Comment by protocolture
16 hours ago
>Because the US chemical industry has been effectively unregulated for a century and can do whatever it pleases.
And yet I bet if I look there's actually a ton of regulation.
>Chemical A is found to be cancerous
Chemical A is assumed to be cancerous by the state of California, you mean?
Are you alleging that California claims stuff to be carcinogenic without evidence?
Do you have a supposed motive?
Any evidence?
Whilst it's a bit of a meme, isn't it just true that a lot of stuff is carcinogenic.
California’s threshold is far too low to be useful. The end result is basically https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alarm_fatigue
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acrylamide
is the one that gets me. Fried snacks from Asia frequently have a Prop 65 warning. Thing is it is produced by ordinary cooking techniques from ordinary and can be found in both traditional and ultra-processed foods.
Well, the “experts” say a charred steak is carcinogenic. At that point, I stopped listening to anything out of their mouths. It might be true, but it’s also a matter of degree.
California has set such a low threshold that one cannot take their label seriously about anything. It applies to nearly everything, making it effectively a useless warning.
It also never lists the specific substances nor what one can do about it (not enter the building, don’t lick the ceiling, wear a mask, whatever). Good intentioned but utterly useless.
> And yet I bet if I look there's actually a ton of regulation.
I'll bet a ton of that regulation is insufficient, and/or paid for, or even written by, the industry to make it harder for competitors or to allow them to increase their profits by cutting corners.
Regulation isn't some on/off switch that always makes things better or worse. What matters is what those regulations are and who they serve.
Yep and I bet if I reviewed every bit of it line by line I couldnt convince many people to remove any of it.
Because Regulation might not be an on/off switch but Deregulation is a complete hard no for most people.
I'd agree that deregulation is a complete hard no for most people, but that's because removing bad/watered down regulation isn't enough. Calling for "deregulation" is like saying "defund the police". A very small number of radicals claim to actually want that, but most people think that something better has to fill the void. Bad regulation needs to be replaced by good regulation.
If what you mean by "Deregulation" is "different/better regulation" most people will happily support it. For example, most people would love to have the government just automatically mail them their tax refunds with the paperwork they need to verify it was correct. Standing in their way are companies who have been spending a lot of money on bribes to make sure filing our taxes is as expensive and difficult as possible (https://www.nbcnews.com/business/taxes/turbotax-h-r-block-sp...)
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