thecaseace@reddit

I've thought about this. You say the great filter "for us", which fascinates me.

What kind of species could evolve to the stage where they discover hydrocarbons and how to either release energy from them (oil, coal, fuel) or how to make incredible materials from them (plastics, films etc) and NOT wreck the earth?

We kind of figured out in the 1960s that this wasn't great for us or the planet, but there is no possible way that we could have ever put the genie back in the bottle.

I genuinely don't believe evolved primates (competitive, territorial, individualistic etc) could have done anything different.

Even if the CEO of Texaco had wanted to say "hey everyone this is really bad for the planet and we should stop, I'm closing the company and stopping all drilling" he'd have been fired and replaced by the end of the sentence!

I think it would take some kind of hive mind species or insect-like species where the "queen" learns the downsides and is able to prevent use and abuse without argument.

Or, perhaps, a species where care for young is done collectively, so all children are "everyone's children" meaning no single individual "shoulders the burden now" so that other people's kids might somehow benefit.

Saying that china is "just as bad" as the US is actually insane haha. By what metric?

The worst things about china are domestic. The Tienanmen Square massacre, and their treatment of the Uyghurs are both abhorrent events that I in no way condone.

It's important to remember that in these events the Uyghurs where not being genocided, and in Tienanmen Square protesters where not indiscriminately shot as is often portrayed.

By comparison, the US has bombed hundreds of thousands of civilians in Vietnam, Korea, Syria, Yemen, Iraq. The US has toppled democratically elected leaders all across the globe, replacing them with tyrants that kill thousands and serve US interests. The USA is a settler colony and is based on a history of active genocide of the native Americas, and chattel slavery. Today, the US and it's allies are actively supporting the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza (as confirmed by the ICJ). The US is currently threatening to annex Canada, and Greenland, is currently threatening to bomb Iran, is deporting people protesting a genocide to prisons in en Salvador, and has reopened Guantanamo bay.

In terms of foreign policy, no sane person could ever argue that the USA and China are comparable evils. This could be in large part due to china not being powerful enough yet, but this would be speculation that neither of us can prove either way. I think it is unlikely tho, as china definitely could project more military power than it does right now but chooses not too. In terms of domestic policy it's a little more murky, but it's important to remember that "freedom" America offers to its citizens is nothing more than propaganda. They still brutalise protestors, torture prisoners, and spy on their citizens. Their media is all owned by the wealthy, and stories are specifically selected to reinforce their views. The Chinese people have a much more favourable view of their government than the American people, and while this could be linked to increased suppression of information, listening to Chinese people speak on the topic suggests that it's because their government is actively working to improve their lives, as opposed to the American government which is increasingly aligned with the interests of tech billionaires.

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opinionsareus@reddit

the Chinese people have a much more favourable view of their government than the American people

Yeah, because their entire media exposure is state propaganda.

How about China exporting illegal components of drugs to America to help fuel the drug problem here?

How about "building infrastructure" in Africa that Africans can't pay for and then extracting/extorting money/control/favors from those nations.

How about supporting the murderous nations of N Korea and Iran - and voting against peace proposals.

China is just as - if not more - murderous than America.

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ThePlacidAcid@reddit

Even these examples are reaches and you know it! Every accusation is a confession with Americans I stg haha.

Entire media exposure is straight propaganda

If you genuinely think over a billion Chinese people only like their government due to propaganda you're actually delusional. Their government absolutely does censor, and this isn't good, but, to think we're immune from this is crazy. Look at the way our own news reports on the genocide in gaza. Read up about manufactured consent.

Look at the way our police treat people protesting that genocide. Where I'm from, police have started throwing people in prison for "intent to cause public nuisance", meaning you can't even safely plan a protest. Your freedoms in western countries are only granted so long as you pose no threat to the system.

China exporting illegal components of drugs to help America fuel the drug problem

Uhm, the CIA sold crack to black people to destroy their communities. That was on Americas OWN citizens, by a government agency. Chinese manufacturers sell legal precursors to America. Massive difference, and once again America is objectively worse.

Building infrastructure that Africans can't pay for

Western propaganda. This is my favourite accusations against china because the world bank is wayyy worse. China gives loans. That's it. The world bank will give you a loan on the condition that you completely open up your economy to American companies and destroy worker unions. And if you try to elect a leader who wants to retake control of your countries natural resources, America will fund a coup. There's a reason that Africans tend to view china more favourably that Europeans or Americans. Below I've linked an unreliable source, however I feel that reading about what people from a place think of a thing has value in understanding the effects of that thing.

https://www.quora.com/What-do-Africans-think-of-the-Chinese

Supporting the murderous nations or N Korea and Iran

LMAO the us overthrows democratically elected governments to establish dictatorships that work towards it's interests. There's no evidence of China doing any such thing.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._policy_toward_authoritarian_governments

China is just as - if not more - murderous than America

Tell that to the people in Yemen, Afghanistan, Palestine, Iraq, Vietnam, and Korea.

Here's the crazy thing, I don't even fuckin like china that much. They're an authoritarian regime with too many restrictions on free speech and have done some horrible human rights abuses domestically. However, compared to the USA on foreign policy, they're by far the lesser evil, from like every objective measure. No regime can exist without consent from the masses, and their system seems to work for them. At least they don't try and force that system on everyone else through economic and military dominance. The same cannot be said for the USA.

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opinionsareus@reddit

Look at the way our police treat people protesting that genocide. Where I'm from, police have started throwing people in prison for "intent to cause public nuisance", meaning you can't even safely plan a protest. Your freedoms in western countries are only granted so long as you pose no threat to the system.

