Distractible - Microplastics Solved Forever

Episode Date: July 17, 2023

Guess what's probably lurking inside of you right now? That's right... Microplastics! Mark hosts as Bob & Wade go head to head in the ultimate debate of whether these tiny invaders are destroying or benefiting our planet. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Only got small amounts of time but want big amounts of flavor? Knorr has got you. Our new Knorr rice cups deliver all the taste without the prep or wait time. We're talking yummy, creamy, hearty goodness. Choose from loads of delicious, more-ish flavors ready in only two and a half minutes. It's not cup food, it's good food in a cup. Visit Knorr.com to learn more. Whoa, what are you listening to this for?

Wait, who's talking? You know you're driving a 2024 Ford Escape with available Alexa built in, so you can change the music. Oh yeah, Alexa, change station to 99.2. See? Purchase a 2024 Escape ST-Line all-wheel drive with Tech Pack at 3.49% APR for 72 months with down payment. That's just $267 bi-weekly. Cash value of $40,294. Plus, eligible Ford owners get a $1,000 bonus. For details, visit your local Ford store or Ford.ca. This episode is brought to you by Secret. Secret deodorant gives you 72 hours of clinically proven odor protection, free of aluminum, parabens, dyes, talc, and baking soda.

It's made with pH-balancing minerals and crafted with skin-conditioning oils. So whether you're going for a run or just running late, do what life throws your way and smell like you didn't. Find Secret at your nearest Walmart or Shoppers Drug Mart today. Find Secret at your nearest Walmart or Shoppers Drug Mart today. Good evening, gentle listener, and welcome to Distractible. This week, the host unveils his deepest dread for his fellow man. Wade pushes his mate through a filter and has beautiful synthetic boobs.

Beardless Bob believes in credit card osmosis. And tech guru Mark is terabyte-ly well-hung and wants to get to the bottom of the matter. From acid semen to brilliant baldness, yes, it's time for Microplastics Solved Forever. Now sit back and prepare to be distracted and enjoy the show. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Distractible, the wonderful podcast where me and my friends, we talk for about an hour and then we leave you happier than you started. Hopefully, anyway, unless there's something horrible that we've done and you are left with a bad taste in your mouth. I'm joined by my friends Bob and Wade.

Hello. How are you guys? Hey, doing pretty well. Post-moving, like, recovery of muscles. I don't know about you guys, but whenever I stub a toe, for some reason, the week thereafter, I continually hit it, that same toe, on everything. And I've had this poor, bruised, bloody toe

that I just keep. If I hit anything, it's that toe. How hard did you stub your toe? Pretty hard. I feel like I have almost never in my life stubbed my toe hard enough where it was like broken or seriously bruised. I stubbed my toe and it's like,

ah, ah, okay. It's always my pinky toes. And I actually had like two months of my left foot pinky toe being badly bruised and it's finally feeling better so then i slammed the right one and i don't want to get too graphic but it was bleeding and it doesn't look great were you wearing shoes flip-flops you were moving in flip-flops well that's your own fault it wasn't even the moving part that i heard it oh you were moving in flip-flops oh that's not when it got hurt it got hurt like just doing casual stuff where i was like in the house later

like looking around i was like um where do i want this uh i don't know and then i was like i turned to walk to the kitchen it was just like chunk and then like the tears formed it was like i'm okay and then i looked down and i saw the blood and just like a baby i was like, I'm okay. And then I looked down and I saw the blood and just like a baby. I was like, I'm not okay. I turned around. I turned around and my toe got stubbed clean off. I don't believe in toes. Look, this is pathetic and I will not award you any points for that. That's your own fault and you should control your feet better and you should control your life better.

Get yourself together before and get something real to complain about. Bob, how's your life? I was cooking and I cut a finger off. Oh, I'm missing that whole finger now. It's serious injury, Mark. How many points is that worth? That's worth nothing. That was your own recklessness.

And how dare you come to me complaining about your own finger that you cut off? You don't need it. If you didn't value it enough before, you didn't need it now. So hush. If we're going to have an abusive episode, I'm glad it's at least fair. Of course. We're always fair. Fair is fair.

Guys. Guys. Come on. The triangle of fairness. I never did find out if that means anything. I hope it doesn't. It means forehead, vagina. Don't worry about it.

Yeah, whatever. It's all good. So obviously you guys' lives are boring and uninteresting, but mine is thriving with potential. Oh, that sounds like a lie. It's thriving with potential. Guess how much storage I have on my server. 80 jillion terabytes, I assume.

