'Bestos saved my buddy’s life in 'Nam, man.
Canada: shifty_eye_puppet.jpg
I used to live in a city called Asbestos, the mine was closed back in 2012 and older folks are still angry about it, they’ll even tell you that the workers handling it weren’t in worse health than anyone else in the city… The worst part is that it was banned in the construction industry 30 years prior, so they kept exploiting the mine only to export it to countries that hadn’t banned it, even if it meant killing people there…
i could see the same being said about leaded gasoline
I’m in a comment war with a nicotine denialist on here now!
In the 90s, there were still tons of people angry about seat belt laws. It’s every American’s God Given Right to fly out of the windshield and probably kill someone else.
Real men aren’t held back by anything! The belt restricts blood flow through the body! It’s a globalist conspiracy to turn our men into women!
My father was an anti-seatbelter up until 2010-ish, when he got a newer car with a better seatbelt system.
There is this meme about:
As a left libertarian, I have a hard time arguing against seatbelt laws. As in, I know they aren’t consistent with my ideology, but the outcomes of having these laws are so much better than not having them. The only thing that I can say against them is that they’re one of the more commonly used bullshit pretexts for initiating traffic stops. I rationalize this trade off and violation of ideals by pointing out that the government has created a fucked up transportation market by enforcing car centrism, and until we can unfuck that, we need to deal with the side effects.
I think the argument is more about the impact on others. If you aren’t wearing a seatbelt, you become a projectile that can harm others - both in your car and outside of your car.
In general, I agree that ideologically it’s a little uncomfortable to dictate personal choices, but when it comes to road safety I think the government has reasonable grounds to enforce certain expectations (same with things like insurance.)
It is uncomfortable to give police more pretenses to stop people but road safety perhaps is one of those things we could have a hypothetical “good police force” take care of.
Ehhhh… Traffic stops are more often than not excuses to fish for other, more serious violations or initiate a civil asset forfeiture. It’s actually one of the big reasons I’m hugely pro-transit and anti-car-centrism, because it robs the state of a huge excuse for initiating police contacts.
Government dictating that citizens MUST give money to a private company who then gives money to the politicians who make that mandate is wildly immoral. Insurance should be a government program.
Insurance as a whole should be a sort of “public union” thing. No profit motive, everyone who participates in something like driving has to pay some fee for insurance, maybe along with things like registration. Ideally along with massive improvements to public transit.
The concept of private insurance under capitalism seems at odds with itself. You have to pay out a good chunk less then you take in to turn a profit, and the best way to do that is be useless and fuck over your customers. (With health - Cigna was supposed to cover my top surgery. Pay for it up front be reimbursed reimbursed later. Then, later, it turns out that my employer specifically included a rider that excluded it. I’ve talked elsewhere about how I’ve paid CareCredit back.)
I don’t know if we should nationalize auto insurance without doing health insurance first though. Would the government be negotiating deals with mechanics? I think hospitals have structures that are easier to unionize and generally smarter/kinder folks than the general population. Mechanics tend to skew the type that’d get upset over navigating fender bender payouts with Uncle Sam, probably going to be harder to get to understand that their labor rights are good things.
Don’t forget airbags have also killed people.
Where’d you get a picture off all my elder family members in one place!? (j/k)
People are emotional. They feel things, and then make up justifications for it afterwards. We all do this to some extent, in some contexts or others, but some people seem to do it the majority of the time.
Someone who smokes and has a choice between admitting they fucked up, they’re hurting themselves and those around them, OR denying it so they’re just a persecuted innocent? A lot of people will go for the latter. It’s weakness and cowardice, but saying that won’t change their mind. If results are wanted we have to do the very arduous task of massaging their emotions and I kind of resent that thankless, endless, work. Even though I almost certainly am the same way about other things.
Humans are a mess.
As a former smoker (now vaper) I understand and agree with non smokers about smoking inside.
However the people who bitch about smokers outside in public piss me off.
Yes my cigarette (now vape) is soooooo much worse than the exhaust of the thousands of cars /generators/construction equipment and so on that are constantly running all around us.
But out of sight out of mind. They can’t see all that exhaust shit so it doesn’t exist - But those fucking smokers how dare they.
I stop bitching about smokers when they manage to not throw their garbage everywhere.
And yes i know, of course you are the one smoker that has a pocket ashtray.
Yes my cigarette (now vape) is soooooo much worse than the exhaust of the thousands of cars /generators/construction equipment and so on that are constantly running all around us.
The problem is that nicotine itself isn’t a carcinogen, but increases the effectiveness of other carcinogens. So like, the nic is going to make that car exhaust/etc more harmful.
