One of the number one software purchases for people who use Windows computers is something to protect them from viruses and trojan horses.
If the number one source of profits for exploits and protection from exploits is from former NSA employees, it stands to reason that there will be a feedback mechanism maintaining exploits and backdoors at the NSA. For "security" reasons of course -- not just for profit.
It's funny to me the asymmetrical public interest involved in "protecting people." I remember years ago -- with no surprise -- there was a revelation that the majority of "I'm offended" complaints to the FCC came from about 4 people and a small AstroTurf company. You'd think some of the networks would at least start to recognize "angry caller #4" by voice after a while.
With this current "protection" we are to believe that there are offended people (OK, I do believe they exist), that might be burdened with the wrong shocking thing on a google search. Only they can change google settings to avoid most of them. And they can NOT CLICK on random links. Meanwhile, it's very obvious that there is HUGE DEMAND from the "not shocked". When not downloading Netflix video -- the majority of internet traffic seems to be "shocking."
So if this were up to a vote -- the "shocked" would be defeated with a filibuster proof majority. It's clear there is an alternative agenda in a system of protecting people that is "not up for a vote." And then they pronounce that they did it for you. Sure, and that missive from Occupy Wallstreet that is annoying to the people greasing the wheels gets lost in the filters. Oops!
As I get older, it seems that the movie Network is more truth.
Snowden did not hurt US security -- because this data is likely for sale to China via a contractor. Our "massive trading partner" is not surprised. The "damage" was for the merely large companies to learn what the multinationals already knew. And "spying on everything" takes on other connotations if you think of economics, trade secrets, and negotiations. Sure, getting dirt on politicians is profitable -- but knowing about money and technology is profit.
If there were an ACTUAL ENEMY out there, the US, the pentagon, and our secret agencies would be acting a lot differently than how they do now. It seems that these governments are more afraid of their own people. It's as if they were making a show of enemies at the gate to convince us to keep building up the castle and disenfranchise us.
Why is China, after years of peace with the USA while we did not take advantage of superior power, now buying air craft carriers and possibly getting into spending a lot of their prosperity on a military like we do? Is the air craft carrier going to help them dominate something that WalMart didn't already help them own? Are they going to attack a Samsung store down the street? Couldn't they continue dominating the world better by restricting imports and foreign ownership and continuing their public works projects and subsidizing strategic industries? Or are they only interested in "enough prosperity" and then later the same excuses to the middle class why they can no longer "afford education and health care" -- when they have record profits one day like we do now?
When I was young and naive I used to imagine I understood currency and "fiat" -- as you described.
But after watching the US invade a slew of countries who traded oil in non-dollar denominations or were PLANNING to trade in something other than dollars, I realized what really backed the US dollar; "potential nuclear annihilation."
Until you understand that currency is now backed not by what you can redeem, but by the value of what can be destroyed, you will not make sense of geopolitics and international banking.
About 25 years ago I was thinking of a multiverse concept, but I discarded it about 15 years ago, because nothing REALLY STRANGE ever happened. I would have to be extremely lucky not to live in the Universe where occasionally the possibility that gravity was ignored or that my coffee cup transmuted spontaneously into a cat did no occur.
And as I google for "cup transmutes into cat" I get no good results for strangeness but I do find reports by strange people.
Either choices we make matter and thus there is causality, or we are just randomly nice or evil, depending upon a roll of dice. So for every given entity, they are likely all partially going to Hell. Which makes any judgement of morality kind of useless.
Likely all potentials are explored "in a way" but only one reality resolves out of these potentials. I've always said that "physics has no law and things defy it all the time -- they just don't exist." And that is a funny statement, unless you really understand what I'm saying and then your head explodes -- in a metaphorical way. Not because all possibilities of head states are being explored by a pointless multiverse.
Probably misled by all those GPS graphics that show them just sitting up there, not moving.
If someone had added the "whoosh" lines behind these satellites on the graphics, we wouldn't have this kid of confusion.
Of course, then we'd have to correct people for saying; "the GPS satellites are constantly using propulsion".. "NO!" you explain; "That's a whoosh line so people wouldn't think they were Geo-stationary and a lot of math had to be used to calculate position of satellite and triangulate with objects using GPS system."
And then we say; "Oh, never mind, they are all trailing clothes lines for laundry, if you look really hard in this telescope you can see them." Then quietly leave as they peer with concentration.
