OLD CONTENT contd.
And then there are motor vehicles, another of Western civilization's 'gifts' to the world. I'm not even talking about the energy waste and pollution here, I am purely talking about traffic deaths:
www.prb.org/roadtrafficaccidentsincreasedramaticallyworldwide/Road traffic accidents—the leading cause of death by injury and the tenth-leading cause of all deaths globally—now make up a surprisingly significant portion of the worldwide burden of ill-health. An estimated 1.2 million people are killed in road crashes each year, and as many as 50 million are injured, occupying 30 percent to 70 percent of orthopedic beds in developing countries hospitals.1 And if present trends continue, road traffic injuries are predicted to be the third-leading contributor to the global burden of disease and injury by 2020.2
As with so many other aspects of Western civilization, not personally participating in it does not keep one safe from its harmful effects, on the contrary puts one in even greater danger:
In general, pedestrians, cyclists, and moped and motorcycle riders are the most vulnerable road users as well as the heaviest users of roads in poor countries. Most people who use public transportation, bicycles, or mopeds and motorcycles or who habitually walk are poor, illuminating the higher risk borne by those from less privilege.8
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People in cars are between 8 and 20 times less likely to be killed in a road accident than walkers, bicyclists, or motorized two-wheeler users.13
To say nothing of: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadkill
One of the earliest observers of roadkill was the naturalist Joseph Grinnell, who noted in 1920: "This [roadkill] is a relatively new source of fatality; and if one were to estimate the entire mileage of such roads in the state [California], the mortality must mount into the hundreds and perhaps thousands every 24 hours." [1]
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Very large numbers of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and invertebrates are killed on the world's roads every day.[9] The number of animals killed in the United States has been estimated at a million per day.[10][11]
About 350,000 to 27 million birds are estimated to be killed on European roads each year.[12]
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Merritt Clifton (editor of Animal People Newspaper) estimated that the following animals are being killed by motor vehicles in the United States annually: 41 million squirrels, 26 million cats, 22 million rats, 19 million opossums, 15 million raccoons, 6 million dogs, and 350,000 deer.[15]
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In 2011, Dutch biologist Arnold van Vliet coordinated a similar study of insect deaths on car license plates. He found two insects killed on the license-plate area for every 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) driven. This implies about 1.6 trillion insect deaths by cars per year in the Netherlands, and about 32.5 trillion deaths in the United States if the figures are extrapolated there.[19]
If Western civilization had never existed, all of this could have been avoided.....
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Next we turn to water fluoridation:
iaomt.org/top-ten-reasons-oppose-water-fluoridation/
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If Western civilization had never existed, this would not be happening.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluorine#History
In 1529, Georgius Agricola described fluorite as an additive used to lower the melting point of metals during smelting.[68][69][note 5] He penned the Latin word fluorés (fluor, flow) for fluorite rocks. The name later evolved into fluorspar (still commonly used) and then fluorite.[61][73][74] The composition of fluorite was later determined to be calcium difluoride.[75]
Hydrofluoric acid was used in glass etching from 1720 onwards.[note 6] Andreas Sigismund Marggraf first characterized it in 1764 when he heated fluorite with sulfuric acid, and the resulting solution corroded its glass container.[77][78] Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele repeated the experiment in 1771, and named the acidic product fluss-spats-syran (fluorspar acid).[78][79] In 1810, the French physicist André-Marie Ampère suggested that hydrogen and an element analogous to chlorine constituted hydrofluoric acid.[80] Sir Humphry Davy proposed that this then-unknown substance be named fluorine from fluoric acid and the -ine suffix of other halogens. This word, with modifications, is used in most European languages; Greek, Russian, and some others (following Ampère's suggestion) use the name ftor or derivatives, from the Greek φθόριος (phthorios, destructive).[81][82] The New Latin name fluorum gave the element its current symbol F; Fl was used in early papers.[83][note 7]
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Initial studies on fluorine were so dangerous that several 19th-century experimenters were deemed "fluorine martyrs" after misfortunes with hydrofluoric acid.[note 8] Isolation of elemental fluorine was hindered by the extreme corrosiveness of both elemental fluorine itself and hydrogen fluoride, as well as the lack of a simple and suitable electrolyte.[75][84] Edmond Frémy postulated that electrolysis of pure hydrogen fluoride to generate fluorine was feasible and devised a method to produce anhydrous samples from acidified potassium bifluoride; instead, he discovered that the resulting (dry) hydrogen fluoride did not conduct electricity.[75][84][85] Frémy's former student Henri Moissan persevered, and after much trial and error found that a mixture of potassium bifluoride and dry hydrogen fluoride was a conductor, enabling electrolysis. To prevent rapid corrosion of the platinum in his electrochemical cells, he cooled the reaction to extremely low temperatures in a special bath and forged cells from a more resistant mixture of platinum and iridium, and used fluorite stoppers.[84][86] In 1886, after 74 years of effort by many chemists, Moissan isolated elemental fluorine.[85][87]
In 1906, two months before his death, Moissan received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry,[88] with the following citation:[84]
n recognition of the great services rendered by him in his investigation and isolation of the element fluorine ... The whole world has admired the great experimental skill with which you have studied that savage beast among the elements.[note 9]
For most of history no one cared about fluorine. Then post-Renaissance Westerners came along and ruined everything. Fluoridated water is just the symptom. The disease is Western civilization.
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We did fine for thousands of years without fluoride:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teeth_cleaning_twig
Chew sticks are twigs or roots of certain plants that are chewed until one end is frayed. This end can be used to brush against the teeth,[1] while the other end can be used as a toothpick.[2] Most commonly plants are used that have a high content of tannins (astringent and antibacterial) or other compounds that benefit the health of gums and teeth.[3] The earliest chew sticks have been dated to Babylonia in 3500 BC[2] and an Egyptian tomb from 3000 BC;[1] they are mentioned in Chinese records dating from 1600 BC[2] and in the Tipitaka,[4] the Buddhist Canon, purported to be giving account of events which took place in the north-western India around the 5th century BC.
