Social media. It wasn’t until very recently that people started to realize just how harmful it actually is.
deleted by creator
This, big time. Pretty much every product or package contains some plastics, including so many one-time use disposable ones. Plastics are infesting the Earth from pole to pole, they are everywhere. Clothes are made of plastic, do laundry and a bunch of microplastics go down the drain. Car tires drop microplastics as they wear. And then there’s all the large ones we can see like plastic bags, bottles, etc.
Memory unlocked: “smooth, round microscrubbers” https://youtu.be/Hn15dtxL00A
Plastic in general, except that we know and just keep doing it. I’m trying to use less plastic if I can but it’s frickin everywhere. If you want to buy an ear of corn it’s wrapped in plastic as if it isn’t already wrapped in nature’s protection. Seriously people.
Perfluoroalkyls aka PFAS appear to screw with all manner of body functions.
Since you mention tobacco: It’s worth noting that the smoking/cancer connection was noticed long before peak cigarette smoking in the population. Prior to WWII, lung cancer was considered a rare disease. That changed with the mass marketing of cigarettes.
While what you say is generally true, I would add that many diseases were “rare” in pre-modern times because they were not easily diagnosis at the time or because people were killed earlier by something else that is now treatable.
Sure, but incidence of lung cancer went way up as tobacco consumption rose heavily in the early 20th century.
Social media
Social media.
Sadly I can’t foresee a future where social media isn’t a dominant force. Like what could possibly displace it at this point? Only dismantling GAFAM could make it work.
Yes I am aware of the irony of posting this comment on social media.
We’ll surely invent something even worse ;-)
It’s already here: social media where the “society” we’re interacting with is mostly AI bots rather than other real human beings.
Plastics.
Yes, all plastics. Even bpa free plastics leak estrogenic chemicals into food, and fpod is often stored in plastic containers. Even milk cartons are lined with plastic.
Teflon(nonstick coated pans and pots) arr similarly terrible
Shoes with a raised heel is bad for your knees. (Easily measurably bad. Especially for running)
We’ve so much plastic waste that its now our most signifigant marker in the fossil record to say “humans lived here”.
Barefoot shoes ftw
deleted by creator
As somebody who vaped for a long time, I kind of disagree with this one. Of every method for quitting smoking, vaping was the easiest and most effective. It let me titrate down to eventually 0 nicotine juice, which let me stop altogether. I only very rarely vape anymore, I keep my mod around in case I am ever out drinking and get an urge, but it is definitely the reason I was able to quit smoking.
The popcorn lung thing is kind of an urban legend, there is no case of any vaper ever getting it from vaping, but diacetyl (the additive in question) has been discontinued in basically all juice just in case anyway.
The usual mantra in vaping communities was always to tell people that if you weren’t a smoker already, don’t start vaping. Is it better than smoking? Almost assuredly, but it’s still not going to be better than just breathing cleaning air. The recommendation was always as a transition away from smoking. It’s one of the few hobbies we would congratulate each other over leaving.
If you don’t vape or smoke already, don’t start though.
Microplastics
I think we all know that ones bad.
sure, but no one’s doing anything about it
Microplastics and plastic related byproducts, like phtalates (which are connected with a decreased fertility in mammals)
I’m positive that the long term effects of these substances, that can be found in every link of the food chain nowadays, will be discussed a lot in the futurePFAS, which are needed to produce teflon and other nonstick materials. It currently begins to attack attention, but wasn’t really an issue a few years ago. It doesn’t decay naturally so it will be forever in the environment. The EU is even planning to ban all PFAS.
Some PFAS have already been banned indeed. Unfortunately, it’s loke fighting the Hydra - everytime some PFAS gets banned the industry comes up with at least three new ones…
A new era of the carbon steel skillet dawns.
Tiktok.
You said product, and I mean this legitimately. Not because of meme hate or hating on what is trendy, but because it is and has been a tool of the CCP. This isn’t really in question, and it was one of the first large platforms to entirely erase the idea of a timeline and fully devote itself only to a algorithm feed. One that bytedance has put their finger on the scales of many times.
The effect this has is hard to quantify, but the postmortem on it is going to be incredible as we unpack exactly how much this influenced the trends and politics among zoomers, and to what extent.
StumbleUpon didn’t have a timeline. It was just an algorithm.
Removed by mod
++1 TikTok is only political because Americans want to own everyone’s data exclusively.
