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They literally use these chemicals to grease the wheels of food packaging plants, everything you have ever owned that is waterproof is covered them. They fluor

They literally use these chemicals to grease the wheels of food packaging plants, everything you have ever owned that is waterproof is covered them. They fluorinate plastic containers that hold our food so that the food doesn’t taste funny. They are never going away.

_heimdall 3y ago
Why are they never going away? Every use you list there is specific to centralized, industrial agriculture. That's a modern invention that could absolutely be rolled back if people grow more of their own food and buy locally what they can't do themselves. Humans made it very, very long without plastics and PFAS. Are we really to assume that a few decades with them and we'll never go back, by choice or otherwise?
- lenerdenator 3y ago
  Centralized, industrial agriculture is more-or-less necessary to feed as many people as we have. Like I'm growing potatoes but I'm not under the impression that I'm going to be able to feed myself to an acceptable caloric and nutritional level off of what I can grow on a third of an acre or whatever my yard is.
  - _heimdall 3y ago
    If we agree that centralized, industrial agriculture has fundamental problems that can't be avoided, its a moot point whether its the only way to feed today's population. We can't kick the can down the road and throw more control at a problem hoping the system never cracks, given enough time that will *always* fail. Local food doesn't have to mean growing it for yourself in your own yard. Buying local food is a huge improvement. When the food is grown in your area and doesn't have to be processed or packaged to handle national infrastructure challenges the plastics and PFAS aren't necessary. When buying locally you can also have the ability to actually see where and how the food is grown, an option that is never possible when the food is grown across the country, shipped overseas for processing/packaging, and shipped back before eventually hitting shelves at your local chain store.
    - Novosell 3y ago
      Unless you actively start destroying modern technology and infrastructure, it's never gonna go back to people generally buying locally produced. Or you'd have to get a totalitarian government with a plan economy with this issue as a primary focus. Neither sounds realistic to me. Either situation would also require many people to die as people now live in places which can't support themselves with the nearby farmland. So what are you, in practice, actually advocating for?
      - _heimdall 3y ago
        Well I'm definitely not advocating for a totalitarian state, I was specifically talking about consumer markets driving change if we collectively care enough. I'm advocating for the fact that consumers could make many of the changes we often hear about happen if we actually cared. We have a habit if many people, even majorities of people, yelling about problems like climate change, deforestation, chemical contamination, etc. But we all still choose to use products that contribute to those exact problems. We have no idea what the exact outcomes would be if, for example, consumers stopped buying any products that use PFAS and forced the industry to go away. There would certainly be ripple effects, but I'd argue that those effects will always be better handled when consumers decide to enact change rather than waiting for governments to force it on us all at once or for the environmental damages cause to grow so large that we run into real, devastating outcomes. If we know we're supporting products and companies that are making things worse, we're choosing to kick the can down the road and hope its long enough that its the next person's problem when the pile of damage has gotten too big.
      - mattmaroon 3y ago
        People like that never know. They don’t know how the system works, they’re just pretty sure it’s bad. You can argue with them but there’s no point. We have 8 billion humans alive, who mostly all want to stay alive and keep eating food. We got to 8 billion entirely because of modern agriculture. But, they are sure, we really don’t need it, we can all just eat local joe farmer’s tomatoes. Nevermind that it’s seasonal and more expensive (and who doesn’t want to can all their food in summer, and who doesn’t have unlimited time and money to devote to food?) we’ll all be just fine. It’s the same with PFAs. They think they just do nothing that can’t be easily replaced, but if you ask them what those PFAs do (must do something if there are that many of them) or how else you’d accomplish those tasks, they’re not quite sure other than they know we should just ban them all tomorrow and everything will be ok. It’s easy to criticize a system you don’t understand and assume it’s all just rigged against us.
- weregiraffe 3y ago
  >Humans made it very, very long without plastics and PFAS. Yeah, sure. Pre-industrial population level with pre-industrial living conditions and life expectancy. I prefer plastics.
  - _heimdall 3y ago
    That's totally reasonable, though I assume that means you also accept, and don't complain about, environmental damage, global warming, or any of the health conditions related to environmental contaminants from plastics and their manufacturing. I'd also assume that you don't see EVs as a practical solution, or any non-petroleum engine, since plastics can't be made without oil and it'd be crazy to drill enough oil to keep our post-industrial lives without using the refined gas and diesel that we'd be creating anyway.
    - weregiraffe 3y ago
      In the long term, we are all dead anyway. In the short term, nuclear power could solve all these problems if people weren't idiots.
    - datadrivenangel 3y ago
      Disagree. If we can fix some downside of plastics, we ought to complain and take action.
      - _heimdall 3y ago
        What would that look like, fixing downsides of plastics? Are you thinking about a top-down government fix, or a more bottom-up fix driven by consumers unwilling to use plastics?