No I'm a "lapsed" Unitarian because I've given up on impartiality. I secretly don't admire and respect all religions because I think that they are dangerous oily cloths that we throw in the garage and if we ignore them for long, they just build up heat and ignite.
In other words; Letting people follow their own groove no matter how ignorant, eventually bites us all on the rear.
So a "lapsed" Unitarian is someone who is intolerant. I accept that. I'm like Unitarian Judas. "Today, one of you will betray me, and have a harsh opinion." Guilty UU Jesus.
And yet science has created chimeras of Oranges with Frog Genes and Tobacco Plants with Human. Where is your God of "I can't be bothered to read why there are species and about parallel gene transfer and trans-genetic theory" now?
THE PARABLE OF THE FLAT EARTH AND THE FLASH LIGHT You are like the man in a cave saying "the earth is flat".
One day someone hands you a flash light and says; "Hey, go look, the sun is up and we are high enough right now that you can see the curve of the earth if you just walk out the cave."
And you tell them; "But the batteries in this flash light are dead --- you fool! Your entire premise is wrong."
And they reply; "Don't be distracted by the flash light, I was going to use that to knock some sense into you but I figured why break a flashlight."
That's like marketing on a bottle of water that explains how it is "Caffeine Free!" OK, you can say that, but it's not an absence of anything -- it just didn't add things that weren't there to begin with.
Being "weakly theistic" is something that an Agnostic can be -- but that's only because there are inexact bell curves involved. I think the water analogy can help; I've got a glass of water and I added some Lemon Zest. If I add an entire lemon and some sugar -- OK, now I've got lemonade. There is a bell curve of "waterness" and depending on marketing and the general landscape of beverages you can compare it to, wetness is always a part of anything involving a beverage, so lemon is not a requirement nor is water a "state of being where wetness denies lemon."
So if I'm a chemist and I want PURE water -- with nothing in it, that's like an Atheist as far as religion goes. If I'm sitting at a table and I'm drinking water, I might want ice, and I might spritz some lemon on it -- call me crazy, I'm not too hung up about it -- that's how an Agnostic gets refreshed. A fundamentalist is drinking hot tea, it must be made with 40% Orange Pekoe and 60% Black Leaf Tea, and it can't get below 100 degrees Fahrenheit -- hold the lemon. They'll stab you with a fork if you put lemon in that tea, and cream, well that's a sign of the devil.
So atheist; Water -- nothing else. It's not caffeine or sugar free water, it's H2O -- do I need to explain this? Agnostic; cold and wet, or maybe warm, but certainly wet. I just want to drink something with my meal -- so stop bothering me. Religious; has to have something and not have something in the drink or there is guilt and has to leave a tip for good service. Fundamentalist; must be this way and no other way, amen.
vus984 nailed it. I don't know why we have to argue these clear points; Atheist does not believe. Doesn't mean they can't follow some code or even attend a church.
Agnostic isn't sure or doesn't care or isn't interested enough to bother beyond "maybe." They'd rather you left the issue alone, or they plan to come back one day with a decision.
Neither are a religion, but none preclude interacting with religions. Proselytizing from non theists is just like people with the New Diet Plan and they've just got to tell you about it. Everyone who is human is not immune to human nature.
As for myself, I believe in a deity -- but only because of science and despite all the theology I've come across. That means I'm technically Gnostic, but have no dogma or creed. When I look at the Universe, I realize that it truly doesn't matter what anyone thinks, it only matters how they treat each other. My only commandment is; don't be boring.
Wow. This post you just made has forced me to rethink a few perspectives I have about Founding Fathers and my presumed judgement that we were losing spine "these days."
And you are right; America's "spine" has always been a vain illusion -- it never existed.
This actually gives me hope, because we may not be deteriorating into osteoporosis, we just have to find a way to evolve into walking upright!
The last time I voted FOR a Presidential candidate, it was Dennis Kucinnich. I voted for Ross Perot instead of Clinton before that.
When choosing between Obama against a small gaggle of morons, crooks and fools, I held my nose and voted for someone I knew wouldn't take us far away from the Bush era policies. I don't vote FOR keeping GitMo open or making all treaties a joke with Drone assassination programs. I didn't vote FOR austerity measures when a simple, well funded public works project could have quickly ended the recession and created more demand.
I'm sick of a blanket of blame when there are specific individuals we can name who manipulate the system and benefit from it. There are about 40 people in this country if locked up in a detention center, would make the country a better place.
