testfactor @ testfactor @lemmy.world

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Joined

2 yr. ago

Look, it's easy to have the viewpoint that anyone who isn't doing everything you're doing to save the world is a shitty person, and anyone who does more than you is obviously just a try-hard.

Everyone, yourself included, makes "shitty" decisions for convenience sake every day. I assume you buy food from the grocery store instead of foraging through trash cans. I've had friends who did the latter, and called the rest of us shitty if we ever threw anything away.

Just because someone looks at a situation and comes out with a different "worth the effort" assessment than you, doesn't make it "shitty." That's just life man. Are you driving a car instead of a motorcycle? Using toilet paper? Buying food from restaurants instead of eating out of trash cans? These are all decisions you could trivially change in your life today to make the world a little greener. So why aren't you?

But, really, I think our actual disconnect here is that I've not articulated my position well enough. I'm talking paper bags with handles! I mean, if that's not worth a dollar, what is?

I think the "more than I thought it would be" comment was more a reflection on how low I thought it would be than on how high it is. It's still a pretty tiny fraction of the overall problem.

But, like, look. The optimal decision, and the only way to "stop accepting shit" as you put it, is for every single person to drop what they're doing and go live as a hermit in the woods, and never produce or consume another product.

That isn't realistic for the majority of people though. And while I could succumb to self-flagellation as a form of symbolic protest, I think my time and effort is spent participating in the system as it is, and donating to organizations that can make more systematic changes that might ultimately do some good.

Beating yourself (or others) up for "not doing enough" is at best a form of coping with things that are beyond your control, and at worst a form of alienating people who broadly agree with you.

And, to be clear, I didn't say I'd pay a dollar a bag for any old paper bag. I said I'd pay that much for one with handles. Big difference.

I think there's a couple of things in play here though.

First, this kinda has, "if millennials just didn't drink Starbucks they could afford rent" energy. Would it make a difference? Maybe. But in the grand scheme what it would do is just take away something they enjoy, while they remain unable to make their student loan payments, much less but a house. The actual problems are more systematic, and the "don't buy Starbucks" argument is to some degree just a distraction from fixing those more systematic problems (or an intentional effort to divide people so they can't cooperate to fix those systematic issues.)

Second, I think you're maybe exhibiting a little bit more brinkmanship than is warrented. It's important to care about the environment, and there's obviously a ton that needs to be done there. But as you say, there are bigger and worse threats out there than people buying paper bags, and it sounds like you're letting your existential dread over the environment sour your actual, meaningful interpersonal connections. It feels a bit over the top to "lose faith in humanity" just because most people buy paper bags. Most people are good people, and it's not unreasonable for them to take small conveniences, even if those conveniences aren't environmentally "optimal."

I think you're overstating my position. It's not that I'm "not willing to carry bags." It's that I've weighed the options and decided that the provided disposable bags are more convenient, so I'm just gonna do that. I'm unconvinced that switching would do much beyond slightly inconvenience me.

And you say it's just a "me problem," but a quick and unverified Google search says that 70% of people in the US don't use reusable bags (and 57% worldwide). So it seems like it's not so much a "me problem" as a "literal majority of the world" problem. Though I'm sure it probably felt good to attack me personally, as that gives you someone to lash out at.

I do think the BTUs portion is less concerning in the greater context. Both 600 and 2500 are negligible compared to, say, my daily commute, or a single plane trip, or basically any other activity that requires energy.

But the first part is kinda interesting. Doing some super sloppy back of the napkin math, I think that makes paper shopping bags about 6.5% of all paper products made in the US. Paper products account for around 50% of all wood products in the US, so call it just over 3% of total wood use (which may have gone up some due to increased prevalence of paper lately.)

Which isn't nothing for sure. I would have guessed lower. I do think it may be overstating it to say we'd see a huge shift if everyone started using reusable bags overnight. A 3% drop in timber harvesting would be good, but not world changing I would think. But not insignificant either.

I think the reason it feels like schadenfreude is the context of the community.

Like, the only version of why someone would post this here that makes sense to me is, "haha, yeah, go gang members, eff those cops." The person with that mentality would view this as "upliftingnews," which would fit in the schadenfreude bucket to me.

Is that what OP thought? I can't possibly know. But I don't know why else they would have posted it here if they didn't.

I'd be really interested to see a quantitative analysis of how much difference it would make if all 330mil of us swapped to renewable bags.

My gut is that paper bags are pretty clean overall, and that grocery bags are a tiny fraction of paper usage in the US. But I'd be really interested to be proven wrong.

Here's the thing. Even if this isn't bad (which I would argue having to resort to asking armed criminals to police your streets certainly isn't good), that doesn't make it "upliftingnews."

It has the same vibe as a "Trump gets cancer" headline. Would a lot of people be super happy about that? Sure. But it's not "upliftingnews."

I'd happily pay $1/paper bag with handles, just for the convenience. That's about what it's worth to me.

I'm absentminded as all hell, and I'm not gonna remember to bring an armful of bags into the grocery store with me. And then, if I'm not using a cart, I gotta carry them around? Nah.

I mean, it's a super first world problem, and not a big deal at all in the grand scheme of things. But in all honesty I'd rather just pay $1/paper bag than have to deal with it.

I mean, feasible in an objective sense? Yes. I don't want to though, lol. I really like the convenience of bags at the till.

Very much a first world problem though, I'm aware.

That was the implication I got from what she said, but I suppose it's possible she was telling the "cholos" to "defend their block from the biggest rival street gang" in a peaceful way. (Her words, not mine.)

I mean, you're right, I didn't.

I did just read it, and you're right, the article is pretty "that thing she did was bad."

But then an article that's saying "politician did a bad thing," still doesn't feel like "upliftingnews" to me.

This feels like this breaks the no schadenfreude rule...

I wouldn't call it exactly "uplifting" that an elected official is asking gangs to attack cops.

I just wish more places put handles on the paper bags.

I don't mind a paper bag, but I hate having to, like, roll the top to carry it. Just give me some handles. Even a reinforced hole cut in the bag. Anything.

This is satire. It even says "Fox Mews" in the bottom left, lol.

100 acres is less than a sixth of a square mile, and Bessemer City doesn't use a ton of electricity, being as rural as it is.

The endangered species is more concerning, but feels solvable if they use environmentally conscious design practices with regards to the waterway.

Idk, I think that new data centers are something of a "necessary evil" in our modern society, and they have to be built somewhere.

Probably sriracha.

Depends on how you define AI to some degree, but yeah. Protein folding has basically been solved in the past few years with neural-network based AI systems.

I think you're thinking too short term.

If they went for 15yrs before they Extinguish, and they're able to capture 99% of the newcomers to the space, a lot of the current users will have moved on for various other reasons. So the expectation that things would reset to how they are now is false.

Many, if not most, of the people who are here now likely won't be in 15+ years just due to generalized attrition.

My immediate reaction as well.