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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: July 3rd, 2023

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  • According to Bryson’s account, he deliberately mislead us about the dangers of tetraethyl lead by making a public demonstration of washing his hands in the chemical. As a chemical engineer he knew a single exposure was not sufficient to cause the lead poisoning that was evident in the workforce at his factory and was counting on a scientifically illiterate public not understanding how toxicity operates in organisms. He was correct on both counts and we can never let the profit motive enter these type of calculations e.g. money in healthcare, oil companies publishing climate science, etc, and expect healthy outcomes.


  • I would imagine the 10+ demographic has the highest rates of attrition. Those people will have witnessed most of the transition from niche to lowest common denominator. Everyone knows the adage that 100k is the subreddit limit after which the community breaks down. It would happen here too. The discourse here is uncannily like the 2009 Reddit I remember. People are polite and well informed. I hope the localised and open nature of the service keeps it that way.

    Prediction: Reddit will become a cesspit of advertising and data harvesting, a la Facebook. It’s most of the way there already.