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> Beaches are absolutely covered in plastic waste and it's noticeably worse each time I go. No disrespect but I don’t think anyone can uniformly sample all the

> Beaches are absolutely covered in plastic waste and it's noticeably worse each time I go. No disrespect but I don’t think anyone can uniformly sample all the beaches. There might as well be prevailing currents that fill certain places disproportionately more, and leave others disproportionately pristine. This “making a global inference based on the beaches we’ve personally been to” is going to be deceptive in either direction of the argument.

titzer 5y ago
> This “making a global inference based on the beaches we’ve personally been to” is going to be deceptive in either direction of the argument. I've been to beaches on four continents and every. single. one. The only place you do not see[1] trash is where someone has specifically picked up there, recently. That tends to be places around resorts and people's homes. Unless someone does it out of their own goodwill or is paid to, the trash just floats up and accumulates. There's a place for healthy skepticism, but not denial. [1] You don't see it, but microplastics are thoroughly distributed through the ocean by this point. There is literally no way of cleaning up microplastic pollution at this point. We can only improve the optics at our scale.
- morpheos137 5y ago
  There is a huge difference between seeing a piece of "trash" like a soda bottle or two every couple acres of sand and a beach "covered" in trash. In my life I have only seen one "beach" "covered" in trash in person and that was Race Point at Fishers Island New York. It is where much of the water exchange with the open ocean and the eastern end of long island sound occurs so it stands to reason that stuff would collect there. A mile away there is a pristine sand beach. At race point there was also a lot of drift wood when I visited including whole tree trunks that had washed up. Much of the human created waste was old, including metal debries like very old very rusted rifle bullet casings presumeably from soliders at the now abandoned pre world war two fort behind the beach. Who knows the beach may have been the fort's dump.
- acituan 5y ago
  > There's a place for healthy skepticism, but not denial. I’m not saying I’m necessarily denying your premise, at least not wholesale, but what is the point of skepticism if it doesn’t include the possibility of rejecting a premise? It’s like saying “I’ll allow you to ask questions but ultimately you have to come my conclusion” We can be passionate and rational at the same time.
  - titzer 5y ago
    We're in the middle of a discussion about plastic waste, and some people add to the discussion by posting their personal experiences as counter to people who have clearly no personal experiences, and some other people push back which what sounds like rational skepticism but is really just shifting the burden of proof to an absurd level, like they are going to dedicate years of their life to visit a representative sample of beaches to even post a comment. There's a point where skepticism becomes more than just irritating, but entirely subtractive from the discussion. It's hard to know what your intentions are from that pushback, but it was borderline IMHO, and it certainly muddies the waters. I'll be completely open about my intentions. I want people to stop fucking up my river and, damn it, it's not China or India's fault. OP is a complete distraction from a real problem that exists where I live. I'd like to dump a few bags of garbage I picked up from the river on their lawn and see what they think about some vague plan to clean up the Ganges.
    - acituan 5y ago
      I'll try to be as clear as I can. There were several weaknesses with your argument that I was hoping you to strengthen; - you were making yourself prone to availability bias; I've been to beaches recently and none of those have the problems you mention. That doesn't mean the problem doesn't exist, it means we don't get to make sweeping generalization from the partial reality we contact. Your original rebuttal to the OP was "have you ever been to a beach lately" - appeal to emotions; I'm personally sorry to hear your local beach is in heartbreaking condition, but that alone does not amplify the strength of your claim that "beaches are covered with litter". In fact it makes it more easy to refute for anyone who doesn't readily sympathize with your story, and that would harm what I assume to be your ultimate goal which is a reduced pollution. - overgeneralization: you're perfectly entitled to talk about your personal experience, but when you assert that as a method of establishing the global truth, that is the motion that brings the burden of proof on you, not me pointing that out. Maybe keep the strength of your assertion in proportion to the data you personally have. It might look like waters are muddied for you, but I think you might be the only one in confusion probably because you seem to be very emotional about this topic. Which is OK, like I said being passionate is OK, but the weaknesses in your argumentation will only hurt your cause.
SuoDuanDao 5y ago
But the question was about why there was such an obsession with plastic waste. If a lot of it was accumulating at your beach, that would be all the sample size you need to form an opinion.