480 terabytes of beautiful storage that's more than you even need it's not more it's more than i need right now but it's not more than i need in the future you could shoot three more movies exactly and that's kind of the concern well how much footage is your next movie taking up prop maybe anywhere from over 50 to 100 terabytes sounds like you still have extra yeah it sounds pretty excessive mark honestly no points for that that's just ridiculous well whatever it's it's i've got some boxes can i store those in there they'd probably fit in that much terabytes no dummy that's not how it works no points for you anyway listen i plan for the future because

i'm very intelligent and smart and also handsome. And when it comes down to me learning all this stuff about the server infrastructure that I set up in my NASAs, I have learned so much in the past few months of just how amazing I am in every single way. How many incorrect things did you buy before you got the setup you have currently? Many, many, many, many. I wasted thousands of dollars on the wrong purchases waste thousands of dollars finding ways for me to store my boxes in your terabytes where there's a will there's a wade no points for you wade it's a very threatening aura towards will too i just want to say will

don't worry about it he doesn't mean it where there's a will there's a way well here's the thing everybody it doesn't matter how pathetic your lives are or how amazing my life is because we're all doomed are we getting older? no we're not getting older we're not even going to get older because we're not gonna make it until then cryptids?

not cryptids although those are lurking bad diet? pretty much you're getting closer weird part 4? it could be. The ship of Theseus? Oh, it might just be something related to the ship of Theseus.

Candy Uncle? No. Mark's trolley problem? No. Euthanasia coaster? That is a good idea. But no, we're going to talk about our favorite subject that has me worried, microplastics. Ah, good. Oh, let me just google that word i'm 0.8 microplastics maybe mayhaps wait do you not know you're not know about this oh my god

most plastics the ocean break up into small particles are called microplastics that's crazy yep yeah wait it's caught up i had hoped that you both would have like at least a base level understanding i'm with you buddy okay thanks bob point for bob for knowing a little bit about it before we get into the deep end what do you mean they can cause in the body cancer chronic inflammation other unknown effects okay zoidberg's uncle from the silent film era. They could cause in the body, oh, effects adverse even. Uh-huh. Okay. Well, so what makes me want to talk about this, and I know it's probably a depressing

topic for a lot of people. It is a strange thing where it's this nebulous zone of health and humans and the future where we don't really know how bad it could be. We don't really know how bad it is because there really isn't a standardized testing for it. And we wouldn't even know what we're looking for in terms of the public health and the absurd consumption of microplastics that we take in in our body. the absurd consumption of microplastics that we take in in our body. Now, there was a study, and this is, I believe the study was exaggerated or it selectively took information that said that humans ate about a credit card equivalent of microplastics.

It was either every year or every month or something like that. God, I hope it's every year. It seemed to be exaggerated in certain ways but there was another sensationalist article that said humans inhale a credit card equivalent of toxic plastic particles every week which seems less true because i don't think that we're breathing in that much in terms of microplastics? Well, I published a study recently that states that humans absorb through osmosis a credit card's worth of microplastics every second. Whoa, that's too much.

I just thought of a published paper I might write how people absorb a brand new car for you and you and you made of microplastics every minute wow that's osmosis where you sit on it and it absorbs through your ass you know for all i know that could also be true uh i don't know enough right but that's never stopped us on this podcast so today we're going to get to the bottom of microplastics. We're going to get to the bottom of what it's going to do to humanity, how much is in our bodies right now, and the conclusions of whether

or not it's good, maybe, or bad. Is this the kind of thing that's actually going to give us superpowers? Or are we all doomed to be replaced Shipathesia-style by microplastics until we're a walking plastic human that didn't know that it'd ever change from who we were to what we will be? it trigger the next evolution of humanity probably okay so i want to get to the bottom of this so everyone at home can either rest easy or be eternally

paranoid i it's really up in the air of where we're going to be at the end of this episode but we know we're going to reach a conclusion. I will assume the side of pro microplastics. Bob is on pro microplastics. Wade is anti microplastics. All right. I've already stopped them. Okay. Well,

then we will determine the winner based on whether or not I feel hopeful or hopeless about the microplastics in our future because they are here and it is very clear. They're here to stay, but let's get down to it. Oh yeah yeah so you guys pull up your internet browsers get your researching thesauruses out and get ready to get scientific about it because as we all know all you need is a few google searches to know as much about anybody about anything in the world we have the wealth of the internet at our fingertips so let's get toipping. Let me just lead this off by saying in the second

half of the 20th century, we officially entered the plastic age, a new era where plastics represent the majority of man-made materials. In just a few decades, this is the most confusing number they could have written. 8,300 million metric tons, also known as 8.3 trillion metric tons of plastics have been produced and subsequent plastic waste have been accumulating in the marine and freshwater environments, as well as in the, in the earth and sand and dirt and everything in the, in the dry parts. It's everywhere. It's everywhere. It already is everywhere. And clearly we're fine. So I feel like my argument basically makes itself.

