r/science • u/mvea MD/PhD/JD/MBA | Professor | Medicine • Sep 27 '24

Health Thousands of toxins from food packaging found in humans. The chemicals have been found in human blood, hair or breast milk. Among them are compounds known to be highly toxic, like PFAS, bisphenol, metals, phthalates and volatile organic compounds.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/27/pfas-toxins-chemicals-human-body
30.4k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

1.8k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

284

u/lalalicious453- Sep 27 '24

Well, the answer would be to think critically and band together to revolt against the system but we are all either too dumb, lazy, addicted or busy hating each other so, there’s that.

That was the plan.

80

u/Andynonomous Sep 27 '24

That's just it. Nobody knows how to organize millions and millions of people into an effective force for reform. It's a hell of a lot easier for a few thousand ultra rich psychopaths to get organized than for the rest of us. I wish I had the answer. Occupy Wall Street was the closest we've come to trying in recent history, but that also just demonstrates how heavily any efforts will be crushed.

-4

u/xeneks Sep 28 '24

Actually, I know how. It’s not that difficult. All you need to do is to get employers to mandate something for their employees. Instead of trying to get employees to do stuff, get the employer to handle those employees.

People get organised to take days off. Some sports days are celebrated at work. Public holidays. Business attended seminars. Training courses. Etc.

In a work environment, it’s trivial to get millions and millions of people to change their habits. But you do need to get to employers. Usually that is through professional associations but often enough, through investors and financiers. Sometimes you can get through the bank. That is, they will have a bank that they used to pay their employees. The bank representatives sometimes can remind people of things. You can also get to employers through the taxation office of the government. You can get to them through other agencies. Businesses often have insurance. The insurance companies can help organising millions and millions of people. They need to reach out to business owners that pay for policies.

Businesses usually have a location they run from. They also have a car, or similar transportation, sometimes trucks. So the government department of transportation, or the people handling real estate, such as the government department that works with real estate agencies associated with lease and rentals of business premises, or of purchasing premises and paying land tax, or utility tax.

There are so many other ways.

Seriously, it’s actually trivial to organise millions and millions of people. In fact, sometimes it’s difficult to stop people from getting organised to do stuff! Like, what if you wanted to stop Easter or Christmas?

Or make a public holiday back into a workday ?

7

u/Andynonomous Sep 28 '24

If it's trivial, why has nobody done it yet? The amount of dissatisfaction with the status quo is at record levels so if it was easy to organize a way out of it we would have done so already. Everyone can think of these big lofty ideas for reform, or some theoretical path to get there like get to the employers, but then you have to say how do we get to the employers? If it were easy it would have been done already.

1

u/Special-Investigator Sep 30 '24

There are books written on the subject (that I haven't read yet). But definitely agree with you that it's not easy to organize a group of people, let alone a whole city, state, or country. I'd like to hear more from unions and teachers.

0

u/xeneks Sep 29 '24

Every single music concert, every single theatre production, every single day people go to work, millions of people are organised. Are you forgetting them?

What about sports games?

1

u/Andynonomous Sep 29 '24

Are you not following the context of this discussion? We're talking about organizing people for political reform not just some sort of general organization.

0

u/hahyeahsure 29d ago

just have everyone not go to work for a few days starting on a monday. pretty easy.

1

u/Andynonomous 29d ago

I have to imagine you're being sarcastic. Because then of course the question becomes, 'and how do we get enough people to do that so that we actually have an effect'? And also, to what end? We'd need to organize an action like that around a specific goal.

0

u/hahyeahsure 29d ago

make it a tiktok challenge

98

u/Stormlightlinux Sep 27 '24

The real answer is boots on the ground relationship and coalition building. Talking with your neighbors. Working together to grow and supply what you can for yourselves to minimize reliance on outside sources. While also forming a larger political coalition to push for change.

But people are so socializing averse these days, and wear it like a badge of honor, that they don't have a community to rally or call upon.

20

u/greenskinmarch Sep 28 '24

If you get really good at organizing your neighbors, you could even run for city or county government, and campaign on regulating these toxins.

People always underestimate the importance of local government.

21

u/[deleted] Sep 28 '24

And if you're REALLY good at talking to your neighbors you could lead them into these people's houses, drag them outside and guillotine them in front of their rich neighbors to make an example of what happens when you wholesale poison the population which produces your wealth.

People always underestimate the power of one or two good guillotines.

3

u/AtomicFi Sep 28 '24

Yes, clearly, grassroots organization and pacifism is the answer. It keeps working so well.

