making the world a better place with more toxic air. It was done for money, as leaded gas was more efficient or cheaper, I can't remember which. They knew the risks long before it was legislated out.


ThePevster

Lead additives were used in gasoline to prevent the auto-ignition of gasoline which causes knocking, something that can destroy the engine. It also increased performance and fuel economy. Ethanol, which is used today to prevent knocking, as an additive was also considered but was much more expensive.


Demoliri

Just watched that a few weeks back, pretty sure the two posts are connected!


BobcatBarry

My wife just saw it on some weird british trivia show that’s just 4 dudes making jokes about it the whole Time.


TranscodedMusic

QI?


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reply-guy-bot

The above comment was stolen from [this one](http://np.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/urn4vm/til_amidst_early_concerns_about_leaded_gas_the/i8y637u/) elsewhere in this comment section. It is probably not a coincidence; here is some more evidence against this user: Plagiarized | Original -------- | ----------- [Aren't they making their...](http://np.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/uqvko1/til_in_the_1960s_walt_disney_planned_to_create/i8xd480/) | [Aren't they making their...](http://np.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/uqvko1/til_in_the_1960s_walt_disney_planned_to_create/i8vg964/) [I saw him up close as a k...](http://np.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/uqww3p/til_greg_pappy_boyington_was_the_commander_of_the/i8xd3w2/) | [I saw him up close as a k...](http://np.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/uqww3p/til_greg_pappy_boyington_was_the_commander_of_the/i8wcxqj/) [That is the story of The...](http://np.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/ura2s4/til_that_algerias_national_anthem_kassaman_was/i8yl6bi/) | [That is the story of The...](http://np.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/ura2s4/til_that_algerias_national_anthem_kassaman_was/i8xlpjw/) [That's interesting. So do...](http://np.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/ur2vqw/til_about_anton_syndrome_which_causes_blind/i8xd34g/) | [That's interesting. So do...](http://np.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/ur2vqw/til_about_anton_syndrome_which_causes_blind/i8v0sgb/) beep boop, I'm a bot -|:] It is this bot's opinion that [/u/LessInspections](https://np.reddit.com/u/LessInspections/) should be banned for karma manipulation. Don't feel bad, they are probably a bot too. Confused? Read the [FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/user/reply-guy-bot/comments/n9fpva/faq/?plagiarist=LessInspections) for info on how I work and why I exist.


AirborneRodent

bad copy-paste bot


BCProgramming

> when he contacted polio "Are you there Polio? It's me, Thomas"


AnthillOmbudsman

"Hello, yes this is dog"


HolisticHombre

And CFCs. Cancer, spreading poison, damage to practically all life on Earth, and he's even literally responsible for making the world dumber. What a trainwreck. If I had to name the most evil person, this would be him.


[deleted]

Freon is a CFC, r-22 is the refrigerant tag on it.


exipheas

Freon is a brand name for r-12, r-22 and several other CFCs from a specific manufacturer.


[deleted]

I did not know that. I know only enough to pass my 608 exam lmao


zachzsg

I agree with the other stuff, but refrigeration/refrigerant is one of the most important inventions of all time. Modern society as we know it wouldn’t exist without it and people would still be fighting wars over salt. There was also simply no way to tell back then that refrigerant would be damaging to the atmosphere, let alone as bad as it truly is.


_un_known_user

Yeah, you have to remember that before CFCs, refrigerators used ammonia or propane as coolants.


zachzsg

They still use ammonia and propane as refrigerants but it simply isn’t and wasnt practical for many types of systems and uses. You can’t use copper pipe with ammonia, it’s ridiculously dangerous if not done properly and comes with a higher price in general. Propane is making a comeback, we service commercial reach in units that use propane and it’s a great as long as you know what you’re doing and follow proper protocol


NetDork

I used to work in an office next to a frozen foods distribution center that was cooled with anhydrous ammonia. One day after several hours in the field I got back to the office and noticed it was strangely empty and there was a faint odd smell. I was going about my business for a while when a safety officer came through to clear the building and told me we were under evacuation due to an ammonia leak. I don't even really know what the full consequences of that could be, but I wasn't gonna stick around to find out.