Has the US literally taken over an entire city of millions and forbade the press, bookstores, protestors, intellectuals, writers, etc. to object, under threat of prison? Has the US used its MILITARY to put down any serious protests, without mercy - example Tiananmen Square. Look at the Tibetans; the Uygers. 10's of millions displaced and their cultures erased less than 50 years ago. No comparison.

China gives loans? Maybe you should look into the reason they are doing that - the graft is unreal and they are screwing over poor nations.

the us overthrows democratically elected governments to establish dictatorships that work towards it's interests. There's no evidence of China doing any such thing.

Really? How about supporting the worst of the worst around the world - selling weapons to Iran and Hamas; Syria, Hezbollah, etc.? How about nixing almost every peace deal on the UN Security Council https://globalasia.org/v19no2/feature/how-china-uses-informal-exports-of-weapons-to-isolate-xinjiang_bertil-lintner

Look, America has done a LOT of bad things; we have disrupted many nations and killed a lot of innocent people, but the absolute iron fist that China levels on people around the world is still operating and it's growing. China is also facing a demographic crisis, and a real estate crash, which is going to make them even more desperate.

They are a constant threat to Taiwan and if the attack Taiwan they will take over with no mercy. Bottom line: the US government has done a lot of harm around the world, but China's government will do much more harm to anyone who stands in its way. Look at how they handled the pandemic at the outset, which led to spread. Look at their belligerence in the South China Sea.

ANYONE who disagrees with the CCP is either disappeared, jailed, or ruined - anyone. It's a fascist state run by crony capitalists.

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ponycorn_pet@reddit

I agree with you

also, to the people who don't understand why China deals harshly with factions that hurt people, look up Shen Yun and how the religious cult behind it kidnaps, trafficks, and forces people into lifelong slavery to understand why China goes hard against those groups

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DarkVandals@reddit

The people of Hong Kong dont want China , they want to be sovereign. Get out of here with that bs.

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frosty67@reddit

Fewer than 1/5 Hong Kong residents want independence from China. And Hong Kong is administered independently. The CPC has no presence in the Hong Kong government. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hongkong-protests-poll-exclusive/exclusive-hong-kongers-support-protester-demands-minority-wants-independence-from-china-reuters-poll-idUSKBN1YZ0VK/

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ponycorn_pet@reddit

look at their project to fix desertification if you want to see something really cool https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3TaEKO4piU

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xdovaqueenx@reddit

I hear ya, but it’s pretty hard to find a benevolent, forward-thinking fascist/authoritarian/dictator who cares about the environment. Instead we got orange nazi moron.

Things will get bad.

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goatmalta@reddit

Good luck to anyone getting them out of the environment at any scale.

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thecaseace@reddit

This is (hilariously) why I'm kind of a centrist.

It is my belief that capitalist-like structures to encourage people to strive, take risks, invent etc is critical and successful

BUT

Just like most people would kill or harm someone else if it meant they or their family lived or were unhurt, corporations cannot and will not act in the public interest without REGULATION.

For me the primary duty of govt should be to regulate the activity of it's citizens and should have strong powers to do so.

The problem is... Who watches the Watchmen? How do you design strong govt that can act FOR the people but that doesn't also simply become a plaything for the benefit of the individual(s) with power?

Imo it needs systems where you are selected to govern for short periods based on your knowledge and capability, and it is both well rewarded financially and in status.

Select 12 educated citizens from various walks of life.
Some kind of selection process to ensure there are skilled engineers , doctors, educators included etc.
They serve 1 year, extendable to perhaps 3 max by unanimous vote from the rest.
Paid extremely well. $1m a year is frankly peanuts to a state but paying people that and would make this a life changing reward instead of "oh no jury service how can I feed my kids?"

I also genuinely think that people who WANT to be in charge should be expressly forbidden from doing so. Your Boris Johnsons and Donald Trumps and Idi Amins and Putins can all get to the back of the queue.

The idea that an entire nation of tens or hundreds of millions of people can be governed by a choice of two parties, both run by ambitious twats.... Is just insane to me.

How do you feel about all situations globally? PICK A OR B THERE ARE NO OTHER OPTIONS!

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opinionsareus@reddit

Select 12 educated citizens from various walks of life.

Every one of those persons has a structural cognitive impulse toward status and denying "the other". It's built in. There are simply no ways to a utopian government, as you suggest. Like, who gets to select these people? Are the selectors without bias? Good neuroscience studies show that the more wealth people accumulate (even if they started out as poor people), the less empathy they exhibit.

I have even seen this is homeless camps, where people with more power start shitting on those with less power. I'll bet it's happening right now in that RV camp.

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thecaseace@reddit

Fair

I wouldn't expect people to lay their prejudice at the door, though. We 100% don't have that now. We almost elect people due to their prejudices.

I'd get these people (plus backup teams) out meeting citizens, visiting (e.g.) hospitals and doctors and hospices and clinics and care homes and all sorts, all over the county - so they can listen to people and really understand the problems.

Then when they go back to the policy room and humans become stats, as they must to govern a country... The people in the room can relate "reduce x by y to improve something by 20%" to "that Steven i met in March whose life would be improved/ruined by this"

Also - im not saying everyone needs to be a rich doctor. Im saying there's little point bringing in someone whose only job has been, for example, a small town tow truck driver who has never been further than the next state.

It's not that they are not a valid human, but their experience of the world and understanding of issues simply isn't there.

In the UK we have people in the house if lords (our upper house) who are like .. working class single mums who fought for rights. They are smart and perfect for this kind of thing.

It should be about class, but about "can this person demonstrate that they have more than a surface level understanding of major topics?" and "does this person demonstrate an understanding of statistics and common logical fallacies"

E.g. if I say "the murder rate has doubled this month" do they reply "oh my god we need more police!"

