this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2025
458 points (94.6% liked)
Comic Strips
23800 readers
3185 users here now
Comic Strips is a community for those who love comic stories.
Rules
-
😇 Be Nice!
- Treat others with respect and dignity. Friendly banter is okay, as long as it is mutual; keyword: friendly.
-
🏘️ Community Standards
- Comics should be a full story, from start to finish, in one post.
- Posts should be safe and enjoyable by the majority of community members, both here on lemmy.world and other instances.
- Any comic that would qualify as raunchy, lewd, or otherwise draw unwanted attention by nosy coworkers, spouses, or family members should be tagged as NSFW.
- Moderators have final say on what and what does not qualify as appropriate. Use common sense, and if need be, err on the side of caution.
-
🧬 Keep it Real
- Comics should be made and posted by real human beans, not by automated means like bots or AI. This is not the community for that sort of thing.
-
📽️ Credit Where Credit is Due
- Comics should include the original attribution to the artist(s) involved, and be unmodified. Bonus points if you include a link back to their website. When in doubt, use a reverse image search to try to find the original version. Repeat offenders will have their posts removed, be temporarily banned from posting, or if all else fails, be permanently banned from posting.
- Attributions include, but are not limited to, watermarks, links, or other text or imagery that artists add to their comics to use for identification purposes. If you find a comic without any such markings, it would be a good idea to see if you can find an original version. If one cannot be found, say so and ask the community for help!
-
📋 Post Formatting
- Post an image, gallery, or link to a specific comic hosted on another site; e.g., the author's website.
- Meta posts about the community should be tagged with [Meta] either at the beginning or the end of the post title.
- When linking to a comic hosted on another site, ensure the link is to the comic itself and not just to the website; e.g.,
✅ Correct: https://xkcd.com/386/
❌ Incorrect: https://xkcd.com/
-
📬 Post Frequency/SPAM
- Each user (regardless of instance) may post up to five (5 🖐) comics a day. This can be any combination of personal comics you have written yourself, or other author's comics. Any comics exceeding five (5 🖐) will be removed.
-
🏴☠️ Internationalization (i18n)
- Non-English posts are welcome. Please tag the post title with the original language, and include an English translation in the body of the post; e.g.,
Sí, por favor [Spanish/Español]
- Non-English posts are welcome. Please tag the post title with the original language, and include an English translation in the body of the post; e.g.,
-
🍿 Moderation
- We are human, just like most everybody else on Lemmy. If you feel a moderation decision was made in error, you are welcome to reach out to anybody on the moderation team for clarification. Keep in mind that moderation decisions may be final.
- When reporting posts and/or comments, quote which rule is being broken, and why you feel it broke the rules.
Banned Artists
The following artists are banned from the community.
- Jago
- Stonetoss
It should be noted that when you make reports, it is your responsibility to provide rational reasoning why something should be removed. Saying it simply breaks community rules is not always good enough.
Web Accessibility
Note: This is not a rule, but a helpful suggestion.
When posting images, you should strive to add alt-text for screen readers to use to describe the image you're posting:
Another helpful thing to do is to provide a transcription of the text in your images, as well as brief descriptions of what's going on. (example)
Web of Links
- !linuxmemes@lemmy.world: "I use Arch btw"
- !memes@lemmy.world: memes (you don't say!)
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Not having known anything about this device, I wondered the same question. When someone talks about "cleaning oceans" my brain goes to the massive issue of "microplastic pollution." Is there an answer out there for filtering microplastics without screwing up the plankton, krill, and other tiny lifeforms that make up the base of the oceanic foodchain? I have no idea.
Following the link above, the device in question appears to be focused on larger trash pieces than I was imagining. It doesn't seem to filter tiny particulates at all.
So there's two lines of thought here: 1) tiny organisms are probably surviving through this device. But also, 2) it only removes bulk trash (which is important in its own right and prevents larger plastic from breaking down in the water further, but it cannot remove existing microplastics.)
We'd still need to figure out something that can remove microplastics without harming microorganisms if we want to really tackle ocean pollution. So much life in the ocean depends on a healthy population of such creatures, that I'm struggling to understand why so many people have downvoted your valid concern. Removing large trash is good, but if the goal is "clean oceans," it's far from enough. There's so much more trash that we can't even see because it's microscopic. But it fucks with ocean life throughout the food chain and shouldn't be ignored.
Anyway, thank you for considering the "bigger picture." It doesn't look like many people are seeing this issue from the same angle, and too many would rather downvote comments they don't understand than attempt to bridge the misunderstanding.
Edit: fixed typo
I think the downvotes are due to the "perfect is the enemy of good" argument they inadvertently make. I.e. because it's not also collecting micro plastics, it's not worth doing. It's likely not intentional, but it's a rapid killer of good, new ideas.
As for the micro plastics issue. The only viable way is to design/breed an organism (or organisms) that can consume and digest the plastics. A genetically modified krill might be able to do it, if not, bacteria.
It's a massive challenge however. Not least proving that it's safe. Once it's loose in the oceans, putting that genie back in the bottle will be difficult.
At least dealing with some portion of the problem is a good start and we're still inventing new methods of dealing with microplastics, so until nearly all the trash is gathered larger trash cleanup efforts are worthwhile. Apparently 92% of the mass is made up of larger objects, so these need addressed first anyways.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch
I’m confused, where did I say anything to imply otherwise? I stated that this particular device doesn’t filter microplastics, as well as that microplastics are a huge problem that needs to be addressed. Which part of that implies that larger garbage pieces aren’t worth cleaning up? After all, larger pollution breaks down to produce smaller pollution (which I also stated.) Denying large pollution while acknowledging micropollution wouldn’t make any sense, so I’m not sure where this argument is coming from.
I’m reminded of that “Twitter” meme, where someone can’t talk about pancakes without people arguing that they must hate waffles. It’s just as absurd to assume that if someone is talking about microplastics, that means they’re fine with larger garbage.
He was referring to the OP's post that was worried about plankton because they didn't read the link that was posted. He was agreeing with you.