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> It's not about virtue signaling. It's about bulk materials handling. people have been taught that recycling is virtuous, and that's how they have engaged wit
by fsckboy 3y ago
> It's not about virtue signaling. It's about bulk materials handling.
people have been taught that recycling is virtuous, and that's how they have engaged with it, and they were being genuine.
> That doesn't mean that recycling has "backfired"
people have devoted non-mythical man-months into processing, handling and even washing their trash, which trash has ended up in the same landfills they were going to before. Think how much free time the average person has in a day, this has been a tremendous waste of human potential. Using that much mindshare, children teaching time, and effort on nothing, only to cap it off with a rug-pull at the end, will turn out to be a backfire.
- smitty1e 3y ago[flagged]
- ZeroGravitas 3y ago> trash has ended up in the same landfills they were going to before. People regularly raise this as a criticism of recycling. It's kind of like complaining about medicine if you go to see a homeopath or a snake oil salesman. Medicine has not "backfired", you just got tricked into doing something that was only pretending to be medicine. Aim your ire appropriately.
- tuatoru 3y agoNo, it's not. It's complaining about medicine that the National Institute of Health and other authority figures told you to take, that turned out to a waste of your time and mildly harmful.
- ZeroGravitas 3y agoSo which national agency told you to pretend to recycle?
- yjftsjthsd-h 3y agoIf they all say to recycle but don't provide the information or means to do it right, it's all pretend.
- ZeroGravitas 3y agoSeems to be a choice made on a state by state basis to even try: https://www.ball.com/getmedia/ac92bef4-4784-4d96-8972-dd6e12c03893/Map-Large.jpeg https://www.ball.com/getmedia/ac92bef4-4784-4d96-8972-dd6e12... But sure, I support the feds forcing the states to recycle properly, just as I support them being forced to offer decent healthcare. The ones that opt out for sometimes inscrutable reasons doesn't mean the whole thing is a magic trick. It just means they are poorly run states with developing nation level provision of basic civic services.
- AshamedCaptain 3y ago> handling and even washing their trash Not to mention is yet another waste of water; my regional government actually asks for people not to wash their trash (recyclables such as plastic/glass bottles/containers and the like)
- _moof 3y ago>> It's not about virtue signaling. It's about bulk materials handling. > people have been taught that recycling is virtuous, and that's how they have engaged with it, and they were being genuine. That's not the same thing. Virtue signaling is when you do something in order to show other people that you are virtuous. If you would still recycle when no one's there to see it, then you're still doing something virtuous, but you aren't doing it to signal anything to others about yourself.
- fsckboy 3y agothe idea of "signalling" comes from economics and game theory to explain some indirect forces in the market. If a company gets a reputation for vigorously defending intellectual property even when the amount in question is minor, or slashing prices in markets where they face regional competition, etc., they "signal" to potential future competitors that it might not be worth it. Doing something virtuous has an intrinsic value, and also sends a signal if other people see you do it. Your intent has nothing to do with the signal. I was simply bringing up virtue to making the point that recycling's failure can backfire without saying anything about virtue signals.