Or do they ask questions like "has it gone from 1 to 2, or from 100 to 200?" And "has this happened before and if so does it typically decline"

See what I mean?. I am really wittering now sorry

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toocowardly2kms@reddit

I appreciate your voice of reason. So many people blame oil execs (they are guilty of being greedy - which we all may be, just not given the chance yet), but the truth is once we discovered fossil fuels, we were never going to stop using fossil fuels. We (most of us) are only alive because of fossil fuels. Our food is dependent on fossil fuels (farm equipment, distribution, fertiliser, pesticide), our healthcare is dependent on fossil fuels (medical research, transport of blood/organs, ambulance), our very mobility is dependent on fossil fuels (air travel, road travel, UNNECESSARY travel).

We proved during COVID we didn't need to travel that much, we could exist and survive without consuming and burning so much. But we rebelled against that, we are too greedy for comfort, for easy dopamine, for "more" itself.

I also agree with your thought about collective care for the young. That way, no child is an orphan, no child is "favored" because of their parents, no child stands to inherit the benefits of greed. Unfortunately, all people are corruptible, so anyone (or groups) put in charge of handling collective care for the young would be corrupted through greed anyway.

I think preferential treatment for your own children is just eugenics with extra steps, but most of us have just been brainwashed by mainstream media to believe that having your own family with your own genes is the most meaningful thing in the world.

We wouldn't be living our unsustainable way of life without hydrocarbons. We also wouldn't be dying off in our unique way (and bringing everything else on this tree of life down) without hydrocarbons.

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ThePlacidAcid@reddit

We actually could very much reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. It's just that the fossil fuels industry has spent a fuck tonne of money on suppressing green technology, suppressing research on climate change, and spreading conspiracy theories that deny climate change. It's only inevitable if you are unable to conceive of a world that doesn't use markets as the primary method of resource distribution, however, such a world existed (all of human history up until about 200 years ago), and such a world can exist again.

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toocowardly2kms@reddit

200 years ago there weren't 8 billion+ humans. In the 1800's there were approximately 1 billion people.

We can reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, but it would also mean we can't sustain 8 billion+ humans.

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ThePlacidAcid@reddit

I firmly believe that renewables + nuclear fission could have substantially replaced fossil fuels at this point if they hadn't been so suppressed. Furthermore, our rampant overconsumption, caused by extreme advertising in every aspect of life, collapsed communities, globalisation, and planned obsolescence all lead to an extremely high level of power consumption in the developed world, which wouldn't exist if not for consumer capitalism.

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ThePlacidAcid@reddit

I think your view on human nature is wrong. It's not humans that are competitive, territorial, and individualistic, it's the system we inhabit. We're not a hive mind, but most people should be able to recognise that with family, with friendship groups, even with colleagues, we do things and make sacrifices for those around us despite no immediate reward being present. Humans naturally spontaneously organise in a collaborative manner whenever it needs doing. We are competitive, but we also intuitively recognise the concept of a bad winner. These things happen despite everything else in our environment discouraging this behaviour.

We've built a world that necessitates being individualistic, territorial, and competitive. Your point about a CEO being replaced should he even try to enact positive change perfectly encapsulates this. If we want to survive as a species we HAVE to change this. We cannot have a society dictated by an elite few, against the will of the many. We need to democratically control our resource production and distribution. We need to base our system on mutual benefit, and not on ruthless market logic. Markets had their use, they were amazing at quickly developing our economies, but we now live in a world where we produce enough food for everyone to eat, and yet people still starve. We have enough homes to house everyone, yet people still go homeless. We have people looking for work and unable to find it, and we have those who do work ending up burnt out from being overworked. We have the technology to drastically reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, yet supress this tech to protect oil company profits.

Markets are not effectively controlling and distributing our resources, and the only way this can ever be solved is through democratic control of our resource production and distribution. Any other solution is idealistic, and avoids the inherent contradictions markets have with the wellbeing of individuals and of the planet. A better world is possible, we just need to realise this, and fight for it.

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thecaseace@reddit

I fundamentally disagree with your initial assumptions.

All other primates are territorial, competitive and individualistic to various extents. At what point would our proto-species have lost that? And if we did lose it, where is the evidence?

You look at chimps - they literally rape and cannibalize other groups who stray into their territory looking for food or mates. Other apes are less violent but there aren't apes who are all "hey my family are starving but yeah come eat my food and bang my orangutan wife"

We have a very high energy requirement and need land and space and access to water, and our children take FOREVER to become not useless, so we need to keep that land and protect it.

An individual human CAN be altruistic and.MIGHT CHOOSE to sacrifice things for some greater good.,. But "humans" observed at any scale from family to town to nation cannot, do not and will not act in that way.

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ThePlacidAcid@reddit

The big factor going against that is that all evidence points to us being literally built for socialising. We struggle to hide our emotions from other humans, we blush, we feel shame. We literally have eyes that enable other humans to know where we're looking at all times, a trait so essential that all humans without this trait died out.

Furthermore, humans actually really struggle to harm or kill other humans. Studies from WW1 suggest that only 20% of soldiers actually shot to kill. And that's in a scenario where the choice is to kill or be killed. The fact that even in those situations, more humans chose not to kill other humans, suggests to me that it's really not in our instinct to be as individualistic as our society tries to make us.

Like why do you think we're so damn mentally ill these days? Structuring the world around rampant individualism and ignoring the fact that the only reason we're here is because of our remarkable ability to communicate and socialise has lead to nearly 20% of adults requiring anti depressant medication in my country! We seriously aren't meant to live like this.