But, you know, we could still have this debate if you want, I guess. So it's what you're saying is that microplastics are here. They're everywhere. Get used to it, right? Yeah. There's no point in denying them. So we just have to get to the acceptance stage, right? Absolutely.

Okay. Fair point. And you get points for that. Wade, counterpoint. Look, carbon blocks faucet filters remove almost 100% of all known microplastics through a reverse osmosis filter. They can filter down to 0.001 microns. It will remove all known microplastics. You'll no longer be drinking it. Just put everything through the carbon blocks faucet filters.

Put your meat, put your drink, put your salad, all of it through those filters. No plastics will get through. I can almost guarantee it. I appreciate that in the ability, but we're not debating how to get rid of it yet because we have not determined whether or not it is good or bad or what the effects are going to be. Clearly, it's probably maybe bad. But why?

Because they can lead to diseases and cancers in your body. That's a good point. A bold claim. What evidence do you put forth? Yeah, what evidence do you have about that? Some comment I read on a Google search. Okay, I like that. Everyone knows you can trust WebMD.

They never exaggerate anything. Chemicals are known environmental pollutants like pesticides, fluoridated compounds, retardants and so on once in the body they can be the chemicals in the plastics can be released which is what leads to cancers inflammation and so on and so forth so the chemicals breaking down from the plastics are what's harmful aha interesting so it breaks it's not the microplastics themselves that are bad it's the chemicals that break down from them that are bad well and once they're in the body there's not really a known way to remove them so you got to stop them from getting in which is where the filter comes in

uh-huh how do you put meat through a filter it's a fancy filter can you make that noise but louder will can you amplify that noise and then you eat the meat you should probably cook it everyone here is getting all worked up about uh microplastics potentially releasing off gas points for wade for that one sorry bob i gotta i gotta give him points uh but look there there it's they've been everywhere for half a century already like what are we what are we so scared of there's plenty of stuff that was out in the world for a long time before plastic even existed that

everyone was all worked up about and it turns out it's fine, probably. Like lead. Like lead, and paint, and gas, and like radioactive paint for glow-in-the-dark watches. All this stuff has turned out to be basically fine. Basically fine. That is a good point. We do not have a storied history of other compounds

causing problems for human health, or the collapse of various civilizations around the world. So. Plus, studies, medical studies, that I'm not going to give you the name of, but that definitely exist, have found that patients with liver disease actually accumulate more microplastics and nanoplastics in their liver and tissues compared to people without liver disease, thus proving basically

irrevocably that the human body knows how to filter out plastics because it does, unless it's unhealthy, but that has nothing to do with maybe the plastics, probably. Right. So what you're saying is the unhealthy people aren't able to process their plastics correctly, and therefore they get sick.

It's not the microplastics that are doing it. It's their unhealthy livers. That's definitely maybe what I'm implying. Yeah, okay. I like that. That's good. Points for you. I feel better already.

My liver's healthy as far as I know, so I'm probably processing all my plastics and only getting the good out of it hold on time out uh not not to not to throw you under the bus but you can't process alcohol what makes you think you can process plastic oh well that's just well i'm not sick that you know of you just were a week or two ago not liver sick yeah not liver sick that's nerve sick you know microplastics and the chemicals can also affect your immune system, which make you more prone to other illnesses and diseases. Diseases. It's pronounced, it's French.

