4 ms·

> In a perfect world where governments are competent Yet the general consensus seems to be that in a perfect world governments are democratic, and therefore be

> In a perfect world where governments are competent Yet the general consensus seems to be that in a perfect world governments are democratic, and therefore beholden to the will of the people, not authoritarian like you suggest. But if the will of the people wants to see a change in the use of plastic, they don't need it to flow through government, they can simply change their buying habits.

AstralStorm 3y ago
You cannot buy something that doesn't exist or is otherwise unavailable. And good packaging materials rarely make for good marketing.
- randomdata 3y ago
  > You cannot buy something that doesn't exist or is otherwise unavailable. Of course you can. Facilitating such a thing is Kickstarter's entire business model, as an example. You can also refrain from buying, communicating to other people that "I'm not buying your product unless you..." which gives really strong incentive to do things differently. It's not like government is some kind of magical thing. It's just people. And in the case of democratic government, it's the very same people.
  - littlestymaar 3y ago
    > You can also refrain from buying Day 56 after I refrained from buying food: I'm now dead.
    - randomdata 3y ago
      If only the people had chosen to enact a law that made it illegal to sell you food packaged in harmful packaging that you had already decided not to buy. I mean, you'd still be dead, but you'd have 56 days of satisfaction knowing that your voice was heard.
comicjk 3y ago
We're talking about negative externalities, of which pollution is a perfect example: the effects of pollution are spread across everyone, no matter who emits it, so no one has an individual incentive to change their buying habits. It's a coordination problem, which can be solved democratically by the voters demanding an overall change in incentives (such as an appropriate tax on single-use non-biodegradable plastics).
- randomdata 3y ago
  > We're talking about negative externalities No. Not sure why would you would choose to reply before reading the comments, but since you have... we are quite explicitly talking about at least one consumer expecting food packaging to degrade within a similar period as the food contained within, with a suggestion that an authoritarian government in a perfect world would recognize that as a good idea and force it upon the people. But the general consensus seems to be that, in a perfect world, governments are democratic – a notion you do not seem to discount. Under a democracy, if he stands alone in that desire of short-life packaging, nothing is going to change. No business is going to cater to his unique want (well, maybe if he's exceedingly rich and is willing to pay disproportionally for it) and government is not going to act on the wishes of one person (that would be undemocratic). If a majority of people share in that desire, though, then businesses would face pressure to provide when consumers make that choice clear. Any business that fails to comply will suffer the consequences of lost profits. The people can enact a law that prevents themselves from buying the product they already don't want to buy, but that doesn't accomplish anything. They've already decided they don't want to buy it! Democratic government is useful for cleaning up minority groups who try to act against the wishes of the majority, but in this particular case you have not even made clear why the minority would be stuck on buying 'forever' packaging or what businesses would gain from catering to the minority. People don't care about food packaging that much. Once the majority are buying short-life packaging, the small number of people who want to watch the world burn will be priced out of the market anyway. As such, there is no need for government. The people can just do it... ...and if they don't, that's the end of it. Magic isn't going to swoop in and save the day. The democratic government is nothing other than the very same people who have already decided that, in this scenario, they don't want to do anything. But maybe what you're really struggling to say is that democracy wouldn't be found in a perfect world? Fair enough, but I'm still not sure that's the general consensus.
littlestymaar 3y ago
> they can simply change their buying habits. Sure. And where am I supposed to find affordable food not wrapped in plastic? Ideally in my city and not 100kms away, and not 10 times the price. And now that you're at it, please tell me where I can buy food that is not already polluted by microplastics? This kind of argument is a just a “blaming the victim” kind of reasoning.
- randomdata 3y ago
  > And where am I supposed to find affordable food not wrapped in plastic? The same place you expect to find it when you outlaw food wrapped in plastic. It's not going to disappear until people stop buying it. You can create a law to remind you to not buy food wrapped in plastic, or you can just not buy food wrapped in plastic. So long as the population is on board with the idea of not buying food wrapped in plastic, there is absolutely no difference. If you are suggesting that the population isn't on board and everyone other than you is quite happy to keep buying food wrapped in plastic then a democratic government would never create such a law in the first place, rendering the entire discussion moot. That would not be in alignment with the will of the people. Democracy does not serve individual whims.
  - littlestymaar 3y ago
    > The same place you expect to find it when you outlaw food wrapped in plastic. It's not going to disappear until people stop buying it. People aren't going to stop buying it as long as it's the only option! > You can create a law to remind you to not buy food wrapped in plastic, It's not about reminding you not to buy, it's about banning people from selling. You know, as they already do for dangerous stuff like Kinder Suprise in the US… > or you can just not buy food wrapped in plastic. You cannot because nobody is selling it. > If you're suggesting that the population isn't on board, then a democratic government would never create such a law in the first place. It would not be the will of the people. The population is on board, but population-wide synchronization don't happen for free you know. Here's a fun example: here in Europe the majority of people is against daylight saving time. Yet there is one. That's stupid you'd say, because they could actually collectively decide not to change their clocks' time and call it a day, DST is gone. But in fact, doing so would require an enormous amount of coordination, and this kind of amount of coordination is the exact reason why we've created the State in the first place! And it's actually its only power! (armed force: literally started as just a well synchronized militia, same for law enforcement, collecting taxes: just make sure to get a big enough group to raid the house of the people who refuse to pay, etc.)