You point to chimps as being similar too us, but if you wanna play that route, bonobos are more closely related to humans, and those fuckers just lay around all day and have sex. If we look at anthropology, it seems that the rate of violent death in hunter gatherers was actually pretty low, and the development of settlements is what caused a massive increase in violence. This makes sense, as settlements began the concept of private ownership, allowed for the creation of armies, and gave some humans an interest in robbing, killing and destroying other humans. Thing is, this made sense when resources were more scarce, however there's literally 0 reason to structure our economies, or our societies in this way anymore. Resources are no longer scarce. Neither you or I benefit from war in any material way. There's a house for every homeless person, and there's food for every person who starves. Our system is just awful at resource distribution.

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Soci3talCollaps3@reddit

Yeah, this is what China does. Say what you want about their oppression, but when they figure something out that could be good for their society they make sure the whole country follows suit. This includes investing heavily in industries that aren't necessarily profitable but are better for the society. In fact, roughly half of their companies are organized for profit and the other half are organized for the greater good, is deemed by the government. Of course this requires a responsible government that actually has the interests of the people and Society in mind. You can see how this could go awry but you could also see how this could possibly work.

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DarkVandals@reddit

Ironic

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mujou-no-kaze@reddit

Even if the CEO of Texaco had wanted to say "hey everyone this is really bad for the planet and we should stop, I'm closing the company and stopping all drilling" he'd have been fired and replaced by the end of the sentence!

This is definitely part of why it is so hard to deal with. Some people are pointing to China, which I am often the first to highlight as at least trying. But even China is locked into a game of realpolitik and it isn't particularly sustainable at the end of the day.

If capital is the hegemony then fighting capital means fighting capital on its own ground. The lefties, the greenies, etc., we don't get to dictate how the battle goes down. Most big communist states early on emphasized good relations (overtly) with capitalist nations, even if that's not the way things developed. They recognized the limits of their power and how to adapt to those limits.

One of our limits is that everyone has a ton of guns pointed at each other and slowing down for one second is a death wish. Even nations are caught in a rat race of their own. That's why the good relations couldn't continue as hoped.

I'm not sure how we deal with this situation, in light of all of our accrued knowledge. I'm not sure if we really still can. But I think that if you want to answer these questions you have to acknowledge the material and systemic conditions driving the dilemma.

(Material and systemic being different ways to productively describe the same underlying phenomena.)

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TheCyanKnight@reddit

Or, you know, government. Regulation.

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PervyNonsense@reddit

Theyre our great filter but I don't think discovering them is some act of genius that got in our way of becoming an interplanetary species.

What are we without either animal slavery, human slavery, or oil?

Any species that can exist outside of its planet is either independent of those resources or is taking them with, which means even though we have a "space" station, we're just sending food up to it. It's an outpost, not an independent place.

Humanity got lucky. It used fire to gather calories other species couldn't, found oil, figured out it burned real good and was "free" and we've been coasting since then.

If the oil gets shut off, suddenly, how advanced are we? Even better, if the oil were shut off before we blew over the limit of CO2, no matter the scale of human struggle, wouldn't we be objectively better off than we are?

Hydrocarbons are dead bodies from an alien world we are cool with cremating to steal the sunlight stored in their chemical bonds.

Humanity, in terms of progress it can hand down in the absence of oil, isn't much further than the camp fire.

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Doritosaurus@reddit

Or, perhaps, a species where care for young is done collectively, so all children are "everyone's children" meaning no single individual "shoulders the burden now" so that other people's kids might somehow benefit.

In Plato's "Republic" he put forth the idea of a society/class called the "Guardians" where no one would know their biological parents and would be raised by all. Anthropologists can point to numerous cultures and societies that have raised children communally. Engels wrote about the relation of the patriarchal nuclear family and its import to capitalism 140 or so years ago.

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HumbleLeader2460@reddit

>>> I have a running bet pool with some friends. It goes like this...

Fun stuff, you're my kind of guy/gal Ultra. What are the stakes?

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Ultra-Smurfmarine@reddit

Nothing too huge. I think the biggest standing bet is 100$ with pretty high odds. I don't remember the exact wording, but it was something like, "A major western city will become uninhabitable and depopulate by at least 50% by 2030."

Simplification is inevitable given the energy situation. How fast, and how hard, are all that's in play, really.

When 80% of global energy use can't be electrified, and is dependant on the infrastructure or heat requirements of oil/gas/coal, we are in for a simplification. And the debt system that's been used to kick that can down the road has run out of road.

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Ultra-Smurfmarine@reddit

boobityskoobity@reddit

In addition to tires and polyester, there is so much plastic packaging involved with food. Anytime I go to the grocery store and just...look around with the blinders off, it's really ridiculous. Everything is wrapped in plastic one way or another, including a lot of produce. How much plastic gets thrown out for the average meal for one person?

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JulianMorganthau@reddit

Sometimes you'll see the Trifecta - a single serving of something wrapped in plastic which is grouped with other single servings and wrapped in plastic which is then gathered together in a plastic bag. Many stores then put this unholy turducken in a plastic bag for you to tag home.

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ponycorn_pet@reddit

unholy turducken

Soooo much new clothing is 100% synthetic these days. 15-20 years ago it was so much easier to find natural fabrics.

Try going to a target or Walmart and finding 100% cotton socks or underwear these days.

You can still usually find the underwear (it will take some searching) but I was absolutely shocked when a search of 3 different stores turned up 0 cotton socks.

Best I could do was about 60% cotton-

after pushing aside package after package of 100% polyester socks...

At certain retailers you will be hard pressed to even find a cotton/poly blend.

I was flabbergasted. 100% cotton socks are now a fancy specialty item you need to order online.

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liminus81@reddit

Yeah fabrics is probably a big one. But basically every basic consumer item we manufacture has some plastics, including the packaging. But my big one is tire dust. Just doesn't get talked about. It's obviously fucking everywhere and we're breathing it in all the time

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Ultra-Smurfmarine@reddit

Yet one more way that cars have fucked us all.

