Tanning beds.
I have a hunch that skin cancers witll be the next big public health issue, once smokers have been reduced to a tiny minority, and when the fight against the obesity epidemic has become tedious. It’s not around the corner, though.
So basically it becomes illegal for any one to drive a care without a 2nd driver present? :dubious: I think where much more likely to have mandatory driving monitoring technology built into cars, maybe eventually leading up to an auto-pilot system that can’t be turned off (at least without an expensive special permit, and even more expensive special insurance policy).
I am quite literate, thank you. But the tone with which you made the initial observation, along with the board’s anti-religion bias (something I myself contribute to) makes me suspect that you think society SHOULD actively and perhaps by legal means discourage parents from passing on their religions to their kids.
Granted, I don’t think that anyone believes that marijuana is “good for you”, but on the whole it seems like people think that smoking it is a fairly benign activity. But living in Seattle, I’ve begun to notice that it can have some pretty extreme effects on people.
Most commonly, it really seems to trash people’s throats. For men, that can sort of give them a deep, manly voice (e.g., one suspects that Vin Diesel is a pretty big stoner.) But for women, I doubt that the prospect of sounding like Macy Grey is a real big sales point. One guy I know, though, had his salivary gland start forming a stone, and had to have an operation to remove the gland. I don’t know that, that’s related. But one has to imagine that if your throat is getting trashed by the smoke, that there’s going to be some repercussions, so I find it likely that there’s a correlation.
Another guy I met seemed to have developed, at age 35, what could only be described as Alzheimer’s. Before, I’d always just believed that when you met a pot head and they were sort of out of it that the issue was simply that they were not all that smart to begin with and had sort of an artist’s relationship to reality. But getting to know this guy well, it became clear that there had been a time in his past where he had been bright, intelligent, curious, and capable. His stories about his past self were stories of an entirely different person. But, because of his “dementia”, he’d tell me the same story about that person twice in the same day, just 10-15 minutes apart and no indication like he was aware that he was looping. He would watch me doing something, talk to me about it, and then half an hour later, come over and be surprised to discover what I was working on. His ability to assess and retain the world around him was clearly compromised.
With my grandpa having passed away due to Alzheimer’s I really found it very disheartening to be around this guy.
All that said, I’m pretty sure that almost everyone in Seattle is a pothead, and yet these afflictions seem to only affect a minority of them. I’m not sure if that’s due to quantity of intake, how deeply they inhale, or something to do with how their body handles the drug, but definitely it doesn’t seem to be a slam-dunk that if you smoke pot that you’ll run into trouble. But I do think that with legalization coming in, and usage increasing, that people are going to start discovering that it’s not as “nothing” of a habit as they’d been lead to believe.
Turning a cars dashboard and controls into a mobile touch screen instead of having real nobs and buttons that you can feel turn and push.
This has to stop now.
Hand sanitizers, and especially soaps with sanitizer in them. Unless you’re using surgical-grade sanitizer, you’re not really killing off the germs you need to worry about, and the loss in volume of just plain soap means you’re not cleaning the germs off, either.
Any extreme diet (Vegan, Raw, Green Smoothies, Paleo)… just because you can convert a Porsche to run on a coal-fired steam plant doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. See: Jurassic Park.
I think that in a few years, people are going to realize that Crossfit training will mess you the hell up if you don’t know exactly what you’re doing.
I think there are a number of popular sports that may eventually be banned. The flight of white males away from football has already begun. (just last week, a college QB quit the sport because of fears that on field injuries would interfere with his eventual goal of being a surgeon). Boxing is another one. And who knows how many more will be found to harbor life-altering long term effects.
[quote=“Wesley_Clark, post:1, topic:716172”]
[li]Cell phones can cause brain tumors[/li][/quote]
People already believe that (and some of the other things) now. Granted, most are crazy people.
[quote]
[li]E-communication is never going to replace the need for human contact via face to face interaction. Much communication is non-verbal and you lose that via texting. Too much social media can cause depression.[/li][/quote]
People caution that now. Usually the kind of out-of-touch people who don’t understand technology and use terms like “e-communication” or “e-anything”. 
[quote]
[li]Cell phones are covered in germs (some studies have found meningitis, antibiotic resistant bacteria, etc[/li][/quote]
Meningitis isn’t a germ. It is a symptom of a severe infection. It’s a bit like worrying about all that diarrhea that they put into Taco Bell.
You didn’t say this, but some people caution that hand sanitizers will create resistant germs. In order for this to happen, they would have to involve an immunity to something no organism has ever. They won’t become immune to alcohol. Your argument might be more legit.
Oh, god yes.
I can’t believe this trend. I can only assume the auto manufacturers think people will see touch screens as modern and cool, and overlook their safety and operational drawbacks. Sadly, they’re probably right.
I’ve always had my suspicions about artificial sweeteners. I’ve never been convinced that sufficient testing was done.
High Fructose Corn syrup is also on my list of things to minimize exposure to.
Ordinary cane sugar syrup is a 50/50 solution of fructose and glucose.
High-fructose corn syrup is a 55/42/3 (the 3 being water) ratio of the same two compounds.
Exactly what about the 5% difference there do you believe warrants minimal exposure thereunto?
And what makes it exceptionally more toxic than honey, which possesses essentially the same fructose/glucose/water ratio?
Stealing this one from one of David Letterman’s Top 10 lists from many years ago.
“Oat bran - the silent killer”
The thing is . . . most people in this thread seem to think the future will be filled with wisdom that will correct all the mistakes of the present. Sure, our society and our habits leave plenty of room for improvement, but let us not assume that all future-thought will be wise, and an improvement over the present. There are dark futures as well, and I was simply pointing out one possibility. That hardly implies my approval.
I disbelieve that artificial sweeteners are dangerous in themselves. But they do give many persons the mistaken impression that by partaking of them in, say, coffee and soda, they can then consume other high calorie foods with impunity.
Driving
Cats can make you insane. How much longer will we tolerate this menace? 
Oops, correct link
As opposed to a dashboard with a sea of buttons, switches and knobs festooned with cryptic symbols? I’d rather have a screen with menus and full explanations of functions, thank you very much.
Not a chemist but:
Plastic bottles for acidic foods, i.e., ketchup, soda, iced tea.
'Hit just don’t seem tew geewd ta me.