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This is as much as a discovery as finding that banknote of 100 in your old jeans that you forgot about.. Garbage can't be 'new' Don't get me wrong, horrible is
by thinkMOAR 9y ago
This is as much as a discovery as finding that banknote of 100 in your old jeans that you forgot about.. Garbage can't be 'new'
Don't get me wrong, horrible issue and glad to see some articles pass by on HN that try to address this issue. But calling it a 'discovery' is a bit odd imho.
- phireal 9y agoThis is an odd attitude: we have all sorts of new discoveries of things that are ancient. The whole field of geology is based on very ancient things and it makes discoveries all the time. A discovery just means it's new to us, not necessarily that it's entirely new (whatever that means).
- thinkMOAR 9y agoi agree, odd attitude towards odd claimed discovery. There is a difference between ancient things, which have gaps between civilisations vs garbage we threw out the last 30-40 years and chose to ignore?
- phireal 9y agoThe 'new' aspect of this discovery is that we didn't know it was there before. I think that's a perfectly valid thing to call new. I don't think anyone's claiming the plastic is new.
- thinkMOAR 9y agohttps://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jul/05/plastic-waste-dumped-in-uk-seas-carried-to-arctic-within-two-years https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jul/05/plastic-... And that's why i think its not a discovery, we knew it was there before.