Random Fashion Thoughts (Part 3: Style farmer strikes back) - our general discussion thread

[FrankCowperwood]

There was a long article in The NY Times magazine in 2016 about DuPont and PFOA. The part that really amazed me was that, as I unnderstand it,
industrial chemicals have to proven hazardous before they’re regulated.

Quote: ‘‘We see a situation,’’ Joe Kiger says, ‘‘that has gone from Washington Works, to statewide, to the United States, and now it’s everywhere, it’s global. We’ve taken the cap off something here. But it’s just not DuPont. Good God. There are 60,000 unregulated chemicals out there right now. We have no idea what we’re taking.’’

It’s a problem for which I can’t see a practical solution, much less any kind of collective interest in addressing it.

 

[Spehsmonkey]

But, but...shareholders...incentives to innovate...utility! We can’t change regulations! There’d be famine! These are the Natural Laws of Economics, nay, of Man.

 

[LA Guy]

There was a long article in The NY Times magazine in 2016 about DuPont and PFOA. The part that really amazed me was that, as I unnderstand it,
industrial chemicals have to proven hazardous before they’re regulated.

Quote: ‘‘We see a situation,’’ Joe Kiger says, ‘‘that has gone from Washington Works, to statewide, to the United States, and now it’s everywhere, it’s global. We’ve taken the cap off something here. But it’s just not DuPont. Good God. There are 60,000 unregulated chemicals out there right now. We have no idea what we’re taking.’’

It’s a problem for which I can’t see a practical solution, much less any kind of collective interest in addressing it.

The practical solution is really the issue. So, first of all, it's not like companies can dump whatever they want down the drain, because it would put them at all sorts of legal jeopardy.

Legal precedent is pretty firm, and at this point, has pretty much ensured that in the face of uncertainty, all the industrial chemicals are stored and discarded of as hazardous waste. No one is dumping drycleaning fluid anymore, or putting everything into the river. I can't say that that isn't true in third world countries, of course. But it's certainly not true of industrialized countries. It's possibly even more true of authoritarian countries like China, where heads literally roll, and no matter how rich you are, you won't be able to more or less literally buy time.

The issue is in the regulation of trace amounts in say, drinking water. And the problem is one of policing. The EPA has limited time, manpower, equipment, and knowledge. Figuring out how to measure the quantity of any one chemical is not a trivial task. It's not as though we have a special device that tells us exactly how much everything there is in the water. That's t.v. science, and if it worked, I would have finished my PhD in about as much time as it takes to make a few burgers, dress them, and eat them (sorry, I haven't had dinner yet, and am getting pretty hungry.) You have to use different test for different compounds, often several methods used in combination. It's a big job. And you need to know a lot about the substance in order to measure it at all. Otherwise, it could just be a small spike of very many in your spectrometer, or chromatograph, or whatever (apologies to all of the analytical chemists out there for the over-explaining.) And in order to measure trace amounts, sometimes there are a lot of steps ahead in order to concentrate samples enough to get a reading. It can be pretty challenging to get readings down to 10^-8 mols/m3 or whatever the case may be.

If a regulation is enacted, and regulation and science aren't natural playmates, then we become obligated to test for that substance. I can't imagine what would happen if we were required to test for 60K different compounds, probably many similar to others.

And let's not forget that super strict regulations can have unintended social consequences as well, especially if we jump in head first instead of being very circumspect about things. For example, though there is no real consensus on the issue right now, and it's now believed that perhaps the sources is runoff from farms, the in the 90s, a number of prominent studies were published that attributed excessive estrogen in the water system, a real issue for the aquatic ecosystem, could be caused by domestic wastewater from women taking birth control pills. Lemme tell you, some on the far right part of the political spectrum jumped on this like a fat kid on chips. If we were in the business of "overreacting" in enacting regulation, we would be subject to all sorts of political machinations. More than we already are. At least right now, scientists, rather than activists, are still mostly in charge. That's a good thing.

Basically, everyone should chill the **** out and let the experts do their jobs. It's good to have some skepticism about expert claims, but I really feel that America's distrust of experts has led to all types of idiocy, on both the right and the left (the anti-vaccine thing is particularly mindblowing.)

 

[LA Guy]

But, but...shareholders...incentives to innovate...utility! We can’t change regulations! There’d be famine! These are the Natural Laws of Economics, nay, of Man.

lol. But yes, a pretty good example of why I'm becoming more and more of a technocrat these days. The issues are simply too complex to really allow a politically charged and mostly ignorant public to be involved in the decision making process.