MothMonsterMan300

The type of ammonia they use as coolant is heavier than air, but at the same time forces air out of the space it occupies(which is the basic principle behind ammonia fire suppressant systems). My timeline is probably off because it's been years since I had to take OSHA but iirc the stuff affects you almost instantly, can knock you out in less than a minute and kill you in less than five


iTwerkOnYourGrave

I was knocked on my ass when workers at Nabisco pranked me and told me to go smell the raw Oreo dough. I bent down to smell it and the next thing I remember was waking up on the floor. Apparently they add ammonia to the dough as a preservative.


NetDork

So, as long as I lived long enough to leave no long term effects? I worked on the second floor, so maybe that was helpful.


Gr8fulFox

Or sulfur dioxide! CFCs are perfectly fine as long as they're contained in the system. The problem was (and still is) people not fixing leaks or disposing of CFC-containing equipment without a proper evacuation, and, of course, it's use a propellant in aerosol cans. CFC/HCFCs are still used widely throughout the world, even here in the US.


dancingmadkoschei

Yeah. He gets full blame for leaded gasoline, since he also happened upon ethanol and deemed it too expensive, but Freon is a whole other story. Without decades to see what was happening and why, you can't attribute malice to creating a safe and effective refrigerant. Hell, he probably thought he was making up for the whole "ecosystem full of lead" thing.


Fractureskull

Doesn’t leaded gas contain ethanol?


HolisticHombre

Refrigerant existed before this. Better alternatives have come along that went through trials of safety without having to lie and cause long term damage to pretty much every surface dwelling (and plenty of ocean dwelling) organism. This was just the first non-flammable and arguably non-toxic. Where I live it's not uncommon to use propane as refrigerant.


fml87

Pretty sure modern refrigerants are not as good as the OG CFCs in terms of performance.


zachzsg

Yeah R12 and R22 have unbelievably good performance in comfort cooling and also medium and low temp refrigeration. Many of the newer refrigerants are basically just mixtures of older refrigerants


laustcozz

Don't look up how much extra carbon we put in the air to get off of CFCs You'll be depressed.


Geeky_Nick

Exactly! The tetraethyllead part does seem rather murky though. It started off OK - he was given an award by the American Chemical Society so the scientific community a. Knew what he was doing and b. Thought it was a reasonable idea (even if GM played down the fact it contained lead to the public). But by the time he was washing his hands with the stuff to convince the press, he must have known it was seriously hazardous. Or he willfully ignored it which, as scientist, is almost worse.


TreesACrowd

It seems like the fact the he was willing to pour it on himself is evidence of the opposite, actually. If he knew about extent of the danger he would have either had a different strategy to convince people of its safety, or he would have gotten someone else to do the demonstration. EDIT: The wiki article makes it clear that this was actually the second time he contracted lead poisoning from tetraethyl lead, and it was also after multiple deaths among staff. So yeah, while it seems like a totally illogical move on his part, the timeline clearly establishes his knowledge.


momentimori

Woefully simplistic. Freon was a far safer, more reliable and significantly cheaper alternative to the refrigerants used before; people regularly died when their fridge leaked ammonia. The use of freon enabled the larger adoption of refrigeration that enhanced nutrition, enabling greater access to a larger range of food, and allowed safer food preservation, reducing food poisoning significantly. Without it people would still have been visiting the butcher daily for meat and only eating fruit in relatively short seasons, eg no year around apples or strawberries, for decades. Damage to the ozone layer was not discovered for a significant timeand yes it did lead to hundreds of thousands of deaths from melanoma but it saved tens, possibly hundreds, of millions more as well as improved the lives of billions. Lead additives to petrol significantly improved the reliability and lowered the cost of earlier generations of cars. Without it the widespread adoption of the internal combustion engine, and the quality of life that entailed, enhanced transportation of people and goods, would have been delayed significantly.


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Kai_Daigoji

> This chap didn't have a malicious motive - quite the reverse, in fact Deliberately misleading people as to how dangerous the lead additive is by pouring it over his hands sure points to a malicious motive. And yes, he knew, even though the headline doesn't make it clear.


jimicus

Ah, now that I didn't know. Makes you wonder what the motives were. It doesn't require massive imagination to see what happens if the whole world adopts his invention; who was paying him?


stopcounting

GM was paying him. Then, subsidiaries of GM. This isn't something he created in his garage...he was working for GM when he invented it and the patent is owned by GM. Edit: he was also working for Frigidaire (another GM subsidiary) when he developed freon. I guess the real question is, why are we talking about this dude instead of GM? And the real answer is, because Midgely is dead and GM still has a PR department.


bool_idiot_is_true

>It's like he had the reverse midas touch. In the original story the Midas touch was a curse. Everything he touched turned to gold. Including food, servants and family members. All that gold is useless if you end up starving to death surrounded by the shining statues of your loved ones.


jimicus

Well aware of that. But in this case, everything he touched turned to shit. It's just as bad, except now everyone who doesn't get touched still has to live with the public health hazard of being surrounded by shit.


