All the extraterrestrial expansion, dream of Men to conquer Space, star track enterprise!
I'm pessimistic that we will ever leave our solar system, and if so in 1000 years, I do not care.
Hopefully people learn how tiny our bubble is and protect our environment more.
The Martian environment looks so boring -- as a replacement for polluted Earth.
(We will pollute Mars faster than Earth).
I'm living at the ocean, trying to keep my vicinity free of garbage.
Today I pulled out pair of trousers and some plastic bands out out water.
Sometimes I'm having fights with my elderly village neighbors, who are burning household trash (paper, wood) on the ocean shore.
I take their garbage out their hands and carry it to my home, later drive to the garbage processing center.
I admire your efforts to clean. But unfortunately it’s pointless. There are entire million and billion population countries that treat oceans as waste baskets, simply because they don’t know better.
I’ve talked to fishermen in rural Thailand and they don’t have waste collection. So they take their trash every day and just dump it in the middle of the ocean somewhere. They didn’t understand why that was a problem when I discussed it with them.
One person doing something in the face of billions of others is the entire opposite of pointless. Giving up because you're one person and you can't magically transform the entire world is cynical, a cop-out and completely misunderstands the nature of the problem.
The world won't change overnight, it won't immediately flip from the actions of one individual, or two, or even 1 thousand or 1 million. But that doesn't mean the action is pointless.
Change requires momentum, momentum requires the actions of an individual diligently living the change they want to see and sharing it with others. That sort of change builds slowly, often imperceptibly. But before you know it things begin actually changing. So no, this binary attitude of "You can't change everything by your actions so you may as well do nothing" is such an apathetic, cynical cop-out and I hate seeing it spouted everytime you see someone do something positive. As an idea it literally does nothing but harm and it has no value in being said.
It's not pointless, but I do think it's reasonable to question whether this is the best thing one can do to have an impact.
Could the time spent taking the neighbors trash away be spent doing something even more impactful?
Is the interaction with these neighbors caring and educative, or antagonistic? In the latter case they're unlikely to emulate it or pass on the idea to others.
It's not about doing the best thing, it's about doing something. You don't have to perfectly efficient, just take simple actions that reflect the change you want to see. We all have limited time and energy, if you see something positive you can do you shouldn't dismiss the idea of doing it just because you could sell all your belongings and become an eco-warrior and be maximally efficient in pursuing a positive development. Don't do nothing because you could be doing more. Just do what you can.
Why though, if you're not going to make a difference? Why bother?
The reality is that the reason we do these things is to make ourselves feel better. Ah, yes, my daily shot of endorphins from recycling. Ah yes, my bumper sticker makes sure everyone knows I'm one of the good ones -- my social standing is safe.
This philosophy is why middle class first world kids pay thousands of dollars to go on missionary trips to build a single well in a far away village. Yes, you got dirty with the natives and did something.
I think it's all hollow. If you aren't making a real impact -- actually moving the needle -- you are doing nothing. It's just a vanity.
I believe in donating money to causes that have high impact. Given my skillset, I'm confident that's by far the best thing I can do. And aside from that, I don't sweat the small stuff. I have a keurig. Yep you heard right. Also donated enough to save a few lives from malaria. Exactly one of those facts about myself made any difference at all to the world.
> The reality is that the reason we do these things is to make ourselves feel better. Ah, yes, my daily shot of endorphins from recycling. Ah yes, my bumper sticker makes sure everyone knows I'm one of the good ones -- my social standing is safe
Speak for yourself my friend. The idea that people only make changes, even little ones entirely out of self service is extraordinarily cynical and a very negative and sad view of the world.
Sometimes people just do good things, because they want to improve some minor aspect of our world, or make someone elses (or somethings) day a little bit nicer. Sometimes people do this entirely without the desire to praise themselves or be praised by someone else.
It still exists, but by it's nature you don't often see it. And if you don't believe it exists, even when you do catch a glimpse of it you wouldn't notice or care.
> I think it's all hollow. If you aren't making a real impact -- actually moving the needle -- you are doing nothing. It's just a vanity.
Say on my walk to and from work every day I pick up one single piece of litter and quietly put it in the bin. I do this every day, 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year. That's 500 pieces of litter. Every day those little actions aren't moving the needle at all, but at the end of the year I've actually managed to make a tiny little nudge to my environment around me. Say I tell my friend and they decide to do the same thing, now it's 1000 pieces of litter. They tell 2 of their friends, now it's 2000 pieces of litter. Then I decide to make it 2 pieces of litter, and I tell my friend and they pass it on. Now it's 4000 pieces. They start telling their friends. And so on and so on. The individual action barely nudges any needle, but just because you don't see it doesn't mean it isn't moving some needle even slightly. You just don't have strong enough vision.