Wear a mask too
Or atleast a cloth tied to cover you nose and mouth

Covid masking has made more aware of all the cool uses of masks

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Ok_Replacement8094@reddit

You are correct. Polyester & derivatives are thin spun plastics, every wash and dry cycle puts microplastics into the water and the air. Check the lint trap after washing a fleece anything, there they are. Waste treatment facilities from sewage systems don’t treat for microplastics. They just circulate back into the water system, onto crops, into everything.

I moved my wardrobe to natural fibers a long time ago for everything that I can. Did it all from thrift shops, searching out 100% linen, cotton, wool, cashmere, angora.

Poly-filled pillows can be replaced with cotton, down, or buckwheat hulls.

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Sauerkrauttme@reddit

Tank sized pickups throw a ton of microplastics into the air with every single tire rotation.

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BrightBlueBauble@reddit

I automatically assume anyone driving one of those monstrosities is an enormous asshole and desperately trying to overcompensate. Just…why? You don’t need to be driving something that is proven to be far more dangerous to other drivers and pedestrians in an accident, that burns way more fuel, and yes, puts off more microplastics. It’s a huge fuck you to the environment. They’re also often terrible, aggressive drivers.

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BrightBlueBauble@reddit

It’s hard to find affordable clothing that hasn’t been adulterated with or is entirely fucking polyester. It’s awful stuff: cheap looking, hot, odor-grabbing, sticky, staticky, etc.

My brain mush that has been shredded by plastic abrasives feels soothed by AI word mush.

Mush is your future. Embrace the mush.

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Citrakayah@reddit

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DioTheSuperiorWaifu@reddit

Not a fallacy in the context tho

You know what doesn't spew microplastics straight to the brain? Steel on steel (rail). Bicycles. Walkable cities.

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Sorry, you're too slow. I already made fun of the idiocy of caring about rubber soles in this comment a minute earlier. You'll have to come up with something even more ridiculous now.

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Pickledsoul@reddit

What's ridiculous is that the plastic in your brain has apparently taken control and made you unable to hate microplastics pollution in all it's forms.

Its not the raindrops that drown you, its the flood that comes from it all accumulating, drop by drop. If you think all those "insiginifcant" sources aren't a problem, good luck.

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saun-ders@reddit

The difference between someone who understands how to solve problems, and someone who only knows how to complain about them.

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Pickledsoul@reddit

Please, show me what you've done to solve anything. All you're doing is complaining about my concerns in this thread and minimizing their own damage to the environment because something else is worse. I should have known this is how this would devolve when you started using logical fallacies as your gotcha.

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saun-ders@reddit

What have I done? Lol. I sit on the board of an environmental advocacy group that advocates, in part, for building safer bike infrastructure and more effective public transit. I've both given and helped organize a number of educational public speaking events to help more people understand why these changes are effective. I semi-regularly advocate to local government officials about the same, both to remind them of the true impact of their decisions and to present alternative options. I've volunteered with a number of political campaigns and in fact stood as a candidate in one election on a pro-transit, pro-park, and pro-bike platform. As part of my actual work doing actual advocacy to an actual government, I actually need to understand not just the impact but also the cost of any proposed solution to the microplastics problem, and that means that I am, by definition, constrained to only propose the solutions that are most effective at actually reducing it.

What have you done?

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Pickledsoul@reddit

Ride a bike, go to town hall meetings, and tell the truth.

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TrickyProfit1369@reddit

Man, you are embarassing.

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genericusername11101@reddit

Rule 1: In addition to enforcing Reddit's content policy, we will also remove comments and content that is abusive or predatory in nature. You may attack each other's ideas, not each other.

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SpeedysComing@reddit

Kind of reminds me of the argument that if you get around by bike, you have to eat more, so you create more CO2.

Like...ok? Sure.

It sometimes seems like the only "pure" answer is to just not have been born at all.

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SpeedysComing@reddit

Your shoes also wear down..

Turns out using 4,000 pounds of steel to move a single person around is just really, really wasteful and incredibly inefficient.
Especially compared to a 30 pound bicycle. Or 5 pounds shoes.

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Pickledsoul@reddit

And its way more efficient to have a tram system, which doesn't cause rubber pollution that kills salmon, and can't be stolen by thieves, doesn't need storage space, and doesn't require every single person to own one to get anywhere reasonably far.

I bet there's more rubber shed from an entire bus worth of bikes than if they took that same bus. Also, I mention shoes here

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ChromaticStrike@reddit

Bicycle tires still pollute in a very lesser way.

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The999Mind@reddit

Walkable cities are always the answer.

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there are many sources, and there are specific sources which are not only senseless, they are completely ridiculous.

"steeping a single plastic teabag at brewing temperature released about 11.6 billion microplastics and 3.1 billion nanoplastics into each cup" https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10389239/

chewing gum... https://www.acs.org/pressroom/presspacs/2025/march/chewing-gum-can-shed-microplastics-into-saliva-pilot-study-finds.html

The ocean is a huge source of micro and nanoplastics, so much so that grass growing near the ocean has several times the uptake of nanoplastic into their vascular systems and the wind gets a good portion of its plastic burden from ocean spray. This is because so much plastic, up to 2 millions tons a year, that makes it into the ocean floats near the top, where UV light from the sun, wave and wind motion, and microbial and other biological activity, can constantly break it down.

Well I live in west virginia so dupont has been dumping Teflon runoff directly into my drinking supply for the last uh....50 years or so? So if we're not counting the tap water and shower water that I use daily I guess it's my fault and not the mega corporations, just like with the straws.

Damn.

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Psychological-Ad3128@reddit

Born in wv too and literally had this conversation at work last night. Yeah it’s our plastic straws and driving to work not the mega corporations faults.