AstralStorm 3y ago

You cannot buy something that doesn't exist or is otherwise unavailable. And good packaging materials rarely make for good marketing.

randomdata 3y ago
> You cannot buy something that doesn't exist or is otherwise unavailable. Of course you can. Facilitating such a thing is Kickstarter's entire business model, as an example. You can also refrain from buying, communicating to other people that "I'm not buying your product unless you..." which gives really strong incentive to do things differently. It's not like government is some kind of magical thing. It's just people. And in the case of democratic government, it's the very same people.
- littlestymaar 3y ago
  > You can also refrain from buying Day 56 after I refrained from buying food: I'm now dead.
  - randomdata 3y ago
    If only the people had chosen to enact a law that made it illegal to sell you food packaged in harmful packaging that you had already decided not to buy. I mean, you'd still be dead, but you'd have 56 days of satisfaction knowing that your voice was heard.

comicjk 3y ago

We're talking about negative externalities, of which pollution is a perfect example: the effects of pollution are spread across everyone, no matter who emits it, so no one has an individual incentive to change their buying habits. It's a coordination problem, which can be solved democratically by the voters demanding an overall change in incentives (such as an appropriate tax on single-use non-biodegradable plastics).

randomdata 3y ago
> We're talking about negative externalities No. Not sure why would you would choose to reply before reading the comments, but since you have... we are quite explicitly talking about at least one consumer expecting food packaging to degrade within a similar period as the food contained within, with a suggestion that an authoritarian government in a perfect world would recognize that as a good idea and force it upon the people. But the general consensus seems to be that, in a perfect world, governments are democratic – a notion you do not seem to discount. Under a democracy, if he stands alone in that desire of short-life packaging, nothing is going to change. No business is going to cater to his unique want (well, maybe if he's exceedingly rich and is willing to pay disproportionally for it) and government is not going to act on the wishes of one person (that would be undemocratic). If a majority of people share in that desire, though, then businesses would face pressure to provide when consumers make that choice clear. Any business that fails to comply will suffer the consequences of lost profits. The people can enact a law that prevents themselves from buying the product they already don't want to buy, but that doesn't accomplish anything. They've already decided they don't want to buy it! Democratic government is useful for cleaning up minority groups who try to act against the wishes of the majority, but in this particular case you have not even made clear why the minority would be stuck on buying 'forever' packaging or what businesses would gain from catering to the minority. People don't care about food packaging that much. Once the majority are buying short-life packaging, the small number of people who want to watch the world burn will be priced out of the market anyway. As such, there is no need for government. The people can just do it... ...and if they don't, that's the end of it. Magic isn't going to swoop in and save the day. The democratic government is nothing other than the very same people who have already decided that, in this scenario, they don't want to do anything. But maybe what you're really struggling to say is that democracy wouldn't be found in a perfect world? Fair enough, but I'm still not sure that's the general consensus.

littlestymaar 3y ago

> they can simply change their buying habits. Sure. And where am I supposed to find affordable food not wrapped in plastic? Ideally in my city and not 100kms away, and not 10 times the price. And now that you're at it, please tell me where I can buy food that is not already polluted by microplastics? This kind of argument is a just a “blaming the victim” kind of reasoning.

randomdata 3y ago
> And where am I supposed to find affordable food not wrapped in plastic? The same place you expect to find it when you outlaw food wrapped in plastic. It's not going to disappear until people stop buying it. You can create a law to remind you to not buy food wrapped in plastic, or you can just not buy food wrapped in plastic. So long as the population is on board with the idea of not buying food wrapped in plastic, there is absolutely no difference. If you are suggesting that the population isn't on board and everyone other than you is quite happy to keep buying food wrapped in plastic then a democratic government would never create such a law in the first place, rendering the entire discussion moot. That would not be in alignment with the will of the people. Democracy does not serve individual whims.
- littlestymaar 3y ago
  > The same place you expect to find it when you outlaw food wrapped in plastic. It's not going to disappear until people stop buying it. People aren't going to stop buying it as long as it's the only option! > You can create a law to remind you to not buy food wrapped in plastic, It's not about reminding you not to buy, it's about banning people from selling. You know, as they already do for dangerous stuff like Kinder Suprise in the US… > or you can just not buy food wrapped in plastic. You cannot because nobody is selling it. > If you're suggesting that the population isn't on board, then a democratic government would never create such a law in the first place. It would not be the will of the people. The population is on board, but population-wide synchronization don't happen for free you know. Here's a fun example: here in Europe the majority of people is against daylight saving time. Yet there is one. That's stupid you'd say, because they could actually collectively decide not to change their clocks' time and call it a day, DST is gone. But in fact, doing so would require an enormous amount of coordination, and this kind of amount of coordination is the exact reason why we've created the State in the first place! And it's actually its only power! (armed force: literally started as just a well synchronized militia, same for law enforcement, collecting taxes: just make sure to get a big enough group to raid the house of the people who refuse to pay, etc.)