We don't have to bow in the direction of Redmond. But when we have a trojan horse, we have to reformat the drive and bow down and check the cables because that dang registry embedded redirect will not go away until you burn the machine.
So that means Android is either the Unity church that stresses it's openness, but not really because you HAVE TO appreciate feelings as divine messages and nobody is allowed in without leaving behind any notion of going a day without strangers touching them, or Android his Christian Scientist because only re-installs from the one true source can heal you for they don't believe in inoculating against viruses.
That it is a slow news day and you will forget all about this really pointless topic tonight while you ring in the new year with popping champagne bottles and a headache January 1st at 7 am.
I'm a Unitarian, but I'm a lapsed Unitarian. So while I respect and learn about all operating systems, I secretly use a Mac and respect it slightly more. And since leaving the forced attendance at the Church of Microsoft I endured as a young businessman, I make snide remarks about it's adherence to the Registry which I believe only serves to corrupt it after a year.
I'd say I like the analogy to LINUX as Protestant splintering from the church of AT&T, though I'm wondering why nobody brought up that BeOS splintered with more forward looking features and ended up being led by a homicidal albino bent on mayhem.
We took a rancorous subject where people just argue, and we added religious debate to it, just in case someone wasn't going to get their jammies in a wad. We should also add in that Windows doesn't believe in Global Warming, and Al Gore prefers the Mac. Glenn Beck is out in a hidden location somewhere in the Utah desert right now preaching Ubuntu to rebellious children waiting for the end times.
I don't however, see much use in these analogies, because they detract from the much better "If an Operating System Drove Your Car" metaphor; http://www.computerjokes.net/027.asp
Heck, I'm fairly sure the chemistry kit I had when I was 10 would put someone on the FBI most wanted list today.
And for all that "security" where is the drug-free and fluffy safe future we traded this for? I'll trade a few potassium cyanide poisonings for 10,000 SWAT raids.
I'd say that I somewhat agree with the "has no effect" position, but only because of dumb luck. Between WiFi and Cell Phones -- the cell phone will have 1000x more chance of being a problem because you hold it right to your face. So just based on the "square of the distance" law with signal strength alone, it's going to be too low.
However, I do believe that EM fields are going to have an effect -- it's just that it's likely based on a specific frequency and it would "interrupt" the absorption of certain nutrients -- so the effect isn't direct but would cause symptoms and those symptoms would also be impacted by someone's lifestyle and metabolism. Cells have what is called a "Calcium gate" and that resonates depending on what signals it gets from the cell nucleus and this impacts what types of ionized molecules are let through -- attracted to the net positive potassium charge inside the cell. I'm not sure if this is part of the textbooks or not, but it will be I'm fairly sure. This resonance should be influenced based on what ions it's trying to attract and an EM field frequency -- but only a very specific one. And I'm not sure even if that's going to be in mHZ or kHZ -- I've not seen research on it yet.
We are just getting into the age where we have to figure out how complex systems are impacted. Currently, one drug and one pesticide can get approval when tested as one drug and one pesticide, and the same for EM fields. We don't know how to test for thousands of interactions. So the "cause = effect" scenario where there is positive proof is hard to find -- but it should be there in the real world. We just have a larger petri dish to contend with these days.
The growing angst of primitive fear I understand -- it's not just that things are too complex and people are Luddites, I think it's proper to question when things cannot be proven safe. There are too many who are ready to gloss over issues of immunization, EM effects and GM foods because there is no 1-to-1 case study showing "add X and get Y result." Toss in every letter of the alphabet and people just start getting sick in random ways. And human reason and emotion just lends itself to a vague sense of unease which results in irrational responses.
I only see these kinds of debates heating up because it's really hard to prove something definitive if we don't have an explanation of why more people are getting certain maladies.
Slashdot Mirror
One of the number one software purchases for people who use Windows computers is something to protect them from viruses and trojan horses.
If the number one source of profits for exploits and protection from exploits is from former NSA employees, it stands to reason that there will be a feedback mechanism maintaining exploits and backdoors at the NSA. For "security" reasons of course -- not just for profit.
It's funny to me the asymmetrical public interest involved in "protecting people." I remember years ago -- with no surprise -- there was a revelation that the majority of "I'm offended" complaints to the FCC came from about 4 people and a small AstroTurf company. You'd think some of the networks would at least start to recognize "angry caller #4" by voice after a while.