I also get mad at people who drive cars instead of walking or taking mass transit, if that helps.
But someone smoking near you makes your day undeniably, immediately, worse.
If you’re sitting in a room that smells uncomfortably of cheese, and someone rips a juicy fart on your face, it would be unreasonable to be like “who cares about my shart it smells like cheese in here”
I have asthma and when I walk past a smoker it makes it harder for me to breathe for a while afterwards. I don’t have the same issue with vapes though so I don’t really care about those even inside of they smell nice.
Some of us do struggle to breathe around vapes though. Not as bad as cigarettes but it’s still a problem
I just find it kida gross to inhale something that already was in someone elses lung. It doesn’t matter if it smells like cotton candy. It’s pointless and stupid
Looked it up and I had no idea how bad second hand vapor can be. I don’t vape or smoke but I’ll give them both the same level of stink eye going forward.
I haven’t seen any car exhausts walking right next to me on the sidewalk though.
I don’t breath in exhaust either, fully concentrated. I have as much of a problem with diffused cigarette smoke as diffused exhaust, but I fucking hate smokers that make me breath in their second hand fully potent, carcinogenic, horrible smelling smoke.
I am evil for this and I admit it.
Seat belts laws should not be enforced on adults. A windshield dive is a good cure for stupid, I bet a lot of MAGA would literally go out like that.Trauma, potential physical harm to others. A whole set of reasons they should be enforced. I get what you’re saying though.
Oh, I know it’s a bad point of view. In my defense I live in a no motorcycle helmet state. As long as you carry the insurance for it.
That is so fucking stupid lol. I guess you’re in a freedumb state?
Even better, people in the 80s when drinking and driving was made illegal: https://youtu.be/2xcQIoh3FQQ
Still meet plenty of people who drink beer in the car
My step dad had like 4 or 5 DUIs. When I was in elementary school, me and my siblings would get the privilege of “helping” start the car by showing how awesome we were at breathing!
Like, if you can afford the lawyers and come off as the right kind of good ol’ boy it doesn’t seem to matter. I think at one point he got weekend prison. He’d drive us to school with a high ball sitting in the center console.
Lot of people in my town with “party plates”. Yellow plate with red letters to signal to cops that you are a frequent DUI fiend. No clue how youend up with those instead of just having your license revoked
Aren’t belts not required in Utah
Also there are pro-asbestos movements
When seatbelts were introduced to cars, there was a big movement against them. Some by car manufacturers to keep costs down, but a lot of backlash was from good ol’ natural born idiots so contrarian and averse to change they’d let themselves die just to give a smug look about not doing what someone asked of them. The sort of dumbass who during the height of pre-vaccine Covid would drown in the fluid buildup in their lungs and refuse treatment because doing so would be an admission of fault.
These past 9 years have made me DEEPLY cynical about my fellow man. There is no bottom. No level of malicious stupidity is low enough. It’s not even disappointment anymore, I’m resigned to it. Some people are so beyond hope, so beyond redemption, it’s like trying to get a fucking deer to recognize itself in a mirror. Just ZERO awareness, no theory of mind, object permanence is a fucking coin flip. If it weren’t for my principles, my absolute refusal to engage in dehumanization, I’d be tempted to write them off as another species just to cope with the dissonance that comes from seeing people acting that self destructive. Like it doesn’t make sense. You’d expect at some point some form of pattern recognition and harm avoidance to develop. “Hey, putting my hand on the stove hurt. It hurt every time I did it. It hurt everyone I saw someone else do it too. I’m gonna put my hand on the stove and it won’t hurt this time.”.
I think there is a growing divide between the most and least intelligent in society, and it has been growing with tech advancement (the gap wouldn’t have been that big in the middle ages). If we ever develop superintelligent AI, I can see that becoming an inflection point in this divide because we (Lemmy dwellers) will become as fallible to that AI as the people you mentioned are today in what is still a human-dominated society. Introducing AGI will vastly exasperate the gap between the most and least intelligent and I can’t see society surviving that in its current form.
I enjoyed reading this. Well put. I also share this recent realization. It’s made me feel a bit less imposter syndrome. Among other things.
I was annoyed about the seatbelt laws, but I was a little kid at the time. I came from an era of riding in the back of dad’s truck and enjoying the breeze. Hell, I went from New England to Canada in the back of a capped truck. I was eight years old and never thought anything of it.
