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Those "mythical tribesmen" produce no plastic or other materials which take very long to decompose. Poop, bone, leather, wood re-enter the system very quickly.

by b0rsuk 9y ago

dragontamer 9y ago
> Poop, bone, leather, wood re-enter the system very quickly. I suggest you study the River Ganges and then reevaluate your position. Poop alone can destroy a river on the scale of citywide human populations. --------- Plastics are actually INCREDIBLE for preventing waste. A plastic bag for groceries is composed of roughly 13mL of LDPE, or roughly 260 "drops" of plastic! LDPE is so incredibly efficient at manufacturing that there's much less waste in its creation than textiles or other materials. The issue with LDPE is that it doesn't biodegrade very gracefully and thus becomes a pollutant if its disposed of improperly. But from an engineering / manufacturing perspective, its one of the most efficient materials to make and manufacture. In contrast, a leather bag required you to raise, feed, and then kill an animal. Indeed, the mammoth was likely hunted to extinction by primitive humans, and demonstrates that even at the small scale... humans can affect the environment. And sure, the leather biodegrades gracefully (at least, more gracefully than an LDPE plastic bag). But you have to consider the environmental costs in creating the leather (water, food, and waste created by the animal before its leather was harvested)
- chitresh 9y ago
  The human waste that contributed to the pollution of the river Ganga (or Ganges) was generated by a population that was supported by modern medicine and a whole lot of other modern inventions. It wasn't always this polluted, even though there have been cities on its banks for millennia. And of course industrial waste also added to the problem. You can't compare that population with the "mythical tribe" that is under discussion here.
  - dragontamer 9y ago
    My point is that mythical tribesmen don't scale. It makes absolutely no sense to "cargo cult worship" the mythical tribeman's lack of pollution, when our society is funadmentally built differently. There are some incredibly simple solutions available to us that the "Mythical Tribesman" doesn't have. IE: We can pass a law and regulate pollution in our country, if we can convince enough other people that the costs are worth it.
    - dredmorbius 9y ago
      Perhaps scaling is the problem?

Those "mythical tribesmen" produce no plastic or other materials which take very long to decompose. Poop, bone, leather, wood re-enter the system very quickly.

by b0rsuk 9y ago

Those "mythical tribesmen" produce no plastic or other materials which take very long to decompose. Poop, bone, leather, wood re-enter the system very quickly.

dragontamer 9y ago

> Poop, bone, leather, wood re-enter the system very quickly. I suggest you study the River Ganges and then reevaluate your position. Poop alone can destroy a river on the scale of citywide human populations. --------- Plastics are actually INCREDIBLE for preventing waste. A plastic bag for groceries is composed of roughly 13mL of LDPE, or roughly 260 "drops" of plastic! LDPE is so incredibly efficient at manufacturing that there's much less waste in its creation than textiles or other materials. The issue with LDPE is that it doesn't biodegrade very gracefully and thus becomes a pollutant if its disposed of improperly. But from an engineering / manufacturing perspective, its one of the most efficient materials to make and manufacture. In contrast, a leather bag required you to raise, feed, and then kill an animal. Indeed, the mammoth was likely hunted to extinction by primitive humans, and demonstrates that even at the small scale... humans can affect the environment. And sure, the leather biodegrades gracefully (at least, more gracefully than an LDPE plastic bag). But you have to consider the environmental costs in creating the leather (water, food, and waste created by the animal before its leather was harvested)

chitresh 9y ago
The human waste that contributed to the pollution of the river Ganga (or Ganges) was generated by a population that was supported by modern medicine and a whole lot of other modern inventions. It wasn't always this polluted, even though there have been cities on its banks for millennia. And of course industrial waste also added to the problem. You can't compare that population with the "mythical tribe" that is under discussion here.
- dragontamer 9y ago
  My point is that mythical tribesmen don't scale. It makes absolutely no sense to "cargo cult worship" the mythical tribeman's lack of pollution, when our society is funadmentally built differently. There are some incredibly simple solutions available to us that the "Mythical Tribesman" doesn't have. IE: We can pass a law and regulate pollution in our country, if we can convince enough other people that the costs are worth it.
  - dredmorbius 9y ago
    Perhaps scaling is the problem?