 

[RegisDB9]

Dat footwear choice...why?

 

[FrankCowperwood]

The practical solution is really the issue. So, first of all, it's not like companies can dump whatever they want down the drain, because it would put them at all sorts of legal jeopardy.

Spoiler

Legal precedent is pretty firm, and at this point, has pretty much ensured that in the face of uncertainty, all the industrial chemicals are stored and discarded of as hazardous waste. No one is dumping drycleaning fluid anymore, or putting everything into the river. I can't say that that isn't true in third world countries, of course. But it's certainly not true of industrialized countries. It's possibly even more true of authoritarian countries like China, where heads literally roll, and no matter how rich you are, you won't be able to more or less literally buy time.

The issue is in the regulation of trace amounts in say, drinking water. And the problem is one of policing. The EPA has limited time, manpower, equipment, and knowledge. Figuring out how to measure the quantity of any one chemical is not a trivial task. It's not as though we have a special device that tells us exactly how much everything there is in the water. That's t.v. science, and if it worked, I would have finished my PhD in about as much time as it takes to make a few burgers, dress them, and eat them (sorry, I haven't had dinner yet, and am getting pretty hungry.) You have to use different test for different compounds, often several methods used in combination. It's a big job. And you need to know a lot about the substance in order to measure it at all. Otherwise, it could just be a small spike of very many in your spectrometer, or chromatograph, or whatever (apologies to all of the analytical chemists out there for the over-explaining.) And in order to measure trace amounts, sometimes there are a lot of steps ahead in order to concentrate samples enough to get a reading. It can be pretty challenging to get readings down to 10^-8 mols/m3 or whatever the case may be.

If a regulation is enacted, and regulation and science aren't natural playmates, then we become obligated to test for that substance. I can't imagine what would happen if we were required to test for 60K different compounds, probably many similar to others.

And let's not forget that super strict regulations can have unintended social consequences as well, especially if we jump in head first instead of being very circumspect about things. For example, though there is no real consensus on the issue right now, and it's now believed that perhaps the sources is runoff from farms, the in the 90s, a number of prominent studies were published that attributed excessive estrogen in the water system, a real issue for the aquatic ecosystem, could be caused by domestic wastewater from women taking birth control pills. Lemme tell you, some on the far right part of the political spectrum jumped on this like a fat kid on chips. If we were in the business of "overreacting" in enacting regulation, we would be subject to all sorts of political machinations. More than we already are. At least right now, scientists, rather than activists, are still mostly in charge. That's a good thing.

Basically, everyone should chill the **** out and let the experts do their jobs. It's good to have some skepticism about expert claims, but I really feel that America's distrust of experts has led to all types of idiocy, on both the right and the left (the anti-vaccine thing is particularly mindblowing.)

I certainly can't argue the science with you, but it strikes me that there are many situations in which we find that legal and expert opinion (and there's seldom if ever consensus in either field on a given issue) fail to form a viable check.

Let's consider the pharmaceutical industry, in some critical respects the opposite of the industrial chemical example above. Here's a heavily regulated industry in which the requirement is to prove safety first, rather than allowing use until someone can prove harm. And yet, you have the case of Purdue Pharma and Oxycontin, which is pretty much Le Carré's The Constant Gardener in real life. The evidence here seems to fall squarely on the side of an expert-controlled vetting process failing miserably with dire results.

I'm not suggesting we don't need experts. It's foolish to think that we don't rely on them constantly or that in the long run their work isn't usually a benefit to the non-expert, I think. But it's not a simple you're with them or your not proposition.

 

[FrankCowperwood]

Dat footwear choice...why?

Spoiler

His socks are going to get all slushy if he wears those things when he moves back to Chicago.

 

[dieworkwear]

Dat footwear choice...why?

 

[FrankCowperwood]

That's mystifying. I assumed he was wearing those for comfort. But that does not look comfortable to me.

 

[Timbaland]

@notwithit if you make the chain yourself you might want to be careful with the material you use. Years ago thatoneguy made rings like Margiela's nail ring with real nails and sold some on the forum for cheap. It was cool at first but after a while the nails irritated my skin and gave me a rash.