However, as I got older into my teens I got more adamant about using a seat belt, even when the laws were still sorta gray here (you were let off with no warning most times). Now its second nature, even if I’m heading 3 mins to the store. Some people still don’t because they think that they’re only endangering themselves. Thing is, I have a brother in law that’s a first responder. He’s seen people torpedo out of windows in head-on collisions and into the other car, injuring the other driver/passengers.
Honestly, I don’t get what the whole problem is. You barely even notice them on you. Most people who don’t put on a simple and comfortable safety belt are just being fucking stubborn children who don’t like being told what to do. I’m glad I grew out of that way of thinking. Some my family are those “good ol’ natural borns”. They’ll tell me I don’t have to put my seatbelt on and every time I adamantly say, “I always do”. My other brother in law will literally crank the radio so he can’t hear the seatbelt alarm. Drives me insane, but I love the idiot.
Untethered occupants are a serious danger to other occupants in their own car. I wouldn’t agree to drive with someone who wouldn’t put one on tbh, partly because it hints at a lack of judgement and I wouldn’t want that person in charge of the car.
I hated them as a kid because they were uncomfortable and didn’t fit right. My mom made is wear it but I used to put the chest belt behind my back as soon as she turned around because it dug into my neck. I probably should have been in a car seat for way longer than I was. As an adult I don’t even notice it.
There are still people that buy “belt silencers” or sit on their seatbelts to drive without. Newer cars will alarm, and mine even shuts down if you drive without a seatbelt
My sister’s boyfriend bought an oldtimer with no seatbelt. The previous owner installed some and he took them out again. I think there is nothing that brings him more joy than to tell people how he doesn’t need a seatbelt. He also drives his children around in this deathtrap. But he also refuses to wear a helmet when they ride their ebike. My sister nagged so long about it that he now takes the helmet with him, but he doesn’t wear it, that’s the compromise they reached. Some people are just fucking weird.
Seen bumper sticker: No air bags, we die like men.
To be fair, I find that funny.
I assume it’s sarcastic, but you never know
I think those are mostly for super obese people because seat belts are really uncomfortable if you’re really, really fat. At least that’s what I always assumed because everyone I know who has one is really fat.
Old car guys are still bitter over unleaded gas. Some will drive to airports to buy the leaded stuff.
Old car drivers drive cars that need additives in the gas. The lead was a lubricant, and old engines ran better, and longer, on leaded gas.
They didn’t just add lead because it made the gas prettier; there was a reason. I would suppose that today there are other additives that can reproduce the lubricating effects for those old cars, but old car hobbyists are niche and you’re not going to find those products at Walmart, whereas there’s always a local airport somewhere nearby.
I’m not defending leaded gas, but I think vintage car enthusiasts do it not because they’re being stupididly misinformed and contrarian, but because they’re trying to keep their engines running well.
The reason was TEL stopped engine pinging.
Thomas Midgley Jr is the same guy that invented leaded gas and also invented freon (chlorofluorocarbons). Imagine being the architect of not one but two of the greatest environmental calamities of the industrial age.
The lead was a lubricant, and old engines ran better, and longer, on leaded gas.
There were two issues. First, tetraethyl lead increased the effective octane level. That, in turn, reduced the probability of pre-ignition, e.g., the fuel-air mixture igniting before the compression cycle was completed. Higher octane allows for higher compression, which is more efficient. The other issue was the valves specifically; the lead provided a ‘cushion’ between the valves and the valve seats, which minimized valve wear.
The octane issue is easily solved by both better refining or by adding alcohol. It was known that you could add alcohol to gas to improve octane rating even when TEL was first added, but TEL could be patented, and alcohol couldn’t. The valve issue has largely been solved by better metallurgy and manufacturing.
The one are where it hasn’t been solved is small aircraft. Some small planes still use leaded gas, and it’s mostly for the octane boost. TEL can give them a better octane rating than alcohol or better refinement can, which allows them to operate at much high compression. Take that away, and the engines are too underpowered to keep the plane in the air. Over 150,000 small airplanes still use leaded AvGas; thankfully, newer turboprop planes and all jet planes mostly use Jet A or Jet B fuel, which is closer to kerosene.
In theory, I think that you could convert older cars to run on unleaded fuels, but you would need new parts rather than OEM.
Thank you. All my knowledge of ICEs has been through osmosis via a friendship with a guy who used to be a mechanic; I don’t care about them myself, and I appreciate the extensive added information you took the time to write. It’s really the only way I learn about ICEs.
but you would need new parts rather than OEM.
Yeah, that was ultimately my point. OEM is so important to that crowd; it’s both a status and a real value factor for them. They’re not just being contrarian: they do it because the cars they’re driving run better on leaded.
