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What Do We Know About the Microplastics Inside Us?

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Re: What Do We Know About the Microplastics Inside Us?

#91

Post by titzer »

andrenotgiant wrote: post #13

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 the…

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.

Re: What Do We Know About the Microplastics Inside Us?

#92

Post by cwillu »

tristor wrote: post #30
codybontecou wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can microplastics never get small enough to interact with T cells?

Unknown to me, but something useful to know is that there is something smaller than microplastics called nanoplastics. The distinguishing factor is that nanoplastics are particles smaller than 1 micron, while microplastics are particles between 1 micron and around 5 millimeters. As your other respondent notes, at some point you're talking about single molecules. As plastics is an entire category and not a single thin…

> 5 millimeters

TIL thermoplastic pellets are “microplastics” :)

Re: What Do We Know About the Microplastics Inside Us?

#93

Post by rTX5CMRXIfFG »

Xirdus wrote: post #73
unparagoned wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s wrong. Only if the studies are powerful enough and are looking at the right stuff can you make any reasonable conclusions. If the studies are powerful enough then that absolutely isn’t evidence of absence at all.

Evidence can be strong or weak. Every positive study result is evidence of presence, usually strong evidence. Every negative study result is evidence of absence, usually very weak evidence.

And yet, people can be extremely vigilant about a positive correlation when it doesn’t fit their personal agenda, going as far as questioning methodology in even the least pragmatic ways possible; or, become accepting of the absence of evidence as evidence of absence when weak/no correlation is convenient to their own biases.

Re: What Do We Know About the Microplastics Inside Us?

#94

Post by tristor »

cwillu wrote: post #92
tristor wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unknown to me, but something useful to know is that there is something smaller than microplastics called nanoplastics. The distinguishing factor is that nanoplastics are particles smaller than 1 micron, while microplastics are particles between 1 micron and around 5 millimeters. As your other respondent notes, at some point you're talking about single molecules. As plastics is an entire category and not a single thin…

> 5 millimeters TIL thermoplastic pellets are “microplastics” :)

I don't make the definition

Re: What Do We Know About the Microplastics Inside Us?

#95

Post by ransom1538 »

etrautmann wrote: post #38
legitster wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> She probably will not publish this result because she thinks it is not interesting enough. Classic file-drawer problem in academic science. It's truly insane that everyone in the academic class understands the fundamental problems of herding and sampling bias and yet every incentive is in place to do this.

Having lived this reality, people respond to incentives. Your have to very fundamentally re-architect the incentives and career progression in academia to make publication of null results more common. The other side of this is reducing the time and hassle of publication. Right now I’m unlikely to battle for 1.5-3 years to get something through peer review for a result that nobody will find interesting.

More devastating, the null results we would be really valuable with machines that can think. (Not humans that don't give a shit).

Re: What Do We Know About the Microplastics Inside Us?

#96

Post by estearum »

marcosdumay wrote: post #74
estearum wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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.

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.

Re: What Do We Know About the Microplastics Inside Us?

#97

Post by sublinear »

Apocryphon wrote: post #89
sublinear wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ca…

Software development creates subcultures, just like any other occupation, craft, human activity. Tech holy wars is a thing, and I'm sure a lot of it dealt with articles of faith just like any other source of controversy. https://gwern.net/holy-war https://wiki.c2.com/?HolyWar I brought them up to illustrate that any endeavor will end up pockets of irrationality as part of the general culture. Doubtless in academia, s…

> is different because it's a consumer-oriented activity whose actual effects are probably impossible to quantify

Your perspective on software is that of a consumer, so you're not necessarily wrong. You're in the majority of people using software along with all those people having their "holy wars".

I'm just saying it's not intrinsic to software. The majority of people who write software for a living are silent about this because it's completely irrelevant to their lives.

It's like this with all other creative work too. As they say "a poor craftsman blames his tools", but more generally improvisation is expected when you're supposed to know what you're doing. Professionals can't afford to be helpless. In fact, that's why we have so many competing standards in technology to begin with. Constant reinvention is the most boneheaded way to progress, but my point is that this is in direct opposition to everything you're saying.

You seem to be insisting that there's ignorance where there is just apathy. For every one person whining, the internet has a chorus of hundreds. On the other side of the fence, there are dozens of people who could fix it in their sleep just ignoring it because it doesn't bother them that bad. That's what makes software so different from manufacturing plastic doodads at scale. You at least don't need a factory, but there are probably countless other reasons.

Re: What Do We Know About the Microplastics Inside Us?

#98

Post by zug_zug »

Xirdus wrote: post #73
unparagoned wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s wrong. Only if the studies are powerful enough and are looking at the right stuff can you make any reasonable conclusions. If the studies are powerful enough then that absolutely isn’t evidence of absence at all.

Evidence can be strong or weak. Every positive study result is evidence of presence, usually strong evidence. Every negative study result is evidence of absence, usually very weak evidence.

That's not right, a negative study often still can give evidence that something is true, but it just didn't meet the p=.05 threshold.

Re: What Do We Know About the Microplastics Inside Us?

#99

Post by Apocryphon »

sublinear wrote: post #97
Apocryphon wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software development creates subcultures, just like any other occupation, craft, human activity. Tech holy wars is a thing, and I'm sure a lot of it dealt with articles of faith just like any other source of controversy. https://gwern.net/holy-war https://wiki.c2.com/?HolyWar I brought them up to illustrate that any endeavor will end up pockets of irrationality as part of the general culture. Doubtless in academia, s…

> is different because it's a consumer-oriented activity whose actual effects are probably impossible to quantify Your perspective on software is that of a consumer, so you're not necessarily wrong. You're in the majority of people using software along with all those people having their "holy wars". I'm just saying it's not intrinsic to software. The majority of people who write software for a living are silent about…

Was this LLM-generated? Because the intent is garbled, each sentence going in a different direction from the previous. (So perhaps not LLM after all.)

Re: What Do We Know About the Microplastics Inside Us?

#100

Post by a_bonobo »

cortesoft wrote: post #78
etrautmann wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having lived this reality, people respond to incentives. Your have to very fundamentally re-architect the incentives and career progression in academia to make publication of null results more common. The other side of this is reducing the time and hassle of publication. Right now I’m unlikely to battle for 1.5-3 years to get something through peer review for a result that nobody will find interesting.

I think this is exactly what the person you are replying to is saying; everyone knows it, but the people in charge of setting up the incentives still don’t seem interested in changing the incentives.

Yes, this has been my experience in the Australian academic system as well: everything is broken and nobody with the power to change it, cares.

China seems to make some strides for their own academics, thinking loudly about moving away from glam publications as career incentives: https://www.ft.com/content/64a811f1-b132-4211-8a8c-2252cf964...

It's supposedly about the worry of leaking state secrets, but it will have positive outcomes apart from that.

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