cell phones/screens
Soft drink. They are just sugar water and color chemistry that give color and flavor.
The internet.
That’s a naive generalization.
More precisely algorithmic gaze harvesting and targeted advertising.
I thought the comments section would be filled with vapes.
Guys, i think vapes are a good candidate for something that hindsight will show us was dangerous, and i think images of teens smoking Juul will age as poorly as kids drinking beer.
There is an ongoing study showing that artificial sweeteners (Aspartamein particular) cause cancer.
All those people trying to stay healthy to drinking diet things… are giving themselves cancer instead.
Plastic
Complete shot in the dark but my brain can’t let it be (also fuck it, thats the point of this topic):
Surfactants, specifically modern soap and soap products. I strongly suspect that petroleum based soaps cause damage and issues.
When you wash your glasses in a dishwasher, pour some water in after it is dried. Look at how many bubbles are formed on the surface. Pour it out and do it again - usually there will be less bubbles. That means you are ingesting leftover detergent that wasn’t rinsed off. Can’t be great for you.
High Fructose Corn Syrup
Alcohol is a known carcinogen and many people still don’t know that.
Red meat also
And warm liquids!
I think only hot liquids count. They can burn off the protective coating in your mouth/throat and cause cell damage from what I understand.
Oh I know, I just don’t care
Getting really speculative, but maybe Infinite Scrolling and similar UX design patterns. I think we learned it was dangerous pretty early in, but I have a feeling there isn’t currently a widespread understanding of just how badly things like infinite scrolling shortcircuit parts of the brain and cause issues with attention and time regulation in large populations.
If I was more researched on it, I might include infinite short-form content feeds of almost any type to be honest, which may just be another way of saying social media.
singularity
Coal.
Some that haven’t been mentioned:
Prolonged Sitting Prolonged Loud Headphone Use Off-Label Drug Use (e.g., Ozempic, Wegovy) Sun/Heat/Poor Air Exposure Thiamine/B1 Deficiency via Alcohol Consumption
We know they’re all dangerous (to wildly varying extents), but I don’t think we’ve had enough moments-of-reckoning, like with emphysema and lung cancer following long term smoking.
Damn. Prolonged sitting while listening to loud music outside in the sun and using using off label drugs is one of my favorite past-times
Hey man, I do it all - waiting for it to catch up with me :)
Life is short, so what’s the harm in making it a bit shorter?
Vaccines
Micro plastics. We were advertising them in facial scrubs ffs.
This, big time. Pretty much every product or package contains some plastics, including so many one-time use disposable ones. Plastics are infesting the Earth from pole to pole, they are everywhere. Clothes are made of plastic, do laundry and a bunch of microplastics go down the drain. Car tires drop microplastics as they wear. And then there’s all the large ones we can see like plastic bags, bottles, etc.
Plastic in general, except that we know and just keep doing it. I’m trying to use less plastic if I can but it’s frickin everywhere. If you want to buy an ear of corn it’s wrapped in plastic as if it isn’t already wrapped in nature’s protection. Seriously people.
So, the movie The Graduate was prophetic.
This right here. We are undoubtedly the plastic generation. And it’s not letting up any time soon; our kids will be included in this cohort as well. Banning plastic bags in cities is next to useless when everything we eat, everything we drink, and everything we buy is wrapped in plastic.
Memory unlocked: “smooth, round microscrubbers” https://youtu.be/Hn15dtxL00A
