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It's called "Avoiding taking personal responsibility by trying to point the finger of blame at others." And it's something that children and immature adults oft

It's called "Avoiding taking personal responsibility by trying to point the finger of blame at others." And it's something that children and immature adults often do. For those who are so torn up about the situation, nothing's stopping you from finding a piece of cheap real estate out in the middle of nowhere (maybe by a nice stream or a lake), building a yurt or whatever and then just living off the land. That's the kind of thing our ancestors often had to do, and that's the kind of thing people in underdeveloped countries still often have to do. (Hence why they are called "underdeveloped countries".)

tzs 9y ago
So by your logic, because I have on occasion urinated outside in my backyard, where some small part of my urine will perhaps find its way to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, I cannot object to Victoria, BC's dumping of 21 million gallons a day of raw sewage into it without being a hypocrite? Your argument is based on the assumption that if X and Y and Z all have a particular bad consequence, then X and Y and Z are all equally bad, with no consideration to how much of the bad consequence each has, or what other, good consequences each have. That's not valid reasoning. I'm curious if it has a name.
- IncRnd 9y ago
  > if X and Y and Z all have a particular bad consequence, then X and Y and Z are all equally bad > That's not valid reasoning. I'm curious if it has a name. The type of reasoning you describe is called a false equivalence.
- southern_cross 9y ago
  I'm sorry that you're apparently having trouble with the concept of personal responsibility, but I guess I'll just attribute that to a lack of proper upbringing. I mean, even though you are presumably now an adult yourself, I'm sure you'll sleep better at night knowing that you can pawn such failings off on Mom and Dad. Not many people like to think about what they're actually swimming in when they're at the ocean. (Let someone pee in the pool, though, and everybody freaks out!) In any case, I expect that you're smart enough to know that likely not a drop of that urine is going to make it out of your back yard! And even if you peed directly into the ocean (even if you personally generated 21 million gallons of effluent), that's not really much compared to what's already out there naturally - fish pee and poop and rotting dead things and such. (Fun fact: Much of the sand on the beaches that you and your family love to play on may have itself started out as fish poop.) Even less so when you consider that most of that 21 million gallons is just water anyway. Quick quiz: What do you think becomes of things like E. coli and other nasties when they hit seawater? (Consider issues like temperature, salinity, and pH.) And if you're worried about viruses and such, then maybe you should go ask J. Craig Venter about that. In other words, while 21 millions gallons of untreated sewage sounds like a lot (and I personally wouldn't want to swim in it or anything), it's probably less of big deal than you think it is. It would probably be best to filter out the biosolids first, though, since those may have actual value. As might the nitrogen in urine (urea), if that could be extracted.

tzs 9y ago

So by your logic, because I have on occasion urinated outside in my backyard, where some small part of my urine will perhaps find its way to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, I cannot object to Victoria, BC's dumping of 21 million gallons a day of raw sewage into it without being a hypocrite? Your argument is based on the assumption that if X and Y and Z all have a particular bad consequence, then X and Y and Z are all equally bad, with no consideration to how much of the bad consequence each has, or what other, good consequences each have. That's not valid reasoning. I'm curious if it has a name.

IncRnd 9y ago
> if X and Y and Z all have a particular bad consequence, then X and Y and Z are all equally bad > That's not valid reasoning. I'm curious if it has a name. The type of reasoning you describe is called a false equivalence.
southern_cross 9y ago
I'm sorry that you're apparently having trouble with the concept of personal responsibility, but I guess I'll just attribute that to a lack of proper upbringing. I mean, even though you are presumably now an adult yourself, I'm sure you'll sleep better at night knowing that you can pawn such failings off on Mom and Dad. Not many people like to think about what they're actually swimming in when they're at the ocean. (Let someone pee in the pool, though, and everybody freaks out!) In any case, I expect that you're smart enough to know that likely not a drop of that urine is going to make it out of your back yard! And even if you peed directly into the ocean (even if you personally generated 21 million gallons of effluent), that's not really much compared to what's already out there naturally - fish pee and poop and rotting dead things and such. (Fun fact: Much of the sand on the beaches that you and your family love to play on may have itself started out as fish poop.) Even less so when you consider that most of that 21 million gallons is just water anyway. Quick quiz: What do you think becomes of things like E. coli and other nasties when they hit seawater? (Consider issues like temperature, salinity, and pH.) And if you're worried about viruses and such, then maybe you should go ask J. Craig Venter about that. In other words, while 21 millions gallons of untreated sewage sounds like a lot (and I personally wouldn't want to swim in it or anything), it's probably less of big deal than you think it is. It would probably be best to filter out the biosolids first, though, since those may have actual value. As might the nitrogen in urine (urea), if that could be extracted.