Dare I say it?
Scientology
Mild acids aren’t usually thought to do too much to PET. In fact, they are much more dangerous when you put them on your bright red earthenware that has lead or cadmium in the glaze.
The bigger worry with PET is heating it.
PET will leach acetaldehyde, but not very much (things like fruit juice will have more naturally). It can impart an undesirable taste in water, but most flavored drinks will mask it.
Antimony is used in the process of making PET, and small amounts do make there way into drinks (there was a minor controversy in the UK when some fruit juices were found to have more antimony than the limits for tap water). Antimony is mildly toxic at high doses, but I have a hard time believing that you could see any effect at the minuscule concentrations that are in play here.
To suggest that these are anywhere in the same neighborhood as smoking is laughable.
Well you have to admit killing animals for food is pretty dangerous for the animals! And the OP didn’t specify for whom the danger lay. 
Pedantry rules ok.
BBQ. Unlike cell phones (random outcomes of repeated studies) power lines and vaccination (sheer fantasy), mixed burnt hydrocarbons really are carninogenic.
I kinda expected this to be a thing after the role of smoking was clarified, but it turns out we’ve still got much bigger problems to deal with (alcohol, suger).
Well, it’s dangerous to the animals. And in the same sense that killing strangers and oppressing the weak and enslaving people – all routinely accepted human customs for thousands of years – eventually became recognized as bad practices – once we accepted those others into the sphere of those “like us” and therefore deserving better treatment – there is a chance that one day we will once again expand our sphere of those we consider “like us.” At that point we may recognize that the problem with killing strangers or the weak or animals isn’t the victim, it’s the act of killing.
Texting while driving is already considered dangerous and is illegal in many places. The dangers of constantly looking down at your phone and using just one finger or thumb to control it are already well-known too. That doesn’t mean cellphones in themselves will ever be considered bad to use.
Two schools have banned packed lunches, as far as I can see. It’s not a rule for whole districts (a school district would be called an LEA, btw, for your googling purposes).
A few primary schools do already ban shoes indoors and provide plimsolls instead. This isn’t because all shoes are dangerous but because some kids, especially girls, were coming to school in completely inappropriate footwear. Plimsolls have long been used for PE in the UK (at primary level) so it also saves time when it comes to changing for PE - for some activities the kids don’t change at all since their school uniforms are already pretty useful for sport and little kids get sweaty anyway from running around at playtime.
Kids with orthopaedic shoes don’t need doctors’ notes though, because who would wear them if they didn’t have to?
That is not going to lead to social pressure on all but the very youngest of kids not to wear shoes, though. Kids just do have to wear shoes if they’re walking outside same as adults do.
Smoking in cars is one I’d definitely agree with. England already bans it if kids are in the car and I don’t think there’d be too much argument against it being banned altogether. Bear in mind we don’t have as much of a car culture in the UK and our average journeys are shorter than in the US (I’m finding it hard to get hold of a cite to either prove or disprove this, but it seems likely to be true), so it’s much more likely to happen over here before the US.
In space, you don’t need to keep constant watch out the windshield for aliens, stopped satellites, and kids chasing a wayward meteor.
In a car, your eyes are supposed to be pointed out the windshield looking at the road and surroundings, not reading a “full explanation” of, well ANYTHING. If you want a full explanation of a particular button, park the fucking car and pull out the Manual, that’s why you have one.
If the risk of cell phones causing brain tumors has to do with proximity, I don’t see that as a problem since people, especially younger people, rarely hold the phone to their head and talk.
As for touch screens in cars, I don’t see the difference between looking at and touching that screen and doing the same thing with your cell phone. Equally distracting!
This x1426. You can adjust a button or switch without having to look at it.
It really blows my mind that this is the direction things are going. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
I fly airplanes for a living. If you look at the history of cockpit ergonomics, you find a trend toward making controls that look and feel differently than other controls. Landing gear handles are typically wheel-shaped. Flap controllers are usually shaped like an airfoil. This enables the pilot to distinguish them by touch, without looking.
