> There's been a slightly weird trend of people on HN that seem so eager to judge the microplastic story as overblown and unsupported that they're overstating and overextrapolating the smallest counter evidence into its own competing narrative, as if what we needed were more narratives. Resist this! That's not how good science or science communication is done.
This is completely true and well stated. However, this sort of rush to counter narrative is imo inevitable as a response the original rush to craft the narrative that we were all gonna die immediately micro plastics unless we did a Marxism right away.
I am deeply concerned for the environment of the Earth, I believe strongly that we should embed that concern into our economics (i.e. priced externalities, etc. ) so that we make a fewer bad decisions that pollute our nest.
However, I have sadly come to feel that many journalists who write about science, and perhaps even some scientists, see their role as activism toward a specific outcome rather than discovering and describing reality as it exists.
So while I agree, it’s not productive, I totally understanding the glee felt at the possible puncturing of the original narrative.
> However, I have sadly come to feel that many journalists who write about science, and perhaps even some scientists, see their role as activism toward a specific outcome rather than discovering and describing reality as it exists.
That's not a feeling, for journalism anyway it's an explicit fact. The Accrediting Council for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications (ACEJMC) - the primary agency that reviews and accredits journalism programs across the United States and whose mandates directly shape the curricula of over 100 universities - has changed their standards over the years away from emphasis on truth and towards emphasis on advocating change to institute certain policies. See https://www.acejmc.org/about/strategic-plan . They still mention truth, but almost tangentially among long lists of outcomes that journalists must pursue. The current generation of journalists were trained by these principles.
The Associated Press (AP) StyleBook https://www.apstylebook.com/ similarly polices the language that journalists use to favor certain policy outcomes, with some news organizations requiring compliance as a condition of employment.
It’s literally the last clause of the last item, basically an afterthought.
> 1. Reimagine teaching and learning of journalism/communication to serve the public.
> 2. Forge diverse and inclusive programs where differences are celebrated, equity
is pursued, and diverse communities are served through improved
communication and journalism instruction.
> 3. Relentlessly strive to assure information integrity, assuring that truth is
gathered and reported.
an explicit mention in their vision* statement is hardly an afterthought. it’s also the second item in their multi-point action plan. and other mentions elsewhere.
But what exactly are you fighting for? What benefits are there to plastic food packaging, plastic kitchen utensils, kitchenware/food storage, clothing?
Plastic packaging made 20% of EU's total packaging waste in 2023 out of which 42% were recycled/downcycled. Personally plastic food packaging is the biggest portion of my family's waste output.
Plastic kitchen utensils like black plastic ladles are not durable (they break easily), and visibly degrade when exposed to heat or acidic food, unlike metal or wooden counterparts...
Plastic kitchenware and food storage containers are also considerably less durable than equivalent metal or glass products. They also stain and degrade when in contact with acidic or other specific foods...
I take it you've worn synthetic clothes, need I go into detail about how uncomfortable that is?
On top of that, most of these are tied with fossil fuel supply and prices, and you can see for yourself what's going on with that right now...
p.s. I'm pretty sure use of metal, glass, and wood is not marxism...
My point is that limiting plastic use (especially single-use plastic) is a win in my book even if it is ultimately done for the wrong reason. Thus it's not worth my time going out of my way to disprove specific research that still ultimately points out the need to curtail plastic use...
What benefits? Single use plastics have one purpose and one purpose only: allow for fossil fuel producers to dispose of the ethane byproduct that accumulates during extraction. They get paid for the disposal vs having to process it as waste themselves.
I’ve never heard Marxism mentioned in the same sentence as microplastics. If you think advocating for a functioning EPA and regulatory control of manufacturing is Marxist then you’re just a straight up fool.
> The hostility comes from the perception that someone wants to take away your toy. Again, it's very very basic, the same thing you see if you try to take away an item from an animal that is engaged in a dopamine response with that item. Like a dog eating something. They will bite you or at least growl if you take it away.
Sure, but now replace “toy” with, “peaceful Neighbourhood”
The only reason anyone wants to take someone’s dumb truck away is because they made the the first move, destroying or significantly degrading something that other people enjoyed.
