elucubra

I'm still waiting for someone to explain why nuclear Israel good nuclear Iran bad

French artillery engineers had a simple idea: Take a big gun, mount it on a truck, and you’ve got self-propelled artillery at relatively little cost.

Horses have been moving artillery pieces around basically since mobile cannons were developed.

I can empathize with (part) of your reservations. Others, as you pointed out may be a tad paranoid, and others are simply unfounded, and disregard advancements in general.

Nowhere did I say magic. I said I like the enhanced properties. It's completely logical to expect enhancements. Progress is littered with unfortunate developments. It's a price we pay for advancements, but if you assume that by default, advancements are bad, we might as well all just stop breathing and die.

I could spend the next few months listing initial advances or improvements thereof, that are unquestionably good. PLA is such an example, as are other bioplastics, vaccines, seat belts and air bags, air source heat pumps, most renewable energy generation (or rather extraction) methods, BPA free, easily recyclable plastics, like PET, long distance communications both voice and data, accessible long distance travel, fucking tools and fire! And so many more advancements.

Of course there are things like lead in gas, or the systematic attack to efficient mass transport in the US, leaded paint, use of asbestos, hydrocarbon fuels, massively toxic pesticides, PFOAS, Ford Pintos and the corporate decisions behind them, etc.

But the balance I think is positive, and contrary to what many scream, we humans tend to try to redress the harms we cause.

Assertions like "We live in primitive times where biology is only in a precursor stage of discovery and poorly understood." when we can literally fucking manipulate DNA, is just plain ignorant.

You seem to imply that all advancements are dangerous, or evil. Not so. It may be two steps forward, one back, but we go forward.

BTW, I hope you are making that popcorn from corn you planted from heirloom seeds, and extra virgin olive oil, in a solar oven, else you are probably going to be eating GMO, cooked in fucked-up fats, while breathing fumes from burned hydrocarbons, or being subjected to one of many forms of radiation, etc.

Meanwhile, Spain is the world's 8th largest arms exporter

He didn't invent EVs, nor batteries, nor rockets, not even vertically landing rockets, but perfected and especially turned them onto massive success. Too bad he went full idiot.

Oh, Austria!!

I always confuse Austria with Baluchistan!

Pouring water with plastic sanding dust may essentually be a "feel-good" gesture. Coffee filters are not fine enough to catch microplastics. Think about it, it lets pass enough coffee particles trough that you have some sediment in your cup.

Also, where is that filter being discarded? Into a "microplastic recycling facility" ?

Yeah, and try that PLUS bipolar. You actually do the things, but fail miserably after a while because you mind is like a pinball; uuuuuuup the channel like a rocket, and then spend time bouncing really quick randomly, and then plonk, down the pocket

"An escalator can never break: it can only become stairs. You should never see an Escalator Temporarily Out Of Order sign, just Escalator Temporarily Stairs. Sorry for the convenience." - Mitch Hedberg

~~You~~ We probably leach more microplastics (I'm guessing, no hard data) by using non-stick kitchenware, including oven trays, air fryers, etc... Also much of our packaging is a source of microplastics. Then there are the microplastics we drag into the environment from our car mats, from out fleece jackets, and soooo many of our activities. I'm with you in the desire to reduce microplastics, but let's be real, if that is such a primary concern to you, you may have the wrong hobby. I'm working on a prototype of a cheap and cheerful enclosure filter, that I will post in one of the model sites,(about 5-6 € including filament, and about 2-3 € for a hepa + carbon filter), but in the end the filter medium will end up in a landfill. There is no practical solution for recycling or removal of microplastics yet, except elimination of as much plastic production as possible.

OTOH, Danone is a B corporation, so there are choices in that space.