6 ms·

I think hate of plastics is an emergent form of elitism. Upwardly mobile middle/upper class people who've sort of "maxed out" the amount of personal identity t

I think hate of plastics is an emergent form of elitism. Upwardly mobile middle/upper class people who've sort of "maxed out" the amount of personal identity they can buy with regular plastic things can unlock a new level of identity by deciding that plastics are bad for them and eliminating plastics from their life, a process which conveniently requires buying a whole new set of things that distinguish them from their peers. This is the only way I can explain how irrational and inconsistent plastic-haters behavior is. There is so much invisible plastic in their life that they don't seem to care about.

ButlerianJihad 3mo ago
Even more so: plastics are not a specific chemical and they are not a specific material. Plastic is a category of materials that is very broad and very wide. You can make plastics out of almost anything. Therefore, to hate on plastics is to basically hate on an entire category of engineering and material design but not to actually know what a plastic is... sheer ignorance.
- estearum 3mo ago
  Yes, it's a category of materials that is overwhelmingly populated by a much more specific, ultra-cheap and therefore ultra-pervasive, set of chemicals which are shown in study after study to have worrying characteristics. Anything that shows evidence of omnipresence, endocrine disruption, bioaccumulation, and inter-generational transmission should be extremely, extremely closely scrutinized. To think otherwise is absolute braindead contrarianism, full-stop.
  - ButlerianJihad 3mo ago
    Personally, I think that the Microplastics Moral Panic is a textbook study of F.U.D. There is practically nothing that ordinary people can do for prevention, mitigation, diagnosis or treatment of microplastics in our bodies, so I therefore conclude that it is futile and wasteful to worry or argue about it, unless you have abundant free time and resources to get paranoid strangers all in a frenzy, for no good reason.
    - estearum 3mo ago
      Did this apply to people freaking out about lead a couple decades ago? What about those advocating for smoking bans in shared spaces? Cholera outbreaks near the city water wells? Or are microplastics special in some way?
      - marcosdumay 3mo ago
        We didn't ban water or metals because of the things in your examples. Discover what plastic is harmful and we can't start to talk.
        estearum 3mo ago
        This is a fine argument against banning plastics. This is unrelated to "Microplastics Moral Panic is a textbook study of F.U.D." though. If microplastics are a case of FUD, then there's nothing to look into. How and why would anyone discover anything surrounding a case of moral panic/FUD? By definition, there's nothing to discover.
    - topgrain2 3mo ago
      I half-assed try to avoid plastic in contact with (especially very) hot food or drink, and avoid it in long-term food containers, in no small part because I've seen things like plastic cooking spoons losing non-microscopic parts of themselves in food, and I find the stains plastic storage containers acquire after a little use kinda worrisome (I'd rather my reusable storage containers not be that permeable, thank you very much), but otherwise agree that any real amount of effort to avoid microplastics would probably do more good if it took the form of a 20-minute jog per week, i.e. "don't even consider worrying about it unless you've really, really got all your other health stuff sorted out" Like I'm pretty sure the bigger health risk with a plastic soda straw is the soda, not the straw, you know?
cobbzilla 3mo ago
> requires buying a whole new set of things that distinguish them from their peers No, it requires buying a whole new set of things to fit in with and be accepted by their peers, to distinguish themselves from the outgroup, the plastic users. I don’t necessarily believe this is some emergent elitism; I see it more as a modern religion with many many rules about eating and consumption (using plastic is now a sin). Like any religion, sinners (for example plastic users) are mostly pitied because they are ignorant, but those who know and choose to use plastic anyway, well, it’s OK to hate them.
- Apocryphon 3mo ago
  I've addressed this idea in a sibling comment. I think at least some superstition is inevitable in any subculture. Consider how many tech 'holy wars' might involve baseless beliefs about how a text editor or programming language or whatever being not only superior because of personal preference but because it's inherently more optimized. Treating anti-micro-plastics as a "religion" rather than a subculture based on a meme deserves a bit more nuance. 1. Is it based on inherently irrational, unfactual beliefs, e.g. anti-vaccination or anti-5G myths? 2. If we consider religion as a way to explain complex phenomena using just-so stories (the pop anthropology / layman idea of primitive man inventing Zeus to explain lightning), then what intellectual or emotional need does anti-microplastics belief validate?
