A trend I see is that people called these guys pricks.
My question is were they always pricks or were they just tired of having to get their points across to people whose minds were closed because “they knew what was correct”?
It seems any time someone brings a new idea that requires you to change and do something slightly more inconvenient than what came before, they lose their shit and fight to keep things the way they were.
A: nobody likes being told they’re wrong, especially ignorant, proud people
B: this and the germ guy both told everyone they were wrong
Well, fun little thing. HE WAS FUCKING RIGHT. Which is the whole fucking point. I get when Semmelweis did it, he really didn’t have a lot to back his assertion up. But Snow and Lister did.
History keeps banging on the fact that they had bad methods for disseminating the info, which makes me ask: How many times were they ignored? And how many times were they dismissed before they got pissed?
Because if I know one thing about people is that they don’t start at yelling. And if you are resistant to new info, you are more likely to be a dick to someone trying to give you new info.
It’s not that there are ignorant people, it’s that they don’t want to move forward, and we don’t shame them for that
I’m seeing this same line of thinking when it comes to gas stoves including myself as not really taking the health concerns seriously.
It did get my attention when the experts that were interviewed explained even they were shocked at how bad the levels were in homes hours upon hours after use but most people write them off as kooks and an example of too much government overreach as their parents and grandparents before them used these stoves and they turned out fine.
I’m sure this is often the same first place most people start out at when looking back at the issues with Lead, Asbestos, leaded gasoline, PCBs, micro plastics, etc.
That sewer water we have been drinking wasn’t an issue before…
We figured out sometime before the widespread use of copper that we needed a way to remove smoke from buildings. The stoves we had before gas stoves were connected to chimneys. We knew that candles and kerosene left soot when burned. The fact that gas stoves had a lag before people started to add exhaust for them was bizarre.
Romans knew there were health hazards with lead, Asbestos was connected to health problems around their time as well. Leaded gasoline was questioned from the jump, PCBs were known to be harmful in the 1930s, and microplastics were first described in the 1970s.
It almost seems like the ignorant want to stay ignorant because they don’t want to change due to what they see as extra effort that shouldn’t fall on them. It’s not how the info is disseminated, because we know being polite and respectful gets ignored, we know that being forceful gets ignored, AND we know that short of making it everyone’s immediate problem doesn’t motivate the bulk of people to do anything about it.
Ignorance will kill us all.
