[estearum]

Can you describe exactly how (by what mechanism) the government would be required to even figure out whether it's a big issue, much less remediate it, if everyone had the same attitude that you do?

Or are you just hoping that other people take up the issue in direct opposition to your own dismissiveness?

[vablings]

"Can you describe exactly how (by what mechanism) the government" They give funding to research, that research is published and a scientific consensus is established.

I don't expect everyone to have the same attitude as me, I am an engineer and work on my specific engineering problems that I am most educated and qualified to work on. I would not expect microplastic research scientist to start doing my job. That's the wonderful thing about this planet we live on, there are many different folks with many different skills, and everyone's lives are better for it.

I find your speech hereto be very reductive and confrontational for essentially no reason, and possibly because you skimmed over a phrase in my other comment "personal consensus"

[estearum]

Why on earth would they give funding to research if the people who pay for that research (you) actively think it's scam?

I'm not asking you to take up microplastic research, or even to form a specific opinion about it. I'm actually arguing the opposite: that if you are ignorant on the topic and disengaged with it, then you shouldn't insist that: 1) it's a fake issue and 2) surely if it is real, someone else will figure it out.

The insistence that it's not a problem has actual causal impact on whether we ever figure something out here. Knowledge doesn't just poof into existence. It must be funded, and as you identified this type of research is typically funded by you and me.

The government funds research that it believes is important to the public. You insist that it is not only unimportant, but an actual grift. And yet you simultaneously believe that the government can, should, and will fund research into this grift to ascertain whether it's a problem.

You are arguing that the government shouldn't fund research on this problem (it's a grift), but then assuming that you will get the benefits of them doing so anyway (they'll tell you if it's not a grift). In other words, you are de facto depending on other people to force the government to do the research, while you argue for the opposite.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-rider_problem

[vablings]

"Why on earth would they give funding to research if the people who pay for that research (you) actively think it's scam?"

First of all. I never specifically said that the research is a scam. I am fully onboard with real research into the topic to explore the effects on health

"You are arguing that the government shouldn't fund research on this problem (it's a grift)"

That is NOT what I said, I specifically believe the so called "health and wellness industry" is capitalizing on largely unfounded beliefs that microplastics are already proven to be hazardous (not true).

If it turns out that microplastics are actually a serious health hazard, that doesn't even mean that the health and wellness industry is right, they just got lucky on another grift. They operate thousands of grifts every year often selling things that are blatantly dangerous.

I am pro good research. I am anti unregulated bullshit quackery like the below videos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJpo2JtErPs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l60T39qLq9Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnM94jqAubU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTzw_grLzjw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orYwywPgGdQ

[estearum]

> This whole issue around microplastics has just become another grift for the health and wellness industry

Not sure what definition of "this whole issue" you're using such that you're not quite literally saying "this whole issue around microplastics has just become another grift."