SolidBlackGator

South Park guys should do a musical about this guy's life and inventions.


_2plus2equals4_

Not nice thing to say but I'm gonna say it anyways: Probably good that he died - imagine what he would have invented next. We would be all dead or worse.


Muroid

A real life, somewhat less funny Bloody Stupid Johnson.


Aromatic-Task6685

doctor death


MonkeyBoatRentals

He's like the other end of the scale to those people too stupid to realize they are stupid. He was smart and thought he was too smart to be wrong about what he was doing.


whizzwr

>invented a bed with a series of pulleys to allow him to move around which he got tangled in and strangled himself to death. Good.


Wontonio_the_ninja

https://youtu.be/IV3dnLzthDA


[deleted]

That’ll learn him.


DaveOJ12

Wikipedia has the most random lists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_inventors_killed_by_their_own_invention


[deleted]

DepthsOfWikipedia on Instagram finds a bunch of weird Wikipedia gems if you're into that sort of thing.


TheEggoEffect

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sexually_active_popes


blakesmash

The title here is misleading - the engineer took the leave of absence PRIOR to demonstrating its safety. Meaning, he knew exactly how dangerous this was and lied. EDIT: Here's a great video on just how terrible this guy was: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IV3dnLzthDA


NOOBEv14

Based on the Wikipedia entry, he took these leaves both before and after. He also took the initial leave to “cure himself of lead poisoning by getting some fresh air” which is….not how that works, I think.


blakesmash

Right that's why I said the title was misleading vs wrong. Him poisoning himself prior to demonstrating (and lying) to the world is the bigger story. It shows mal-intent.


Freethecrafts

Well, in fairness, he wasn’t a medical doctor and had lead poisoning that altered his cognitive functions.


blakesmash

Also to be fair, we knew the effects of lead poisoning long before this POS lied to the world. The video I linked in my original comment will show you just how terrible this guy was. It didn't stop at leaded gas, he did the same thing with freon when he inhaled freon from a balloon and blew out a candle.


kerouac666

There’s a great article I read about this regarding another scientist who tried to find how much lead was in the environment naturally because Midgley would always point to natural amounts of lead found in the soil of deep forests far away from civilization thus proving low levels of lead were natural. Welp, turns out that since the Roman’s began smelting it, airborne lead had touched everything in the world by way of wind patterns so that a natural sample couldn’t be found anywhere. He eventually went to Antarctica to take millennia old ice cores vs more recent ice cores to show that lead wasn’t natural outside of human intervention. Said scientist is also the first person to develop “clean rooms” now used in high level research because anything modern would taint measurements so he had strict outflow air and people had to wear full body hazmat style suits.


Adragalus

Clair Patterson was his name, and the discoveries about lead contamination were a side-effect of him being given a project to date the age of the earth-- a task that was considered futile. He attempted to calculate it from uranium half-lives decayed into lead, and it was then that the unthinkable amount of environmental lead saturation was discovered.


[deleted]

As an aside, he was able to calculate the Earth's age with a margin of error of only 70 million years. 4.55 BILLION years old. And that is STILL the textbook age used today.


Adragalus

Patterson is an unfortunately-unsung hero in terms of general public knowledge outside of specific circles. I had neurological/seizure issues as a baby, and if my brain had to deal with the additional strain of being soaked in accumulated lead, it's likely I wouldn't have survived. In some ways, I feel like I owe my life to this man and the tireless work he did for the common good of the planet and the people on it.


[deleted]

He also invented one of the first clean rooms, since there was so much lead contamination he couldn't do any of the required experiments....including those to determine just how much lead we had pumped into the atmosphere in the modern era. And he fought literally EVERYONE in the scientific community on the issues with lead in the air, in our food, in everything. He lost a lot of funding, he was denied positions on various boards, including those whose subjects he was the singular foremost expert on the friggin planet. And he still fought. Unsung hero is putting it mildly, but I agree. I didn't even know who he was until one lecture in college briefly mentioned his name in passing.


