rallatsc

Plastic is polyethylene, which is a long chain of repeating ethylene molecules. To make it biodegradable they just put starch molecules in the chain every so often.

A lot of plastic is polyethylene, but nowhere near all of it. There are plenty of polymers that can break down naturally, mostly polyesters like PLA (which breaks down into lactic acid, the same naturally produced compound that causes muscle soreness after workouts). A lot of work is being put into making PLA have better material properties so it can replace more of the conventional plastics. It's also generally made from corn and can be pretty close to carbon-neutral. So long story short some biodegradable plastics are worse, but some have legitimate applications and are genuinely better than current options.

In addition to what the other commenter said, this case took place in California where abortion is fully legal and constitutionally protected. Not to minimize what's going on in other states of course, but you're comparing apples to oranges with that statement.

The accounts, which were restored within hours,

Yes, they will and they did

So he typically advertises for VPNs? I don't understand.

He "typically" discusses interesting places/people. In the first 5 or so seconds of the video he discusses a fictitious person and how they "weren't protected from viruses, but you could be with a VPN". So he transitions from his typical video style to a VPN ad to then highlight all of the things wrong with VPN ads.

The opening scene is a parody of his typical videos (which are typically about places/people) transitioning into a VPN ad segment. The fact that it isn't about a real person means that it is not in fact from one of his real videos. If you watch the opening scene and read the pinned comment on the video my reply might make more sense.

This is inaccurate, read the pinned comment on the video where he points out that the opening scene is entirely made up and isn't about a real person.

GIS might be Google Image Search in this case, though I haven't seen it abbreviated like that before.

Doesn't the fluorine make them both effective and forever? Isn't it difficult to create a lower energy state molecule than a compound of fluorine.

For many applications, yes. Fluorinated compounds tend to be quite inert. There are definitely some applications where the compounds don't need to be resistant to every type of chemical attack and you could use a more specialized compound that is generally less inert but performs similarly in whatever conditions you put it under.

Is "forever" the problem?

Forever is a big part of the problem, but it's worth noting that if a compound is completely nontoxic then bioaccumulation doesn't matter as much (though some nontoxic chemicals can increase the potency of other, toxic chemicals and cause problems that way: see this article)

The points you have brought up seem to be an issue with responsibile manufacturing more than the nature of the chemicals themselves. Seems like that should be addressed on a much wider discussion than just these particular compounds.

Yes. We need increased strictness on regulations and enforcement for these compounds and others because that's the only way to make companies comply.

PFAS are used in so many forms (solvents, polymers, etc.) that I think the replacement will be very dependent on the specific use case (and potentially other regulations on alternatives, particularly for solvents). I'm not knowledgeable about every field these compounds are used in and for privacy/NDA purposes I can't talk about the specifics of the ones I worked with.

Remember your high school chemistry class

Yes I do. I also remember my college chemistry classes. And my work in an industry R&D lab evaluating potential replacements for a fluorinated compound.

What do you think they are going to use instead of fluorine?

Something that's not as good, but good enough. See leaded vs unleaded gasoline for a historical example of industry reacting to regulation. It'll of course take time and money, and there may be limited use cases where there aren't any conceivable replacements, but in a lot of cases these compounds are used as a catch-all because they work so well.

Yet I guarantee you that in their R&D labs they're already looking for alternatives at this point, all the while claiming to the public that it will be impossible to replace or result in inferior products (maybe it will, but hopefully it won't be super noticeable - leaded gasoline's octane numbers haven't been matched cheaply but we can still drive just fine).

If you read the subreddit stats website, you'll see a massive disclaimer at the top that the data is inaccurate after the API change because the site owner didn't want to pay the new rates. I think a lot of people here are overstating how much reddit has changed since the API shutoff.