In Africa, chew sticks are made from the tree Salvadora persica, also known as the "toothbrush tree".
In Islam, this tree is traditionally used to create a chew stick called miswak, as frequently advocated for in the hadith (written traditions relating to the life of Muhammad).[5]
Traditional Sikhs still use datun today as it is written in their scriptures:
ਦਾਤਨ ਕਰੇ ਨਿਤ ਨੀਤ ਨਾ ਦੁਖ ਪਾਵੈ ਲਾਲ ਜੀ ॥ (੨੩)
("Dear/beloved, natural twig brush everyday and pains you shall never get. (23)")
— Guru Gobind Singh, Tankhah Naama,[6] as written down by Bhai Nand Lal
and then post-Renaissance Western civilization suddenly got the whole (colonized) world believing that fluoride is a must for dental care......
By the way, I hope no one here is still using toothpaste.
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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leblanc_process
The Leblanc process plants were quite damaging to the local environment. The process of generating salt cake from salt and sulfuric acid released hydrochloric acid gas, and because this acid was industrially useless in the early 19th century, it was simply vented into the atmosphere. Also, an insoluble, smelly solid waste was produced. For every 8 tons of soda ash, the process produced 5.5 tons of hydrogen chloride and 7 tons of calcium sulfide waste. This solid waste (known as galligu) had no economic value, and was piled in heaps and spread on fields near the soda works, where it weathered to release hydrogen sulfide, the toxic gas responsible for the odor of rotten eggs.
Because of their noxious emissions, Leblanc soda works became targets of lawsuits and legislation. An 1839 suit against soda works alleged, "the gas from these manufactories is of such a deleterious nature as to blight everything within its influence, and is alike baneful to health and property. The herbage of the fields in their vicinity is scorched, the gardens neither yield fruit nor vegetables; many flourishing trees have lately become rotten naked sticks. Cattle and poultry droop and pine away. It tarnishes the furniture in our houses, and when we are exposed to it, which is of frequent occurrence, we are afflicted with coughs and pains in the head ... all of which we attribute to the Alkali works."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solvay_process
The principal byproduct of the Solvay process is calcium chloride (CaCl2) in aqueous solution. The process has other waste and byproducts as well.[10] Not all of the limestone that is calcined is converted to quicklime and carbon dioxide (in reaction II); the residual calcium carbonate and other components of the limestone become wastes. In addition, the salt brine used by the process is usually purified to remove magnesium and calcium ions, typically to form carbonates; otherwise, these impurities would lead to scale in the various reaction vessels and towers. These carbonates are additional waste products.
In inland plants, such as that in Solvay, New York, the byproducts have been deposited in "waste beds"; the weight of material deposited in these waste beds exceeded that of the soda ash produced by about 50%. These waste beds have led to water pollution, principally by calcium and chloride. The waste beds in Solvay, New York substantially increased the salinity in nearby Onondaga Lake, which used to be among the most polluted lakes in the U.S.[12] and is a superfund pollution site.
This is how
**** up chemical engineering (which is based on Western chemistry) is. In comparison, salt can be obtained simply by evaporating seawater in sunlight (as we have been doing for thousands of years), which creates zero waste!
Evaporation ponds are even visually beautiful:
english.sina.com/china/p/2010/0628/326798.html
www.kuriositas.com/2014/10/the-ancient-salt-ponds-of-maras-peru.htmlwww.123rf.com/photo_49261894_belo-madagascar-november-24-2015-people-works-in-salt-evaporation-ponds-near-belo-sur-mer-to-extract.html---
"(Western?) dentistry"
Yes, orthodontics (a form of cosmetic deception) is Western:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dental_braces
Around 400-300 BC, Hippocrates and Aristotle contemplated ways to straighten teeth
The man himself!
Orthodontics truly began developing in the 18th and 19th centuries. In 1728, French dentist Pierre Fauchard, who is often credited with inventing modern orthodontics, published a book entitled "The Surgeon Dentist" on methods of straightening teeth. Fauchard, in his practice, used a device called a "Bandeau", a horseshoe-shaped piece of iron that helped expand the palate.
See also:
trueleft.boards.net/thread/93/teeth
Basically, Westerners want to make teeth look like how they did in pre-Neolithic times.
"what does everyone think about vaccines?"
The main ethical problem I focus on (as a victim myself) is violent vaccination (mainly of children). We must fight for children being allowed to choose for themselves regarding vaccination, as opposed to parents being allowed to make the choice for them. The same principle should apply to all medical treatment (including orthodontics!), not just vaccination.
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"isn't there an argument to be made that the vaccines a necessary evil insofar as they can save the lives of babies?"
Necessary according to whom? Not according to the babies themselves.
And then there is the issue of whether the vaccinators can be trusted. Do we really know what they are injecting, and whether it helps or harms? If they inject something and then the baby survives, do you really know whether it was because of the injection? Or, if they inject something and then the baby dies, do you really know whether it was despite the injection? It is as possible that the surviving baby survived despite the injection, and the dying baby died because of the injection! The argument you raise above presumes vaccines to invariably be genuine and beneficial out of blind trust in Western medicine, in contrast to default scepticism towards non-Western medical treatments. If a non-Western medic suddenly showed up and told you to swallow a strange pill that you know nothing about when you are not even feeling sick, you probably would not swallow it, and neither would I. This is common sense. The problem is that an irrational exception to this common sense is subconsciously made whenever the medic is Western.