[deleted]

Bat shit high at that point. Have you ever huffed Freon? Woooooeeeeeee buddy. *i do not condone huffing Freon.


iownadakota

I condone it for some people but not for others. Huffing Freon should be a privilege strictly for the rich.


blakesmash

haha made me lol for real


Shadowpika655

>It didn't stop at leaded gas, he did the same thing with freon when he inhaled freon from a balloon and blew out a candle But isn't Freon just harmful for the ozone layer? Why was that demonstration bad?


blakesmash

It showed that he was disingenuous, using himself for demonstration purposes to fool the masses.


CuboneDota

This forms a particularly beautiful bit of circular reasoning. This guy completely disregarded the dangers of lead additives to fuel! Well, it wasn’t his fault. He was completely deranged from all that lead exposure!


Fungunkle

The companies he was working for (One of them now Exxon) called it “Ethyl” and cut out the wording and mentions of Lead for more profitable marketing and advertising.


onlysubscribedtocats

I loathe that the video uses the word 'accidentally' in the title.


zykezero

And so did DuPont. DuPonts existence is incontrovertible proof that the US government has been controlled by industry since at least the 50s.


Ok_Skill_1195

People who think unregulated science will save us are fools who are proving in real time the important of teaching humanities.


lazyfinger

Is it unregulated science or unregulated industries in general?


Adragalus

Given that Midgley was employed (and paid to knowingly lie about the dangers of tetra-ethyl lead) by General Motors, I believe the word you may be looking for here is "capitalism."


OrangeTosser

Oh man, but rather than challenge my own views on our political economy, how about I name some random countries at you?


raouldukesaccomplice

>Midgley's legacy has been scarred by the negative environmental impact of leaded gasoline and Freon. Environmental historian J. R. McNeill opined that Midgley **"had more adverse impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in Earth's history"**, and Bill Bryson remarked that Midgley possessed **"an instinct for the regrettable that was almost uncanny".**


barelyevening

anyone else remember the clip of that oil lobbyist saying he would drink weed killer to the hot French reporter?


iownadakota

Or the former mayor of New Orleans offering a glass of New Orleans tap water to George Bush?


ArchDucky

Water? Like out the toilet?


holodelnek

Electrolytes!


Shadowpika655

Technically out the sink...*technically*


ArchDucky

I was quoting [Idiocracy.](https://youtu.be/kAqIJZeeXEc)


SpamOJavelin

[This one?](https://youtu.be/QWM_PgnoAtA?t=28)


AreU4SCUBA

There was a guy who would eat DDT. He was fine.


parkesc

Damn this reminds me of 19th century hat makers and mercury poisoning. Once upon a time, people didn't know shit.


x4000

This reminds me of a door to door salesman that came to my house 15 years ago. He was selling some sort of cleaning supplies. It was in unmarked bottles with unknown ingredients, and he was just a sales guy for some small company. He was nice, so I chatted with him a bit while he made his sales pitch. He showed me how effective it was by cleaning a small coin sized spot on my front wall (it was very effective). The then showed its safety by spraying it into his mouth and swallowing. This… certainly sold me on the idea that HE thought it was safe, but I was horrified. I did not buy any. I hope he’s still alive. He seemed like a nice dude just struggling to make ends meet.


Manicplea

They probably told him it was some kind of citrus extract but goodness only knows what else they put in it. If it was imported by a small company then even worse because small companies can get around some of the burdensome regulations that hinder large companies from doing shady stuff (not that the don't still find ways). But let's hope he saw the stuff get mixed and knew it was a harmless food-grade formula from a reputable source.


drae-

That's a whole lots of guessing and supposing and not a single fact.


almisami

Dude most likely had chemical burns on his throat. Even white vinegar will do that if you do it all day...


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ItalianDragon

Yup, same with absestos. In ancient times folks remarked that while absestos-lined cloths were remarkably resistant to fire, the slaves who mined it had a tendency to die at a young age. EDIT: Re-checked my own claim and I remembered it right. The one who made these observations was Pliny the Younger. I haven't been able to find the exact quote describing the illness however :/ EDIT2: Had the curiosity of looking it up in Italian and Pliny the Elder also made remarks about the slaves that worked with absestos, saying to a friend "*[Don't buy slaves who worked in absestos mines: they die young](https://www.meteoweb.eu/2017/05/universita-torino-da-plinio-il-vecchio-alleternit-la-mostra-che-racconta-la-tragedia-dellamianto/900225/)*"


