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> individual change is both near-impossible and pointless. I disagree, strongly, for two reasons. 1. Individual change is the only thing most of us can do 2.

> individual change is both near-impossible and pointless. I disagree, strongly, for two reasons. 1. Individual change is the only thing most of us can do 2. Legislation won’t happen until enough people care enough to demand it For legislation to ever have a hope, the voting public needs to care enough to put candidates in office who will institute this legislation. I just don’t see how this happens if everyone concludes “there’s nothing I can do”. I agree that the global impact of my actions aren’t enough on their own to make a difference in terms of actual waste output. But each of our individual actions are collectively a prerequisite to actual legislation. The actions we each take also influence those around us, which is again a prerequisite to broader awareness and the outcomes this awareness can lead to. Expecting legislation to solve this while carrying on as usual is washing our hands of responsibility. We need both things to happen.

kwk1 3y ago
> 1. Individual change is the only thing each of us can do > 2. Legislation won’t happen until enough people care enough to demand it I don't think the first item is quite right, and the second item even suggests it isn't. I would amend it to say that we can't guarantee anything but individual action (and even that is not certain), but it's far from the only thing we can do.
- haswell 3y ago
  You caught that before my quick edit - I replaced “each” with “most”, but I agree with your amendment. It’s the one thing we can each absolutely start doing today. And the choice to do so is a meaningful one that changes each of us and the people around us.
whatshisface 3y ago
I don't think anything can cause people to collect potato sacks from houses except poverty. The rag and bone man is a very low paid hard life and all of these medieval-scale recycling proposals overlook the details of the lives of the people who used to implement them.
klipt 3y ago
It seems you're both agreeing that voting with your wallet doesn't help much, but voting with your vote does.
- haswell 3y ago
  I’m disagreeing with the premise that making conscious choices about what I purchase can be reduced to “voting with my wallet”, or that we can conclude it “doesn’t help much” based only on a limited outlook on what helps i.e. there are many more reasons to do it that may never have a meaningful monetary impact on the system. If legislation is the only real end goal, that raises the question: how do we reach that goal? Gay marriage isn’t legal by some accident. Attitudes about cannabis aren’t shifting for no reason. These are issues that people cared deeply enough about to keep pressuring the system for decades. An apathetic voter base doesn’t accomplish those changes.
  - paulmd 3y ago
    > I’m disagreeing with the premise that making conscious choices about what I purchase can be reduced to “voting with my wallet”, or that we can conclude it “doesn’t help much” based only on a limited outlook on what helps i.e. there are many more reasons to do it that may never have a meaningful monetary impact on the system. The problem is that capitalism, like the internet, is a system designed to route around problems. From the position of the system, any node acting “incorrectly” and not maximizing its profit is doing it wrong. If you refuse to eat beef, you are only making it cheaper for the people who will still eat beef. And they will eat more of it. The system routes around the error. The only way to reliably effect large-scale changes in these economic patterns is to change the rules of the game. Which is why that is so fiercely contested, and why there’s so much effort to push the blame back down on individual behavior.
Mountain_Skies 3y ago
The difficulty with the path of trying to elect candidates that promise action on a particular issue is that there are always thousands of issues and no given candidate is likely to support all of your preferences so you have to decide which is more important. If a candidate agrees with you on single use plastics but is in opposition to your views on prison reform, which one do you give more importance? It's just one of the quirks of representative democracy that keeps issues with lower noise from being addressed.
ninkendo 3y ago
> 2. Legislation won’t happen until enough people care enough to demand it I can demand legislation to encourage/require behavior that I myself won’t practice in absence of said legislation. It sounds counterintuitive but it makes sense… by analogy, if I’m a hockey goalie I may have the opinion that goalie pads have gotten too big and the game would be more exciting if they were required to be smaller. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to personally wear smaller goalie pads and put myself at a disadvantage, unless the league requires it. I’m in favor of laws that reduce single use plastic even if I myself don’t go out of my way to avoid single use plastic. Too many products around me use it, and if I had to pay attention to every product I buy to avoid it, it would be very difficult. But if legislation existed to force companies to avoid making it in the first place, my individual purchasing decisions would remain simple and we’d all benefit.
- haswell 3y ago
  > I can demand legislation to encourage/require behavior that I myself won’t practice in absence of said legislation. By this logic, the primary basis on which we make decisions is whatever provides a personal advantage. It’s an unsustainable mindset that would regularly encourage unethical/immoral but otherwise legal actions. Our individual lives aren’t businesses operating in a regulated environment or a goalie forced to operate under the rules all other goalies operate under. We live in the wide open space of every day life where we get to choose what everyday life looks like, for the most part. There are some things that are important to do because they are important, regardless of the legal landscape. If you find yourself waiting for someone to force you to change, stop and consider the implications if everyone does the same thing. > But if legislation existed to force companies to avoid making it in the first place, my individual purchasing decisions would remain simple and we’d all benefit. At least in the US, this misses the critical fact that the government’s function is to represent the will of the people; not impose their will upon the people. Clearly the US system is not doing well in this regard, but there’s a strong case to be made that apathy and lack of individual involvement are primary factors in this dysfunction. In light of this - knowing that the system itself is struggling to meet its charter - it seems especially important not to just expect some magical legislative solution. People are going to have to get involved and do the hard work.
nox100 3y ago
Agreed. It's arguably legislation that added all the traffic signs around SF and it's individuals that decide to ignore all of them. Every time I go out I see cars turning left on Mission between 14th and 28th (no lefts on Mission allowed in that entire section). I see them driving north on Mission through 20th and 16th, both of which have signs and road markings "right turn only". I see them turn right at "no right on red" stop signs, many of which have 3 different signs. A painted sign, a red right arrow, an LED red right arrow with the no circle mark ⊘ over it. They still turn right. There's also 50% of the cyclists on Valencia that go through read lights.

