This article doesn’t provide evidence for your claim that plastics are not so abundant in the oceans, it only points out that a specific study that relied on a false premise (that PVC is a high percentage or is well-represented in ocean plastics) is flawed. It makes almost no mention of the abundance of actual ocean plastics.

Did you link the wrong article or something?

You're the one with the extraordinary claim so you should be providing extraordinary evidence.

This isn’t at all what people by money not buying happiness. Even if your life objectively improves, it’s just a matter of time until your brain adjusts to the new normal and you’re back to the same levels of happiness you were at before the money. It’s pretty much the crowning “feature” of our biological wiring - because if an animal like us in ancient times was blissfully content the moment their lot in life improved, they would stop trying and not end up spreading their genes. So we’re pretty much doomed to never be truly happy/content because of how natural selection works.

If you're hungry, or cold, or have no safe place to sleep, money will fix that. If you're just managing to make ends meet and in constant fear of losing your job, money will fix that. If you're overworked and stressed from your high pressure job, money will fix that. In fact, until you're rich enough to be way off the pointy end of Maslowe's hierarchy, money will fix pretty much anything that ails you.

From what I've seen, there's a clear line of demarcation below what you're implying. If I remember correctly, the research says it's around $60k-$75k in the U.S. where the happiness levels out in response to money. I'd have to look it up again to make sure I'm not misremembering

Yep, that lines up with what I've read and what I've personally experienced. Beyond $75k (or your local currency equivalent), more money is more of a theoretical "can do more nice things", "drives a nicer car", "can go skiing for holidays instead of rent a beach shack." It's nice, but it's a change in degree, not a change in kind.

Below $75k combined income is where those "do I want X or Y because I can't have both" situations come about increasingly frequently. Below $45k it becomes "do I want to pay the electricity bill or the rent?"

This is commonly misreported. A 2010 study found that answers to questions like "Did you experience a lot of stress yesterday?" leveled out between $60,000 and $90,000. How satisfied people said they were with their lives continued to increase.[1]

[1] https://www.pnas.org/content/107/38/16489

Kahneman actually speaks to this pretty well in his TED talk about the two types of happiness, but the parent comment seemed to be speaking to the first type (the 'reducing stress' happiness, not the 'reflecting' happiness). You're right; I was trying deliberately not to get lost in the weeds on the details but it probably just looks lazy instead.

In support of your point: https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2017/04/Happiness-across-...

According to what? There are plenty of fairly trivial counterexamples to this. If what you say here is correct, what is mental illness? What is a solid marriage vs a terrible one? What is a good job vs a bad job?

For instance, lots of peoples' mental states improve when they are able to not live with their parents, for various reasons. That requires money.

> a forced Streisand

For those who didn’t catch the reference, this is referring to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect

Thanks for the link. I'd never heard of this being called a "Streisand effect" before.

Ironically, that's evidence agaist its existence as an effect.

The phenomenon described is common - making a noticeable effort to hide something draws more attention to what you're trying to hide.

Attributing it to a specific individual seems a little weird to me. It'd be like calling lashing out in anger "the Depp effect."

Phenomena get named. Good names are in short supply. Names of individuals are used as an easy cultural shorthand.

Yes, but that then adds a communication barrier. There are more universal ways to describe what happened.

I was going say something to this effect as well, for the other harder drugs I’ve tried. I do remember having fun while on them, but I also vividly remember the “come down”, and don’t really crave them at all because of that. I wonder if this (psychological?) trait is more common amongst people who are unlikely to become addicted to drugs.

I have pretty bad depression and mindfulness (metacognition/awareness of your emotions) have a lot to do with memories. I'm often not "aware" that I'm happy/sad/angry, etc. and my memories reflect that. Just taking a moment and thinking about what I'm currently feeling can be surprising to me.

I think this relates a lot here, people who are well aware of their emotions may observe the effects the drugs have on them, not just when they're high/coming down but also it's affects on their day to day lives.

In college I remember loving amphetamines. I would take as much adderall as I could get my hands on.

It made me feel superhuman. Just knowing I would score some would get me excited.

But the more I times I took it, the more I would think of the terrible comedown. It got to the point where I wouldn’t touch the stuff without having weed and xanax on me.

Finally, I just got too scared of the comedown and stopped. All for the best I suppose (though I do take low doses of adderall or modafinil very occasionally for work if I feel like I’m about to fall asleep at my desk)

I, too, hate the "come down" more than I desire the reward, which makes me averse to many of those things, as well as gambling. I have a hard time following sports teams too closely because I hate to "lose" more than I like to "win".

That said, I don't have the same reaction to alcohol; the cravings when I regularly partake are stronger than the desire not to. I'm sure there's a whole spectrum of folks from averse to addiction, to easily addicted to anything.