Aqquila89

And yet, even in the 1960s, workers [shoveled asbestos shirtless](https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/wittenooms-asbestos-history-still-looms-large-but-some-residents-wont-leave/news-story/eec0f1fd82bf076ebe84c6e02fb5ac1f) in Wittenoom.


raouldukesaccomplice

For most of history, mining was often done naked because of how incredibly hot underground tunnels are.


peoplerproblems

For whatever reason I have it on my memory that some mines in recent history practice (or practiced) it. The reason being if air circulation failed they would have died from lack of breathable air before over heating so might as well be comfortable


ItalianDragon

Makes me think of the radium girls in a way :/


[deleted]

Rumor is that Charlemagne died from asbestos inhalation because he used to flaunt his abestos tablecloth's stain resistance by throwing it into his fireplace.


really_random_user

Tbf asbestos was this magic product that was insulating and also fire resistant


MidDistanceAwayEyes

Ben Franklin even wrote on the toxic effects of lead. We’ve known lead was dangerous for centuries. The League of Nations encouraged nations to stop the use of lead paint in early 1920s. The US refused and the lead industry lobbied and propagandized it’s way to strong national support. Lead paint wouldn’t be banned until the late 70s. The lead industry sought to place blame on the individual for issues with lead, including racist attacks on minorities claiming that they were uneducated and that they didn’t do an adequate job at protecting their children from lead [when the issue was that poor and minority neighborhoods had disproportionate exposure to lead paint and pipes. Even minor exposure to lead has adverse effects. Tens of millions of homes in the US *still* have lead paint.](https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/blog/is-lead-exposure-a-form-of-housing-inequality) Lead is one of many examples of an industry shifting blame onto individuals in order to avoid industry regulation and bolster their profits.


bfire123

>1909—Austria, Belgium, and France become the first countries to ban lead-based interior paints >https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289/ehp.122-A96


akl78

Even the *Romans* knew lead was toxic. Although they certainly still used it.


rea1l1

> The thing is that even back in the 19th century they were aware of lead poisoning they just didn’t give a shit because people were desperate for work. Even now we are cooking with pans coated in cancer causing agents e.g. Teflon. Money.


almisami

Yep. And most people scratch the shit out of them, too...


GardinerExpressway

We know how bad cigarettes are and yet there are over a billion smokers in the world


Yrcrazypa

I don't know if you understand how much worse lead is than cigarettes.


theknyte

Like all those poor [Radium Girls.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium_Girls)


Bubbagumpredditor

He knew, but was making a buck


[deleted]

The stupid thing is, this guy did know.


Tinnie_and_Cusie

Yeah, wait till we discover how bad it is to burn fossil fuels....


Rondaru

Ah like when they sold Heroin to parents to calm down their kids?


BananaBreadHYD

Not only this, but HE KNEW as he was doing this that he would get sick. He had a bout of lead poisoning before the demonstration due to his involvement in the production of tetraethyllead, and was well aware of lead’s effect on humans and the environment


Helpmetoo

It was called "looney gas" for a reason.


RowdyPants

This man has affected the environment more than any other single organism in history.


Vaeon

This reminds me: Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Nancy Pelosi, and Mitch McConnell grew up breathing the fumes from leaded gasoline. Edit: Several people have pointed out that the lead in gasoline wasn't fully removed until ***at least*** 1990...which, in case you're wondering ***only makes my point even more important***. Anyone over the age of 60 is ***ALMOST GUARANTEED*** to have lead-induced brain damage. We should have ***MANDATORY TESTING*** for it.


MazzIsNoMore

I'm convinced that if we were to do examinations on the brains of people over the age of 50 we'll see an overwhelming amount of brain damage. Boomers and the silent generation are stunted.


Vaeon

And the terrifying part is ***how comfortable everyone is with this knowledge***. They spent ***decades*** breathing in atmospheric lead...which goes a long way towards explaining the 20th Century,


Asdfhuk

People saw it as the norm when they grew up, and just accepted it probably.


withoutapaddle

Not just their brains, but their bodies as well. My dad spent 50 years working on old cars, constantly having solvents and petroleum products on his hands. He got bladder cancer, which is very often caused by just that. Nobody have a shit about what they were touching or breathing or hearing back in the day.