Diseases. Got it. Is this a Deez Nuts joke? Are you walking me into something right now? It wasn't intentional, but if you want it to be. Microplastics would probably affect Deez Nuts too. Are you saying that microplastics have an effect on fertility? I am maybe implying it possibly which i haven't read anywhere is it a positive or negative impact will it make me hyper fertile it'll actually give you synthetic offspring

because you're off you know the plastics will will be you could possibly have acidic semen that will eat through condoms i haven't read that anywhere. I'm making it up. Excellent. That's what you want. It'll be like a xenomorph but instead of the extra mouth coming out of your mouth, it comes out of your dick. I'm deducting points. You were up. You're now down. You should, from

microplastics. Alright, so yeah, we gotta get into the idea that it might be bad. It might be okay, but it might give you a superpower. So what if, okay, so just so we're all on the same page, I have done some research about this just so we're all like on the same page here. The problem, quote unquote, we haven't decided that yet, with microplastics is not the plastics themselves as they currently are. It actually is a factor of what happens to the microplastics over time in that as they erode, they are literally, plastics are just chains of molecules. They're kind of like fats in terms of like they have many long strings of chains of certain chemicals but the problem is when they break down to a

certain small size they break up into little individual pieces that can then fold and basically what it is is like a self-folding they get little knotted up they turn into different things and these can become analogs of certain chemicals that are in the body certain proteins in the bodies and that means they can bind to certain things on the bodies and have unknown effects like there are certain analogs from microplastics going down to a certain size that can replicate certain hormones in the body theoretically theoretically now this is all random happen chance because it's all eroding but random happen chance is how like we got here to this point where we are so maybe the x-men were caused by microplastics

and it caused beneficial things i i don't want to derail this whole thing because that is really good info did you say random happen chance like the the chance of it happening is that a word i'm unfamiliar with i don't know what i said i i believe i believe i said happenstance i swear to god i heard happen chance i will not i will make sure that do a replay but make sure the replace doesn't make me look stupid or else i'm gonna theoretically now this is all random happen chance happen chance i'm not i'm saying that i like happen chance i've just never used or heard that used before well clearly happen chance is not a word unless that is what i said and then it is a word there's another markism another word you use in like in space and who killed martyrs i swear it's not a word but i've started using it

this is not about my vernacular this is about microplastic someone help me what is the word who wants some microplastic points happen chance is a word of course it is defied by miriam webster oh no that's happenstance oh but it's a synonym of happenchance oh it's just a sin it is a word it just means the exact same thing as happenstance yeah it's a word happenchance you're so smart mark knowing words thank you i am very smart like i'm just saying it makes happenchance makes a lot more sense than happenstance nothing nothing that ever happens by happenstance happens because it stood up okay it happens because by chance it happened it doesn't make sense it wasn't the power stance

that was occurring when it happened it happened because of chance i'm manifesting this into existence this is my happenstance come on i love it god you're so smart mark unbelievable points for you points for many points for you actually can i have some for shaving my head yesterday to pretty up for this episode uh how are you not sure that your baldness wasn't caused by microplastics? Because I paid someone to shave it and I watched. What if your hair follicles are clogged by microplastics? What if you just need to wash better? What if you're not bald? What if you're just evolving? When did you say the start of the microplastics or our plastic age was, Bob?

I mean, the back half of the 20th century is kind of like the plastic. Plastics came about in the like 60s, 50s, 60s. Okay, well, I've got some old family photos from probably like before that. I don't remember. Like great great grandpa was also bald. Oh, sure. Before that. Yeah.

Well, I don't think he was young in like. But he lived in the lead and uranium age. So maybe that's unrelated, but unrelated. That was lead hair loss and actually you know what microplastics causing baldness i think supports my side so yeah you know what it probably did oh my god okay so you're saying baldness is a bad thing it is for some have you seen some people's head shapes not everyone is a defaultly gifted like me i have like a crease and i have a big mole on the top of my head i would look

and it's dead center on my head so it's not like a spot it would be like a little target on the top middle of my head i would look not great with a shaved head and i'm definitely afraid that that's the direction i'm headed because my mom's stepfather was a bald man and uh that uh maybe that might be my future you just grow it down here and it distracts people from what's going on up there i can't do i get to grow a better beard if i if i go bald is that does it migrate because i can't grow a beard for shit right now i mean mine started around that time but maybe not everybody i haven't shaved in like four or five days you can't even really tell no hair grows here at all no i grow like a terrible little shitty mustache that's because of microplastics maybe maybe, probably. Probably.