> I believe in donating money to causes that have high impact. Given my skillset, I'm confident that's by far the best thing I can do. And aside from that, I don't sweat the small stuff. I have a keurig. Yep you heard right. Also donated enough to save a few lives from malaria. Exactly one of those facts about myself made any difference at all to the world.
You don't exist in a vacuum, and my whole point of all my comments is that individual action drives collective change. One person making minor adjustments on it's own is nothing, but if many of those singular people decide to make changes it can lead to amazing things. You can choose to make whatever change you please, I'm glad you believe in some action. But let me ask you, what change do you think you're making by stomping on the idea that multiple little changes can lead to positive effects? Why expend the energy if it's pointless anyway?
Things can be better, and people should try and make as many little positive changes as they can to the world. No person is smart enough, or has enough foresight or knowledge to be able to predict what that may lead to in the future, and personally I choose to be optimistic because why waste my life believing that anything better is a futile mission?
The idea that people only make changes, even little ones entirely out of self service is extraordinarily cynical and a very negative and sad view of the world.
You keep saying that. It's subjective, and it's not an argument. George Bernard Shaw said, The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.
Say I tell my friend and they decide to do the same thing, now it's 1000 pieces of litter. They tell 2 of their friends, now it's 2000 pieces of litter. Then I decide to make it 2 pieces of litter, and I tell my friend and they pass it on. Now it's 4000 pieces. They start telling their friend
Well that's imaginative but it seems highly unlikely. After all, if everyone is so highly primed to change in this way, and all it takes is one person to spark the fire... chances are enormously likely it would have happened already, and it would have happened without you needing to spark it.
This idea that you're at the center of a movement to change the world is just more subconscious ego feeding. If you want to be at the center of a movement that changes the world... it's going to take a lot of hard work.
what change do you think you're making by stomping on the idea that multiple little changes can lead to positive effects
Humans enjoy conversation, and some of them enjoy trying to figure out truth from fiction. No more, no less.
personally I choose to be optimistic because why waste my life
Whatever floats your boat. We "cynics" are enjoying the ride as much as anyone. We just think we're doing it in a clear-eyed way.
> George Bernard Shaw said, The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.
I think you should double check to make sure your "accurate observation" and "clear eyed" thinking is not tainted by your own biases. It's very easy to consider ones own view the accurate one without ironing out the biases learnt or inherent to you.
> Well that's imaginative but it seems highly unlikely. After all, if everyone is so highly primed to change in this way, and all it takes is one person to spark the fire... chances are enormously likely it would have happened already, and it would have happened without you needing to spark it.
They have. Millions of times in fact! Human history is always changing and growing from little things and big things too. The world of today looks drastically different to that of 30 years ago, or 90 years ago or 500 years ago!
> This idea that you're at the center of a movement to change the world is just more subconscious ego feeding. If you want to be at the center of a movement that changes the world... it's going to take a lot of hard work.
It's not about being the center of a movement to change the world, and the fact you keep jumping back to that shows that you don't understand what I'm saying. You look at it in that lens because you want to, but it's just about doing minor good things for it's own purpose. A simple autotelic action. It's honestly that simple, but the end result of a lot of people making that simple choice is a changed world. It's not about feeding ego at all. It's also not about building a movement, at least not directly. It's about convincing those around you of the value of doing something small that improves things even insignificantly because combined they have massive impact.
Enjoy your "clear-eyed view" of the world, I know you've convinced yourself you're 100% correct.
If one million people make a little effort the impact will be huge. Dont't be pessimistic. Lead by example. The simplified, minimalist, sustainable living style is contagious because it is as we are meant to actually live. In balance with the energy of the planet we depend upon and are part of.
My imagination has a pretty big range for 'rural Thailand', do they have a safe way to dispose of it inland? Subsistence folks, to the extent that it might apply here, get a pass from me.
The issue is that 90% of the plastic in the ocean is dumped from 10 rivers in Asia and Africa where the waste disposal system consists of driving a truck up to a river and dumping the trash in. Of the remaining 10%, it comes from Latin American nations that do the same thing.
Meanwhile western people see these masses of trash and plastic in the ocean and conclude the rational response is to ban straws in the western nations that do have effective waste disposal systems that don't consist of transporting said waste to the ocean and dumping it.
So the question is whether the outrage about ocean pollution is harnessed towards effectively addressing the problem or whether it is dissipated in the heat of pointless kabuki rituals that we do to absolve ourselves of guilt, even as the trash in the oceans piles up every time someone in the third world throws something away.
A lot of those effective waste disposal systems in the West, particularly for recycling, consist of paying Asian and African companies to take away the waste, so it can then be dumped in their countries/oceans or get "recycled" in places like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agbogbloshie
No, that is not a waste disposal system, it's how tech companies and other companies that sell gadgets fool their eco customers into thinking they are "recycling" something that cannot in principle be safely recycled. It is yet another example of going through a kabuki ritual rather than effectively dealing with the problem.