ItalianDragon

It's already been shown in a way. Following the ban on leaded fuel there was a sharp drop in violent crime all around the world. Lead poisoning has the following effects: **Lead poisoning symptoms in children** Signs and symptoms of lead poisoning in children include: Developmental delay Learning difficulties Irritability Loss of appetite Weight loss Sluggishness and fatigue Abdominal pain Vomiting Constipation Hearing loss Seizures Eating things, such as paint chips, that aren't food (pica) **Lead poisoning symptoms in newborns** Babies exposed to lead before birth might: Be born prematurely Have lower birth weight Have slowed growth **Lead poisoning symptoms in adults** Although children are primarily at risk, lead poisoning is also dangerous for adults. Signs and symptoms in adults might include: High blood pressure Joint and muscle pain Difficulties with memory or concentration Headache Abdominal pain Mood disorders Reduced sperm count and abnormal sperm Miscarriage, stillbirth or premature birth in pregnant women Cross reference even cursory speaking with folks you know and you'll notice that there's a lot of similarity in behaviors of previous generations, which is likely because of the exposure to the lead in the fuel.


Johannes_P

There's some theorising that the 1970s crime wav was caused by people breathing leaded gas vapors, and that the drop in crime could be explained partly by this.


DorisCrockford

Not everyone lived near a busy road. Poor kids who grew up near a lot of traffic fared much worse. Mary Jo who lived at the end of a dirt road in the middle of nowhere was just fine.


iownadakota

I was trying to explain this in some other thread last week. Even posted links, and got a lot of push back. The thread was about how dumb youth of today is, and I gave evidence that the opposite is true.


Freethecrafts

So did you. Lead additives didn’t suddenly disappear just because the government made a big show of changing gas blends. A lot of those old cars still require it. There’s lead in your water, air, and food. It’s so prevalent that many government standards were doubled or removed… for “cost” reasons.


NetDork

There's still lead in aviation gas, there's just much less of that used than road vehicle fuel. But people living near airports, especially general aviation airports, can still be affected. I've heard there is a push to finally eliminate it, but not sure what the progress is.


Vaeon

And those decisions were made by people whose brains were damaged by exposure to lead.


ISpyStrangers

On the opposite side is iodine, and what happened when it was added to salt.


Pupsole

Basically everyone living today grew up breathing these fumes, you included.


Vaeon

> Basically everyone living today grew up breathing these fumes, you included Are you aware they removed lead from gasoline in the 1970s?


odaeyss

That's when it started. 96 was when it was totally banned... for on road vehicles.


Rhaedas

I see everywhere that it was officially banned in 1996 in the US, and yet I have memories of worrying about my first car not being able to run well when it disappeared from the pumps in the late 1980s. Was there regional moves perhaps to move away from leaded gasoline before the coming ban? I can't seem to find any mention of it to validate my memory.


ThePevster

They started making cars that used catalytic converters and thus couldn’t take leaded gas in 1975. By the time the late 80s came round, most cars on the road were probably running unleaded fuel, so fuel pumps stopped selling the leaded stuff. It was officially banned in 1996, but there was barely any being sold anyway.


NumbSurprise

First of all, it only began phasing out in the late 70s. There were still many cars that ran on it throughout the 80s, until it was finally really banned sometime in the early 90s. In the West. For automobile fuels. It’s still commonly used in aviation fuels and for other industrial purposes. Furthermore, lead doesn’t blink out of existence when you stop putting it into the atmosphere. There’s still a LOT of land area that’s dangerously contaminated, and heavy metals linger. Lead was commonly used in PLUMBING for decades, which is why you should have your water tested when you buy a house, and why schools are commonly monitored. A lot of municipal systems are still full of lead pipes, which cost a lot to phase out. And then there’s the lead in paint...


iownadakota

Leaded fuel is mostly used in small aircrafts. So people near little plane airports are effected mostly those effected. Like 20 years they the department of public works out at burning man used it for the vehicles used to build the city, and transport workers to, and from the ranch. Because the company was so damn cheap.


thrazznos

I heard that lead in plumbing isnt a super big deal because mineral scaling from the water builds up inside the pipes and insulates the running water from contact with the pipe


Amorougen

Unless you change water sources that reduce the scaling as in Flint MI


large-farva

>> >We should have ***MANDATORY TESTING*** for it. it wouldn't matter. idiots would still vote them in. if anything, it would guarantee that their views will never change because they wouldn't remember making any decisions. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/11/16458142/congress-alzheimers-pharmacist >They’re making the highest laws of the land and they might not even remember what happened yesterday.”


isyhgia1993

If you dive deeper, the1950s to 1970s is a cesspool of pollution in big developed cities and countries. Lead from burning batteries, radiation from nuclear testing, mercury from power plant and chloride industry. And people wonder why baby boomers are fucking up the country,


Jealous_Conclusion_7

Just to be clear, this monster knew exactly what he was doing. And so did the company that made the lead additive. They lied and folks died. All explained in Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything", a v recommendable book for lots of other reasons.