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shadowscar00@reddit

GratefulHead420@reddit

Clothes and tires are the top of the Pareto chart

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m0nk37@reddit

Idk sanding plastic after it’s been melted and cooled via fans in the same room can’t be good for you.

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deepasleep@reddit

Unfortunately it’s both.

The really small stuff that can make it through the blood brain barrier mostly comes in the form of tiny airborne particles, so if you’re sanding anything after printing, you’re probably getting a little bit through your lungs.

The bitch of it is that the particles are almost impossible to scrub from the air.

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mogsoggindog@reddit

I thought it was funny

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CloudyNipples@reddit

Thank you! 😂

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dynamo_hub@reddit

Car tires are the easiest thing to avoid using personally to avoid mass plastics pollution. Just do most trips without your personal car.

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sloppymoves@reddit

You'd basically need to restructure all of the US to be walkable or have actually functioning public transport.

I'd love to walk to my job, buts almost an hour away via car, probably 2-3 hours by bike one way. And yes, there is no job near me that'll pay me enough to keep walls and roof over my head.

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dynamo_hub@reddit

The fact you view yourself as a victim is just sad when you are literally the cause of so much suffering, literally because you're too lazy to walk

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collapse-ModTeam@reddit

Hi, dynamo_hub. Thanks for contributing. However, your comment was removed from /r/collapse for:

Rule 1: In addition to enforcing Reddit's content policy, we will also remove comments and content that is abusive or predatory in nature. You may attack each other's ideas, not each other.

Please refer to our subreddit rules for more information.

I don't have stats or anything on hand but...

The Ender 3 (released 2018) was a bit of a revolution for 3D printing, leading to a massive increase in popularity, as it made 3d printing affordable.

Similarly, Bambu A1 mini/A1 (released 2023)has led to another explosion in popularity as they've made affordable printing super reliable. Plus, Bambu has made multicolor as more than just a fringe idea.

Actually, for an attempt at data, here's some Google trends data

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=3d%20printer,Ender%203,Bambu%20Lab,Bambu%20A1&hl=en

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theCaitiff@reddit

They've gotten a lot "better".

Ten years ago gadget geeks thought 3d printer guys were turbo nerds who not only coded their own stuff but LOVED the challenge of doing their own troubleshooting blindfolded in the dark. Five years ago they were niche hobbyist gear that was finicky and needed regular percussive maintenance but were starting to become accessible.

Now they're sub-$300 appliances that anyone can use. Resin printers for rpg gamers making minis, and filament printers for handymen, cosplay, general "makers," or kids toys.

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CaptinACAB@reddit

Still not super common, but certainly more ubiquitous than 5 years ago.

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Calowayyy@reddit

Paywall

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willitexplode@reddit

We have at least on average the equivalent of a plastic spoon, or plastic quart baggie, in our brains. 90% of it is polyethylene, and we’re eating half and breathing in half to get there.

To solve this problem simple stop eating foods from plastic, and stop breathing.

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Gardening is really fun and rewarding and good for the environment, I personally love it - but it’s kind of funny that people think they can subsist on what they grow. (I used to be one of them so I’m laughing at myself.) Farming/gardening for sustenance is difficult. I think people overestimate how much their fantasy “next year I’ll start” garden will yield.

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TheOtherSlug@reddit

I mean alternative agriculture was my college education, but I still dont think its as hard as you put forth for interested folk. The problem is having the time and tools. Also just some minor cooperation with a few others and more space than you need is great help.

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ToiIetGhost@reddit

Well, that’s good to hear. Since you studied this - how much land/time do you think is needed to be fully self sustained? To make it simple, let’s say it’s 1 adult who’s a vegetarian. They buy rice and dry legumes (etc.) from the store but grow everything else they need. Not sure if that’s oversimplified but I’m curious what you think.

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ArticulateRhinoceros@reddit

Not saying plastics are good or not an issue, but I do want to allay some fears about a spoon's worth of plastic in the brain.

https://www.thetransmitter.org/publishing/spoonful-of-plastics-in-your-brain-paper-has-duplicated-images/

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appleman666@reddit

Most of this type of pollution comes from car tires so there's no consumer solution to it. System change is the only solution.

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willitexplode@reddit

Car tires don't contain polyethylene. While tire dust appears to comprise the majority of microplastic dust measured in at least one study, which of course means we're breathing it in, it doesn't follow that the tire dust is what is accumulating in our brains the most. So, you can breathe a huge sigh of relief about that.

Tire dust probably accumulates in our kidneys instead.

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m0nk37@reddit

Going for a walk in the city suddenly doesn’t sound so good.

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willitexplode@reddit

I await better data, but the stats I've seen cited are that indoor air pollution is like 8x worse than outdoor air pollution. I reckon that varies based on proximity to interstates, factories, etc, but it's still concerning enough to keep my windows open.

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m0nk37@reddit

I’m referring to car tires being a major source of microplastics.

They are usually 25% min plastic by weight and the tires themselves wear down over time leeching into the air and environment.

It should be noted that there are several limitations with that data, including:

-Sample collection method not explicitly controlling for microplastics contamination during collection (the study does look at the methodology used and assesses there probably wasn't significant contamination, however)

-Additional processing for dementia brains (to test for dementia) that might have caused excess plastics levels in the samples compared to the non-dementia brains

-Level of plastics in the brain being an extrapolation off of the amount of plastics found in a small sample of a certain area of the brain (frontal cortex) and detected through mass spectroscopy, rather than, like, putting a whole brain in a blender and centrifuging out a spoon's worth of plastic (which would be a pretty amazing and damning experiment)

While microplastic contamination is undeniably a huge problem, I think the amount of plastic that some of the data from this study suggests could be in our brains is an almost unbelievable amount, similar to the factoid (erroneously derived from another paper) that we eat a credit card's worth of plastic a week. The study also doesn't outright conclude that there is a plastic spoon's worth of plastic in our brain - that is just an extrapolation of some of the paper's data - so that could very well be a misrepresentation as well.