I think that's a good approximation. The volume of computer parts or used phones isn't significant compared to the total volume of waste produced domestically in these nations. But it's a separate tragedy that companies like Apple can pay partners to "recycle" stuff that ends up in a landfill in Nigeria somewhere, or manually stripped of copper and other parts by people working in unsafe conditions.
It's not only recycling. Currently, in my area of Poland there are gangs which bring toxic industrial waste from Western Europe in large quantities and just dump them wherever, while collecting the fee from industrial clients for properly disposing of them. This is a very recent trend, that was, from what I've read, started by China no longer importing European waste. You can only imagine how often "disposing of" such waste in China consisted of dumping it into a forest or pouring into ground or a river.
> While numerous international press reports have made reference to allegations that the majority of exports to Ghana are dumped, research by the US International Trade Commission found little evidence of unprocessed e-waste being shipped to Africa from the United States,[9] a finding corroborated by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Memorial University, Arizona State University, UNEP, and other research.[10] In 2013, the original source of the allegation blaming foreign dumping for the material found in Agbogbloshie recanted, or rather stated it had never made the claim that 80% of US e-waste is exported.[11]
Plastic recycling done in Asia is the result of incredibly cheap return shipping as most containers come back empty.
People who get outraged about it don't understand that due to cheaper wages and energy costs, plus the need for raw feedstock in the manufacturing countries it's actually a really decent system. It's a closed loop where plastic goods are produced in Asia and recyclable plastic returns on the same ship, it gets processed and keeps raw material prices low for continued use in manufacturing for export again. It doesn't just get shipped there and thrown in a river.
The real problem, especially in South East Asia is very much cultural, many assumed that societies would become more environmentally friendly as they got richer but that is not the case, they are polluting more than ever. It's incredibly common to see people throw rubbish on the ground despite being right next to a bin.
Nearly every waterway is horrendously polluted with plastic consumer products.
It's an externality that the rest of the world must bear. The other poster here is on the money, nearly all of it comes from a few catchments.
Half the plastic in the ocean comes from 5 countries, all are in Asia.
That's the theory. However, in practice plastic recycling waste is contaminated & worthless, so much so that a number of Asian countries including China and Malaysia have banned imports.
What’s the waste stream looking like? Like can we trace how this trash originates and why it’s not ending up where it should? If poor areas with weak government services are the problem, then that’s a problem, no?
One rural fisherman's garbage production doesn't scale, though. A company owned by a handful of people can put out more pollution than that of millions of rural fishermen.
Honestly burning it just might be better. Without doing any calculations my intuitions tell me it would be minuscule on the global scale and the benefit of that garbage not going into the ocean would outweigh the added air pollution.
Most people are unable to realize distances in space. Humans are simply not designed to travel in space. For a space ship that can be self-sustaining in every way and capable of multi-year travel, it has to be almost like a city. Even when you get to planets, they are even less hospitable than Mars. I think future life forms which will colonize other planets will be machines, not humans.
Most people also don't realize how slow the speed of light is in relation to the size of the universe and the distance between stars. It's quite easy for a person to look at two galaxies in a telescope that will never be able to even observe each other's existence, let alone visit one another.
People often argue that we'll find a way to travel faster than light -- which is curious given how rarely people argue that we'll find a way to travel backwards in time.
The only solution is the spread of information and education. That's the only thing that will help. We must reach all people and present them with the evidence on environmental degradation. The planet is ours to protect and cherish, and I'm confident this is an achievable goal if we act fast. By advocating for access to internet and education at global scale! Starting with our homes.
The other solution is make it more profitable to collect and sell your garbage than to dispose of it. Which means it has to be worth it for a business to collect your trash from you. Better recycling and distribution technologies can enable this.
I dream of the day when businesses fight for the privilege of hauling away your trash. Maybe delivery drones could bring back garbage to make their return trips less, uh, wasteful.
nah. We’ve been waiting for businesses to step up their game for over 30 years now. I don’t see it happening in the next thirty years coming. A more realistic scenario is for governments to build the infrastructure required to recycle and reuse our trash and, better yet, regulate how trash is produced and punish it’s existence.
This. Fuck that. Anyone under 65 can agree with me. It's us and our kids and their kids for the next 50-100 years that will pay. Time for us to take the reigns. These fat cows had their chance. We'll build a garden.
Hopefully people learn how tiny our bubble is and protect our environment more. The Martian environment looks so boring -- as a replacement for polluted Earth. (We will pollute Mars faster than Earth).
I'm living at the ocean, trying to keep my vicinity free of garbage. Today I pulled out pair of trousers and some plastic bands out out water. Sometimes I'm having fights with my elderly village neighbors, who are burning household trash (paper, wood) on the ocean shore. I take their garbage out their hands and carry it to my home, later drive to the garbage processing center.