The major proponent was also known as

Thomas Midgley Jr.: Accidentally The Most Dangerous Man Who Ever Lived[0]

Leaded gas, CFCs, and accidentally created a machine that ended his own existence.[1]

[0]https://allthatsinteresting.com/thomas-midgley-jr [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr.

embedding-shape 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I had one purple link on that second Wikipedia page, which (macabre as it sounds) was very interesting to read through: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_inventors_killed_by_th...

Also leads to another great list-of-lists; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_unusual_deaths

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mmooss 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Accidentally

Based on the OP, it wasn't at all accidental. They knew it was dangerous and chose it because they could make more money than with safer alternatives such as ethanol.

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cyberax 2 hours ago | parent [-]

I don't think he really appreciated the danger of lead. Its acute toxicity was well-known, but not its chronic toxicity.

And plenty of stuff is toxic in large quantities but harmless (or even vital!) in small quantities.

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whatisthiseven an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Then you don't know anything about the man. He intentionally inhaled large quantities of leaded gas to prove it was safe to on lockers.

He would then spend months in Florida recovering from lead poisoning.

He knew, and he didn't care.

	▲	cyberax 10 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Yeah, that kinda reinforces it. He knew about the acute effects, but not about cumulative damage. I don't think that cumulative toxicity started entering the public mindset until we'll into the middle of the century.

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mmooss 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Interesting - what is that based on?

He's not some incidental commentator. He's an engineer and a principle force behind this technology. He is responsible for the outcomes - 'I didn't know' is reckless negligence. And if there were clear acute problems, chronic problems weren't hard to guess at for anyone, much less an engineer, with all those resources, working on it for years.

	▲	sysguest 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> engineer and a principle force behind this technology well he's not some biochemist... and even biochemists have trouble within their own field because there's so much 'unknown' stuff in biochem (eg Thalidomide scandal)

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flaunf221 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> The Most Dangerous Man Who Ever Lived

The titles like annoy me to no end.

Because Thomas Midgley was an engineer. Not overlord of General Motors. Not director. Not even a large shaholder.

GM Leadership knew effects of TEL. And for decades traded everyone's health for their profits. Midgley is complicit, but he's just a small piece.

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masklinn an hour ago | parent | next [-]

> Midgley is complicit, but he's just a small piece.

Midgley used to tour around “proving” the safety of leaded gas by pouring it on his hands. And had to be treated twice for lead poisoning.

He was very much a culprit.

	▲	flaunf221 a minute ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Are we going to measure things by who got most sick or by who got the most out of it? Because if Midgley gets sick and his boss who knows everything gets a million dollars, I will blame his boss more. For example Charles Kettering (essentially boss of Midgley) was Director of Research for 27 years at GM. Was large shareholder of GM. And he hired Robert Arthur Kehoe to prove that TEL is safe. And Kehoe did. The "proof" was that "you didn't definitively prove that TEL is unsafe, so it's okay".
	▲	tim-tday an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		He washed his hands with leaded gasoline on national television to show it was safe. It was not safe. He lied and suppressed the science. Even if other people lied he was the public face of the lie.

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gertop 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

People who absolve engineers of all responsibility annoy me to no end. They're omnipresent on this forum and justify working for Facebook with things like "not my decision" or "someone else would do it" or "it's not that bad you just don't understand" or "I'm just following orders"

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flaunf221 an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Good thing I didn't absolve him of "all responsibility" and even wrote explicitly that he is complicit.

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jjk166 20 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

There is an important subtlety which is that engineers are not responsible for which technical challenges get solved, they are responsible for how those technical challenges are solved. An engineer's ethical obligation is not to avoid working on something that could be used in a harmful way, it is to prevent incidental harm from its deliberate usage. There's nothing unethical about working on a fuel additive to prevent engine knock; knowingly using a poisonous compound which is going to create immense public health problems to solve the problem was the sin.

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hyperhello an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

People who say annoy me to no end annoy me no end. They’re different phrases.

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jjk166 an hour ago | parent | next [-]

They are not different phrases. "Annoy to no end" is the American English version while "annoy no end" is the British. Both are acceptable and mean the same thing.

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tux3 an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

That's ironic, because the "no end" form was already a relatively new idiom. But "to no end" has already overtaken it in terms of popularity. Of course I meant the word "ironic" like I mean the word "literally"; which is to say, figuratively.

Being a prescriptivist creates no end of everyday pains. Language just won't conform.

	▲	hyperhello an hour ago \| parent [-]
		The thing is that it’s always used in “annoy” or “frustrate” because they mistake the response as sympathetic annoyance or empathic frustration when it’s really just their misuse of language. I don’t want them to be responsible for their miscommunication in the future!