1y ago

Please stop the ride, I want off

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Honestly I think that were a little overly concerned about microplastics since if it were truly poisonous you would hear about plastic poisoning in the news hundreds of times a day. My parents chain smoked their whole life absolutely full of carcinogens way worse than microplastics for decades and they are still kicking in their mid 60s today. The human body under normal circumstances is ridiculously resistant
- It could be cancer that takes years to develop. Most things like that like asbestos, lead, etc... take a long time to be detected/ figure out how they're damaging the body. Even once they are, you can't prove that's what caused it without scientific testing/ statistics.
  Microplastics can act as carriers of other environmental toxins, such as PS, and exposure to high concentrations of PS are detrimental to human lung cells, increasing the risk of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
- "nothing bad happened to me that I can tell so it must not be a real thing."
  
  I mean, I look at it this way.
  We know cigarettes cause cancer, sure. Maybe people didn't know long ago, but you could always choose whether or not to smoke them. Even when smoking was rampant, there were always those that just didn't want to, whether or not they could tell its effects.
  I can't choose whether or not to have microplastics in my blood so I try not to worry about whether or not it will affect me.
  There are so many things in this world that we can choose that it doesn't really make sense worrying about what we can't.
  
  On the flip side, the world found out there was a big hole developing in the ozone layer, determined that it was a Bad Thing(tm), figured out the cause, and came together to reverse it for the betterment of humanity. Raising awareness of the problems with CFCs was a big part of that. Did each individual with a can of hair spray or a freon-based air conditioner have to make the conscious choice to select different products? No, but public sentiment and market pressure eventually became overwhelming and global accord was realized. (greatly simplified for brevity).

32 comments