It's almost definitely because, no, I mean. Ooh, that was an incredible chess move. You just got Bob to admit that maybe microplastics might be bad. That's double points for Wade. Woo! Microplastics would never harm me. It's probably Wade's fault that nothing grows on my face. Why is it Wade's fault? Because his head is setting a terrible example. Well, you're

moving back to Ohio. You're going to be nearer to the source, the plague bearer of microplastics. Yeah, well, if I'm bald in a year, then we'll all know that it's Wade. We know with the amount of processed food I eat, I'm probably 90% microplastic at this point. Yeah, that probably actually is probably true. I mean, my tits

definitely ain't real anymore. They're pure plastic. Microplastic. I feel like that's points for micro plastics right there that sounds like points for my do you think they look good thanks man you're gonna credit those fabulous bazoinkers i'm willing to give up those points it means i look good well so that's that's the thing right so the idea is that microplastics are dangerous because they can replicate certain hormones and chemicals but we need to acknowledge the fact that there already are an incredible amount of chemicals and hormones just already in the supply i think it was shown speaking of of boobs is there was a study that was like um in recent years the average british bra size jumped from an average of a 34B to a 36D,

which means that in, I believe it was just 50 years. Let me see if I can actually get to the data of this. There was some indication that maybe it was just like a bra sizing error because a lot of people don't have the exact bra size that correct in what they wear i don't know i don't wear bras but at the same time a lot of people suspected that it was quote xenoestrogens which in the uk especially when this was occurring there was a lot less farmland so the farmland that they did have and the cows that they did have they wanted to produce more milk per acre of farmage so they gave the the cows more hormones to produce and induce lactation in the cows so that they would produce more milk and then be able to produce more milk per acre. Therefore, the milk that they did produce had these hormones in them because they were being

given hormones to induce more. And so when you have milk in the supply, in the food supply, you actually had a increase in breast sizes in the UK. Now, for better or for worse, it was also other factors that like, like earlier menstruation was occurring and there's various like impacts to that. That is a legitimate thing that is occurring throughout society. And it's concerning because it's like we don't know exactly where it's coming from whether it's hormones in the food supply antibiotics or chemicals just being everywhere or microplastics or all of these are these are

people that are all the same size because i think the trend over like the last however many years also like the average weight of the average human has gone up to which i think people's weight can be distributed either like i get it in my stomach and butt and some people get it in like their chest or breast, so on and so forth. Cause that also, is that excluding that? This is, this is the tough thing about statistics and like studies like this is because there are so many factors in like society. So how do you keep track of all of these different variables and how do you create a reliable data set? We Truman show a whole group of people.

I love that Wade is going down the human experimentation route. Go on. Look, human plastics are bad. We can prove it by finding volunteers that are willing to go live off their lives in the Truman show like setting where we can control these factors. We kind of like know going in if they come from like a similar i don't know environment or whatever we'll know that they all come from a similar background probably had similar diets whatever and then you can control what they eat how they sleep so on and so forth the air they're breathing the quality of it i'm

not saying you intentionally pollute them you don't do that i think you treat them super well in the experiment you don't treat them poorly you have a control that eats like normal average human diets as the is the world right now i gotta fine-tune it what i'm hearing is that the side of uh microplastics are bad is so willing to do whatever they can to prove their so far unproven principles they would torture humanity by subjecting them to chemical experimentation and isolation from society i said the opposite you said to truman show them that means a very specific thing yeah but treat them better not worse you give them better diets healthier things oh okay but why do you need to film them yeah why. Why is it a reality show? How is that better? Well, they don't... One, my entertainment, because I'm evil. But two, so that way you have proof of the fact that they're following the guidelines.

They're not, like, going around eating couches or something stupid. I don't know. Why would they eat couches? I don't know what people do, man. They're weird. My opponent has such a low view of humanity that he thinks they they eat couches and do all sorts of not this this is clearly a person out of touch with the reality of the world that we live in today he could use some microplastics to even out wade what if i told

you that there was an entire system set up where you could have as many people as you want in individual rooms with locked doors where you can control their schedules and cameras observing their every movement. And it's just a few pesky laws getting in the way of you pursuing your experimentation on this population. I just want to throw this out there in my defense. A quick Google search found in 2011, there was an article by Susan Donaldson James about a PICA patient. I don't know what PICA is, but PICA patients eating dirt, paint, sand, and sofas. PICA. It's a disorder where you eat non-edible things.

PICA. You have an insatiable urge to eat anything, including stuff you're not supposed to eat. The cameras would prevent couch consumption because we would see. That is a rare condition. What percentage of the population is afflicted with pica? Well, one in our experiment would throw off the results, Bob. All it takes is one. Yep. What if that person became the chef and they cooked meals and they used couch in the cooking? Alright, so you're

still wanting to experiment on people. By treating them better, for to be clear. Treat them better than what? Than the average one of us dumbasses eat like me. I eat like shit. Alright, fair enough. Okay, so are you for or against experimenting on

prison populations? That's what I'm trying to understand. Prison? I don't want to deal with them. I's what I'm trying to understand. Prison? I don't want to deal with them. I want normal people. Whoa. All right. Hey, you guys know my family history enough to know I've done my time with some of the prison populace. I yield the remainder of my time.