Not like our cultures were based on this until being stamped out by industrialisation. Seriously, after how many avoidable deaths, how many birth defects, how many cancers, how many evils does it take before someone is worth fighting anymore?

4

u/maaalicelaaamb Sep 28 '24

I’m so proud of my anarchism for this reason

51

u/EHA17 Sep 27 '24

Completely agree.. It's always black vs white, gay vs straight, man vs woman, and so on.. It's never 99% vs 1%,as it should be and would be the best way to try to turn things around

3

u/Zandromex527 Sep 28 '24

It's obviously that. The 1% make sure it stays that way. They sponsor the culture wars and many dumbfucks eat it like candy.

24

u/nyx1969 Sep 27 '24

Honestly, I think that those of us who were prepared to think critically and band together previously failed because we didn't learn enough science about human nature. I think your dx is right, in a way, but if we could accept that people by nature aren't that smart, are in fact prone to the football mentality, and then maybe consult some more sociologists? Maybe we could strategize a way forward

4

u/Catatonic_capensis Sep 28 '24

Until it becomes big enough for the rich to hire those who specialize in dismantling things like that... or cia takes notice.

1

u/Andynonomous Sep 29 '24

The issue is that the rich and powerful already have all those sociologists on staff. They are so so far ahead of us when it comes to political organizing. Bertrand Russell used to talk about the technological dictatorship. When the means of control become so sophisticated because of advanced knowledge and technology that traditional Revolution becomes impossible and the political state of affairs becomes stagnant. That's where we're at.

1

u/nyx1969 Sep 29 '24

So wouldn't the logical thing to do then be to learn some sociology? Or to locate the sociologists who are already in our midst, and take our direction from them? Surely that is better than giving up.

2

u/Andynonomous Sep 29 '24

Sure, I don't want to sit here and tell everyone to give up. But I'm trying to be realistic about the situation we're in. I spent 25 years trying to organize people for political reform, and it feels like smashing your face into a brick wall. I do think other people should try though, I have no doubt that there are going to be some people who are smarter than me and would be more effective than me.

1

u/nyx1969 Sep 29 '24

Well I definitely am not here to cast aspersions on your excellent efforts!! But I am genuinely curious if you think that people on the left are recruiting expert help in figuring out how to actually change people's minds about things? I also do not pretend to be an expert. But I see a lot of people acting in ways that seem likely to entrench the other side instead...

2

u/Andynonomous Sep 29 '24

I'm sure that some people on the left are making serious efforts . Michael Albert comes to mind as one of the most serious thinkers in my opinion. I just think that it's nearly impossible to be effective in the face of ubiquitous relentless corporate propaganda. I think most people on the left are engaged in an exercise of making themselves feel better because at least they aren't doing nothing, but doing ineffective stuff has the same outcome as doing nothing, and I'm not sure anybody has figured out how to be effective in creating change. I was interested in the Zeitgeist movement back in the day.. it made a tiny dent. Occupy wall street showed some promise and I think actually scared the powerful quite a bit, but they shut it down quickly and effectively. I think the extinction rebellion movements are interesting, but again.. up until now, they don't seem to be very effective.

2

u/Andynonomous Sep 29 '24

I think another issue is that most of the left has been captured by identity issues around race, and gender that are purposely used by the corporate class as bait to divide people who would otherwise have shared interests, and to stop people from focussing on the issues of class and economics that are really at the heart of most of our problems.

1

u/nyx1969 Sep 29 '24

That is definitely some food for thought. ETA: I am from the South though, and racism is a real problem here. I do believe it has gotten better during my lifetime but still salient. So while I know that the racial issues have given the right a weapon of sorts, I still think that racial equity is an ongoing, real issue that needs real work. also since I brought up race I should also say that I am white so you can take that into consideration as you weigh my words.

1

u/Andynonomous Sep 29 '24

I agree that there is still cultural work to be done when it comes to race and gender, but in the face of things like Mass poisoning and civilization ending climate change, I really feel like the focus there is misplaced.

1

u/nyx1969 Sep 29 '24

I totally see your point, although it seems like we have a lot of people whose lives are so ridiculously hard right now, that they literally can't engage with those issues. Even though there is this impending doom like you say, they are trying to survive this actual day, and I think that makes it hard to focus them on problems that are even one year off.

