link :
TheConversation.Com
… and there was a very interesting episode on NPR radio about a great man in this story :
Clair Cameron Patterson
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clair_Cameron_Patterson
He Triumphs against corporations’ greed in the end 👍.
Corporations don’t have morals. Aspiring businessmen don’t take ethics classes. There are only two questions: Does it increase profits? Is it illegal? They will ignore rule two if none of the board goes to jail and the fines are less than the profits. They would sell you leaded gas today if they earned a fraction of a penny more per gallon. They do not care about anything aside from profits. That’s capitalism.
Its a perfect example of why we need mandatory jail sentences for these things and fines that always oncorporate double the profits of an illegal action.
The global authorities would need to keep the US out of the equation as they would probably say something along the lines of 'give us a percentage and we’ll look the other way… Again.
Bayer also sold medicine that carried a high risk of transmitting AIDS to Asia and Latin America when outlawed in the USA in the 80s. Why in all fuck their corporate charter wasn’t permanently suspended and the company sold off is BEYOND me.
Yes, fitting word, but not the best since it has a double meaning (sexual).
SciShow did a piece (partially) about this recently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXEFQH5UXHQ
And Veritasium did a deeper dive a while back: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IV3dnLzthDA
The whole situation is thoroughly fucked up, but hey, as long as people are making money amirite? 😑
ideally, I was hoping (but I failed) to put the spotlight on the positives :
1- Now we don’t have lead in gasoline (except for airplane & sport races) ,
2- Put the emphasis on one hero on this story which I name in the body of the post,
3- See how people can triumph over greed.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=LXEFQH5UXHQ
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=IV3dnLzthDA
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
This is a heartbeat of history; people who can profit off of the suffering of others will do so remorselessly.
So many other stories you can look up. Obvious shit like climate change or smoking, where it’s well-known how unrepentantly evil the industry has been in suppressing the science and research they KNEW indict their product.
For an equally-tragic but less-well-known story, you could look into the Radon Girls. That’s a heartbreaking saga of corporate malfeasance where the bad guys basically got away with it.
If you like podcasts, this is narratively similar to the content in two of my favorites. You’re Wrong About and Well There’s Your Problem. The former is more about cultural moments and moral panics, the latter is oriented towards the arrogance and carelessness of engineers (though sometimes is just historical stories).
I’m reasonably sure it’s Radium Girls, but yes: tragic, and totally on brand for capitalism.
And you can be sure whatever causes all major illness today, they know, but it’s too profitable to do anything about it.
The things the sugar industry knows for example, but everyone is turning a blind eye.