I just want Wade to keep talking. Yeah, Wade keeps going. Keep going, Wade. I want average people. Average people. Okay. The Wade thinks prisoners are not normal people i want average people average people okay the way things prisoners are not normal people not average people are they above average or below average wade how do you you guys are trying so hard to bait me into some shit we don't need to do much here look can i just

say that none of us are scientists, okay? It's not inaccurate to say that we don't understand the impact that microplastics have and nanoplastics on the environment and on human health. It seems pretty self-evident to me that that's bad. Aha! My opponent yields to me! Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Hang on. Hang on.

Self-evident that it's bad but that does not mean that it's proved conclusively to be bad and this is not a debate about the truth this is a debate about who is correct and based on the information we have i'm correct you can't you can't prove anything i'm like the cigarette lobby from the 80s and 90s but you can't prove it's okay either i don't have to prove it's okay i just have to say that we don't know would you rather be safe or sorry safe from what the possible bad effects that microplastics can cause hide in your homes i'll protect you never go anywhere or do anything you You'll be safe. Yes, that's what people want. I would do that. That sounds great to me.

I have from my research right here, from the very peer-reviewed, the prodigious, what is the right word for it? Prestigious? Prestigious, yes. The prestigious reporting outlet of another podcast called the,

I'm not going to give their name. The title says microplastics are giving baby superpowers. Great. That sounds awesome. Let's not read any of that. Just take that at the, take that at face value. I just, uh, so according to the, the, the prestigious reporting firm of the millennials, microplastics are giving baby superpowers. And I feel like that is really cool. I've seen that clip from The Boys where the baby shot lasers out of its eyes. I think we can all agree that's pretty sick. That's pretty sick. That is a fictional show that has nothing to do with microplastics. What do you mean? I'm just giving a reference. Having superpowers. The reality is microplastics are giving baby superpowers'm just giving a reference having super so the reality is

microplastics are giving baby superpowers the example that i have is that that was pretty dope i'm not of course i'm not saying the boys are real okay all right then you got me checkmate with that but that's not what i'm saying okay that scene was dope the actual implications of like what superpowers is also as seen in the boys can be very bad and negative on the world okay well whatever look if hancock taught me anything it's that superheroes are just misunderstood and it's not their fault hancock there's no d in there and cock and cock nope nope wrong see Nope, nope, wrong. See? For the case against microplastics, there's another article here

that was published on the... This doesn't seem legit, but the National Library of Medicine? That sounds made up. I don't know about that. Yeah, it sounds very made up. Microplastics may be a significant cause of male infertility.

For a while. Yeah. No studies examine the relationship between human, oh, microplastic exposure and male infertility. In this article, we reviewed the relevant animal experimental research literature in recent years and calculated that the minimum human equivalent dose of microplastics leading to abnormal male semen quality is.016 milligrams per kilograms per d dick i think per dick yeah probably yeah anyway so that doesn't seem like a very big number so oh wait the minimum dose is not a very big number small number good that's all

i have to say about that yep Yep. Yeah. Golf rules. What I'm gathering is we don't know, but they're probably at least some of them not good. Maybe not all of them, but at least some of them are probably not good. And overall, there's a lot of fear of the negatives they can have and not much about positives. That's what I'm gathering from this. Oh, this article has some interesting information about how much we actually consume. Oh, this article has some interesting information about how much we actually consume.

So in earlier in this episode, I said that we might inhale a credit card's worth of microplastics per week. This says, oh, per day, per day. microplastics uh at 270 nanograms per kilogram per day of polyethylene terephthalate microplastics and polycarbonate microplastics and then we food and water intake about i could be right says less i don't know i don't know if we eat less than we inhale maybe i'm wrong i don't know i don't know that would don't know. That would be an interesting revelation. Breathing a lot of plastics in? That's probably not a big deal. Anyway, there's a lot of information saying

it causes a severe drop in oh, you know, testicle size, sperm count. That just makes your pants fit better. You need way less room and the boxers down there if you have less package to worry about and uh that's just for comfort really it's just an evolutionary progression bob are you getting low on copium do we need to send you some

