This is not the correct way.

If cigarette was banned from the beginning, we would still see people getting mad without much evidence.

The truth is the evidence is coming half a century after when everyone got cancer.

Precautionary principle should always prevail.

That's why we just don't go full GMO, and you would still not wait for any proof that "it's harmless".

You also don't use a random pesticide, unless you have a full proof that's it's harmless.

Additionally, without cigarette, without GMO and without pesticide humanity would still be fine, and maybe better without (if we stick with the cigarette).

TL;DR: You actually need a proof, but it's a proof that it's harmless and not the other way around.

But things like pesticides are being tested and approved first. With the knowledge they were able to get at the time, they were approved. It was only later, when long term and large scale usage of certain pesticides were shown to have a negative impact on the ecosystem that they looked at them again.

Of course, these things don't live in a vacuum; the manufacturers of e.g. pesticides have a vested financial interest in selling their product, because money. They pay for scientific studies in favor of their product, they schmooze (= bribe) with decision makers and politicians, they overwhelm the system, they take their product global and sell it to whoever is buying, etc.

Same with cigarettes or asbestos or lead paint; it's part "we didn't know" because it's long-term effects or the science wasn't there yet, but part "shut up and buy my product" too.

Anyway, proof that it's harmless is not easy to get in certain cases, not when the effects only show up long-term or when the science doesn't yet know how to test. Was science at a point where they could test for the presence and endocrine effects of microplastics in the human body?

> Precautionary principle should always prevail.

This makes sense. If anybody at any point thinks that something might be bad, it should immediately and permanently be prohibited for everyone. We don’t need a mechanism to check this because people are never mistaken or misled, and there is no such thing as a bad actor.

Since the principle should always prevail, it applies to people as well. If anybody thinks that another person could do harm in the future, they should be allowed to kill them in order to protect society from harm.

A system where the only rule is “every person gets to make the rules for everyone else” isn’t the stupidest imaginable thing because

> the evidence is coming half a century after when everyone got cancer

Yes. Then the evidence was suppressed for decades more. We have no analogy here.

> Precautionary principle should always prevail

Why? Why assume the status quo is perfect? Also, what part of pornography isn't embedded into the human status quo?

> don't use a random pesticide, unless you have a full proof that's it's harmless

There is no such thing as "full proof."

> without cigarette, without GMO and without pesticide humanity would still be fine, and maybe better without (if we stick with the cigarette)

Now do vaccines, antibiotics, filtered water, the agricultural revolution and every other life-saving invention.

I disagree, the precautionary principle (Chesterton's fence) is heavily overused, often as a bludgeon and for power maintenance.

This is sort of like Jordan Peterson's claim that something is true if it improves evolutionary fit - a claim that seems reasonable on the surface but is rotten nonsense inside.