Comment by marcell | Hacker News Reader

Comment by marcell | Hacker News Reader

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There is always a time lag between the introduction of a cool new technology, and the discovery of its negative effects on human health.

DDT was invented in the 1940's, and it wasn't until twenty years later that people discovered its negative effects through bioaccumulation. Teflon was invented in the 1930's, and it again took decades to discover its negative effects on human health, apparently under high heat. Cigarettes: decades until we knew scientifically they were bad.

Just a couple days ago there was a thread on HN about low sperm counts, with a lot of hemming and hawing about whether or not the effect is real. Here we have a claim that LED affects sleep cycles and melatonin production. We know testosterone production is related to sleep quality. Are these two related? We also have observed early puberty in girls. It went up during the Covid pandemic, when screentime increased for all school age kids in America. Is there a link between early puberty, LED screens on computers, and dropping sperm counts and testosterone levels?

We don't know scientifically. Expect to find out in two decades, when its too late for you to do anything about it!

Artificial lighting has existed for hundreds, if not tens of thousands, of years. People used to breathe superfines and ultrafines from daily cooking fires in nearly indoor conditions. Hell, people living in cities next to highways have no idea how they're shortening their lives if they don't have extreme MERV air filtration like I do. The AQI inside right now hovers at ~5. Outside, it varies from 15 to 200. I've been where P1.0-P10 was 5000+, to where going outside required a P100 or N100 full face respirator because the shit snowing from the air stings your eyes.

Comparing an imagined concern to the life-destroying travesties of Agent Orange, Tetraethyl lead (leaded gasoline), tobacco, lead acetate, DDT, PCBs, vinyl chloride, heavy metal- and actinide-polluted water, and radium poisoning is unscientific, lacking in perspective, and offensive.

To avoid evidence and testable hypothesizes is to become a conspiracy theorist.

If you're worried, turn off the screen and get a sleep mask. Artificial light won't turn your DNA into paper dolls. If it did, we'd know by now.

> is unscientific, lacking in perspective, and offensive.

I agree it is unscientific speculation. Science doesn’t have any answers.

As one example, there are no conclusive scientific answers on why global male testosterone is declining, or why American girls are experiencing early puberty. Any plausible explanation has compelling reasons to dismiss it, and we can’t know scientifically if they are correct.

Yet we can see both clearly in the data. If you want to escape these changes, you can only get answers outside of scientific knowledge.

> offensive

There’s nothing offensive about these comparisons. When DDT was invented, we didn’t know it would bio accumulate. When iPhones were widely deployed 15 years ago, I doubt many predicted they cause sleep disruption, and potentially disrupt hormone regulation.

They are both cases of harms taking decades to show up in scientific knowledge.

> Yet we can see both clearly in the data. If you want to escape these changes, you can only get answers outside of scientific knowledge.

Those would be not answers, then.

This is a common misconception. I don't need science to tell me not eat dirt, my sense of smell does that just fine. I also don't need science to tell me why someone is being mean to me, I can judge the social situation and make a good guess.

Science is great and gives lots of really good answers, but there are lots and lots of other ways to get answer.

> Yet we can see both clearly in the data. If you want to escape these changes, you can only get answers outside of scientific knowledge

This is not an arena where preferences and guesses will remotely help.

LED and incandescent bulbs are artificial lighting like m&ms and avocado are food. Any incandescent bulb gives black body full spectrum, turn it down to get friendly fire-like yellow, and most LED (even visibly white) give a very spiky spectrum plus you choose between PWM or high brightness.

> Artificial lighting has existed for hundreds, if not tens of thousands, of years.

Yes, and the climate has always been changing too.

A large part of the post is about the exact reasons why this kind of artificial light is different.

I suspect that (some types of) plastics are going to be a big contributer to some of these problems. They contain a number of endocrine disrupting chemicals, and we're typing on them, mousing with them, steering our cars with them, walking on them (most carpet is plastic these days), wearing them, eating off them, drinking from them, washing outselves with them ...

But yeah, the time-lag is a real problem, and coupled with lack of regulation with these technologies and novel compounds that are often introduced into our lives with little or no testing. Very much a "better to seek forgiveness than seek permission" scenario, except in an irresponsible and reckless way that's focused on profit, not safety.

> They contain a number of endocrine disrupting chemicals …

Tangential, but I worry about the oleophobic materials used on touchscreen glass panels.

Anecdotal: even before the great oleophobic coatings we have now, a family member managed to be allergic to touch surfaces. That seemed to include both smartphones and laptop touchpads. Made her skin flake, obviously extremely disturbing when that happens on the tips of your most agile fingers.

Also keyboards, clothing and furniture.

For the first time in my life, I think I finally see the appeal of wooden keycaps.

Can finally justify that four figure keyboard build!

But not lubricated builds!

Stone, for that extra-clackety tone to my Model M!

Sealed with unknown resins

> We don't know scientifically. Expect to find out in two decades, when its too late for you to do anything about it!

The alternative is for humanity to introduce layers of bureaucracy and regulation for all new technology to prevent them from being used until it's been proven to be safe across decades of use. This is both impractical and inefficient (we might focus research on speculative tech nobody ends up caring about, new tech is often prohibitively expensive until it's mass produced, etc).

When we are using the entire world's population as a guinea pig, and the stakes can be as high as "we accidentally sterilized/killed/crippled a large part of the world's/our nation's population", I don't know that having a less sticky cooking pan now instead of 20 years from now is worth it. I agree that a ban on new untested inventions seems impractical at the same time. I don't know what the "right answer" is in this case, but maybe there should be more regulation on testing potentially dangerous chemicals a start.

Impractical from the standpoint of someone who's looking to profit off the invention surely, but explain why that should be the primary driver and not general wellbeing?

Fun fact: leaded fuel was known to be detrimental to health when introduced in 1924, but it was good for the bottom line so it was done anyway. It can still be said to follow the trend of introduction and then (much later) being discredited and remedied.

General rule I keep is the more restrained on new tech you can be the better.

Basically, I avoid most synthetic, gmo, store bought stuff where I can. That said, I have AC, heat, and will use meds when I need them (even real advanced ones). There’s always risks but my cast iron works great to cook with. No synthetic hormones for me, and limit phone use is allgood.

Do you also avoid animal products? Lotta hormones in those.

Raise my own / join a co-op.

You can get raw milk and any meat from the Amish where I’m at. Amazingly good.

I don’t think there’s such a lag to discover the negative effects. A couple of years perhaps, but not decades.

What you are pointing at is the time when these negative effects can’t be rejected by their respective industries. Teflon and cigarettes had the scientific experiments done pretty early, and from there it was the different companies fighting the results to affect public perception.

New products spreading successfully in our society always have a set of companies getting big and powerful, with a critical interest in killing any attempt to paint their products as nefarious or needing caution. Of course it will take decades to get them to acknowledge they’re screwing the whole population.

PS: of course any new technology is always a trade-off, and the risks can be worth the upsides. For Teflon, even knowing the issues, many people will still chose to use non-stick for sheer convenience. BTW it’s not just “high” temperatures (“high” meaning heating your pan too much for 2~5s from memory), you’ll get contamination on physical damage and wearing off of the coating as well.

Banning ddt has lead to the death of many millions of people

How?

I think they are referring to the fact that it was used to eradicate malaria in a lot of places by destroying mosquitos and can't be used in that way now that it is banned.

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