Not much to add here other than as someone with terrible allergies and asthma, the constant need for plugin air fresheners, scented candles, scented laundry detergent, and scented lotions, perfumes, febreeze, and scented deodorant drives me crazy. I don't think normal folks realize how they're breathing in straight chemicals all day.
Oh man. A previous employer had someone come around and spray for bugs monthly. I told them to let me know when it was going to be so I could stay away for an afternoon. The exterminator insisted it was perfectly safe and wouldn’t bother me. Yeah, well, immune stuff runs in the family — my older sister had lupus — and it did, in fact, bother me.
As a test or something, he came around spraying without telling me. I was in my office when I felt my sinuses starting to swell and my chest started tightening. When I walked out into the common room and saw him smiling at me with a “see, told you it’s your imagination” grin, my coworkers had to drag me outside because I was ready to kill him.
Look, man, I’d freaking love not to have asthma and other allergy stuff. I don’t like taking handfuls of antihistamines. I’m not trying to be a pain in the ass. I just don’t, like, enjoying dying.
There's few things that makes me dislike someone quicker than when they dismiss the suffering of others, or use their own circumstances to dismiss others inability to "just don't X".
Or trivializes other people's work. Like when a lead developer or a manager wants to chime in and say the story point estimate is too much and it should be smaller.
This is one of those things that someone pointed out to me, I agreed with them and have since tried to avoid saying "just do ...", "why not just ...", etc.
However, that means I now really notice it from others. sigh
I generally try to avoid the word just. However, I'll still occasionally use it during a code review, when I see a large amount of code that can be replaced by something much simpler and smaller.
An ex-coworker introduced the rule that every time someone said "You just..." he increased his estimation by 1 level (standard fibonacci planning poker).
That was like 15 years ago and I've at least mentioned that rule to every team I've been a part of ever since. It usually works.
I hate all that stuff too, but I have to nit-pick the last sentence. Everything you breathe is chemicals. Everything that is good for you and bad for you is chemicals.
This in particular bothers me because I end up having this discussion with family members all the time who are convinced that "chemicals" are bad for you, and they only eat food without "chemicals".
Of course this is technically correct (almost a cliche really), but I think we all realize that "chemicals" in this context means "novel untested synthetic chemicals." That's a mouthful, so we use shorthand.
Let's not be overly dramatic. Charlatans are already lying, and they can easily switch verbiage.
If you can suggest a pithy replacement terminology for "what we really mean" here, I'm sure we'll all adopt it whole-heartedly. Until then, people are going to use the same (easily deciphered) shorthand. Tilting at this particular windmill doesn't actually improve anything or protect anybody.
That’s the thing. The reason why there’s no concise term is because it’s not really a meaningful concept. Does hemlock contain chemicals? Is botulin a chemical? They’re both 100% natural. The colloquial sense is totally meaningless, so by insisting on the scientific definition, you’re stopping marketers from saying nothing while looking like they’re saying something.
Also, ‘things are bad for other reasons’ isn’t an argument for trying to eliminate this particular reason.
When I said "tested" I clearly meant "tested for safety," which addresses those concerns.
You're conflating the colloquial usage of the word chemical with the naturalistic fallacy. These are two different things, however they interrelated because of our collective failure to embrace the precautionary principle when it comes to novel synthetic compounds. The result is that newer compounds tend to be correlated with less safety testing, simply because less time has been available for testing, testing which isn't typically required before engaging in mass exposure of the public.
There's also a connection between corporate self-interest in covering up safety risks (well documented in history, and presumably also occurring today as well) because synthetic compounds can be patented while natural compounds cannot.
In short the connection is real, but it's more subtle than your simple definition-based logic is giving credit for.
> volatile organic compounds or voooooc (can't remember the exact number of o in this acronym)
It's one. Volatile organic compound. VOC.
It doesn't take too long to tally up the O's, actually. But since this is such a math-oriented crowd, you can be sure someone will come along to do the counting for you.
