The Callousness of my Generation Scares Me
Hey Mom!
I am upset and not the usual indignant, sarcastic upset. My heart aches and I feel ashamed for my generation.
I would also like to preface this post by letting you know that I have done none of my own research regarding this topic and this is just a combination of what I learned in high school social studies and today in chemistry.
Ok so in chemistry class today we were learning about different types of substitutions on benzene rings (not relevant to the story just thought you might like to know what I am paying to learn).
Towards the end of the class my prof pulls up this picture of an airplane dumping Agent Orange over Vietnam. Agent Orange is made up of two herbicides (2,4-D and 2,4,5-T) that under normal circumstances do not cause the birth defects, cancers and other mutations associated with Agent Orange. However, when you heat 2,4,5-T up it undergoes a substitution which creates the killer chemical (TCDD). My prof's point was that if you aren't careful when considering reactions you can create side reactions with devastating consequences. But he ended the lecture with "At least they learned their lesson" and then proceeded to talk about stringent drug approval policies in the pharmaceutical industry.
Ok so, I know how I took it was not how he meant it. But we are talking about someone dumping 20 million gallons of chemicals on civilians, hundreds of thousands of deaths and birth defects and it was all for nothing. How can we so callously just glaze over all this destruction? The truth is I can't, it is almost unbearable for me to think that all this pain goes on without consequence, that there is no way to make amends for what happened.
I think certain events in history should haunt us, every time they are mentioned we should feel something, not because we are necessarily to blame but because human life should matter to us.
And before some d-bag comments on this and asks, the answer is no, as it happens I am not on my period, I just happen to care about the screwed up world we live in.
That is all.
I am upset and not the usual indignant, sarcastic upset. My heart aches and I feel ashamed for my generation.
I would also like to preface this post by letting you know that I have done none of my own research regarding this topic and this is just a combination of what I learned in high school social studies and today in chemistry.
Ok so in chemistry class today we were learning about different types of substitutions on benzene rings (not relevant to the story just thought you might like to know what I am paying to learn).
Towards the end of the class my prof pulls up this picture of an airplane dumping Agent Orange over Vietnam. Agent Orange is made up of two herbicides (2,4-D and 2,4,5-T) that under normal circumstances do not cause the birth defects, cancers and other mutations associated with Agent Orange. However, when you heat 2,4,5-T up it undergoes a substitution which creates the killer chemical (TCDD). My prof's point was that if you aren't careful when considering reactions you can create side reactions with devastating consequences. But he ended the lecture with "At least they learned their lesson" and then proceeded to talk about stringent drug approval policies in the pharmaceutical industry.
Ok so, I know how I took it was not how he meant it. But we are talking about someone dumping 20 million gallons of chemicals on civilians, hundreds of thousands of deaths and birth defects and it was all for nothing. How can we so callously just glaze over all this destruction? The truth is I can't, it is almost unbearable for me to think that all this pain goes on without consequence, that there is no way to make amends for what happened.
I think certain events in history should haunt us, every time they are mentioned we should feel something, not because we are necessarily to blame but because human life should matter to us.
And before some d-bag comments on this and asks, the answer is no, as it happens I am not on my period, I just happen to care about the screwed up world we live in.
That is all.
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