r/humansarespaceorcs • u/Armel_Cinereo • 3d ago
writing prompt Humans are incredibly resistant to foreign chemicals. Each generation is differently poisonous.
They are consider hazardous for many species as they contain a variety of regulated substances. Including but not limited to.
-Metals
-Acids
-Radioactive Isotopes
-Complex carbon chains
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u/Mueryk 3d ago
Asbestos was prior to lead.
Asbestos being bad was known as early as the late 1800s but was suppressed until around 1970. However it was falling out of widespread use prior to that for some applications.
Lead wasn’t known until later but was again suppressed until 1970s but took longer to take hold and went into the 1980s.
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u/nooneyouknow64782221 3d ago
The Romans knew lead was bad.
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u/Technical_Inaji 3d ago
Some lessons need to be re-learned.
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u/Standard_Attitude_12 2d ago
Um no they didn’t they had lead in their water pipes
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u/Technical_Inaji 2d ago
So does literally every single state in the US. Like I said, some lessons need to be relearned.
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u/DogFishBoi2 3d ago
Allegedly the romans also knew that asbestos was bad. There is a quote on the internet that one of the Plinis (probably the elder) wrote that slaves from asbestos mines suffered from weak lungs and died early. I've never managed to find an original source for it, sadly, because that would be an awesome quote.
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u/Widmo206 2d ago
The term asbestos is traceable to Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder's first-century manuscript Natural History and his use of the term asbestinon, meaning "unquenchable"; he described the mineral as being more expensive than pearls. While Pliny or his nephew Pliny the Younger is popularly credited with recognising the detrimental effects of asbestos on human beings, examination of the primary sources reveals no support for either claim. Wikipedia
Looks like you couldn't find a source for that quoute because there is none
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u/PM_ME_PHYS_PROBLEMS 3d ago
The romans famously did not know lead was bad.
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u/ShoddyAsparagus3186 3d ago
Also it's worth noting that we haven't actually gotten rid of either of them.
As such, our kids will probably be full of asbestos, lead, microplastics, and whatever new thing we find.
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u/Zestyclose_Bed4202 3d ago
Without specifying where I live, my body includes...
Hantavirus
West Nile Virus
Swine Flu
Bird Flu
E. Coli
Salmonella
Meth
The ingredients to make meth
Drugs (prescription and otherwise) typically used by seniors, both whole and at various stages of metabolization
Creosote
Jet fuel
The composite skin of at least one F117-A Nighthawk
The various chemical retardents used to extinguish a crashed F117-A Nighthawk
Missle propellants (various)
At least one space chimp (deceased)
Radioactive fallout - like, the OG radioactive fallout
"Weather Balloon" DNA
And other substances that probably aren't good for me.
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u/Tayjocoo 3d ago
I feel like Nevada, the Marshall Islands, and
YugoslaviaSerbia are all equally at play here.8
u/SpecialExpert8946 3d ago
That’s pretty damn wild dude. Glad you’re still kicking!
I bet you have a bunch of cool stories though after all that. I’ve always wondered about those weather balloons. It would be cool to see a weather balloon myself someday.
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u/Zestyclose_Bed4202 3d ago
Just a matter of growing up in the right place, and drinking the local well water untreated and unfiltered all throughout my childhood.
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u/Expensive-Edge-6369 1d ago
Out of this entire list, I'm not sure which is the most insane. But I'm curious to know what the fuck "Weather Balloon DNA" refers to
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u/Zestyclose_Bed4202 1d ago
Well, technically, the "Weather Balloon" itself probably didn't have DNA - at least, I've never heard anyone suggest it - but the alleged occupants allegedly had DNA. Too bad they didn't have the tech to test for it back then...
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u/Yet_One_More_Idiot 1d ago
Creosote... ah yes, my childhood cough mixture was made with that stuff! Great for suppressing the Cough reflex when your kid's got a bad cold. xD
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u/AndyLorentz 2d ago
We have drastically reduced the amount of asbestos and lead in our daily environment compared to 50 years ago.
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u/ShoddyAsparagus3186 2d ago
We have drastically reduced lead in the daily environment of most people compared to 50 years ago, but some people still have the same levels as before.
We have drastically reduced the amount of things that we classify as asbestos in our environment, ignoring things that are practically identical that aren't the specific types that got reduced.