With this current "protection" we are to believe that there are offended people (OK, I do believe they exist), that might be burdened with the wrong shocking thing on a google search. Only they can change google settings to avoid most of them. And they can NOT CLICK on random links. Meanwhile, it's very obvious that there is HUGE DEMAND from the "not shocked". When not downloading Netflix video -- the majority of internet traffic seems to be "shocking."
So if this were up to a vote -- the "shocked" would be defeated with a filibuster proof majority. It's clear there is an alternative agenda in a system of protecting people that is "not up for a vote." And then they pronounce that they did it for you. Sure, and that missive from Occupy Wallstreet that is annoying to the people greasing the wheels gets lost in the filters. Oops!
As I get older, it seems that the movie Network is more truth.
Snowden did not hurt US security -- because this data is likely for sale to China via a contractor. Our "massive trading partner" is not surprised. The "damage" was for the merely large companies to learn what the multinationals already knew. And "spying on everything" takes on other connotations if you think of economics, trade secrets, and negotiations. Sure, getting dirt on politicians is profitable -- but knowing about money and technology is profit.
If there were an ACTUAL ENEMY out there, the US, the pentagon, and our secret agencies would be acting a lot differently than how they do now. It seems that these governments are more afraid of their own people. It's as if they were making a show of enemies at the gate to convince us to keep building up the castle and disenfranchise us.
Why is China, after years of peace with the USA while we did not take advantage of superior power, now buying air craft carriers and possibly getting into spending a lot of their prosperity on a military like we do? Is the air craft carrier going to help them dominate something that WalMart didn't already help them own? Are they going to attack a Samsung store down the street? Couldn't they continue dominating the world better by restricting imports and foreign ownership and continuing their public works projects and subsidizing strategic industries? Or are they only interested in "enough prosperity" and then later the same excuses to the middle class why they can no longer "afford education and health care" -- when they have record profits one day like we do now?
When I was young and naive I used to imagine I understood currency and "fiat" -- as you described.
But after watching the US invade a slew of countries who traded oil in non-dollar denominations or were PLANNING to trade in something other than dollars, I realized what really backed the US dollar; "potential nuclear annihilation."
Until you understand that currency is now backed not by what you can redeem, but by the value of what can be destroyed, you will not make sense of geopolitics and international banking.
Forget precognition; The twin towers went through everyone's heads on that plane.
-- sorry, too soon?
About 25 years ago I was thinking of a multiverse concept, but I discarded it about 15 years ago, because nothing REALLY STRANGE ever happened. I would have to be extremely lucky not to live in the Universe where occasionally the possibility that gravity was ignored or that my coffee cup transmuted spontaneously into a cat did no occur.
And as I google for "cup transmutes into cat" I get no good results for strangeness but I do find reports by strange people.
Either choices we make matter and thus there is causality, or we are just randomly nice or evil, depending upon a roll of dice. So for every given entity, they are likely all partially going to Hell. Which makes any judgement of morality kind of useless.
Likely all potentials are explored "in a way" but only one reality resolves out of these potentials. I've always said that "physics has no law and things defy it all the time -- they just don't exist." And that is a funny statement, unless you really understand what I'm saying and then your head explodes -- in a metaphorical way. Not because all possibilities of head states are being explored by a pointless multiverse.
That means only 20 million people could potentially log in as you or me.
I'ts way more exacting in detecting patterns; ,..."
"Candy Crush, twitter feed, Facebook, Pr0n, CHECKS EMAIL, Candy Crush, twitter feed Facebook, Pr0n,
NEW SECURITY SYSTEM:
"Yup, that's user 210072B all right!"
Lot's of code in the heuristics to add the "Yup" on that challenge response.
Probably misled by all those GPS graphics that show them just sitting up there, not moving.
If someone had added the "whoosh" lines behind these satellites on the graphics, we wouldn't have this kid of confusion.
Of course, then we'd have to correct people for saying; "the GPS satellites are constantly using propulsion" .. "NO!" you explain; "That's a whoosh line so people wouldn't think they were Geo-stationary and a lot of math had to be used to calculate position of satellite and triangulate with objects using GPS system."
And then we say; "Oh, never mind, they are all trailing clothes lines for laundry, if you look really hard in this telescope you can see them." Then quietly leave as they peer with concentration.
They've probably had a devil of a time finding the Geopens to write on the Geostationary satellites.