titzer 5y ago

> This “making a global inference based on the beaches we’ve personally been to” is going to be deceptive in either direction of the argument. I've been to beaches on four continents and every. single. one. The only place you do not see[1] trash is where someone has specifically picked up there, recently. That tends to be places around resorts and people's homes. Unless someone does it out of their own goodwill or is paid to, the trash just floats up and accumulates. There's a place for healthy skepticism, but not denial. [1] You don't see it, but microplastics are thoroughly distributed through the ocean by this point. There is literally no way of cleaning up microplastic pollution at this point. We can only improve the optics at our scale.

morpheos137 5y ago
There is a huge difference between seeing a piece of "trash" like a soda bottle or two every couple acres of sand and a beach "covered" in trash. In my life I have only seen one "beach" "covered" in trash in person and that was Race Point at Fishers Island New York. It is where much of the water exchange with the open ocean and the eastern end of long island sound occurs so it stands to reason that stuff would collect there. A mile away there is a pristine sand beach. At race point there was also a lot of drift wood when I visited including whole tree trunks that had washed up. Much of the human created waste was old, including metal debries like very old very rusted rifle bullet casings presumeably from soliders at the now abandoned pre world war two fort behind the beach. Who knows the beach may have been the fort's dump.
acituan 5y ago
> There's a place for healthy skepticism, but not denial. I’m not saying I’m necessarily denying your premise, at least not wholesale, but what is the point of skepticism if it doesn’t include the possibility of rejecting a premise? It’s like saying “I’ll allow you to ask questions but ultimately you have to come my conclusion” We can be passionate and rational at the same time.
- titzer 5y ago
  We're in the middle of a discussion about plastic waste, and some people add to the discussion by posting their personal experiences as counter to people who have clearly no personal experiences, and some other people push back which what sounds like rational skepticism but is really just shifting the burden of proof to an absurd level, like they are going to dedicate years of their life to visit a representative sample of beaches to even post a comment. There's a point where skepticism becomes more than just irritating, but entirely subtractive from the discussion. It's hard to know what your intentions are from that pushback, but it was borderline IMHO, and it certainly muddies the waters. I'll be completely open about my intentions. I want people to stop fucking up my river and, damn it, it's not China or India's fault. OP is a complete distraction from a real problem that exists where I live. I'd like to dump a few bags of garbage I picked up from the river on their lawn and see what they think about some vague plan to clean up the Ganges.
  - acituan 5y ago
    I'll try to be as clear as I can. There were several weaknesses with your argument that I was hoping you to strengthen; - you were making yourself prone to availability bias; I've been to beaches recently and none of those have the problems you mention. That doesn't mean the problem doesn't exist, it means we don't get to make sweeping generalization from the partial reality we contact. Your original rebuttal to the OP was "have you ever been to a beach lately" - appeal to emotions; I'm personally sorry to hear your local beach is in heartbreaking condition, but that alone does not amplify the strength of your claim that "beaches are covered with litter". In fact it makes it more easy to refute for anyone who doesn't readily sympathize with your story, and that would harm what I assume to be your ultimate goal which is a reduced pollution. - overgeneralization: you're perfectly entitled to talk about your personal experience, but when you assert that as a method of establishing the global truth, that is the motion that brings the burden of proof on you, not me pointing that out. Maybe keep the strength of your assertion in proportion to the data you personally have. It might look like waters are muddied for you, but I think you might be the only one in confusion probably because you seem to be very emotional about this topic. Which is OK, like I said being passionate is OK, but the weaknesses in your argumentation will only hurt your cause.

SuoDuanDao 5y ago

But the question was about why there was such an obsession with plastic waste. If a lot of it was accumulating at your beach, that would be all the sample size you need to form an opinion.