  - sublinear 3mo ago
    All culture is shared ignorance. These comparisons to religion are inverted. Religion was born out of cultures needing to herd their people. You're right that the debate about plastics is mostly meaningless noise by people who don't really care. Taking advantage of uncertainty while it still exists is a lucrative game. None of this is comparable to software. Writing software is a choice and the users don't have to care beyond the UI. It's apathy, not ignorance, that holds software back. Text editors and programming languages are not usually the highest priority choice to make. The majority of software tends to be specialized one-off solutions. We don't exactly have chemists cooking up their own kitchenware materials on the weekend.
Der_Einzige 3mo ago
Every plastic object replaced with a metal, or similarly strong/more solid material is an upgrade.
Apocryphon 3mo ago
You could just liken it to any pop health, dietary, or environmental fad instead of trying to portray a banal "people turn consumer choices into personal identity/lifestyle" trend as a whole new class of phenomenon. Crunchy hippies shop organic and audiophiles buy gold-plated premium wires; every subculture has at least a little bit of superstition.
estearum 3mo ago
> There is so much invisible plastic in their life that they don't seem to care about. Huh? You think it's hypocritical for people not to "seem to care about" things that, by your own definition, they are ignorant of?
globular-toast 3mo ago
Are you sure it's all irrational? I, for one, prefer other materials for many things because they are more durable, hygenic or simply feels nicer. Seems perfectly rational to me. An irrational choice would be something like carrying a heavy canvas tent with wooden poles just because you hate plastic. Do you know anyone who does that?
dlcarrier 3mo ago
Health in general has always worked like this, from supplements, to organic food, to avoiding ultra-processed foods, to gluten-free diets, pretty much every popular health fad has no provable causative effect on health. Most of human behavior is irrational. If we were all perfectly rational, we would have healthy diet and exercise habits from the get go, and we'd have plenty of time to prepare food and exercise, because we wouldn't waste any time on entertainment.
- gruez 3mo ago
  >pretty much every popular health fad has no provable causative effect on health. Isn't this almost true by definition? If it actually works, it's not a "fad", just "science" or whatever. Advice like "eat more vegetables" and "don't drink alcohol" probably do work, but they're ingrained enough that nobody thinks they're "fads".
  - dlcarrier 3mo ago
    The late 1800's health craze centered around Battle Creek, Michigan has had long lasting cultural and dietary impact, but I think most people would still call it a fad, because the core tenants were only popular for a short time. Besides, the breakfast cereal movement it created quickly devolved from the Kellogg's and Post's original healthy cereals, Corn Flakes and Grape Nuts respectively, into the sugar-laden craze of 1950's cereals. Even Graham crackers were healthy and bland at the time, but we now associate them with cinnamon and sugar.
- green_wheel 3mo ago
  You might want to rethink your position on avoiding ultra processed foods not having any positive health effects...
  - dlcarrier 3mo ago
    If someone comes out with a study that shows, all other things being equal, decreasing or increasing the amount of ultra-processed foods causes a respective increase or decrease in health, then I will rethink my stance. Until then, I'll keep eating foods consisting of proven healthy ingredients, even if they are classified as Nova 4 ultra-processed, such as lasagna made using my great grandmother's recipe or ancient Mayan dishes like pavo con achiote and also cochinita pibil, while avoiding foods that are proven unhealthy despite the not-ultra-processed Nova 3 and lower status, like Cronuts, potato chips, and bacon cheeseburgers.
reducesuffering 3mo ago
Interesting theory but doesn't really coincide with on the ground facts. We know there has been an increase in hormonal issues. We can barely even get anyone to stop heating up and microwaving plastic to be ingested, which we know causes issues. The European Food Safety Authority completed a re-evaluation into the risks of BPA in 2023, concluding that its tolerable daily intake should be greatly reduced. BPA was everywhere, every can and receipt. Just because people can't identify all the ways plastic is ubiquitously ingested in their life, it means they're hypocritical and don't care about the unknowns?
guelo 3mo ago
Why was that we used to be able to ban environmental toxins such as leaded gasoline without this weird psycho-social-political analysis that has become the fashion in some circles?
titzer 3mo ago
I've picked up enough plastics off the beaches of the world already. Plastic ruins ecosystems and is a scourge on this planet. It's too late to fix, it's everywhere. 8 million tonnes of plastics enter the oceans every year, and it just keeps accumulating. We're ruining marine ecosystems.