kwk1 3y ago

> 1. Individual change is the only thing each of us can do > 2. Legislation won’t happen until enough people care enough to demand it I don't think the first item is quite right, and the second item even suggests it isn't. I would amend it to say that we can't guarantee anything but individual action (and even that is not certain), but it's far from the only thing we can do.

haswell 3y ago
You caught that before my quick edit - I replaced “each” with “most”, but I agree with your amendment. It’s the one thing we can each absolutely start doing today. And the choice to do so is a meaningful one that changes each of us and the people around us.

whatshisface 3y ago

I don't think anything can cause people to collect potato sacks from houses except poverty. The rag and bone man is a very low paid hard life and all of these medieval-scale recycling proposals overlook the details of the lives of the people who used to implement them.

klipt 3y ago

It seems you're both agreeing that voting with your wallet doesn't help much, but voting with your vote does.

haswell 3y ago
I’m disagreeing with the premise that making conscious choices about what I purchase can be reduced to “voting with my wallet”, or that we can conclude it “doesn’t help much” based only on a limited outlook on what helps i.e. there are many more reasons to do it that may never have a meaningful monetary impact on the system. If legislation is the only real end goal, that raises the question: how do we reach that goal? Gay marriage isn’t legal by some accident. Attitudes about cannabis aren’t shifting for no reason. These are issues that people cared deeply enough about to keep pressuring the system for decades. An apathetic voter base doesn’t accomplish those changes.
- paulmd 3y ago
  > I’m disagreeing with the premise that making conscious choices about what I purchase can be reduced to “voting with my wallet”, or that we can conclude it “doesn’t help much” based only on a limited outlook on what helps i.e. there are many more reasons to do it that may never have a meaningful monetary impact on the system. The problem is that capitalism, like the internet, is a system designed to route around problems. From the position of the system, any node acting “incorrectly” and not maximizing its profit is doing it wrong. If you refuse to eat beef, you are only making it cheaper for the people who will still eat beef. And they will eat more of it. The system routes around the error. The only way to reliably effect large-scale changes in these economic patterns is to change the rules of the game. Which is why that is so fiercely contested, and why there’s so much effort to push the blame back down on individual behavior.

Mountain_Skies 3y ago

The difficulty with the path of trying to elect candidates that promise action on a particular issue is that there are always thousands of issues and no given candidate is likely to support all of your preferences so you have to decide which is more important. If a candidate agrees with you on single use plastics but is in opposition to your views on prison reform, which one do you give more importance? It's just one of the quirks of representative democracy that keeps issues with lower noise from being addressed.

ninkendo 3y ago

> 2. Legislation won’t happen until enough people care enough to demand it I can demand legislation to encourage/require behavior that I myself won’t practice in absence of said legislation. It sounds counterintuitive but it makes sense… by analogy, if I’m a hockey goalie I may have the opinion that goalie pads have gotten too big and the game would be more exciting if they were required to be smaller. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to personally wear smaller goalie pads and put myself at a disadvantage, unless the league requires it. I’m in favor of laws that reduce single use plastic even if I myself don’t go out of my way to avoid single use plastic. Too many products around me use it, and if I had to pay attention to every product I buy to avoid it, it would be very difficult. But if legislation existed to force companies to avoid making it in the first place, my individual purchasing decisions would remain simple and we’d all benefit.

haswell 3y ago
> I can demand legislation to encourage/require behavior that I myself won’t practice in absence of said legislation. By this logic, the primary basis on which we make decisions is whatever provides a personal advantage. It’s an unsustainable mindset that would regularly encourage unethical/immoral but otherwise legal actions. Our individual lives aren’t businesses operating in a regulated environment or a goalie forced to operate under the rules all other goalies operate under. We live in the wide open space of every day life where we get to choose what everyday life looks like, for the most part. There are some things that are important to do because they are important, regardless of the legal landscape. If you find yourself waiting for someone to force you to change, stop and consider the implications if everyone does the same thing. > But if legislation existed to force companies to avoid making it in the first place, my individual purchasing decisions would remain simple and we’d all benefit. At least in the US, this misses the critical fact that the government’s function is to represent the will of the people; not impose their will upon the people. Clearly the US system is not doing well in this regard, but there’s a strong case to be made that apathy and lack of individual involvement are primary factors in this dysfunction. In light of this - knowing that the system itself is struggling to meet its charter - it seems especially important not to just expect some magical legislative solution. People are going to have to get involved and do the hard work.

nox100 3y ago

Agreed. It's arguably legislation that added all the traffic signs around SF and it's individuals that decide to ignore all of them. Every time I go out I see cars turning left on Mission between 14th and 28th (no lefts on Mission allowed in that entire section). I see them driving north on Mission through 20th and 16th, both of which have signs and road markings "right turn only". I see them turn right at "no right on red" stop signs, many of which have 3 different signs. A painted sign, a red right arrow, an LED red right arrow with the no circle mark ⊘ over it. They still turn right. There's also 50% of the cyclists on Valencia that go through read lights.