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Do you recycle? I don't even have the option. (Also incentivizing "green" behavior)

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Posts

  • Giggles_FunsworthGiggles_Funsworth Blight on Discourse Bay Area SprawlRegistered User regular
    Thanatos wrote: »
    Thanatos wrote: »
    tbloxham wrote: »
    What the US really should do is pass legislation at the federal level making approval automatic for installation of solar facilities of certain pre-approved types in all residential buildings, so (sorry SKFM) people like SKFM can't say 'not in my back yard' to it and have their HOA's ban the installation. The only house/building which shouldn't have solar panels is...

    i) My house's roof would collapse if I put solar panels on it
    ii) I live in a historic building
    iii) For some reason, I don't want solar

    We should also make all roofing material which isn't high albedo illegal for new buildings. It's completely insane to see new houses going up with black roofs and people being unable to get planing permission for solar panels. Solar panels (or solar water heating) is pretty much a universal good. Add high albedo roofs and suddenly we'd be using little to no energy in our homes and we'd be powering all the light industry and office buildings in the city with solar power from the city while using power plants as a backup.
    I know this is from a couple of pages ago, but I felt the need to bring it up, because it tends to be a huge obstacle to environmentalism: historic buildings are largely bullshit. I know this makes me sound like the villain from a 1980s movie (probably involving plucky, rookie upstarts competing against rich, veteran jocks in some sort of sport to save their community center), but an awful lot of the time people look for reasons to declare buildings "historic" just so they don't have to see denser development. Denser development is good. In fact, it's awesome. And while I recognize the fact that there absolutely are buildings out there which should be preserved for legitimately historic reasons, just as often I'm seeing it be used by NIMBY assholes. And to clarify, I am absolutely not saying that developers are angels. They tend to also be awful people, it's just that in this case, their interests and the interests of the environment happen to coincide.

    I mean, I look at stuff like this and think it's fucking stupid. It's not that I don't have sympathy for the guy who painted those, or the people who would like to preserve them; I understand that, they're pretty awesome. However, when you're using murals as a medium, you have to recognize that they are inherently temporary. Buildings get torn down, new buildings get put in their place, especially in a city that's growing like Seattle is. The alternative to tearing down that building and building a better, denser school is expanding outwards; 1) that's fucking awful, and leads to the sort of sprawl you see in Phoenix, and 2) there isn't really anywhere for Seattle to expand outwards.

    If it wasn't for these laws, we wouldn't be celebrating the 100 year anniversary of Grand Central Terminal right now. I respectfully disagree that these laws are a problem, we just need to make sure that they are not overused.
    Grand Central Station is legitimately historical, and an incredible building. There are absolutely places like that worth preserving, but I think we go waaaaayyyy to far in letting legitimate development get held up by NIMBY assholes abusing our desire to preserve places like that.

    On the topic of Developers being assholes, in San Francisco there is no fucking rent control at all on buildings made after 1980 because they are completely fucking retarded at making laws. Because of this, a common tactic for owners of new developments is to get somebody on a lease at submarket rates, then jack the rent up a couple thousand per month after they've got all their stuff in the building. By contrast in San Jose landlords can only raise the rent by 3% a year, or a maximum of 10% due to mitigating circumstances with a hearing. Makes no sense at all to me that a place like San Francisco with such awesome tenant protections could have such an obvious failing in their renter law.

  • JuliusJulius Captain of Serenity on my shipRegistered User regular
    Julius wrote: »
    Feral wrote: »
    Speaking of incentivizing green behavior, I don't know how generalizable this infographic is (n= 'nearly 200') but it sure is interesting:

    http://cleantechnica.com/2012/03/28/9-suprising-things-about-people-who-go-solar-infographic/
    infographic-surprising-things-about-solar-people.png

    74% of the people polled went solar primarily to save money, not to be green.

    The big problem with solar is how strange they look. I always feel bad for the people who live nextdoor to the house with the solar panels, as I suspect it makes it harder to sell your house. For my part, we didn't want to live next to a house like that when we were looking.

    What the fuck kind of problem is that? You're not even complaining about the house you're buying, you're complaining about the one next to it? Because it has solar panels?

    You will see it every day. It's no different than any other eyesore, IMO.

