Phenomenal read. Really terrifying that people in authority within DuPont are comfortable poisoning so many people in the name of profits. At some point you'd expect guilt/decency to kick in, but apparently not.

I'm genuinely surprised that this would be something that raises an eyebrow for someone. Chemical companies all have extremely spotty histories (I suggest reading about benzine and the auto industry).

Tobacco, oil, and Coca-Cola execs learned their products were dangerous and chose to bury the research. They even funded biased studies to conclude the opposite.

Those are all on the scale of billions of victims, and in the case of oil, the potential for harm includes most life on Earth.

  billions of victims

Within the scope of tobacco and soda pop/soft drinks (since coca-cola isn't the only actor, even if they are a stand-out case, if not THE singular stand-out example) the victims aren't victimized in a visceral sense, in that people have options in front of them, and they make their choices.

It's a really long, slow process of injury, with plenty of time to change course, and no one is intimidated or forcibly coerced to behave as they do. So it comes down to broad conventional, normalized availability and scales of supply that outpaces natural demand, coupled with deceptive propaganda and misinformation. But the victimization is soft, subtle and really only harmful over decades or generationally. Compared to the daily realities faced, throughout the twentieth century, it's silly to bat an eye at these things.

Suffice to say, alcohol is so much worse than either, short-term and long-term. And look at what came of prohibition.

Fossile fuels, on the other hand, and petrochemicals in particular, encompass a misery inducing nightmare so complete, and have enabled pretty much every modern horror experienced, to the point that it begs disbelief. The word "victims" barely scratches the surface, and number "billions" would be shocking if it weren't numbing and obvious at a conceptual level.

I suppose this is true. I tend to think of the known scandals as one-off abnormalities, rather than a common occurrence. Perhaps this is naive, or perhaps when you're at this scale, even if 99% of what you do is safe and honest, that 1% can do massive damage.

I want to know more about the family that used it in the dishwasher and to wash their car. Why?

It probably helped their plates or car stay a little bit shinier for a little bit longer.