this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2025
577 points (96.9% liked)
Showerthoughts
36060 readers
412 users here now
A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
Rules
- All posts must be showerthoughts
- The entire showerthought must be in the title
- No politics
- If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
- A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
- Posts must be original/unique
- Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct and the TOS
If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.
Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Microplastics cause neurological damage and anti social violent behavior?
We don't know about the longer term consequences yet, just like we didn't about lead.
Not saying it's a definite but I wouldn't be surprised.
No, people knew lead was poisonous even back near Roman days. Though just like how humans constantly do stupid things for some benefit, they kept using it as a sweetener for ages.
Also mercury in relation to, "as mad as a hatter". It's just mercury was very good for the job.
To play devil's advocate, we always knew lead was toxic, but we didn't know the only healthy dose was 0
Yes, but plastic is a very new invention and a lot less studied than something like Pb or Hg, which are natural elements.
Natural in no way what so ever should imply more healthy. Especially in the context of lead and mercury.
In a similar vein, asbestos is "all natural", especially compared to fiber glass and foam, but it's still unhealthy as fuck.
Not sure where I said natural = better. All I said was natural things are generally more studied because they existed for lot longer.
It's existed long enough that serious effects would've been obvious by now. Multiple generations have already passed. Multiple. It is already clearly not as serious as lead or mercury regardless of what effects are found.
Plastic has been around for 80 years. Shouldn't we know something by now
If it was going to be as bad as fearmongers want it to be, absolutely.
But we know plastic is inert and we knew about lead.
wat? In no way is it inert.
We are just beginning to understand how much the chemical Imbalances that lead to depression, anxiety, and other mental health disorders originate in the digestive tract and how microplastics from food may disrupt the processing of these chemicals.
I don't think the impacts of microplastics are quite as catastrophic, they can't be or we would already know.
Which isn't to say they aren't bad just damn lead is realllly bad.
The concentration of them is rising exponentially, that's the part that terrifies me.
It's possible we just haven't crossed a threshold yet.
My non-professional guess is that microplastics will eventually sterilize us by disrupting our sperm's ability to function properly. Only the wealthy can afford the medical procedures to bypass this.
Maybe kids will need to be carefully sheltered from plastics until they are old enough to freeze their sperm.
this reads like the next step is to force them to freeze theirs
No, this will likely just be for the rich.
It'll end up blocking vital neurotransmitters leaving us zombified and giving us an insatiable craving for brains
'Twould be sweet irony and a blessing for the earth.
Although the best method for removing it I've found is donating plasma (PFAs down 30% in 6 months of regular donation, the hope is nanoplastics are also removed...) so it might be the poors (in USA) and generous that get to have kids, so that's nice...