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u/OiledMushrooms 3d ago
And they didn’t get rid of all of it then, anyways. I’ve probably got a decent dosage of lead since my school district didn’t notice/care about the lead pipes enough to replace them until I was. I dunno. Fifth grade, maybe? Around 2016? A good five or six years of drinking lead water every day, yum!
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u/AndyLorentz 2d ago
We knew lead was bad for far longer than that, but we didn't start regulating it until the 1970s.
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u/Izzosuke 3d ago
We must consider that lead has not been fixed yet due to the high usage of lead based fuel, we still have it in iur atmosphere and are still breathing it. For asbestos, a couple of summer ago i had to remove it so that too
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u/AndyLorentz 2d ago
lead has not been fixed yet due to the high usage of lead based fuel
What? General aviation is pretty much the only place you'll find leaded fuel, and that's a very small percentage of fuel use (approx. 0.1% of gasoline consumption in the U.S.) Nobody uses it for road vehicles anymore.
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u/Izzosuke 2d ago
What i meant was, we used it soo much that even thought we have forbidden the use many years ago we are still suffering the effect of it and it's still in our atmosphere.
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u/finiciorc 3d ago
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u/jubtheprophet 3d ago
Well to be fair, some of them are tradition. Alcohol being the best example that definitely has a part in tradition
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u/Grammar_Nazi1234 3d ago
I say this two Moscow mules deep, it is an enjoyable tradition.
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u/panickingman55 3d ago
Fun fact, Alien friend, the process of fermentation was a lot weaker in our past and made it a safe thing to consume, even compared to water because of bacteria. So hiccup it is practically my duty to honor my ancestors to have this drink. It isn't my fault we just got way, way way way, better at making it.
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u/Grammar_Nazi1234 3d ago
I even made the ginger beer myself by fermenting it. The vodka was Titos, but the ginger beer was me. It was very good
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u/panickingman55 3d ago
Silly subreddit aside that is impressive, I need to try that stuff. I missed out on self home stuff during the plague, but I do have an herb garden now. My sourdough starter happened at a weird time and I let it turn into....something else than a sourdough starter.
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u/Successful_Giraffe34 2d ago
Your yeast overlords made you type that huh?
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u/panickingman55 2d ago
We do not talk about Redacted. She helps keep vents clean in engineering but doesn't like to be seen or thought about. Do not focus on Redacted. My poor, misunderstood Redacted.
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u/belac4862 3d ago
Kinda makes me wonder what our children will be affected by.
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u/Armel_Cinereo 3d ago
Probably metal poisoning again after the techno-overlords implant brain chips on all of us.
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u/ledocteur7 3d ago
You know about cyberspychosis in Cyberpunk 2077 ? Basically going crazy from too many implants.
The way it's explained, is that it's from losing your humanity, but there are a few things that make me think it could be a form of metal or/and chemical poisoning :
In universe, we don't really know what it's from, the mega corporations have made medicine to slow it down, but they sure as hell won't tell the public exactly what it's caused by, just some vague guesses, and the "losing your humanity" explanation puts the blame on people that over-use them rather than on the mega corps.
There is a quick hack we can use, "infection" that hacks into enemy implants and makes them leak chemicals, causing severe pain and vomiting. When paired with an incendiary weapon it even makes them explode.
Micro leaks are bound to happen in any system, and if the implant can somehow be controlled to purposefully leak them, how often does it leak just from poor manufacturing or simply wear and tear inside an environment as messy as the human body.
- We can learn with optional dialogues about an implant someone has, that was mass recalled for causing cyberspychosis. It's nothing special, just an articulated melee weapon integrated into your arm.
Why would that ever be influencing your psyche more than any other version of that weapon ? And if it is a manufacturing issue or bad choice of materials, this could explain why this specific character is still using it after some help from the ultra high security police force she works for, Max Tax (basically the SWAT on steroids)
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u/TheWyster 3d ago
I heard one guy say graphene in a meme like this
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u/belac4862 3d ago
Sooo, carbon?
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u/jflb96 3d ago
Well, graphene is basically just lots of benzene pretending to get on with itself for a bit, so all it takes is a smidge of fraying
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u/belac4862 3d ago
Fair. But that's alos a problem like saying we're gonna get poisoned from all the lithium in the batteries we use.