i gotta give bob a point there that's a great point i hate it when my pants bunch up that's really inconvenient i have huge balls and man is it tough to find pants with enough crotch room i need more microplastics that's what i'm hearing i'm so glad the skinny jean era is over because just i couldn't fit my massive testicles in all these skinny jeans unbearable give me give me my jinkos back yeah so they're saying things like decreased sperm motility decreased sperm density increased sperm malformation rate sperm damage destruction of the blood testosterone barrier spermatogenic cell apoptosis yeah fuck all that negative stuff smaller balls yeah convenience okay convenience yep can i just say i i hope it's apparent i'm doing a bit i'm taking the side i

i'm i think that's apparent right no i mean i really believe all this but good i would deduct points otherwise yeah don't deduct points i find it just crazy when when uh scientists and researchers are like well look at all these chemicals that kind of they look like other they could do other other chemicals and look at all these weird changes that kind of correspond to levels and chemicals rising or whatever and and then people are just like but you can't prove it where's the proof nerd where and it's like i mean it's coming maybe when people start to die then we'll have some proof i don't know you know what it reminds me of is there was that i don't know

some town hall or some city council meeting in some city and it was people talking about like i think fracking was causing you know pollutants in the water supply and all the politicians have been like it's not a big deal i drink the water i drink the water any day and then the guy comes in with a glass of water from the local river or that looks like sludge like it looks like a glass of diarrhea you could see in the low res video the particles floating in it and he holds it up he's like here you go drink it and the guy's like i will not drink that drink it drink it and i was like i'm not going to drink that then you agree that this is not drinkable and they're like no i don't agree with that then drink it no i won't drink it

it's like it's just the loop of thing is like yeah sure you can't prove that drinking this is gonna be terrible for you but you don't want to drink it, do you? I'm just not thirsty. I just drank like five glasses of that before we came out here for this. Yeah. Because I was like, you won't be able to have any drinks during the session. So I'm drunk. I'm all drunk out.

Do you remember the people that were like fighting to let people drink raw milk, like unpasteurized milk? Like people should be able to drink it. So they finally passed a law that was like, yeah, we can sell raw milk. And so they drank a glass of raw milk to celebrate these two people. And it was on video because it was like some news article thing. And then for the next like hour and a half, they were just on the couch being like, oh, God. Because they were so unbelievably sick couch being like oh god because they just like were so unbelievably sick from drinking the ramen they're like it's just like unbelievably ill it's just like why

were you fighting so hard for this but again i being on the side of microplastics i it's you know you can't definitively prove anything plastics have been around for more than half a century and it's, it's impossible for science to say what specific effects the plastics have had because all the other stuff. Well, go eat some credit cards for us, Bob. Live on Distractible. I don't have any credit cards with it. I use Apple wallet, you know, it's all in my phone and I. Oh, eat your, eat your headphones.

Uh, these are made of metal actually they're very fancy um so they're not uh that's that wouldn't be the same oh this wow they look like they've got some plastic that's crazy okay no no metal metal there's a there's some graphite or graphene i forget in there that's a cool there's the it's a cool thing um very fascinating technology thanks in large part or maybe in no small part hard to say for sure to plastics but they're not made of plastic so i can't eat them and this is cloth that's not plastic right of course yeah but yeah i mean as much as i think it's insane i'm still winning the debate right because oh absolutely you you are

actually in the lead i won't tell you by how much it's a very close game so i will take uh just a few more arguments here so wade bob has been sweeping right now just in the last few minutes of dominating the conversation i'm so in the favor of having better fitting pants um the other things he said uh but if you have anything to say that microplastics are bad or whatever that's your chance yeah so those whole plastics may be picking up or contain chemicals that are bad for you thing i'm just gonna keep harping that point i've spent a lot of my life hating cancer and trying to fight cancer and things that cause cancer seem bad to me and if microplastics are possibly causing it i don't really feel like i need much more and even if it's not technically fully proven it's got a correlation and that's enough to make

me go i don't think i want anymore thank you oh you want correlation uh everyone who's ever breathed in oxygen has died every human who's ever breathed in oxygen has died or will die within their lifetime some more painfully than others definitely also i just want to say it during the course of this episode if my opponent is so against uh microplastics how why are you drinking a bottle of water made up of microplastics well because i it, I don't want to waste it and even though I've regretted every sip so far, I'm also not the brightest. I live under the do as I say not as I do mantra because

well, I'm an idiot. Boom! I won the debate. Yeah, he won the debate. I've proved nothing and have made no case that microplastics are safe or in any way good for anyone, but I won the debate. I don't even remember what he was saying most of the time. On this particular podcast, I feel like that's true.