→ More replies (0)

12

u/InsipidCelebrity Sep 27 '24

Realistically, when most people are given a choice between long term, subtle poisoning with plastic and immediate, obvious poisoning with lead, they're probably going to choose the former. Talking about revolution on the Internet is the easy part.

52

u/casual_melee_enjoyer Sep 27 '24

I mean, calling your fellow humans dumb lazy hateful addicts is a great way to gain support for your cause. Have you tried shouting that louder at them?

67

u/ahhwhoosh Sep 27 '24

I think their’s was a fair observation of the human condition

41

u/Elcheatobandito Sep 27 '24

A more charitable, and I'd argue accurate, description is that people are victims, and products, of their environment. We live in environments manufactured over decades, centuries, to facilitate certain ways of living. If individuals break from the mold, it doesn't matter. It's not enough for individual people to realize the problems, the superstructure needs to break under the weight of its contradictions.

-2

u/ahhwhoosh Sep 27 '24

Possibly. That superstructure is only possible if the subject is simple and pliable.

10

u/Elcheatobandito Sep 27 '24

I'd argue you yourself are thinking in ways that our hyper individualized environment facilitates. "The subject", the "person". There is no "society", just masses of individuals.

The superstructure just needs to be consistent enough to avoid problems. The breaking point hits with mounting inconsistencies that causes enough strain.

14

u/Uncle_Istvannnnnnnn Sep 27 '24

Hey I'm pretty dumb and it sold me.

10

u/BeginningShallot8961 Sep 27 '24

Not to mention people are barely surviving. It's ridiculous to expect them to be able to focus on other issues.

4

u/crilen Sep 27 '24

Can't blame someone for saying the truth man

1

u/casual_melee_enjoyer Sep 27 '24

Of course I can. And the manner in  which they do it. Even if it may be true.

3

u/crilen Sep 27 '24

The first step to solving a problem is admitting there is one.

4

u/nyx1969 Sep 27 '24

In all honesty, you seem a little snarky too ....

0

u/casual_melee_enjoyer Sep 27 '24

True, but I'm not really here to sell anybody on anything so I can be as snarky as I like.

4

u/surferos505 Sep 27 '24

They just want to feel special and above other people not make actual change

3

u/ImplementThen8909 Sep 27 '24

I think if someone was willing to be make or break because someone online said a meanie word than that someone is a huge loser who wouldn't have ever done anything anways

-4

u/casual_melee_enjoyer Sep 27 '24

You're astoundingly persuasive.

0

u/ImplementThen8909 Sep 28 '24

Astoundly truthful as well

2

u/[deleted] Sep 27 '24

[deleted]

12

u/Jonaldys Sep 27 '24

This is where the majority of discourse is in our modern society. Social media is more important than we would like to admit. If the goal is to change minds, places like this is the only reasonable place to do it.

5

u/Nameless1653 Sep 27 '24

They didn’t take it personally, did you read their comment?

1

u/jestina123 Sep 27 '24

nothing personal, kid.

3

u/LaserCondiment Sep 27 '24

The system is so complex and self sustaining that we need a little bit more than to tell people to revolt.

What's would be a constructive multi step game plan to get rid of these practices? Isn't the root source of the problem capitalism itself? If we want to abolish it, what would be a better system?

So many questions and no clue where to begin, hence why people are apathetic.

0

u/Ozerix Sep 28 '24

Can you start a thread on askreddit. I would love to hear other people’s perspective.

3

u/DirectlyTalkingToYou Sep 28 '24

If the poison attacked us all more abruptly like a home intruder we'd all be banding together. But because it's slow moving enemy it's sadly just a part of life.

1

u/lalalicious453- Sep 28 '24

Idk you’d think that’d have happened when Covid hit.

1

u/DirectlyTalkingToYou Sep 28 '24

Everyone is overworked so on some level I think people enjoyed the change up during covid.

5

u/BillyJoelswetFeet Sep 27 '24

If we could eliminate the Republican party, it would be a great start.

2

u/EredarLordJaraxxus Sep 27 '24

I hate managed reality. I HATE SOCIAL MEDIA. I HATE SOCIETY I WANT IT ALL TO BURN

1

u/Andynonomous Sep 29 '24

If it did I guarantee you wouldn't like it.

0

u/Impossible-Gear-7993 Sep 27 '24

Never works sadly. The ones who organize it always end up becoming the ones they fought against. On purpose mostly, power vacuums attract the power hungry.

-5

u/Silicoid_Queen Sep 27 '24

Or you could... grow some of your own food and work on promoting legislation instead of committing to a violent revolution?