Overall, due to the ubiquity of microplastics in our environment, I think we need highly controlled sampling if we are going to make broader conclusions based off of very small samples that could have easily been contaminated with a disproportionate amount of outside plastics. Or, again, just blender a whole brain and strain out the plastics, since some environmental plastics contamination would have little impact on the results at that scale.

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Specter313@reddit

They revised the duplicate picture but did not address the lack of control for false positives with microplastics in the brain. Weird, it is a bit ridiculous to believe that there is more plastic in our brains than our liver so we will see if anyone can replicate the study.

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willitexplode@reddit

I disagree that it's ridiculous given the differences in fat composition and the lipophilicity + size of PE

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Taqueria_Style@reddit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcxWDyZZ6vk

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boomaDooma@reddit

Double plus small plastic?

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Taqueria_Style@reddit

So what happens to the Pontiac TransAm?

*Dude just flies into a fit, flailing his tiny little hands*

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hybridfrost@reddit

Legitimate question, if we have been using plastics for nearly 80 years at this point why are we only hearing about microplastics now?

Not debating that we need to use less plastic, that's a given. Just curious how we didn't know about the dangers earlier. Was the danger covered up? or we just didn't have a way to test for them?

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F0xtr0tUnif0rm@reddit

It's a good question I don't have an answer to because I'm not an expert. I imagine it's like lead. They were putting it in everything for how long, for various beneficial reasons, before they realized it was incredibly harmful to humans? We're steal dealing with lead in soil and paint and everything years after we realized it was detrimental to physical and mental health. We were sold plastics as the infinitely recyclable thing that made everything possible, that it turns out was hardly recyclable at all. I'm sure profit had a lot to do with it. Granted, we wouldn't have a lot of things that we do without plastics.

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AFewBerries@reddit

More research is coming out recently and also there was way less plastic on the planet back then. Plastic production doubled from 2000 to 2019.

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Teenager_Simon@reddit

Thank god we have the party of free speech working on this! /s

After we ban all books and censor everything that doesn't agree with me.

because thats who pays them

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guyseeking@reddit (OP)

Scientists have found that plastic levels in human brains sampled in 2024 contain 50% more plastic than human brains sampled in 2016.

Journalist Article (National Geographic): Alarming levels of microplastics found in human brains

Scientific Article (Nature Medicine): Bioaccumulation of microplastics in decedent human brains

It's not just microplastics, but nanoplastics, which have infiltrated

the air
the water
the soil
the food
our blood
our placentas
our brains

Scientists think that this is caused by the explosive increase of plastic that is being produced and released into the environment.

For context, the amount of plastic produced globally in 2015 is 190x the amount of plastic produced globally in 1950. Half of the total amount of plastic produced in the time between 1950-2015 was produced in the 13 years between 2002-2015. (source)

Brains of people with dementia have been found to contain 10x as much plastic as brains of people without dementia. (source)

I was going to give up drinking but now it appears that won’t make a damned bit of difference.

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ThunderPreacha@reddit

The only hope for the living planet is that we leave enough plastic for plastic-eating bacteria to kickstart another evolutionary cycle at the right time and place.

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Taqueria_Style@reddit

Well I guess the cloning thing's back on, huh?

U.S. dietary intake of microplastics is estimated to be about 2.4 grams per month, while the lowest is Paraguay at 0.85 grams.

Data on airborne microplastic concentration, age demographics and human respiration rates were used to calculate microplastics being inhaled. Residents of China and Mongolia topped the list, breathing in more than 2.8 million particles per month. U.S. residents inhale about 300,000 particles per month. Only residents in the Mediterranean and nearby regions breathed less, with countries like Spain, Portugal and Hungary breathing about 60,000 to 240,000 particles per month.

Dont worry though everyone will catch up

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steppingrazor1220@reddit

It sure is. Plasma donation has been shown to reduce it.

To be fair, to jump from some odd 100 million humans over eons to then 8 billion in some 200 years span...well, that's nothing short of miraculous/disastrous.

To have micro plastics be one of the more pernicious aspects of modern living that nobody can avoid...well, it's kinda like Bill Gates letting Malaria mosquitos infect the audience.

It has a sobering and sombering effect.

We're all gonna die from "not smartness" that comes from plastic in our wheels of our cars being in the air and then our lungs processes it into our bloodstream, and then our brain, cuz we can't filter it out, cuz our bodies aren't used to dealing with micro plastics, having never encountered them before the past 200 years, at most.

Just compare speeches between officials from 100 years ago and today. Dialogue and speech patterns didn't just evolve naturally through time; we're witnessing active regression of humanity's intellect and cognitive capacity.

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JulianMorganthau@reddit

To your last point - Charles Dickens wrote his novels "for the masses", which in mid-Victorian England were pretty much not formally educated.

Very few English-speakers today can easily read the English that he used in his novels.

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TheStrangestOfKings@reddit

Hell, very few English speakers can read today. Look at how many can’t even manage to get through a ten minute news article, or just get their info off of headlines

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JulianMorganthau@reddit

TL;DR

I've read they're putting fast composter on bodies in the US due to them not decomposing normally

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NobodysFavorite@reddit

So this is why the term "neuroplasticity" has been gaining traction over the last few years.

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anonymistically@reddit

Look, I'm here because I'm with you. Imminent collapse, it's coming, and oh boy are we not ready. There's no saving it, we're cooked, it's done.

But of all the things, is not going to be fucking microplastics that take us out.

