redle wrote:Mine collapses are very much a happenstance caused by tunneling.
Yes, a happenstance, not a consequence. Also, mining is hardly the only thing a pickax can be used for. Quarrying rock and, much earlier, agriculture come to mind. And as a weapon for that matter.
redle wrote:As a result, they forget that a foreign object is in their drink and can be injured from it.
So the inventor should be blamed because they're not using the invention correctly? Again, that's not a consequence that naturally follows from the invention, although to be fair umbrellas can be lethal (especially if they're wielded by agents of the Bulgarian Secret Service).
redle wrote:Yes, we have alternate-reality timelines that we have supposedly lived through, and we weren't made aware of lightning strikes in them.
Except for when you see Victoria struck by lightning in front of you. Or when there's a blackout during the storm. So, in the three storylines where the storm takes place, someone gets killed in two of them and in the other we know that lightning strikes the hydroelectric dam. Also, the storm takes place without warning ("We are changing a clear night into a rainy night") at exactly the same time in those three storylines. It's not a huge deductive leap to say that the cause we see in one storyline is also the cause in the other two (the fact that the storm doesn't occur in the fourth storyline also supports that conclusion). Finally, the ending "Do You Know Any Gymnasts?" strongly implies that all of the endings occurred (
Groundhog Day-style). If that's not the case, then the PC doesn't know any gymnasts.
redle wrote:Both of your examples are of someone directly adding poisons to the environment.
Except that unlike lead (which Midgely had good reason to know was poisonous), CFCs weren't known to be dangerous to the environment until well after his death. It's hardly impossible that ionising clouds will do something unexpected to the weather (like everything else mankind has done to the atmosphere). And that's exactly what happened. Paula wanted rain, she got lightning as well and that lightning killed someone.
Anyhow, I think it's pretty unlikely that either of us will convince the other so this discussion has probably gone as far as it can.