You might have won the debate. I would say on almost any podcast where people are debating for spectacle and entertainment purposes, serious topics such as microplastics or perhaps health topics and important medical things, or perhaps health topics and important medical things, that winning a debate in that context is almost meaningless as compared to real published scientific research with verifiable and repeatable results. But I won this debate, bitches! To give some credence to you, Bob, I suppose,

I was looking at an article, a detailed review study on potential effects of microplastics and additives of concern on human health on the National Library of Medicine website. And ultimately, their conclusion is it's not super well known how toxic chemicals absorb, desorb onto from microplastics, but there are plausible mechanisms like hydrophobic interactions, pH variations, so on and so forth. So they can't really definitively say how good or bad they are, but they send a sign with a cautious attitude of they're probably bad,

but there is not exact evidence right now. No evidence. You heard it from his mouth, folks. I didn't. I couldn't believe it. Not only did Bob claim the victory, but Wade gave the victory. He rescinded surrendered uh the microplastics should make it my brain did not work quite right i can't think of the words they're very bad for your brain by pure happen chance you can't remember the words look to be honest with you i'm really tired i've been moving and i don't want to think of a topic so i'm yeah i'm conceding

conceding that was it that's what i was looking for hey how many points for that none all right well that concludes the microplastic debate uh with a sweeping victory bob has launched himself into the stratosphere of victory riding upon the the chemtrails of microplastics the pure clean microplastic energy that is exuding from him just really launched him into the victory circle. So congratulations, Bob. I was sure he was going to sweep that away from me somehow. I was too. I feel like he should have as well. What do you mean? No.

Microplastics are good and everyone should eat more. No, that's not what we decided. Eat your bowl of plasties every morning with your favorite plastic superhero. Wait, don't misquote me now. I said you can't prove they're bad. Just because we know anecdotally that they're bad and have a lot of evidence that they're bad does not mean that it's proven.

And thus. This sounds like he's conceding the victory. No, I'm not conceding anything. There's nothing to worry about probably unless you worry about potentially harmful things happening to you but only idiots worry about that yeah don't worry you'll get shingles yeah and then your liver will stop working and you won't be able to process all those microplastics i feel like anybody that had an iq that was a positive number that listened to this episode probably will regret it by now aren't all iq values really absolute anyway so if you just keep diving negative eventually you'll come out

on top sure i thought so yeah let's go with you winner speech well i'd like to start no way shut up oh i thought you were gonna i thought you were about to do the handshake deal that we had you're welcome to it what oh no no no we've been here the whole time. We couldn't have made a handshake deal today. I didn't think so. Anyway, winner's speech. Bob. Yeah, no, it feels good. I feel a little bit like Aaron Eckhart's character in Thank You

for Smoking, but you know what? Darn it. I won, and that's really all that matters. At any cost, victory is a victory, and boy, does it taste good. Ah, politics. Alright, Wade, loser speech. How do you apologize to all of the microplastic companies out there?

I guess you can find me being put into a hole with chemical waste and deposits and such. Maybe I'll be a microplastic going into your food, water, or nose here soon. Whenever I'm disposed of for trying to protect you all from the harmful effects of microplastics. So see you soon or be in you soon.

We'll find out. Oh, that's way worse. That is concerning. Oh, now you're concerned. Well, well, just you. Anyway, so thank you everybody so much for watching. If we ever need to make any more disclaimers than we have in this episode, that this is very serious. And obviously we believe in everything that we've said 100%.

Without question, you can rest assured that whatever the truth is, is the truth. And we believe in that. As scientific non-experts, we gave you everything we had in the best and most honest way we could present it that what he said probably i thought of a title for this episode we can call this social media facts no microplastics uh are us because they are us this episode just feels like how information spreads online in 2023 no no this isn't a this isn't us trying to analyze that at all what do you mean in before an excerpt of this is quoted on some crazy conspiracy podcast with that being like see everyone's talking about it well my dad works at microplastics so therefore

when i say is fact i see what you did there. I don't. What'd he do? His dad works in microplastics. He said he has a dad. Oh, that's a good one. Happy belated Father's Day, everyone. It's like weeks from Father's Day right now. You don't know. Anyway, hope you all have a lovely day out there.

You've got more information than you started this episode, and you probably have less worries. So thank you so much. You can find Bob and Wade at their respective channels. Find them. You got this. You'll find us by happenchance. Merch is, we're going 100% microplastic on our merch,

so look forward to a new restocking. Have a lovely day. Be sure to follow the podcast for more amazing, insightful, scientific information. We have been Distractible Podcast out!