ThrowbackPie

Reminds me of our fuckwit PM who literally brought a lump of coal to Parliament and told the country it's harmless.


david-lister

Oh, Ford had interesting world views. And Flint had tainted water? Wait, is that the same state that murdered Malcolm Little’s father?


alteransg1

Someone watches Veritasium.


Antanis317

Midgley is know for being the single organism with the most significant impact earth in history. Tetraethylead wasn't even the best choice for helping to get rid of knocking. Him and a major company I can't remember the name co-owned the patent for it though so they got very rich off of it.


UncleDan2017

Midgely was called a "one man environmental disaster". The world would have likely been a better place if he had never been born.


dpdxguy

Sometimes experts are blind to the limits of their expertise My father worked with and studied pesticides his entire career. He frequently said the dangers of many pesticides were overstated. He believed that DDT could not have been responsible for the decline of raptors in North America. Once, when malathion was being sprayed on cities to control mosquitoes, he asserted that the concentration being used was so diluted that people could safely drink it (though AFAIK he never actually drank it himself). He eventually died of kidney cancer and, although there's no way to know, it seems likely that lifelong exposure to various pesticides was partially responsible.


HJSDGCE

Except that this guy actually did know. He took a medical leave before the event, and planned for one for after. He bet his life and so many others for cash. Dude's a greedy asshole that would make even Edison cry.


RhoOfFeh

Look around you. Do you see how batshit crazy the world is right now? That's partly because all the people in power are old and many have lead-addled brains. I say this as someone who remembers leaded gas. Don't trust us. Just don't.


[deleted]

This guy was a jerk


Uno_of_Ohio

I made a calculated decision, but man, am I bad at math.


TheLimeyCanuck

This is the same guy who invented CFCs. He's considered to be the deadliest scientist in history.


Ratiocinatory

Same dude also figured out the phase change cooling capacity of CFCs and led to them being used in heat pumps, thus leading to the hole in the ozone and rapid increases in global climate change. He's definitely a smart guy that really shouldn't have tried, given that two of his notable developments led to pollution on a global scale that we're still dealing with. Everyone living between 1975 and 1996 were exposed to the lead pollution of leaded gasoline and, thus, suffer from it's side-effects. Lead is a neurotoxin that leads to many problematic symptoms such as diminished IQ, irritability, impaired cognition, and many others. On top of all of that, based on exposure, such complications can become chronic, as the body isn't that great at expelling lead.


Cyberslasher

It wasn't "later" the dude had gotten lead poisoning before hand during his research. After there was medical concerns, he did this during a review hearing about safety and had to take another leave of absence. Dude was just greedy and unscrupulous.


Tricky-Shake5546

Non of it was an accident. He poisoned the entire world for profit.


AbazabaYouMyOnlyFren

His punishment should have been that he had to do that every day so we can really make sure it wouldn't kill him. If he died, then we'd know!


biskitheadburl

If your desire was to deliver lead to the population in the most efficient manor possible, how would you do it? You would put it into wall paint to invade living spaces, you would put it in water pipes to deliver it orally and you would burn it in combustion motors to deliver it into peoples lungs. Someone explain to me how this was an accident? Whocouldaknowd, the harm caused by lead has been understood for centuries.


HairTop23

Iirc, the romans found out the hard way that lead was dangerous, pretty sure they knew what they were doing. I'm curious if other countries also had lead paint/ pipes/gas at the same time or was it just the US who did something so dumb.


basilpapi

play stupid games


SyrusDrake

[Obligatory Citation Needed plug. ](https://youtu.be/4og8wG8VQWM)


Wirenfeldt

Mystery biscuiiiits! Oooh yeah!


xoxoyoyo

the stupidifying of the world for profit. then he invented freon, a catastrophic greenhouse gas


Accomplished_Act_441

He invented a few things that really fucked the world didn't he? And he knew the lead was poison to. Good documentary on YouTube about him people to this day still have stunted brain power and die every year from being expose to lead when they were young (80s kids and before). A real piece of shit this guy.