Yes exactly! Replace toy with peaceful neighborhood. From each other's perspective, you both appear to have the same goals. How would you solve that without taking away someone else's peaceful neighborhood?
If you want to play Israel vs Palestine and spend all day making up new self-indulgent transgressive theories about how "they" are good and "we" are bad, go to Bluesky.
People come to HN to talk tech, and if nothing else, to get a respite from the "you are bad" west is bad" "US is bad" drumbeat. If you don't want that, that's cool but don't try to force your lifestyle on us.
Your post was flagged, by myself and presumably many others, because it violated the site guidelines against politics.
There's nothing "reductive" about being anti-Zionist. That's just base level humanity and many, many people from every part of the political spectrum share those views. Is Tucker Carlson a leftist?
Just like Marx, the words & concepts are not really about the words or the concepts. Instead they form a theology whose practice promises to give frustrated elites an alternate path to power.
A market is a place where you can, relatively freely, choose to buy, sell, consume, and produce.
San Francisco and many other North American cities only allow the first three of the four with any significant freedom.
Production is either banned outright on large majorities of the available land, or heavily constrained and focussed to ensure that any new production happens directly on top of tenants and the most vulnerable rather than on top of relatively lightly occupied single-family houses.
Market forces take time to do things, they're not instantaneous. If San Francisco becomes so unaffordable that employers can't attract talent, then they'll have to open offices elsewhere. I live in Columbus. I'd love to see Anthropic or any leading tech company who can't attract talent to San Francisco due to cost/prices to set up shop here. And no, politics isn't enough of a reason to avoid states like Ohio.
Part of the "problem" with San Francisco real estate is that to develop it you have to buy the land, then construct a building, and prices for both of those items have gone up drastically due to a few different factors (inflationary effects, supply/demand, wealth creation and jobs, climate, and more) and so even if new housing does get created it's going to be rather expensive because of those factors.
Columbus is capable of exactly the same dynamics, there’s nothing magical about San Francisco dirt.
Regardless of how long it takes, there isn’t any other choice. You have to start sometime so let’s start now. Collectivism doesn’t get us out of this either. If we have a revolution tomorrow, and reduce rent to $100, there will be a 50 year waitlist to live in San Francisco and the only way to get it down to zero is to build build build. Yes, it will take a long time, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it or that we shouldn’t start now.
The way I interpret the drama over the Chrome model is that for a large chunk of users, perhaps the majority, Chrome is the OS, and this 4GB model will be their OS Level feature for local AI.
While I work in IT today, that wasn’t always true. I am certain I spent more free time playing with computers when my work did not involve computers at all. While I enjoy working with computers at a variety of different levels, when I do it all day, I don’t typically wanna do it when I get home. If Anthropic means there are no more IT jobs, software jobs, etc. etc. etc. (which I think is highly unlikely) then I guess I will have to do a non-tech job just like 99% of the other human beings. If that comes to pass,I expect in my spare time I will suddenly reacquire a love for tinkering with computers.
Also consider the great fortune of dicking around with computers ever being so lucrative in the first place even if the gravy train eventually stops. We were lucky. Most hobbies aren’t anything like that.
Amazing. I thought the point of unions was to organize workers against elites.
TIL that the point of unions to organize elites (if you work for Google Deepmind in the UK you are the global elite) to hold organizations hostage unless they enforce elite beliefs irrelevant to the 99%.
It must feel exciting to get to cosplay rebellion and revolution from a fancy desk in London.
This is completely true and well stated. However, this sort of rush to counter narrative is imo inevitable as a response the original rush to craft the narrative that we were all gonna die immediately micro plastics unless we did a Marxism right away.
I am deeply concerned for the environment of the Earth, I believe strongly that we should embed that concern into our economics (i.e. priced externalities, etc. ) so that we make a fewer bad decisions that pollute our nest.
However, I have sadly come to feel that many journalists who write about science, and perhaps even some scientists, see their role as activism toward a specific outcome rather than discovering and describing reality as it exists.
So while I agree, it’s not productive, I totally understanding the glee felt at the possible puncturing of the original narrative.
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