ButlerianJihad 3mo ago

Even more so: plastics are not a specific chemical and they are not a specific material. Plastic is a category of materials that is very broad and very wide. You can make plastics out of almost anything. Therefore, to hate on plastics is to basically hate on an entire category of engineering and material design but not to actually know what a plastic is... sheer ignorance.

estearum 3mo ago
Yes, it's a category of materials that is overwhelmingly populated by a much more specific, ultra-cheap and therefore ultra-pervasive, set of chemicals which are shown in study after study to have worrying characteristics. Anything that shows evidence of omnipresence, endocrine disruption, bioaccumulation, and inter-generational transmission should be extremely, extremely closely scrutinized. To think otherwise is absolute braindead contrarianism, full-stop.
- ButlerianJihad 3mo ago
  Personally, I think that the Microplastics Moral Panic is a textbook study of F.U.D. There is practically nothing that ordinary people can do for prevention, mitigation, diagnosis or treatment of microplastics in our bodies, so I therefore conclude that it is futile and wasteful to worry or argue about it, unless you have abundant free time and resources to get paranoid strangers all in a frenzy, for no good reason.
  - estearum 3mo ago
    Did this apply to people freaking out about lead a couple decades ago? What about those advocating for smoking bans in shared spaces? Cholera outbreaks near the city water wells? Or are microplastics special in some way?
    - marcosdumay 3mo ago
      We didn't ban water or metals because of the things in your examples. Discover what plastic is harmful and we can't start to talk.
      - estearum 3mo ago
        This is a fine argument against banning plastics. This is unrelated to "Microplastics Moral Panic is a textbook study of F.U.D." though. If microplastics are a case of FUD, then there's nothing to look into. How and why would anyone discover anything surrounding a case of moral panic/FUD? By definition, there's nothing to discover.
  - topgrain2 3mo ago
    I half-assed try to avoid plastic in contact with (especially very) hot food or drink, and avoid it in long-term food containers, in no small part because I've seen things like plastic cooking spoons losing non-microscopic parts of themselves in food, and I find the stains plastic storage containers acquire after a little use kinda worrisome (I'd rather my reusable storage containers not be that permeable, thank you very much), but otherwise agree that any real amount of effort to avoid microplastics would probably do more good if it took the form of a 20-minute jog per week, i.e. "don't even consider worrying about it unless you've really, really got all your other health stuff sorted out" Like I'm pretty sure the bigger health risk with a plastic soda straw is the soda, not the straw, you know?

cobbzilla 3mo ago

> requires buying a whole new set of things that distinguish them from their peers No, it requires buying a whole new set of things to fit in with and be accepted by their peers, to distinguish themselves from the outgroup, the plastic users. I don’t necessarily believe this is some emergent elitism; I see it more as a modern religion with many many rules about eating and consumption (using plastic is now a sin). Like any religion, sinners (for example plastic users) are mostly pitied because they are ignorant, but those who know and choose to use plastic anyway, well, it’s OK to hate them.

Apocryphon 3mo ago
I've addressed this idea in a sibling comment. I think at least some superstition is inevitable in any subculture. Consider how many tech 'holy wars' might involve baseless beliefs about how a text editor or programming language or whatever being not only superior because of personal preference but because it's inherently more optimized. Treating anti-micro-plastics as a "religion" rather than a subculture based on a meme deserves a bit more nuance. 1. Is it based on inherently irrational, unfactual beliefs, e.g. anti-vaccination or anti-5G myths? 2. If we consider religion as a way to explain complex phenomena using just-so stories (the pop anthropology / layman idea of primitive man inventing Zeus to explain lightning), then what intellectual or emotional need does anti-microplastics belief validate?
- sublinear 3mo ago
  All culture is shared ignorance. These comparisons to religion are inverted. Religion was born out of cultures needing to herd their people. You're right that the debate about plastics is mostly meaningless noise by people who don't really care. Taking advantage of uncertainty while it still exists is a lucrative game. None of this is comparable to software. Writing software is a choice and the users don't have to care beyond the UI. It's apathy, not ignorance, that holds software back. Text editors and programming languages are not usually the highest priority choice to make. The majority of software tends to be specialized one-off solutions. We don't exactly have chemists cooking up their own kitchenware materials on the weekend.