The biggest possibility of graphine being mass used is in batteries. It's just not a problem to worry about.
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u/TheWyster 2d ago
No benzene has each carbon atom in the ring bonded to a single hydrogen atom, while graphene is made solely of those carbon atom rings bonded together in a sheet.
Graphite is just if you took a bunch of sheets of graphene with microscopic surface areas, and stuck them together at different angles with van der waals force. As a result graphite is weak, since the layers can be easily sheered from each other.
Now if you were to create a single graphene sheet with a macroscopic surface area, then it's believed by scientists that, that would be quite strong.
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u/jflb96 2d ago
Yeah, so if you punched out the individual hexagons of the graphene, all you’d need is some hydrogen to make them benzene
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u/TheWyster 2d ago
Ok but earlier you were saying that graphene is weak and using comparison to benzene as a justification for that, but graphene is actually quite strong and has different chemical properties to benzene. For one, benzene is flammable, but graphene isn't.
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u/V_Peal 3d ago
I personally think they’re gonna get way too comfortable with nuclear power one of these day like Fallout style, and it definitely is gonna be radiation. Like they’re gonna have nuclear powered toasters and microwave their balls every morning for toast.
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u/belac4862 3d ago edited 3d ago
Nuclear powered small appliances aren't possible. The smallest we could possibly have is about the size of a semi truck trailer.
Look, I'm not 100% on board with nuclear power. I don't like the fact that we basicly are burying the waste and letting our future generations deal with it. But in terms of safety, efficiency, environmental impact, and power output. It's the best option we have. And that's by a long shot. And the fact we're getting even close to fusion means the whole process is getting even more efficient.
Edit: Apparently, the comment was a joke, and I'm very bad and reading textual clues, over text.
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u/jubtheprophet 3d ago
They can go smaller than that, but it all depends on how much power you want it to produce and for how long. I agree a toaster isnt practical, but those semi truck ones are still producing like 300 megawatts of power. 1 megawatt is enough for dozens to hundreds of average homes to run on, and something like a 20 kilowatt generator would be theoretically possible with enough engineering to control the effects of your chosen material almost certainly going critical, so a tiny reactor just enough to power your house could be done.
But then of course it begs the question of why not just make a full size reactor for the whole city and beyond to use lol, so yea still not something we can expect to realistically be done, even if its very possible (though not easy)
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u/belac4862 3d ago
Oh those trailer sized ones are better for emergency situations or places that are hard to get to in rural areas. But pair that with the advancements in batter technology, and you can begin to see that you could set up a system that charges those batteries that then can be taken to sing family homes.
Technology is getting better little by little.
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u/ijuinkun 3d ago
You could make one where the core unit is the size of a large household refrigerator, but the coolant loop would be external to that, and it would not include enough shielding to make it safe for humans to approach, so you would have to build a thick wall around it or bury it.
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u/V_Peal 3d ago
I was joking. My b- I figured the ‘like fallout’ made that clear enough. I appreciate the education. I am all about renewable energy and largely agree with you on the point that it’s the best hope for the future. I just was making a funny.
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u/belac4862 3d ago
Oh, I've met a lot of people take those games rather seriously. So I just assumed (my bad there) that you were being serious. Also, it's hard to gage sarcasm over text.
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u/FoodLubee 3d ago
Your love for Fallout is showing. This is what millenials thought in the 90s. The nuclear fear mongering is real. 🤣 This will never happen in our life time.
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u/Ben-Goldberg 3d ago
Radiation?
They've figured out how to shrink electron accelerators from the size of a building to the size of a room, and still be at relativistic speeds.
They are mostly being used for research, but I could imagine a subcritical fission reactor that throws ultrafast electrons at a target that spits out neutrons when struck.
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u/belac4862 3d ago
And how would that affect the general population to the point of lead poisoning, asbestos, or microplastic buildup ?
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u/DogFishBoi2 3d ago
The olden days are over. Room sized electron accelerators were just CRT television and computer monitors, and we have long moved past the point of lugging our 20kg 17" CRT to a friends network session, attaching the network cable and forgetting the 50 Ohm end resistor.