_heimdall 3y ago

Why are they never going away? Every use you list there is specific to centralized, industrial agriculture. That's a modern invention that could absolutely be rolled back if people grow more of their own food and buy locally what they can't do themselves. Humans made it very, very long without plastics and PFAS. Are we really to assume that a few decades with them and we'll never go back, by choice or otherwise?

lenerdenator 3y ago
Centralized, industrial agriculture is more-or-less necessary to feed as many people as we have. Like I'm growing potatoes but I'm not under the impression that I'm going to be able to feed myself to an acceptable caloric and nutritional level off of what I can grow on a third of an acre or whatever my yard is.
- _heimdall 3y ago
  If we agree that centralized, industrial agriculture has fundamental problems that can't be avoided, its a moot point whether its the only way to feed today's population. We can't kick the can down the road and throw more control at a problem hoping the system never cracks, given enough time that will *always* fail. Local food doesn't have to mean growing it for yourself in your own yard. Buying local food is a huge improvement. When the food is grown in your area and doesn't have to be processed or packaged to handle national infrastructure challenges the plastics and PFAS aren't necessary. When buying locally you can also have the ability to actually see where and how the food is grown, an option that is never possible when the food is grown across the country, shipped overseas for processing/packaging, and shipped back before eventually hitting shelves at your local chain store.
  - Novosell 3y ago
    Unless you actively start destroying modern technology and infrastructure, it's never gonna go back to people generally buying locally produced. Or you'd have to get a totalitarian government with a plan economy with this issue as a primary focus. Neither sounds realistic to me. Either situation would also require many people to die as people now live in places which can't support themselves with the nearby farmland. So what are you, in practice, actually advocating for?
    - _heimdall 3y ago
      Well I'm definitely not advocating for a totalitarian state, I was specifically talking about consumer markets driving change if we collectively care enough. I'm advocating for the fact that consumers could make many of the changes we often hear about happen if we actually cared. We have a habit if many people, even majorities of people, yelling about problems like climate change, deforestation, chemical contamination, etc. But we all still choose to use products that contribute to those exact problems. We have no idea what the exact outcomes would be if, for example, consumers stopped buying any products that use PFAS and forced the industry to go away. There would certainly be ripple effects, but I'd argue that those effects will always be better handled when consumers decide to enact change rather than waiting for governments to force it on us all at once or for the environmental damages cause to grow so large that we run into real, devastating outcomes. If we know we're supporting products and companies that are making things worse, we're choosing to kick the can down the road and hope its long enough that its the next person's problem when the pile of damage has gotten too big.
    - mattmaroon 3y ago
      People like that never know. They don’t know how the system works, they’re just pretty sure it’s bad. You can argue with them but there’s no point. We have 8 billion humans alive, who mostly all want to stay alive and keep eating food. We got to 8 billion entirely because of modern agriculture. But, they are sure, we really don’t need it, we can all just eat local joe farmer’s tomatoes. Nevermind that it’s seasonal and more expensive (and who doesn’t want to can all their food in summer, and who doesn’t have unlimited time and money to devote to food?) we’ll all be just fine. It’s the same with PFAs. They think they just do nothing that can’t be easily replaced, but if you ask them what those PFAs do (must do something if there are that many of them) or how else you’d accomplish those tasks, they’re not quite sure other than they know we should just ban them all tomorrow and everything will be ok. It’s easy to criticize a system you don’t understand and assume it’s all just rigged against us.
weregiraffe 3y ago
>Humans made it very, very long without plastics and PFAS. Yeah, sure. Pre-industrial population level with pre-industrial living conditions and life expectancy. I prefer plastics.
- _heimdall 3y ago
  That's totally reasonable, though I assume that means you also accept, and don't complain about, environmental damage, global warming, or any of the health conditions related to environmental contaminants from plastics and their manufacturing. I'd also assume that you don't see EVs as a practical solution, or any non-petroleum engine, since plastics can't be made without oil and it'd be crazy to drill enough oil to keep our post-industrial lives without using the refined gas and diesel that we'd be creating anyway.
  - weregiraffe 3y ago
    In the long term, we are all dead anyway. In the short term, nuclear power could solve all these problems if people weren't idiots.
  - datadrivenangel 3y ago
    Disagree. If we can fix some downside of plastics, we ought to complain and take action.
    - _heimdall 3y ago
      What would that look like, fixing downsides of plastics? Are you thinking about a top-down government fix, or a more bottom-up fix driven by consumers unwilling to use plastics?