But is it sinophobia? It’s no secret that Xi Jinping and the party like to have companies firmly under their thumb. All you have to do is threaten a few execs. Or hell, a good chunk of companies have deference to the party baked into their charter.
Removed by mod
This is no secret. Maybe have a little skepticism towards your favored country’s claims that any opposition to the government is bigotry towards the people? They use that to maintain control over the population.
Removed by mod
Oh? And what about the party’s practice of disappearing execs when a company’s done something to displease the party? Are other governments not right to be afraid when the CPC exercises that type of control?
Removed by mod
Have you used TikTok? - it’s the only mainstream platform with freedom of speech and mostly free discussion.
Reddit was far, far worse with all the bots, shadow-banning, deleted comments, etc.
Automobiles. Especially in the USA they are causing a public health crisis, environmental crisis, qualify of life crisis. I grew up loving them and they have uses but I’m fully convinced in the future they should be a luxury used for specific tasks or trips rather than the only form of transportation available.
Plastic and sugar are good answers, but cars are right there in terms of harm and way more acceptable despite that.
Vapes. The less regulated and underground production, which is easily finding its way to the high street, is building to be a repeat of the tobacco issues with cigarettes.
Surprised this isn’t higher tbh.
My mom switched from chain smoking regular cigs to vaping. While I’m glad she’s significantly reduced her lung cancer risk, who knows what it’s really doing?
It’s better than smoking but definitely still unhealthy, especially chain vaping like many do. You should talk to her, let her know you’re worried about her health, and see if she might try reducing intake. I quit smoking cold turkey three years ago. It wasn’t easy, I was extremely irritable for a month, but the cravings became bearable after that. An easy trade for higher quality of life and longer life expectancy with less wasted money.
I said this in the other comment, but vaping is the one thing that helped me successfully quit smoking.
Is it healthy? No, at the absolute best it would be neutral. You shouldn’t be breathing anything other than clean air. However, I have little doubt that it is better than smoking. My lungs are in great shape now, and I feel just generally much better. If people want to continue to do research on longterm effects of vaping, great!
Are there issues about underage vaping? Sure, but that is a regulation/enforcement issue and shouldn’t be used to punish adults with. I have friends that went back to smoking because of vaping being made illegal where they lived, and you cannot convince me that is better for their health.
A lot of the issues we have had about vaping are regulatory issues with stuff like the Vitamin E incident, not a problem with the underlying concept.
Corn. It is a fact that the number of autoimmune diseases are rising. I read a NHS study comparing the data of the last 30 or so years and of right now 1 of 10 people in the UK will get an autoimmune disease at some point in their live such as diabetes, MS, Parkinson,… 30 years ago it was like 1 out of 50. And one common thing in countries with a higher autoimmune disease rate is a lot of corn products, like corn starch, corn sirup,… Right now the final proof is missing cause the studies just started. And maybe it is not corn and something completely different, but the stakes are high it is corn.
I feel like with what you’ve stated it is far too early to point to corn itself as the cause. Their are so many things that have grown in usage these past 30 years I’m not sure how they could confidently say it is corn itself doing it.
There’s also the fact people have been eating corn as a staple for millennia.
Yes and no. Corn is nothing new but the corn we use is kinda new. It is one of the biggest GMO there is. That’s a big part in research right now within those studies. And it’s not against GMO per se but the changes corn made. Maybe it’s really just sugar and fructose semms to be worse as glucose. So yeah, maybe sugar, but right now it seems to be more.
Not only could it be almost anything that’s increased in our general environment, but better means to identify specific diseases. Diagnostics and knowledge have advanced in the 30 or so years this study apparently covers, and can account for an “increase” in the prevalence of auto-immune diseases.
In theory, there’s still some diseases that while well understood, HCPs still take excruciatingly long to diagnose and prefer to explore routes like mental health and exclusionary diagnoses first, which could suggest prevalence is higher still.
Prior to the 1960s, hardly anybody died of cancer.
Because we didn’t even know what it was, let alone how to detect it.
It’s wild to me how much stuff has corn in it. A few years ago SwiftonSecurity did a big thread on Twitter all about corn and its frightening.
https://www.geeksaresexy.net/2020/02/19/disturbing-corn-fact-everything-is-made-from-corn/
Billionaires
Not only, but especially if you participate in a ride in their own-built water vehicles