While it’s true that modern aircraft are incorporating touch screens, they are generally for navigation and systems monitoring. Not items you typically need to find by touch, or manipulate quickly without looking.
But as was already noted in another response, this is not the case for cars. There is no autopilot. You need to look outside at all times. If we all operated our car stereos and other gizmos only at a stop, that would be great. But we don’t, so touch screens are a really bad idea.
Yup. I think the problem is that just about all new cars are coming out with GPS, so the screen is already there. And it’s taking up space that would normally be used by buttons.
Still doesn’t make it a good idea. If it caused an accident for me, I would talk to a lawyer.
But I wasn’t suggesting that. I was just saying that in the future we may not be as sanguine about plastic containers for food as we are now.
My daughter (now 2.5) got her first pair of shoes as part of the outfit I got her for her first birthday. I just couldn’t see a reason to spend money on something that didn’t have much benefit for her and would be outgrown quickly. And shoes can be expensive! She didn’t think much of shoes when I first put them on her- they made it harder to crawl and stand. The main downside I can see is that I won’t have bronzed baby shoes, like my mom had for me and my sister. I probably never would have gotten around to doing that, anyway, so that’s no great loss.
Using a non-hands-free cell phone while driving is becoming a bigger deal.
Some cars are starting to have drowsiness detecting technology. I could see something like that being mandated in new cars before too long, especially since the same systems might help with some kinds of distracted driving.
I have been test driving new cars lately, with backup cameras. I’m imagining what it’s going to be like telling my kids (now 2.5 and 23 weeks pregnant) what parallel parking was like in the old days. Parallel parking and backing up are a whole different ballgame with the cameras. Again, I could see something like this becoming mandatory on new cars in a few years.
Blind spots in cars. We take it for granted that every car, to some extent, is going to have things blocking our visibility. When will we start seeing invisibility cloaking, allowing us to see 360 degrees?
Our new car will have blind spot detection technology- a light comes on on the side view mirror when there’s a car in your blind spot on that side.
Speaking of shoes… Perhaps the idea of enclosing young growing feet in shoes will be considered detrimental, and people will instead get as close as they can to stick-on soles
Whew! Dodged another bullet.
Regards,
Shodan
If you do your mirrors right (i.e. not like 90% of people), this problem is greatly limited, if not eliminated.
You’ve borrowed the car from your brother in law. You’ve bought the car used and the glove compartment is empty. What manual?
With a display, the manual is built into the software. And I would hope that the driver is reading the “full explanation” on the screen when the car is “fucking parked” just like he would with a Manual.
I’ve read reports from drivers using touchscreen displays (Tesla.) They’ve adapted to them unbelievably quickly.
Nice thread. Last year, I was reading a book on poisoning and the birth of forensic toxicology in Jazz Age New York City (The Poisoner’s Handbook), and it got me to wondering the same thing. The book contained a lot of references to common cosmetics, medicinal tonics, etc. containing mercury and other heavy metals. Looking back now, it seems ridiculous that people thought that stuff was safe, and it got me wondering what contemporary things people were going to look back on and shake their heads about.
Pretty quickly, I tumbled to homeopathics, specifically herbal supplements. Granted, they’re not universally believed to be safe, but still. There’s a huge market of people who think that “natural” automatically means “safe and effective.” Some distrust and eschew conventional medicine to take completely unregulated herbal supplements instead. Hell, I know of people who take herbal supplements because they think that FDA regulation is insufficient. It boggles my mind.
It’s a question of tactile feedback. If I need to activate my blinkers, turn on my headlights, etc., I would much rather hit a button or turn a knob and know that I did it, rather than stabbing at a smooth featureless screen until the desired effect occurs, hoping that I’m actually stabbing the proper spot. If they want to stash a touchscreen somewhere for added functionality (including a digital manual, if you really want), then fine, just don’t touch my buttons and knobs.