No I'm a "lapsed" Unitarian because I've given up on impartiality. I secretly don't admire and respect all religions because I think that they are dangerous oily cloths that we throw in the garage and if we ignore them for long, they just build up heat and ignite.
In other words; Letting people follow their own groove no matter how ignorant, eventually bites us all on the rear.
So a "lapsed" Unitarian is someone who is intolerant. I accept that. I'm like Unitarian Judas. "Today, one of you will betray me, and have a harsh opinion." Guilty UU Jesus.
I'm curious if there is some kind of insurance fund that will help these people if they develop cancer or kidney failure in a few years.
I'm also wondering if they are educated enough about the risks to know what they are getting into.
Desperate hungry people doing a high risk job for low pay that may kill them? Sounds like the jobless problem is self correcting in Japan.
And yet science has created chimeras of Oranges with Frog Genes and Tobacco Plants with Human.
Where is your God of "I can't be bothered to read why there are species and about parallel gene transfer and trans-genetic theory" now?
THE PARABLE OF THE FLAT EARTH AND THE FLASH LIGHT
You are like the man in a cave saying "the earth is flat".
One day someone hands you a flash light and says; "Hey, go look, the sun is up and we are high enough right now that you can see the curve of the earth if you just walk out the cave."
And you tell them; "But the batteries in this flash light are dead --- you fool! Your entire premise is wrong."
And they reply; "Don't be distracted by the flash light, I was going to use that to knock some sense into you but I figured why break a flashlight."
It's the absence of belief that deities exist.
That's like marketing on a bottle of water that explains how it is "Caffeine Free!" OK, you can say that, but it's not an absence of anything -- it just didn't add things that weren't there to begin with.
Being "weakly theistic" is something that an Agnostic can be -- but that's only because there are inexact bell curves involved. I think the water analogy can help; I've got a glass of water and I added some Lemon Zest. If I add an entire lemon and some sugar -- OK, now I've got lemonade. There is a bell curve of "waterness" and depending on marketing and the general landscape of beverages you can compare it to, wetness is always a part of anything involving a beverage, so lemon is not a requirement nor is water a "state of being where wetness denies lemon."
So if I'm a chemist and I want PURE water -- with nothing in it, that's like an Atheist as far as religion goes. If I'm sitting at a table and I'm drinking water, I might want ice, and I might spritz some lemon on it -- call me crazy, I'm not too hung up about it -- that's how an Agnostic gets refreshed. A fundamentalist is drinking hot tea, it must be made with 40% Orange Pekoe and 60% Black Leaf Tea, and it can't get below 100 degrees Fahrenheit -- hold the lemon. They'll stab you with a fork if you put lemon in that tea, and cream, well that's a sign of the devil.
So atheist; Water -- nothing else. It's not caffeine or sugar free water, it's H2O -- do I need to explain this?
Agnostic; cold and wet, or maybe warm, but certainly wet. I just want to drink something with my meal -- so stop bothering me.
Religious; has to have something and not have something in the drink or there is guilt and has to leave a tip for good service.
Fundamentalist; must be this way and no other way, amen.
vus984 nailed it. I don't know why we have to argue these clear points; Atheist does not believe. Doesn't mean they can't follow some code or even attend a church.
Agnostic isn't sure or doesn't care or isn't interested enough to bother beyond "maybe." They'd rather you left the issue alone, or they plan to come back one day with a decision.
Neither are a religion, but none preclude interacting with religions. Proselytizing from non theists is just like people with the New Diet Plan and they've just got to tell you about it. Everyone who is human is not immune to human nature.
As for myself, I believe in a deity -- but only because of science and despite all the theology I've come across. That means I'm technically Gnostic, but have no dogma or creed. When I look at the Universe, I realize that it truly doesn't matter what anyone thinks, it only matters how they treat each other. My only commandment is; don't be boring.
Wow. This post you just made has forced me to rethink a few perspectives I have about Founding Fathers and my presumed judgement that we were losing spine "these days."
And you are right; America's "spine" has always been a vain illusion -- it never existed.
This actually gives me hope, because we may not be deteriorating into osteoporosis, we just have to find a way to evolve into walking upright!
Thank you for this comment.
The last time I voted FOR a Presidential candidate, it was Dennis Kucinnich. I voted for Ross Perot instead of Clinton before that.
