Unfortunately, you have now stumbled on the extremely politically sensitive elephant in the room.
If it is environmental (microplastics anyone)... do we need to stop producing certain clothes (stretch clothing is particularly bad)? Could this actually be part of the increase in youth identifying as LGBTQ [1]? Is it a greater threat to our survival, health, and well-being than the more palatable issue (but still an issue) of climate change?
[1] Note, I'm not making a hypothesis or taking a position here. However, just admitting that these microplastics and other things are having effects on humans could easily lead to "were these people born this way, or were many of them poisoned that way"? And so, no surprise, nobody wants to talk about it and so the question of if it could just remains unanswered.
It's such a shame that scientists were figuring this out but the wrong person[0] spoke up and now it's a conspiracy theory. That's a weird dynamic. Wonder if it possibly happened with anything else we now call a "conspiracy theory."
> Even beyond the strategic perspective, it’s just sort of embarrassing to have two good theories of how society and politics work that make opposite predictions from each other. What are some heuristics for when one would work rather than another?
What's embarrassing is that Scott Alexander is unable to answer that question himself. Maybe he should ask ChatGPT?
If it is environmental (microplastics anyone)... do we need to stop producing certain clothes (stretch clothing is particularly bad)? Could this actually be part of the increase in youth identifying as LGBTQ [1]? Is it a greater threat to our survival, health, and well-being than the more palatable issue (but still an issue) of climate change?
[1] Note, I'm not making a hypothesis or taking a position here. However, just admitting that these microplastics and other things are having effects on humans could easily lead to "were these people born this way, or were many of them poisoned that way"? And so, no surprise, nobody wants to talk about it and so the question of if it could just remains unanswered.