I think I saw Margiela make a bracelet like that before besides his standard ID bracelet. It might be worth a shot checking on yoox every now and then.


Agree with Fok on buying what you like. I just wish it was that way with cars too.

 

[LA Guy]

I certainly can't argue the science with you, but it strikes me that there are many situations in which we find that legal and expert opinion (and there's seldom if ever consensus in either field on a given issue) fail to form a viable check.

Let's consider the pharmaceutical industry, in some critical respects the opposite of the industrial chemical example above. Here's a heavily regulated industry in which the requirement is to prove safety first, rather allowing use until someone can prove harm. And yet, you have the case of Purdue Pharma and Oxycontin, which is pretty much Le Carré's The Constant Gardener in real life. The evidence here seems to fall squarely on the side of an expert-controlled vetting process failing miserably with dire results.

I'm not suggesting we don't need experts. It's foolish to think that we don't rely on them constantly or that in the long run their work isn't usually a benefit to the non-expert, I think. But it's not a simple you're with them or your not proposition.

Oxy is a different story - one that has to do with experts controlled by corporate needs, and the conflict of interests between regulator and the regulated.

Incidentally, though I myself have never had an issue with it - I only had to take oxy once, and I think that I did one dose, and that was it - after a surgery, I have had friends who have been on oxy, and they hate it. Nearly all of them are professional fighters, and they are prescribed it when they have severe pain after surgeries and injuries. These are guys who beat and are beat up for a living, and so I can nearly assure you that they have a much higher pain tolerance than most normal humans, based purely on the inability of many white belts, especially adults who have never fought stepping of the street, to sustain even pretty routine, non-extreme pressure.

While I'm sure that there are fighters who are addicted, a lot of the pros seem to be quite able to stop the meds. And because some of them have had to be on oxy quite a few times throughout their careers, they know that withdrawl is going to suck, and they really try to not be on them as long as possible, and to get off of them as soon as possible as well. But of course, these are people who also, by and large, have remarkable physical discipline as well as pain tolerance, and definitely not average or typical. But it is a kickable habit, just.. hard to kick.

 

[LA Guy]

@notwithit if you make the chain yourself you might want to be careful with the material you use. Years ago thatoneguy made rings like Margiela's nail ring with real nails and sold some on the forum for cheap. It was cool at first but after a while the nails irritated my skin and gave me a rash.

I think I saw Margiela make a bracelet like that before besides his standard ID bracelet. It might be worth a shot checking on yoox every now and then.


Agree with Fok on buying what you like. I just wish it was that way with cars too.

Yeah, I remember those bracelets, and thinking... that won't end well.

Industrial looking jewelry is typically (at least the production models) not made from actual industrial things. Those chain bracelets, for example, though pretty tough for jewelry, will not do a good job locking up your bike.

 

[FrankCowperwood]

Oxy is a different story - one that has to do with experts controlled by corporate needs, and the conflict of interests between regulator and the regulated.

Incidentally, though I myself have never had an issue with it - I only had to take oxy once, and I think that I did one dose, and that was it - after a surgery, I have had friends who have been on oxy, and they hate it. Nearly all of them are professional fighters, and they are prescribed it when they have severe pain after surgeries and injuries. These are guys who beat and are beat up for a living, and so I can nearly assure you that they have a much higher pain tolerance than most normal humans, based purely on the inability of many white belts, especially adults who have never fought stepping of the street, to sustain even pretty routine, non-extreme pressure.

While I'm sure that there are fighters who are addicted, a lot of the pros seem to be quite able to stop the meds. And because some of them have had to be on oxy quite a few times throughout their careers, they know that withdrawl is going to suck, and they really try to not be on them as long as possible, and to get off of them as soon as possible as well. But of course, these are people who also, by and large, have remarkable physical discipline as well as pain tolerance, and definitely not average or typical. But it is a kickable habit, just.. hard to kick.

As I understood the Dupont story in the Times, it's not really different from Oxy at all. A range of experts realized the danger of PFOA, both within Dupont and outside it, but it took extraordinary effort and a long time to even admit there was a problem publicly.

But we can let this go. I'm arguing points of opinion from two articles in the popular press. I'm out of information otherwise...

 

[troika]

Dat footwear choice...why?

 

[RegisDB9]

View attachment 1039050

Holy ****...this person is a multi-millionaire. I remember back in 2011 when I thought man Kanye makes those RAF Vandals look good