Der_Einzige 3mo ago

Every plastic object replaced with a metal, or similarly strong/more solid material is an upgrade.

Apocryphon 3mo ago

You could just liken it to any pop health, dietary, or environmental fad instead of trying to portray a banal "people turn consumer choices into personal identity/lifestyle" trend as a whole new class of phenomenon. Crunchy hippies shop organic and audiophiles buy gold-plated premium wires; every subculture has at least a little bit of superstition.

estearum 3mo ago

> There is so much invisible plastic in their life that they don't seem to care about. Huh? You think it's hypocritical for people not to "seem to care about" things that, by your own definition, they are ignorant of?

globular-toast 3mo ago

Are you sure it's all irrational? I, for one, prefer other materials for many things because they are more durable, hygenic or simply feels nicer. Seems perfectly rational to me. An irrational choice would be something like carrying a heavy canvas tent with wooden poles just because you hate plastic. Do you know anyone who does that?

dlcarrier 3mo ago

Health in general has always worked like this, from supplements, to organic food, to avoiding ultra-processed foods, to gluten-free diets, pretty much every popular health fad has no provable causative effect on health. Most of human behavior is irrational. If we were all perfectly rational, we would have healthy diet and exercise habits from the get go, and we'd have plenty of time to prepare food and exercise, because we wouldn't waste any time on entertainment.

gruez 3mo ago
>pretty much every popular health fad has no provable causative effect on health. Isn't this almost true by definition? If it actually works, it's not a "fad", just "science" or whatever. Advice like "eat more vegetables" and "don't drink alcohol" probably do work, but they're ingrained enough that nobody thinks they're "fads".
- dlcarrier 3mo ago
  The late 1800's health craze centered around Battle Creek, Michigan has had long lasting cultural and dietary impact, but I think most people would still call it a fad, because the core tenants were only popular for a short time. Besides, the breakfast cereal movement it created quickly devolved from the Kellogg's and Post's original healthy cereals, Corn Flakes and Grape Nuts respectively, into the sugar-laden craze of 1950's cereals. Even Graham crackers were healthy and bland at the time, but we now associate them with cinnamon and sugar.
green_wheel 3mo ago
You might want to rethink your position on avoiding ultra processed foods not having any positive health effects...
- dlcarrier 3mo ago
  If someone comes out with a study that shows, all other things being equal, decreasing or increasing the amount of ultra-processed foods causes a respective increase or decrease in health, then I will rethink my stance. Until then, I'll keep eating foods consisting of proven healthy ingredients, even if they are classified as Nova 4 ultra-processed, such as lasagna made using my great grandmother's recipe or ancient Mayan dishes like pavo con achiote and also cochinita pibil, while avoiding foods that are proven unhealthy despite the not-ultra-processed Nova 3 and lower status, like Cronuts, potato chips, and bacon cheeseburgers.

reducesuffering 3mo ago

Interesting theory but doesn't really coincide with on the ground facts. We know there has been an increase in hormonal issues. We can barely even get anyone to stop heating up and microwaving plastic to be ingested, which we know causes issues. The European Food Safety Authority completed a re-evaluation into the risks of BPA in 2023, concluding that its tolerable daily intake should be greatly reduced. BPA was everywhere, every can and receipt. Just because people can't identify all the ways plastic is ubiquitously ingested in their life, it means they're hypocritical and don't care about the unknowns?

guelo 3mo ago

Why was that we used to be able to ban environmental toxins such as leaded gasoline without this weird psycho-social-political analysis that has become the fashion in some circles?

titzer 3mo ago

I've picked up enough plastics off the beaches of the world already. Plastic ruins ecosystems and is a scourge on this planet. It's too late to fix, it's everywhere. 8 million tonnes of plastics enter the oceans every year, and it just keeps accumulating. We're ruining marine ecosystems.