• keenanpepper@sopuli.xyz
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      1 year ago

      This may be true but I hate the practice of referring to “plastic” as if it’s a single substance. It’s a bunch of different materials that don’t really have that much in common with each other, especially from a health/toxicity standpoint.

      For example, people treat it as common sense that “you shouldn’t burn plastic” because the smoke is “toxic”. For PVC this is totally true, it makes very nasty stuff like dioxin that will poison you. But on the other hand you can burn polyethylene (think milk jug) and it’s no more toxic than burning a candle. Definitely way healthier to breath than wood campfire smoke, for example.

      There’s also such a silly pattern where people learn some chemical might have some effect on the body and suddenly everyone is up in arms about it. For example Bisphenol A in many applications was replaced by the very similar Bisphenol S just so things could be labeled “BPA Free”. BPS probably has similar estrogenic effects to BPA.

      I’d say the moral of the story is be wary of received wisdom about chemical toxicity from people who aren’t chemists.

      • erogenouswarzone@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Not only BPAs but many chemicals like BPAs can cause birth defects because our bodies think they are estrogen.

        If this worries you, read the books It Starts With the Egg and Grain Brain.

        They both suggest that not only what you eat, but how it’s prepared can affect the health of a child.

        For instance it’s a big no-no, according to It Starts With the Egg, to heat most plastics in the microwave. The heat breaks the plastic down, it can get in your blood, your body will think it’s estrogen, and they don’t even know the full effects of this yet.

        So think about

        • burritos in plastic wrapping,
        • cling wrap on a bowl,
        • reheating leftovers in Tupperware,
        • disposable cutlery

        These chemicals are not just in food:

        • your car’s interior
        • your cell phone case
        • even the clothes on your back, unless they’re 100% pure, untreated, natural fabric, may have been made with these chemicals.
      • radix@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Are microplastics similarly diverse in their effects on the human body?

      • sadbehr@lemmy.nz
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        1 year ago

        Have you heard of Dihydrogen monoxide? It literally kills hundreds of thousands of people every single year all over the world, including young children.

        You don’t hear about it in the news though do you…

          • piece@feddit.it
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            1 year ago

            It’s an old (early-internet?) joke iirc. And yes, I think that’s the answer

            • islandofcaucasus@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Oh shit, I was thinking there was no way that hundreds of thousands of people did from drowning every year, but they actually do.

              WHO estimates that every year over 200k people die from drowning

  • lynny@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Social media. It wasn’t until very recently that people started to realize just how harmful it actually is.

    • manitcor@lemmy.intai.tech
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      1 year ago

      Less social media IMO, more the weaponization of techniques first researched in the 60s-80s made real and pushed via automaton to all corners of the public internet.

      The reason you become vulnerable is because you abdicate control (most had no idea) of your feed to providers that own domain names.

      This was a co-option of how the internet worked previously.

      • ieatpwns@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        What kind of techniques were researched? This sounds interesting to learn about. Do you have some terms I could search that will help me learn more?

          • erogenouswarzone@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            I always thought the Cambridge Analytical scandal was just the left trying to point fingers at how Trump could have possibly won, instead of blaming the Democratic party for their terrible handling of the Sanders campaign, and how Clinton was so utterly unlikable, they grasped at so many straws, we’re still reeling from it to this day.

            The big ones being the Ukrainian war, the failure of the Afghanistan pull-out, and of course CA.

        • PoliticalAgitator@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Well this might come as a shock but the techniques used to groom suicide bombers also work on white people too. Prey on their disillusionment, pump them full of hatred for “the enemy” then give them the means to carry out an attack.

          But if you’re digging back through history, check out how once upon a time, everyone from the US government to Coca-Cola was awkwardly trying their hand at mind control.

          Fortunately, they’ve pinky promised that’s all behind them now, despite having access to millions of people who voluntarily pin their own eyes open and spend the night scrolling through rapid flashes of sex, violence and extremism, in their own DIY Clockwork Orange therapy (only it’s trying to make them worse, not better)

          What could go wrong except for everything that’s currently going wrong?

          The damage done by giving neoliberals power and the far-right platform is going to take decades to undo, if we survive it at all.

          Climate change is progressing at an alarming rate while the oil and gas lobby teach AI how to astroturf, cheered on by every billionaire hoping they can fire their employees and pocket their wages.

          If the far-right are given the power they need, they’ll decimate the population searching for whatever magic group they need to genocide that will make their parents love them, their mental illness evaporate and their dicks 14" long. When they finally realize no such group exists, we’ll get to see what happens when you give the nuclear launch codes to wife beaters ane school shooters.

          Vote better.