The end result may be the same, but I think the motivation matters for stuff like this. One is based on hostility, the other on a hobby passion.
I understand it as a hobby/passion, even though the old cars are far less efficient, die sooner, and are less safe than now. The only way they were better, IMO, was that they were less complicated, and thus easier to wrench on. It’s significantly harder to build hot rods or street racing cars now than the way you could in the 80s and earlier.
It was a PITA to change the battery in my 2012 Volvo, and I dread the battery change in the 2016 BMW. I can’t imagine doing anything more complex than that.
I love those old engines I see at the state fair, where the fuel is literally in an open pan on the top, sloshing around. They look like something you could put together yourself with enough effort, but the trade-off is efficiency.
I’d be happy with a fully solid-state car. I’m not a mechanic, or mechanically inclined, so I have no romantic attachment to gas guzzlers.
I enjoy working on engines when it’s not urgent, and it’s fairly low stakes if things take 5x as long as I plan, or I need more parts than I thought. OTOH, it’s incredibly stressful when my motorcycle throws an engine code that tells me there’s an electrical fault, and I know that I’m going go end up needing to tear it down, go through the wiring loom, and not be able to ride for a few weeks when the weather is finally getting really nice.
I had a Honda Nighthawk 650 once. The perfect bike, for me, if a little underpowered. But it was comfortable to ride, not too heavy, and looked good.
But it always had electrical problems, and I could never figure them out myself. It would just sporadically have a phase where the starter wouldn’t turn over. I had it in the shop off and on for about 6 years, and finally gave up on it. Never replaced it, didn’t keep up my license, and haven’t ridden in years.
If I ever do take up riding again (which will be an epic fight with the wife who’s mom was a nurse, and is dead set against me riding motorcycles), I want something in that form factor again. I keep looking at Ducatis.
Anyway, electrical issues are the worst.
It’s significantly harder to build hot rods or street racing cars now than the way you could in the 80s and earlier.
Unless you know how to remap a car and have a car with plenty of power reserve.
Anything turbocharged can be remapped for more power unless you’re at the limit of either the turbo, or the fuelling - and when you get there, many have options for more fuel and air. Diesels in particular are magic because you take a car that does ridiculous economy figures stock, and you double its power figures just to show people you can.
E.g Bobby Singh got 600 hp out of his diesel Audi wagon. These come stock with 240ish horsepower (176 kW or 239 PS I believe). He’s done engine internals upgrades to this one, but on other peoples’ cars he usually does bolt-on mods and gets about 400hp-500hp depending on what mods someone is willing to shell out for. Minus the upgraded internals, you could do this at home if you wanted to.
On the gasoline side, BMW has the B58 where you can get 500-600 hp with bolt-on mods and if you build it like people used to build hot rods, 1500 hp is doable. It’s considered the new 2JZ because Toyota itself put it in the Supra instead of building their own successor to the 2JZ. The 2JZ itself was a supercar killer when built properly.
On the Japanese side, I’m not sure if they’re doing anything fun new and new today, but they’ve all historically had at least one or two ridiculously tunable engines and Nissan will still sell you the very tunable GT-R.
Yes, some of those tunable newer engines come in pretty expensive cars, but there are still plenty of 4 bangers you can mod easily too. And it’s not like the hot rodders typically used small engines in the past. It was usually big ass V8s that you couldn’t even buy in most of the world because they used too much fuel lol
Unless you know how to remap a car and have a car with plenty of power reserve.
Right, that’s my point though. With my '84 Chevy Monte Carlo SS, I could drop a new engine in (started with a 305, ended with a 400 short block), do a high-flow dual carb intake, get a couple Edelbrock carbs, buy some headers, straight pipes and a glasspack muffler, and get a ton more power. (And also much, much worse fuel economy.) Now you not only need to understand wrenching, you also have to have the software and knowledge to entirely re-map the fuel, since it’s all computerized.
And while you are technically correct that you can get tons more power out of a lot of mostly stock engines, that does sharply reduce your engine lifespan. Of course, that’s always been the case, but it used to be that you could fairly easily get your block bored and sleeved to have larger pistons (“there’s no replacement for displacement”), but generally engines are running with much less material now. Oh, and they’re aluminum rather than iron, so often you’re going to have to send your block off to a specialist to get the cylinder bores coated for longevity. (I think my Honda CBR600RR had alusil or nikasil plating in the cylinders? I’m not sure now.)
I’m really, really not nostalgic for those days; yeah, hot rods are kind of neat, and it’s fun being able to do your own mechanical work, but cars now are so much more efficient, more powerful, and last 3-4x as long as cars from the 60s through early 80s.
