# Is this what America has come to? \[stupid warning labels\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 6, 2023, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-what-america-has-come-to-stupid-warning-labels/992718 "2023-11-06T22:07:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2023, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-what-america-has-come-to-stupid-warning-labels/992718/121 "2023-11-16T17:54:11Z")
This is one of the most unnecessary labels: [![](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71W-FHLv-gL.jpg) ](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71W-FHLv-gL.jpg) It became mandated decades ago. Apparently some Darwin award winner thought it would be good idea to pick up his running lawnmower and attempt to use it trim his hedges, and lost several fingers in the process. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2023, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-what-america-has-come-to-stupid-warning-labels/992718/122 "2023-11-16T18:20:39Z")
People also sometimes stick their hands in the grass exhaust chute to clear a clog while it’s running. That can end very badly. With a reel type power mower, the engine can be running while the blades are stationary. That’s not true on a rotary mower. Somebody could make a bad mistake based on experience with other inherently safer designs. This is a bit of what @Shalmanese was talking about earlier. Some designs are so inherently prone to misuse that they should not exist at all. Or at least should not continue to exist after general society has gotten safer than the world those designs were born into. ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2023, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-what-america-has-come-to-stupid-warning-labels/992718/123 "2023-11-17T03:33:56Z")
Or “Part of a Complete Breakfast” where they have with the cereal buttered toast, a glass of milk, a glass of orange juice, and several sliced fruits. Has anyone calculated just how many calories that would be? ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2023, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-what-america-has-come-to-stupid-warning-labels/992718/124 "2023-11-17T04:49:25Z")
> [@Asuka](#): > > “Part of a Complete Breakfast” where they have with the cereal buttered toast, a glass of milk, a glass of orange juice, and several sliced fruits. > > Has anyone calculated just how many calories that would be? At which a Full English gives a quiet little chortle. ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2023, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-what-america-has-come-to-stupid-warning-labels/992718/125 "2023-11-17T07:13:59Z")
Agree …Watch about three 911 type shows. Lawn mowers and chainsaw injuries are always on them. They need giant red lights where you’re not supposed to touch ever. Loud alarms and Giant yellow lights when unauthorized persons get near them. People think they’re toys and are not concerned the 13 yo is riding the mower with his headphones on while the 3 yo is running around the yard. They are accidents waiting to happen. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2023, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-what-america-has-come-to-stupid-warning-labels/992718/126 "2023-11-17T12:51:32Z")
Yeah. Back when I was in IT I interviewed a guy for a programming position. His right arm ended at the wrist. He’d been doing the job for 10+ years out of college, so evidently typing and mousing with just one hand didn’t slow him down too much. He was smart enough to recognize that our F\*\*\*-ed company was not a place he wanted to work, so although we offered him a job, he declined. So I never actually got to see him in action. What’s relevant to the thread is how he became one-handed. At age 3 or 4 he stuck his hand in the discharge chute of a rotary mower than an adult had left running “just for a minute” while they dumped the detachable grass-catching bag elsewhere. He said he has no real memory of ever having had a right hand. Mowers without deadman switches or blade brakes are a menace. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2023, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-what-america-has-come-to-stupid-warning-labels/992718/127 "2023-11-18T15:20:14Z")
> [@Asuka](#): > > Or “Part of a Complete Breakfast” where they have with the cereal buttered toast, a glass of milk, a glass of orange juice, and several sliced fruits. I remember someone saying that, given the nutritional value of most cereals, the photo should be captioned "Adjacent to a Complete Breakfast”. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2023, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-what-america-has-come-to-stupid-warning-labels/992718/128 "2023-11-18T17:34:47Z")
I think anyone dumb enough to do that wouldn’t be deterred by a warning. But I guess it protects the company against lawsuits. ---