When choosing between Obama against a small gaggle of morons, crooks and fools, I held my nose and voted for someone I knew wouldn't take us far away from the Bush era policies. I don't vote FOR keeping GitMo open or making all treaties a joke with Drone assassination programs. I didn't vote FOR austerity measures when a simple, well funded public works project could have quickly ended the recession and created more demand.
I'm sick of a blanket of blame when there are specific individuals we can name who manipulate the system and benefit from it. There are about 40 people in this country if locked up in a detention center, would make the country a better place.
We don't have to bow in the direction of Redmond. But when we have a trojan horse, we have to reformat the drive and bow down and check the cables because that dang registry embedded redirect will not go away until you burn the machine.
So that means Android is either the Unity church that stresses it's openness, but not really because you HAVE TO appreciate feelings as divine messages and nobody is allowed in without leaving behind any notion of going a day without strangers touching them, or Android his Christian Scientist because only re-installs from the one true source can heal you for they don't believe in inoculating against viruses.
That it is a slow news day and you will forget all about this really pointless topic tonight while you ring in the new year with popping champagne bottles and a headache January 1st at 7 am.
I'm a Unitarian, but I'm a lapsed Unitarian. So while I respect and learn about all operating systems, I secretly use a Mac and respect it slightly more. And since leaving the forced attendance at the Church of Microsoft I endured as a young businessman, I make snide remarks about it's adherence to the Registry which I believe only serves to corrupt it after a year.
I'd say I like the analogy to LINUX as Protestant splintering from the church of AT&T, though I'm wondering why nobody brought up that BeOS splintered with more forward looking features and ended up being led by a homicidal albino bent on mayhem.
We took a rancorous subject where people just argue, and we added religious debate to it, just in case someone wasn't going to get their jammies in a wad. We should also add in that Windows doesn't believe in Global Warming, and Al Gore prefers the Mac. Glenn Beck is out in a hidden location somewhere in the Utah desert right now preaching Ubuntu to rebellious children waiting for the end times.
I don't however, see much use in these analogies, because they detract from the much better "If an Operating System Drove Your Car" metaphor; http://www.computerjokes.net/027.asp
Could someone familiar tell us if this is an FBI honey pot?
Just see if there is "Yellow Cake uranium -- cheap!" offered by the same seller to be sure.
Heck, I'm fairly sure the chemistry kit I had when I was 10 would put someone on the FBI most wanted list today.
And for all that "security" where is the drug-free and fluffy safe future we traded this for? I'll trade a few potassium cyanide poisonings for 10,000 SWAT raids.
I'd say that I somewhat agree with the "has no effect" position, but only because of dumb luck. Between WiFi and Cell Phones -- the cell phone will have 1000x more chance of being a problem because you hold it right to your face. So just based on the "square of the distance" law with signal strength alone, it's going to be too low.
However, I do believe that EM fields are going to have an effect -- it's just that it's likely based on a specific frequency and it would "interrupt" the absorption of certain nutrients -- so the effect isn't direct but would cause symptoms and those symptoms would also be impacted by someone's lifestyle and metabolism. Cells have what is called a "Calcium gate" and that resonates depending on what signals it gets from the cell nucleus and this impacts what types of ionized molecules are let through -- attracted to the net positive potassium charge inside the cell. I'm not sure if this is part of the textbooks or not, but it will be I'm fairly sure. This resonance should be influenced based on what ions it's trying to attract and an EM field frequency -- but only a very specific one. And I'm not sure even if that's going to be in mHZ or kHZ -- I've not seen research on it yet.
We are just getting into the age where we have to figure out how complex systems are impacted. Currently, one drug and one pesticide can get approval when tested as one drug and one pesticide, and the same for EM fields. We don't know how to test for thousands of interactions. So the "cause = effect" scenario where there is positive proof is hard to find -- but it should be there in the real world. We just have a larger petri dish to contend with these days.
The growing angst of primitive fear I understand -- it's not just that things are too complex and people are Luddites, I think it's proper to question when things cannot be proven safe. There are too many who are ready to gloss over issues of immunization, EM effects and GM foods because there is no 1-to-1 case study showing "add X and get Y result." Toss in every letter of the alphabet and people just start getting sick in random ways. And human reason and emotion just lends itself to a vague sense of unease which results in irrational responses.
I only see these kinds of debates heating up because it's really hard to prove something definitive if we don't have an explanation of why more people are getting certain maladies.