Plastic is inert. That's why it turns into microplastics - because it just doesn't interact with the organic system on earth. Not totally, there's nuance and everything, but it just doesn't do to your body what lead or asbestos or thalidomide does. We have generational trauma about things like that and everyone here is right to be distrustful in general, but I just gotta say it's like the absolute least of our worries.

Who cares if it's hanging out in your brain? It's not doing anything. And we know next to nothing about what REALLY causes dementia, and trying to pin it on some alt-left boogeyman is dumb. How many conditions did they try to correlate with microplastics before they found one? Just superstition and bullshit.

We're not going to be done in by some "plastic brain drain". There is far too much way bigger stuff coming at us right now.

Please know that I'm not telling you to stop worrying. I'm telling you, you should be way way way way more worried about the imminent downfall of human society and the famine, war, refugees, ecological extinction and oh so much death that is coming over the next few decades as governments and societies collapse collapse collapse.

Algae created carbon lifeform.

Carbon creates silicon lifeform.

While it was abundant in the 2000ds, you still had retreats from it. Parks, forests, rural areas...

Now you are exposed to it constantly. Every breath, touch, drink or food is full of it.

Most of it gets into your brain trough breathing. So the biggest culprit is airborne particles.

You spend most of your time at home, at work, and traveling between those two.

The traveling part is realy bad. Tires rub off on the asphalt and release a fuck ton of microplastics. So when you are on the road it's especially bad.

On a more serious note… I’d imagine the amount is not exactly equal between countries and socio economic status? Isn’t it something like 90% of all microplastics being generated in the 10 most polluted river systems on earth? People who depend on sea food along those rivers or where they lead into the ocean are probably much more severely hit. Especially compared with some distant farmers living off mountainous freshwater and crops grown inland.

Totally worth it to not have to use glass bottles and such though, eh?

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BleaKrytE@reddit

I wonder if in 2120, people will be think of this the same way we think of the early 20th century radioactive quackeries or leaded gasoline.

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NyriasNeo@reddit

"Our brains have 50% more plastic in them than they did in 2016. Where does it go from here?"

Up, obviously. There will be more, not less micro plastic in our brains. There is no known way of taking a significant amount out, and all we can do is put less into the environment.

We may as well accept and make peace, because like it or not, plastic will be in our brains.

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Haavard-Pettersen@reddit

Isn’t brain plasticity supposed to be good?

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Nadie_AZ@reddit

I grow a human horn. Don't tell anyone on Omicron Persei 8.

This is nothing but alarmist claptrap.

Now if anyone needs me I'm going to be staring off into space in a partial fugue state. Don't worry, the violent ringing in my ears keeps me company.

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PickScylla4ME@reddit

The voting booths, apparently.

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jsc1429@reddit

Parabolic gains, it only goes up!

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Romulox_returns@reddit

Death basically

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Collapse_is_underway@reddit

I'd wager that it's part of the unwilling mass sterilization of Nature (and so, us, since we're part of it).

We'll get the zombie apocalypse, just not the one we pictured and/or wanted :]

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The worst part of the zombie apocalypse is that I still have to clock into work.

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Jukka_Sarasti@reddit

Worst... apocalypse..... ever.......

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Taqueria_Style@reddit

Don't worry, I heard they're fixing CERN. Now, the next time they go to "fix this mess", instead of JD Vance turning into a giant sand worm, releasing Trump / Epstein gay sex tapes, and taking his place as the Emperor of Mankind...

We'll get... a 2-D side scroller reality where the sky is the ground and ducks will rain up from the sky...

Which bluntly is an improvement so... whatever...

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Taqueria_Style@reddit

Welcome to zombieburger would you like to try our new "turn your brain into a paperweight" shake?

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Various_Weather2013@reddit

Zombieism is a spectrum.

I'm still wearing masks a lot of the time, but maybe it's partly from all the N95s people wore during the past ten years.

Most N95s have dust residue on them from the manufacturing process.

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accountaccumulator@reddit

I was wondering about the effects of mask wearing. Is there evidence that they shed microplastics/PFAS?

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PM-me-in-100-years@reddit

There's plenty of evidence. 3M even differentiates their products based on how much "process dust" residue is in them, labeling some masks as for industrial/occupational use only.

DonBandolini@reddit

i don’t think that’s even true though. a 50% increase in 10 years is extremely concerning, regardless of the quantity.

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Thor4269@reddit

The average amount of plastic the brain contains is roughly the amount in a plastic spoon

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/the-human-brain-may-contain-as-much-as-a-spoons-worth-of-microplastics-new-research-suggests-180985995/

So I guess it went from half a spoon's worth to an entire spoon's worth

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trotptkabasnbi@reddit

No.... "the human brain may contain as much as a spoon's worth of microplastics". That's not the average amount, it's the theoretical maximum.

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heuve@reddit

Increasing by 50% means it would have gone from 2/3 of a plastic spoon to one full spoon's worth.

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FaradayEffect@reddit

Just click on the link in OP’s post and scroll down. Here let me link to it directly for you: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-024-03453-1

It's not just microplastics, but nanoplastics, which have infiltrated

the air
the water
the soil
the food
our blood
our placentas
our brains

Scientists think that this is caused by the explosive increase of plastic that is being produced and released into the environment.

For context, the amount of plastic produced globally in 2015 is 190x the amount of plastic produced globally in 1950. Half of the total amount of plastic produced in the time between 1950-2015 was produced in the 13 years between 2002-2015. (source)

Brains of people with dementia have been found to contain 10x as much plastic as brains of people without dementia. (source)

Global plastic production is not being reduced. It is increasing, as it has been for the past 100+ years. (source, source)

If the past 9 years has seen a 50% increase in accumulation of plastic in the human brain, what does that mean for all of us in the immediate near future?

Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1josr9y/our_brains_have_50_more_plastic_in_them_than_they/mku49t3/

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