This is the final comment copied from the original blog post. Reza identifies specific issues he has with the Story of Stuff. It was originally posted Monday, January 21, 2008 10:15:00 PM
Sigh... where to begin. Ok John. You lucked out, Paul and I couldn't get together tonight because I was at a Jazz gig. So here we go:
The two issues are 1) lack of accuracy and 2) persuasiveness. I do agree with paul that these are coupled. Let's go through and talk about point 1 first.
Pretty much everything she states about toxic chemicals is innacurate. I'm going from memory here, but this is a list:
1) She said somethings like 100,000 chemicals with only a few tested and none tested for synergistic impacts. Holy crap where do I start with this one.
- a) Much like with pharma, you need to go through millions of dollars of testing to get anything approved for production. You first identify potential hazard (carcinogenicity, teratogenicity, etc...) at astronomic doses, and then do calculate what humans could potentially be exposed to in "worst case" scenarios. Then you make sure that there is at least 100X less (often more like 1,000 fold lower) of that chemical in the worst case scenario than the LOWEST dose that caused ABSOLUTELY no effects in animal models. This is a simplified version of Risk Assessment.
- b) Synergistic effects? People have done almost a decade of research on just that. Potential synergistic effects of mixtures. The results of the billions of dollars in research? Bupkis. nada. Scare tactics at best.
2) BFR are neutoxiCANTS. They also save lives because they stop your mattress from burning when your house is on fire. I don't think they use them in pillows anymore, regardless the doses are really low (see risk assessment above). Despite all of this, due to media pressure people are actively looking for alternatives to BRF.
3) Toxicants all are concentrated in breast milk? WHAT?!?!?! That is about as nonsensical a statement as I have ever heard. While there are cases of very few, VERY FEW, lipophilic compounds that pool in certain tissues including breast milk; HOWEVER, people don't just ignore this fact. This is all part of the risk assessment. Babies are often the sensitive populations, so the risk assessments are done on babies.
4) Factory workers. I can't speak for companies that are ONLY in places like China, but US companies and international companies also do risk assessment for factory workers. Again, phantom issues that she is blowing WAY out of proportion and completely distorting the truth.
5) As an example that you can relate to: She says that computers go obsolete every 2 years. But she looked into this, opened her desk top and saw that they change only a little piece (we assume she means the CPU) with everything else staying the same. She also claims conspiracy because they make the new CPUs incompatible with the old ones. Do you feel this is an accurate representation of the truth? I can tell you that this is 100X more accurate than everything she said about chemicals.
Ok, so that is some of the accuracy stuff, there is more but I am running out of time. what about persuasiveness?
I would argue that she shoots herself in the foot on this because she pulls in political stuff that will likely turn off all moderates and republicans. It turned me off. here is a list:
1) The whole showing government as a tank. Why did she even go there? Isn't this a story about how we should be less materialistic and use less stuff? She is causing much of her potential audience to tune out because of her extremist opinions. And don't give me the "my friends want me to make it a tank but I think government should be for the people, by the people," etc...
2) Business should be bigger than the government. Why would we want an enormous government that wastes so much money/energy/brain power, etc... Again, this is politics that causes her to get off message.
3) So the media is to blame for everything else? The TV tells me to buy something so I go do it? It has nothing to do with my vanity? I don't need the TV to convince me that a 29" flatscreen monitor for my computer is cool. It is just cool. She continues to put the blame on everything except the individual. Again, she gets off message and will lose people.
There are a lot of other examples, but in the end I couldn't get over the HUGE distortion of truth and scare tactics that were used in this film. I think that it will likely convince people who were already convinced, further polarize the people who think tree huggers and their anti-business ways suck, and just irritate scientists due to lack of accuracy.
Ok, I'm tired. Is that what you wanted John?
Paul, now that John had his fill I would be happy to discuss offline. I think it would make for an interesting conversation. We can even invite poopy-pants to the call. Peace brother.
R
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