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Comment by zafka | Hacker News Reader

I have lived in South Florida, close to the Atlantic ocean for close to 40 years. In the time I have lived here, the insect populations have noticeably dropped. I have also queried relatives from the midwest. It used to be every summer your car would get covered with dead bugs, not so any more. As for plastics in the ocean, every time I go to the beach I see a lot of macro plastics.

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Thank you for your personal testimony. It's good to hear that in your experience it seems that the insect populations really have dropped. Of course, there may be other reasons - eg if there are highways where it used to be small roads, you would expect insects to stay clear of the area. Also, litter you can see, is not microplastics - you can't see the microplastics.... But they are there! Apparently.

So, objective science is untrustworthy and subjective testimony is easily explained away. Let me guess - only your opinion is the one that matters.

You have a poorly-crafted answer for both sides of the coin, but also fail to read the details of the things you oppose.

One has to ask oneself, is it better to have a comforting story, that is likely leveraged for someone, somewhere's benefit, or to start with the honest position, which is that "I don't know". One can of course become more certain of whatever-it-is, but not without attempting some personal research. Or, one can just defer all personal responsibility and parrot whatever the consensus view is.

So then, obviously, you've been personally responsible and tried to replicate all of the studies that led to the conclusion that microplastic concentrations in reservoirs are increasing, as well as the ones that concluded that bioaccumulation of microplastics have deleterious effects on human health, and then got them peer reviewed, right? And you also decided that 'personal responsibility' is actually tacitly accepting that when petrochemical lobbyists write op-eds that deny these scientific consensuses and that you don't need to make any lifestyle adjustments and their clients don't need to make any changes to their supply chain, they're telling the truth. Truly heroic that you still have time to shitpost on HN after all that.

No, I haven't replicated these tests. I'm just not assuming them to be true.

And demanding that everyone else adopt this policy of radical individualist solipsism, built on a deliberate misunderstanding of what scientific consensus is. The net effect of which is basically indistinguishable from being contrarian for its own sake because to do otherwise is actually quite discomforting.

Well to be honest, we don't truly 'know' anything, we can only make best guesses. My best guess based on what i've read from who i perceive as smart people is that microplastics are everywhere, not enough exercise makes you ill, looking in the sun kills your eyes and doing drugs is no good. Are you just can say "I don't know"

Yes, we don't truly know much (not nothing). We can, on occasion, drill into whatever is being claimed, look at the data and see if we agree with the conclusion.

If you personally sample test studies, comments or whatever you then get a handle on how many assumptions you feel are being made, whether you always/occasionally/never agree with what is stated.

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