**Author:** ![eschrodinger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschrodinger/32/122_2.png) [@eschrodinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschrodinger)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2023, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-what-america-has-come-to-stupid-warning-labels/992718/129 "2023-11-18T20:26:49Z")
Yes, it would be incredibly stupid to do one of those things. But people sometimes do incredibly stupid things on impulse. If they happened to catch sight of that label,maybe it would stop them. I did some first aid for a guy who was trimming hedges at my neighbor’s house. He set his gas powered hedge trimmer down while it was running. When he went to pick it up again, it was a bit behind him, blades forward. Without thinking, he reached back to pull it forward by the blade. As soon as he touched it, of course he knew he screwed up badly. He came and knocked on the door basically for moral support because he had immediately wrapped his hand in a rag, and he wanted to unwrap it to see if he needed to go to the hospital. We were both surprised that all of his fingers were still fully attached. He did have a big nasty cut that needed stitches though. I am very happy that my hedge trimmer is battery powered, so I _can’t_ make that mistake. Keep in mind, too, that some companies actually want to prevent not just lawsuits, but people getting hurt. There’s very little cost to adding a warning. Even if no jury would award damages to a plaintiff who was so reckless as to pick up a running mower, they might still want to do literally the minimum possible to prevent that. ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2023, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-what-america-has-come-to-stupid-warning-labels/992718/130 "2023-11-19T11:49:28Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Bill Maher mentioned on a recent show that after three years of bureaucracy to get the permits to install a solar system […] That’s nothing. Just imagine the bureaucracy involved in installing a _galaxy_. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2023, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-what-america-has-come-to-stupid-warning-labels/992718/131 "2023-11-20T16:08:11Z")
[![](https://i.imgur.com/5UqJOyA.jpg) ](https://i.imgur.com/5UqJOyA.jpg) This warning has hung in the men’s room of a favorite sushi place for decades. I always turn the hot water on for a second to see if it is still crazy. Hottest water I’ve ever run into in a bathroom. ---
**Author:** ![Common\_Tater](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/common_tater/32/13846_2.png) [@Common\_Tater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Common_Tater)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2023, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-what-america-has-come-to-stupid-warning-labels/992718/132 "2023-12-01T20:55:13Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > Absolutely no one pays any attention to the labels except to mock them. They are totally useless _for their intended purpose_, regardless of one’s position on whether one should worry about them in the first place. Some years ago on a stereo/hi-fi/music discussion forum a thread was started about safe alternatives to Discwasher brand vinyl LP record cleaning solution. He was apparently concerned about atmospheric lead pollution inhalation, due to the evaporation of the Discwasher record cleaning solution, and wanted to know of a safe, lead-free alternative. Does Discwasher record cleaning solution contain lead? No, but it is 99% water - which may contain lead. Thus a warning label for Californians. The problem with shit like this, younger people in particular are marinated in a constant unending 24/7/365 level of doom, it’s a miracle they aren’t more fucked up in the head than they already are. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2023, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-what-america-has-come-to-stupid-warning-labels/992718/133 "2023-12-02T20:33:51Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > I always turn the hot water on for a second to see if it is still crazy. Hottest water I’ve ever run into in a bathroom. I’ve seen similar signs in a few other restaurants over the years. I’ve always interpreted that as evidence the bathroom hot water is plumbed off the super-duper water heater for the dishwasher that’s on the opposite side of the wall from the sink. So the “time of flight” of almost scalding-level water is just a second or two after faucet turn-on. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2023, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-what-america-has-come-to-stupid-warning-labels/992718/134 "2023-12-02T20:38:51Z")
> [@Common\_Tater](#): > > Does Discwasher record cleaning solution contain lead? No, but it is 99% water - which may contain lead. Thus a warning label for Californians. That smells like a UL bordering on a CT. Yes, the Prop 65 warning thresholds are set way too low. I was a CA voter the year that was enacted and I voted “no” for that reason and only that reason. The idea behind Prop 65 was great, but it has become the crippled poster child of wretched excess in warning culture. Because of bad thresholding, and only bad thresholding. The ongoing crime is the inability of the CA political process to go back and fix what is acknowledged by both sides to have been a mistake. The idea that every water-containing product and every building with indoor plumbing has a Prop 65 warning due to lead in the water doesn’t pass the laugh test. There are plenty of products, hell, plenty of _edible_ products, on the shelves at groc stores that a) contain water, and b) don’t have prop 65 warnings attached. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2023, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-what-america-has-come-to-stupid-warning-labels/992718/135 "2023-12-02T21:02:44Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > There are plenty of products, hell, plenty of _edible_ products, on the shelves at groc stores that a) contain water, and b) don’t have prop 65 warnings attached. And yet plenty do (if not for water). For a time, every coffee house in California had to show a Prop 65 warning. Why? Because coffee–like any product that undergoes the Maillard reaction–contains acrylamide. And it turns out that if you feed rats the equivalent of 11,000 cups of coffee (with respect to acrylamide content), they get thyroid tumors at a higher rate than baseline. The coffee shops did nothing for a while, until a legal firm who is in the business of suing for this kind of thing brought them to court. Starbucks, etc. lost because they couldn’t demonstrate that the health benefits of coffee exceeded the risks of acrylamide. Which is utterly stupid, of course, since people (mostly) don’t drink coffee for the health benefits. Anyway, the whole thing had a happy ending since they added an exception for coffee in 2019. But the law is still mind-bogglingly dumb. I’m certain that coffee got an exception because Starbucks has deep pockets, not because the case of acrylamide is any more or less stupid than countless other examples that didn’t get exceptions. The thresholds are too low, but it’s not just that. Any stupid rat study will get a chemical added to the list, even if the chemical has been in common use for millennia with no obvious safety problems. And, because there is little cost to false positives but enormous cost to false negatives, there is a huge incentive to add labels to anything that might conceivably warrant it. A common case is foreign import supermarkets. They’ll slap Prop 65 stickers just about anything. The cost of adding the stickers is much smaller than losing even a single lawsuit. Or, hell, even _winning_ a lawsuit. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2023, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-what-america-has-come-to-stupid-warning-labels/992718/136 "2023-12-02T22:37:46Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > I’ve always interpreted that as evidence the bathroom hot water is plumbed off the super-duper water heater for the dishwasher that’s on the opposite side of the wall from the sink. That’s what I figured. But the easy fix would be to run a cold water tine to the hot side of the sink and heat the water with one of those on demand heaters. I love their sushi, but the near-steam water from that sink is hilarious for some reason. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2023, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-what-america-has-come-to-stupid-warning-labels/992718/137 "2023-12-03T07:00:36Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > While my post was hyperbole when it comes to food warnings, it is not exaggerated at all as compared to Proposition 65 warnings. Among many other things, every parking garage in the state has a Prop 65 warning somewhere, telling me that it contains chemicals known by the state to cause cancer. The chemicals in question are not listed, but I can look them up: there are over 900 possibilities. I booked a stay at a hotel in California and saw ones of those labels helpfully informing me that it was built from materials the state knew caused cancer. My immediate thought was who was the warning lable meant for? They’re not meant for guests, because none of us see those labels until after we arrive. We’re not likely to choose another hotel upon seeing the warning. Is it meant for the employees? If so, what good does it do them? Most of us can’t just quit a job because there’s someting in the building that might cause cancer. ---
**Author:** ![Common\_Tater](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/common_tater/32/13846_2.png) [@Common\_Tater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Common_Tater)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2023, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-what-america-has-come-to-stupid-warning-labels/992718/138 "2023-12-03T13:11:41Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > That smells like a UL bordering on a CT. Nope. I read it myself, or I wouldn’t even have mentioned it. He was looking for a lead free alternative to clean vinyl records. It took a little while to figure what he was on about, because it made no sense. Discwasher solution was supplied in little 1 fluid ounce bottles, which would neatly store in the sumptuous walnut handle of the cleaner itself. What was great about the whole affair was the guy was pretty freaked about inhaling lead, from the evaporation of a few drops of the Deadly Discwasher Decoction. Powerful stuff! LOL ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2023, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-what-america-has-come-to-stupid-warning-labels/992718/139 "2023-12-03T17:36:17Z")
> [@Common\_Tater](#): > > Discwasher solution was supplied in little 1 fluid ounce bottles, which would neatly store in the sumptuous walnut handle of the cleaner itself. Oh yeah. Our Hi-Fi rig at home when I was a teen in the heyday of vinyl had that great walnut-handled velour brush with the compartment. Very leading edge tech and oh so 70’s aesthetic. Good times. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-what-america-has-come-to-stupid-warning-labels/992718.md?page=6)