Right, that’s my point though. With my '84 Chevy Monte Carlo SS, I could drop a new engine in (started with a 305, ended with a 400 short block), do a high-flow dual carb intake, get a couple Edelbrock carbs, buy some headers, straight pipes and a glasspack muffler, and get a ton more power. (And also much, much worse fuel economy.)
Right. But with a lot of modern cars, you don’t need to drop in a new engine at all, and for a lot of people changing fuel trim tables is easier than getting carb jets juuuuuust right. Not to mention there are premade stage1 remaps for stock engines that should “mostly” work. There are engines out there that will give you around a 30% without a single mod, though generally not on those premade remaps, as those try to err on the safe side. Stock intake, stock exhaust, stock everything. Just a remap. Oftentimes, they give you BETTER fuel economy because of the improved torque curve. Though the increased effect of the fun pedal often cancels this out.
I’d say you can get into modding with less knowledge and skill nowadays, because as long as you have the hardware, you can get someone to remap your car remotely so you don’t even need to be able to drive it to a shop after doing whatever mods you want to do to it. True, if you want to do everything by yourself, then it’s harder.
I ones I know are putting it in new generators.
While putting in a new generator is absolutely a better idea, that means it’s not the original car. Plenty of classic car (and computing and video game and music and any hobby) enthusiasts run original hardware on purpose. Where’s the fun in building an Apple IIe if you use a flash drive instead of the hard drive? Where’s the soul in listening to The Four Tops on a digital recording instead of the vinyl master? Why play Sega on a flash cart instead of the original cartridges? Why drive a classic Civic if you’re trying to drop a K20 in there?
New stuff is objectively better. A 4Cyl Mustang makes more power these days than a V8 from the 90s, more so for older models. You have to be a little irrational to put that amount of time into running something just because it’s older.
Where’s the fun in building an Apple IIe if you use a flash drive instead of the hard drive?
Not to be that guy, but the Apple IIe didn’t have a hard drive. External tape or floppy were your only storage choices. The real cool kids had two floppy drives, so you could pirate games directly disk-to-disk.
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If it didn’t cause cancer, asbestos is a fucking miracle material, there are people TODAY who are hugely pro-asbestos
People have been pro-asbestos dating back to Roman times, and even back then it is said they knew it was harmful as well. But used it anyway. 😆
I mean you do have to wright in thr pros and cons. Like asbestos is crazy good in what it does. if you have it in your building and don’t fuck with it, it doesn’t matter. I’m not some pro asbestos nut or anything, but they banned asbestos because of health concers, but smoking and alvohol is still fine, which has absolutely no positive side effects
It actually was just recently (a year ago) banned fully in the US. Before that, it was just prohibited to be used in new construction.
What do you mean with fully banned in this example?
Pretty sure here in Europe there are also still plenty of cases where you’re not forced to remove asbestos, like inaccessible old plumbing that’s embedded in the utility shafts of apartment blocks. So it’s also not fully banned here yet either, in that sense.
Well it can’t be sold anymore, but if you have it in your house then it’s not illegal in any way
It was still sold until recently? That’s pretty wild.
LOL, libs are trying to ban asbestos! They want us all to catch fire! Asbestos causing cancer is a conspiracy, do your own research. Besides, Ivermectin will cure any cancer caused by asbestos.
/s (because the USA is crazy and someone would really post this and mean it)
Post it on reddit, and that will end up as a google AI recommendation next week.
Asbestos is a great way to prevent the glue on your pizza from catching on fire !
I can see them railing a line of asbestos just to own the libs. Better than vaccine denial I suppose, at least it limits the damage.
A guy I went to HS with definitely did this one time on a dare. A piece of insulation fell out of the kiln in shop class n another kid smashed it n told this kid he’d give him $5 to snort it. No one thought he would, but this dude absolutely railed it. Someone asks the shop teacher later what the tiles were made of and he says asbestos mostly, but it’s fine as long as you don’t mess with it. 💀
I keep checking on his Facebook every couple of years to see if lung cancer got him. So far, he’s still kicking lol.
They would huff that shit claiming its so great.
As long as it made someone money or kept them from losing it, yes there would be
People would be making TikTok videos eating asbestos and cramming it up their bums claiming it cures COVID
We should just let them bring all these things back, make the southeast US a mecca for dinks that want raw milk, lead paint, asbestos insulation, and derailed trains pumping vinyl chloride into a biodome.
Entice them to move there by saying something like, “The south is rising again, make sure you get in there before they close the doors!”
This would suck though, I would hate not to be able to go to the Smokeys ever again or see the Everglades.