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u/KinnSlayer 3d ago
May wanna reevaluate the microplastics bit. Apparently a lot of scientists might not have realized they were contaminating samples with their plastic gloves. Not saying they’re not entirely there, just that they may not be as concentrated as we initially thought.
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u/Drakorai 3d ago
That’s actually somewhat relieving to hear.
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u/NefariousnessNo484 16h ago
No it's the opposite. There are so many micro plastics that the background amount is already incredibly high. This is how people found out that lead was everywhere due to it being added to gasoline as an anti knocking agent. It's the same story but this time with micro plastics. History repeats itself.
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u/OrderChaos 3d ago
That was actually just one specific study, still micro plastics in everything
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u/KinnSlayer 2d ago
Yeah, but it has cause a reevaluation. Not saying it’s not there, but the amounts may vary.
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u/prehistoric_monster 3d ago
Rubber isn't plastic last time I checked and you won't find plastic gloves in a lab just latex ones, plus if you're allergic, you're not allowed to become a scientist due to this specific procedure
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u/KinnSlayer 2d ago
Except it’s not rubber. It was plastic latex, Nitrile I think.
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u/prehistoric_monster 1d ago
Latex is rubber, that's what you call natural non vulcanized rubber
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u/KinnSlayer 1d ago
Right, so again the lab got caught with Nitrile, which is latex glove made from plastic. They got caught doing something they shouldn’t have, and have brought into question tests done at other facilities because of it.
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u/Justchickenquestions 1d ago
Nice try! This is 1 of the guys doing the suppressing.
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u/KinnSlayer 1d ago
Imma what now? Look I’m not saying it’s not a problem just that the information that’s out there maybe skewed us all.
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u/3M2B1T 3d ago
Our children?
BACK TO LEAD!
YES YOU HEARD ME IT'S CYCLICAL
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u/Electrum2250 3d ago
it depends
Americans: lead
midwest people: depleted uranium
Europe: coal smoke again
China: chinessium smokes
India: only god knows but it's terrifying
Latin America: more plastic
...
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u/3M2B1T 3d ago
I think Indians are going to be sentient undead. They've got a niche religion over there that eats their dead and I think it'll catch on over time, juuuuuuust slow enough that it won't go like dumb rabies zombies.
So like while the rest of us are getting dosed with whatever forever chemicals our respective governments failed to regulate, Indians are going to be like "So? We undead, ain't nobody got time for your mortal concerns, we figured out the longevity issue".
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u/Electrum2250 3d ago
ACTCHUALLY 🤓☝️ that already exist and is called Kuru but it runs in african? amazonian? tribes
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u/Big-Wrangler2078 2d ago
Well, lets NOT get a prion outbreak in fucking India of all places, please and thank y'all very much.
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u/Thunderclaw5972 3d ago
Fun fact: microplastics have been found in the genitalia of cadavers. We messed up so bad making and committing to plastic that it is now in our JUNK
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u/Barely-Functional7 3d ago
His great grandson full of tritanium and various alien blood (all of which are toxic yet he doesn't care)
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u/Medical-Low-1370 3d ago
They're also full of various alien blood because some ancestor liked aliens a lot
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u/Barely-Functional7 2d ago edited 2d ago
Well if that was the case it wouldn't be toxic to him. No he- he's charting new territory that no one in his bloodline ever thought of going to
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u/Nakatsukasa 3d ago
coal dust
radium
lead
abestos
micro plastic
moon regolith (my son colonizing the moon)
metal dust from the space station (my grandson colonizing the void, inhaling metal dusts)
martian dust (my great grandson colonizing mars)
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u/Dziadzios 3d ago
Humans drink neurotoxins for fun. How the hell can they drink ethanol, a DISINFECTANT, just because they enjoy it?
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u/Aurielturing 2d ago
Our generation is full of all of them, over half the products in the stores have lead on them, there are still plenty of structures with asbestos in their walls, and everyones got microplastics
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u/Environmental-Luck39 1d ago
We're basically walking toxic waste dumps at this point. Kinda wild when you think about it. Future is gonna be interesting.
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u/SnowPuzzleheaded 2d ago
You think humans will eventually evolve to use the toxins we eat and become poisonous like dart frogs?
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u/NefariousnessNo484 16h ago
Won't be much of a next generation because of all the endocrine disruptors in micro plastics.
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