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How Regulations Hamper Chemical Hobbyists
An anonymous reader writes "Chemical & Engineering News just ran this story that relates how government regulations create a terribly restrictive atmosphere for people who do chemistry as a hobby. (A related story was previously posted.)" The article gives some examples of why hamfisted regulations are harmful even to those who aren't doing the chemistry themselves: "Hobby chemists will tell you that home labs have been the source of some of chemistry's greatest contributions. Charles Goodyear figured out how to vulcanize rubber with the same stove that his wife used to bake the family's bread. Charles Martin Hall discovered the economical electrochemical process for refining aluminum from its ore in a woodshed laboratory near his family home. A plaque outside Sir William Henry Perkin's Cable Street residence in London notes that the chemist 'discovered the first aniline dyestuff, March 1856, while working in his home laboratory on this site and went on to found science-based industry.'"
What about the idiot that looks up how to make nitroglycerin on the Internet and kills 20 people?
I love the idea of full blown chem lab at home but there does need to be a balance.
The simple truth is if you want a lab like that you probably need to move out to a rural area. Hack they get cranky with HAMs putting up antennas in so places.
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As far as home chemistry is concerned you can thank illegal drug users for the need to clamp down on lab equipment and supplies. The sad truth is that all of us need to help ferret out illegal drug users and get them put away or whatever if we intend to live in a free society. Perhaps people in some areas can't see the problem. They only need have lived in an area that has fallen to drugs to understand the intense violence and total terror that such a neighborhood can come to when drugs run rampant.
>We have regulations to stop people who are a few neurons shy of a full brain (probably from playing with too many chemicals) harming themselves or others. Your gun laws would suggest otherwise.
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Another problem is the threat that chemists can pose to themselves and others. For every Goodyear who succeeded, how many unknown chemists ended up with poisoning, burns, cancer, or other damage to the local neighborhood? I had two acquaintances from teenage bomb-making (back in the day) who ended up losing body parts.
There has to be a balance. Although the pendulum surely has swung too far in the "9/11! 9/11! 9/11!" direction, sending it all the way back to wild west days would also be a mistake.
Everything you just said points to it being a giant mistake that the American Public just voted in Barack Obama.
The problem isn't the relatively few smart people that might use such substances responsibly. The problem is the incredibly large number of people that couldn't understand they are doing something silly adding water to concentrated acid. This latter group vastly outnumbers the former, so much so that giving people free access to stuff would result in ... well, I would imagine a lot of damage.
See, we don't let kindergardners play in the kitchen. After the age of five or so people (mostly) understand things like knives are sharp, the range is hot, and you don't want to sit in the refrigerator. So the kitchen is pretty safe.
If your average apartment-dweller knew they had access to powerful acids, strong bases and such they might want to play around. You know, "Hey Charlie, watch THIS!!!" So we have relatively ineffectual regulations that keep Charlie's friend away from finding out how easy it is to get this stuff. This sounds like a good plan to me.
Bomb making? You can still get everything you need. Obviously, because people are still making bombs. It just takes a bit more motivation and perseverence.
justice == oppression?
gee, how profound.
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Then could you please develop a Pad Thai dish which dosen't cause screaming, burning shits?
It never ceases to amaze me how mild Pad Thai goes down easy but always manages to leap out of my asshole without first asking my sphincter while leaving everything irritated and on fire.
Yikes. The philosophical collisions in that sentence are causing an overload in my mind. First off just to be clear, people make choices of their own free will. They will always be prone to make choices which harm other people for their own good because they themselves are not perfect. The "oppression" you describe is also what us normal people know as civilization! The whole idea of Civilization is born out of the premise that people form groups who then decide what is right and wrong (or get it from another source) and then use the power of that group to enforce said rules on those who would otherwise be uncontrollable. One person may not be able to stop a mass murderer but a whole police force may be able to. That is the premise of civilized society. That I think you fail to grasp. We live in a fallen state and some sort of law enforcement is always required. I agree that the amount of laws should be restricted. I agree that the amount of law enforcement should be kept to whatever the minimum is. What we should NOT do is call all law enforcement "oppression". What is oppressive is Anarchy which your statement basically leads to.
That said, human society is about more than just natural selection; we have the reasoned ability to choose what is better long-term, rather than simply allowing immediate survival to determine everything.
Let me guess, you voted for Bush, 4 times, right?
Yes, we have the 'ability' to choose, but seldom do. Lets take an example: We have amazing modern medical skills, science, and techniques but we 'choose' to let pharmaceutical companies fill us with pills that mask the symptoms rather than offer cures because that is where the money is to be made.
We build huge gas guzzling vehicles, practically encourage one driver per vehicle usage, and sell all that like it will help our sex life. Yet we could have 'chosen' to go the other direction, but what's a little green house gas between friends, right?
Hmmm We could have 'chosen' to educate our young with the best education on the planet, but instead we are arguing whether ID is science. We could have chosen to educate them in multitudinous ways yet we give them Survivor, Dancing With The Stars, and Miley Cyrus/Paris Hilton/Britney Spears.
Choosing the high road for society is good in theory, but doesn't make much money in practice. In other words, your idealism is nice, but I bet you're broke for it.
Yes, my comment comes close to eugenics type thinking, but when nature is the eugenics executioner, there is not much you can say. I'm not saying that picking who should be allowed to die off is good, but I do think there just isn't enough reading material each year in the Darwin Awards. You see, evolution allows the bad or unprofitable mutations to die off of their own doing. When we protect those mutations from the natural course of things, we choose to alter the course of evolution in a manner that may not be so good for us in the long term. When the chemical nature and food supply of a closed water system changes... the fish that are not smart enough, or able to adapt simply die off.
It's not a value judgment. I'm just thinking that if there are people who are ignorant enough to kill themselves, perhaps it's for the better of us all. There are other issues as well. Limited resources on the planet, and we are propping up older people on pills to use those resources. just ask China about this problem. What I'm saying is not new or even unheard of. Certain American Indian groups would put the old out to die when it was time. Protecting everyone from themselves is exactly how to build big government. It's exactly how to grow a population that is not capable of fending for itself. It's exactly the wrong thing to do... for immediate and long term reasons. You probably make moral judgments on people anyway. Should killers be executed? Locked away from society for life? Allowed to procreate? Given conjugal visitations?
Sure, every now and then a genius is born to ignorant parents. I'm not saying they should have been sterilized, just that if they are going to do something suicidal out of ignorance... ooops. There is no reason to create government, and grow it large just to protect people from themselves. That's just stupid.
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Today the terrorist CAN get hazardous chemicals.
Enough said.
After several minutes of trying I can't even put into words just how much I disagree with everything about this statement. I award you zero points, and may FSM have mercy on your soul.
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I did not condone prior restraint. Still the society at large makes the rules like I said and decides what is illegal. If you don't like it then argue to change those rules. Still the reason drug users are looked down upon is because 90% of drug dealers are nefarious and commit other crimes as well. The other 10% of drug dealers are the users themselves who just sell off the excess. How the law should determine which is which is pretty up in the air.
but that's not as easy as just figuring out which part is the stove.
Meh. This is the Dot; most folks here couldn't find their backsides with a flashlight, both hands and an instruction manual.
=Smidge=
Of course they could. They'd just argue that the hole in the center is the sun.