Science communication is a challenge and this particular discussion is a key part of that challenge. The goal is to be able to get a child to understand the issue at hand while not harming their ability to continue to learn further. The words 'chemical' when referring to 'bad' and 'natural' when referring to 'good', I think, have been abused because of exactly your points. These words have been used to get a quick win on understanding a point, usually about some form of pollution, but generally lead to long term harm in deeper understanding later.
Having said all that, arguing these terms are bad just tells people they are wrong without giving clear direction to improve. The question that matters is what should be said instead? I think pollution is closer to a good word but when it is used the right meaning should be emphasized. The argument is not that chemicals are bad, the argument is that compounds not native to an environment have untested effects and therefore should be carefully studied especially if they are rapidly becoming abundant. Articles like this skip right to 'pollution = bad' instead of 'pollution = we should try to understand the effects quickly to make informed decisions'
I'd say that it needs a qualifier in general. I'm not against the word "chemicals", but unqualified, it means little more than the word "stuff". It really just needs an adjective, or to be about how many chemicals you're breathing in all day, rather than it being "straight chemicals", which implies that there is another way of existing, without breathing chemicals.
No, it just means harmful chemicals. We're talking about perfumes. Plenty of this stuff has been well-tested and it's toxic, a lot of it is probably toxic if you inhale it in aerosolized/partially burnt form.
Of course, but many people don't. I wouldn't bother if it was just pedantry. It's a discussion I've had many times and it's actually hard to make some people understand that "chemicals" doesn't just mean "synthetic dangerous things made in a lab", or that some labels have ingredients that are difficult to pronounce and unrecognizable that are still safe and natural.
There are a lot of these people. It's the same kind of people who buy their dogs "Taste of the Wild" grain free high-protein dog food because it sounds natural and therefore better than WSAVA-approved dog food, against the advice of any seasoned veterinarian.
I had a leaky air freshener attached to wall, it dripped on top of baseboard, the chemicals did a better job removing the paint on the baseboard that regular paint removers…
One of the reasons I still mask. An N95, while not perfect (an N100 with a carbon layer would be the real ticket), blocks a lot of the common scents. Things like those dangly air fresheners every ride share driver has about 5 of.
same here. my downstairs neighbour burns garlic for every meal, and then burns some kind of incense to get rid of the smell of garlic. both of them somehow come up through the floor and make me retch, so I have to open the window - at which point she goes outside for a smoke and most of it seems to come in through that window.
live among people, they said. it'll be nice, they said.
Hang in there. It took me 9 different units at 7 different properties in 3 different states to find the one that was just right for me, but it was out there - don't give up :)
I am thankful my workplace has a no scent policy. Unfortunately I have to go into clients homes all day so sometimes run into heavily scented homes. If we report it our boss will inform the client they need to remove it or not use it prior to our visits or open a window. I am thankful that I am naturally not a smelly person (confirmed by girlfriends) and I shower with non scented soap and I don't ever wear deodorant. Sadly I have teens. They over spray perfumes and colognes to the point that I can't even be near them at times. I hope the unscented trend picks up and spreads to more places. Thinking about the topic of scents were you around when you could basically smoke anywhere? I remember the days walking in a mall smoking and people would just drop the smoke and step on it then walk away. Banning smoking from public places where I live was the greatest thing.
I am the opposite. My nose has barely any sensitivity, so I love intense smells, because they actually make me smell something. Also, fuck the people who keep windows open 24/7 even during winter. They make everyone cold just because the air isn't perfectly fresh.
At my previous job we had a guy who'd always come and instantly open the windows. I know that I'm the minority with my preference to keep them shut, so I just suffered in silence, except for these first 30 minutes before he showed up, those were a blessing. He lived outside of the city and commuted, and one time he really needed to sleep inside the city, and I had a spare bed, so I let him sleep at my place. He walked in and instantly said "Can we open the window?", to which I replied "NO, WE CANNOT". I cannot describe how satisfying that felt.