    • Zeth0s@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Sugar is not bad. Abuse of sugar is bad. Sugar is absolutely fine, as long as one doesn’t exceed. Problem is that in American-inspired diets sugar is everywhere at gigantic doses

      • UhBell@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Fructose is typically fine when it’s paired with equal amounts of glucose, like in fruit. Your body has a really hard time processing high concentrations of fructose alone, which is how most sugary food is produced now a days since high fructose is a much cheaper method of sweetening food than a balanced mix of sugars.

  • pH3ra@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Microplastics and plastic related byproducts, like phtalates (which are connected with a decreased fertility in mammals)
    I’m positive that the long term effects of these substances, that can be found in every link of the food chain nowadays, will be discussed a lot in the future

    • PeachMan@lemmy.one
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      1 year ago

      This right here. We are undoubtedly the plastic generation. And it’s not letting up any time soon; our kids will be included in this cohort as well. Banning plastic bags in cities is next to useless when everything we eat, everything we drink, and everything we buy is wrapped in plastic.

      • Addfwyn@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        My country is exceptionally bad about this.

        Buy a plastic package of crackers? It will be filled with smaller packages of crackers all wrapped in plastic with a plastic freshener pack for each one. I am not exaggerating. I am not sure I have ever bought something that didn’t have at least two degrees of plastic wrap.

        We did stop giving plastic bags out at cashiers unless requested, but that means shitall when everything you buy is triple-wrapped to begin with.

      • BaconIsAVeg@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Banning plastic bags I could get behind. It was inconvenient, but necessary. My city just passed an ordinance that all paper bags require a $0.15 charge. As if it wasn’t already $7 for a hamburger, now you get to pay more to keep your fries from spilling all over the car seat.

    • dan1101@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      This, big time. Pretty much every product or package contains some plastics, including so many one-time use disposable ones. Plastics are infesting the Earth from pole to pole, they are everywhere. Clothes are made of plastic, do laundry and a bunch of microplastics go down the drain. Car tires drop microplastics as they wear. And then there’s all the large ones we can see like plastic bags, bottles, etc.

    • lagomorphlecture@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Plastic in general, except that we know and just keep doing it. I’m trying to use less plastic if I can but it’s frickin everywhere. If you want to buy an ear of corn it’s wrapped in plastic as if it isn’t already wrapped in nature’s protection. Seriously people.

  • Varyk@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    Probably brake pads. Everyone’s living in cities now, just breathing in brake pad and lead particles.

    Oh and car tires. Just huffing those all day.

  • fubo@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Perfluoroalkyls aka PFAS appear to screw with all manner of body functions.

    Since you mention tobacco: It’s worth noting that the smoking/cancer connection was noticed long before peak cigarette smoking in the population. Prior to WWII, lung cancer was considered a rare disease. That changed with the mass marketing of cigarettes.

    • WagnasT@iusearchlinux.fyi
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      1 year ago

      There’s a couple studies showing that even though your body can’t process and remove PFAS and it just keeps accumulating, if you donate blood regularly you reduce the amount in your body by a bit each time. There are other slight health benefits to donating blood and lots of places will pay you for it. So if you can reduce your PFAS intake and donate blood you can slowly get rid of it. I use arch linux btw.

  • Mert@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Microplastics and PFAS

    No, seriously, these two will kill Earth, and us

  • ocassionallyaduck@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Tiktok.

    You said product, and I mean this legitimately. Not because of meme hate or hating on what is trendy, but because it is and has been a tool of the CCP. This isn’t really in question, and it was one of the first large platforms to entirely erase the idea of a timeline and fully devote itself only to a algorithm feed. One that bytedance has put their finger on the scales of many times.

    The effect this has is hard to quantify, but the postmortem on it is going to be incredible as we unpack exactly how much this influenced the trends and politics among zoomers, and to what extent.

      • Banana@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        Eh I disagree about the Sinophobia thing, they’re not expressing fear or dislike of Chinese people, they’re criticizing the chinese government.

        Criticizing an authoritarian government =/= racism. People =/= their government.

        • pingveno@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          In comments I’ve seen, the person you’re responding to has always resisted that distinction when it comes to China, though decidedly less so when wishing collapse upon the US. Speaking of the US, apparently our use of color for advertising is literally worse than the Holocaust!

      • pingveno@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        But is it sinophobia? It’s no secret that Xi Jinping and the party like to have companies firmly under their thumb. All you have to do is threaten a few execs. Or hell, a good chunk of companies have deference to the party baked into their charter.

          • pingveno@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            This is no secret. Maybe have a little skepticism towards your favored country’s claims that any opposition to the government is bigotry towards the people? They use that to maintain control over the population.

      • fishtacos@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        ++1 TikTok is only political because Americans want to own everyone’s data exclusively.

    • mouserat@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Not only, but especially if you participate in a ride in their own-built water vehicles