> Endocrine-disrupting chemicals from plastics and petrochemical pollution are found in a wide array of consumer goods – including pesticides, construction materials, furniture, children’s toys, fabrics and cosmetics. Most remain unregulated despite scientists’ warnings about potential negative effects on human health.
Nick Bostrom talks about the “black ball” we may someday pull from the urn of all possible technology: something so destructive and so difficult to control that it wipes us out. We haven’t found any yet but perhaps we can guess what they would look like.
Maybe it won’t be something like AI or nukes after all. Those things have too many eyes on them. Microplastics and PFAS ended up everywhere (including our blood) and we still barely understand how bad they are.
The issue is that we live among these profit-maximizing entities who don’t get sick and don’t really care about us unless they have to (and they try really hard not to have to) and if they can make a dollar poisoning a well, they’ll dig new ones just to poison them.
Some might say polluting the planet with microplastics before we fully understood their effects was jumping the gun. Now, once they are everywhere, it seems a bit late to suggest “caution”.
Nick Bostrom talks about the “black ball” we may someday pull from the urn of all possible technology: something so destructive and so difficult to control that it wipes us out. We haven’t found any yet but perhaps we can guess what they would look like.
Maybe it won’t be something like AI or nukes after all. Those things have too many eyes on them. Microplastics and PFAS ended up everywhere (including our blood) and we still barely understand how bad they are.
The issue is that we live among these profit-maximizing entities who don’t get sick and don’t really care about us unless they have to (and they try really hard not to have to) and if they can make a dollar poisoning a well, they’ll dig new ones just to poison them.