    Right except that this particular eyesore is a Good Thing For Society. Aside from the fact that it's unbelievable that you consider a minor aesthetic flaw on someone else's house a legit problem, solar panels on roofs is something that should be encouraged in society.

  • QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    Quid wrote: »
    _J_ wrote: »
    The people who care enough about change are the ones that should be putting in the effort to make it an easy choice for those who don't care much, IMO.

    Do you honestly not perceive a problem in this thought?

    I think it is a very pragmatic statement, but I'm a pragmatic guy. I think that whenever "this is good for society" and "people don't want to do this" collide, the right answer is to find a way to change the latter. I generally am big on legislative solutions, but where they are not available, I think the best solution is to find ways to make the desirable course of action more palatable to those who don't like it.

    Legislation that lead to better dish soap caused you to start buying and throwing out huge amounts of plastic ware.

    People on this board badgering you to just clean your own mug lead to you no longer wasting disposable coffee cups.

    No, it was not the badgering at all. It was the people who said they bring their own sponge or use lousy paper towels and still do it. Reasonable solutions are helpful. Meanspirited attacks are actually counterproductive IMO. Claiming that a problem is not a problem and that I should stop being grossed out by not wanting to associate with homeless people is not a convincing argument, but "target probably does bottle return indoors" offers an actual solution.

    Ah yes, it wasn't people bothering you to do it. It was them telling you over and over to do it.

  • _J__J_ Pedant Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    Julius wrote: »
    Julius wrote: »
    Feral wrote: »
    Speaking of incentivizing green behavior, I don't know how generalizable this infographic is (n= 'nearly 200') but it sure is interesting:

    http://cleantechnica.com/2012/03/28/9-suprising-things-about-people-who-go-solar-infographic/
    infographic-surprising-things-about-solar-people.png

    74% of the people polled went solar primarily to save money, not to be green.

    The big problem with solar is how strange they look. I always feel bad for the people who live nextdoor to the house with the solar panels, as I suspect it makes it harder to sell your house. For my part, we didn't want to live next to a house like that when we were looking.

    What the fuck kind of problem is that? You're not even complaining about the house you're buying, you're complaining about the one next to it? Because it has solar panels?

    You will see it every day. It's no different than any other eyesore, IMO.

    Right except that this particular eyesore is a Good Thing For Society. Aside from the fact that it's unbelievable that you consider a minor aesthetic flaw on someone else's house a legit problem, solar panels on roofs is something that should be encouraged in society.

    World X: Everything is beautiful, but people die after 10 years of torment and misery.

    World Y: Everything is aesthetically unpleasing, but people live forever.

    ITT: We learned that SKFM prefers World X.

  • spacekungfumanspacekungfuman Poor and minority-filled Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    N1tSt4lker wrote: »
    I would posit that any time we keep more trash from being added to a landfill and more energy from being used to make unnecessary disposable products, we are helping. Just because thing X doesn't do as much as thing Y doesn't mean you shouldn't do thing X. What you are saying is like an obese person saying, "Well, since I can't lose all this weight immediately, what's the point of not eating these donuts? I'll just eat them because not eating them doesn't help me as much as losing all this weight immediately." It's silly. Baby steps are just baby steps, but eventually they lead to bigger and better things, like running marathons. We don't poo-poo the baby steps because they aren't marathons. I swear, you really do like finding ways to justify lazy decision making. You'll notice that the speaker didn't negate the green decisions they were making just because not all of them would save the planet alone.

    The more apt analogy would bring obese and knowing that of the 100 lbs you need to lose, you can lose 1 by cutting out donuts, but the rest require you to be vegan. If you won't go vegan, is the 1 insignifigant lb worth missing our on donuts?

    Incidentally, I agree with someone else who said that the message should be "look for all the little things you can do" but I fear that the message was not conveyed as clearly as it could have been. I for one see no issue with sticking with my gas guzzling car and also using energy efficient lightbulbs, even though in my ideal world I would stick with normal light bulbs.

  • _J__J_ Pedant Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    I for one see no issue with sticking with my gas guzzling car and also using energy efficient lightbulbs, even though in my ideal world I would stick with normal light bulbs.

    God damn it.

    - Pollution
    - Rapid consumption of resources
    - Inefficient use of finances

  • Harry DresdenHarry Dresden Registered User regular
    edited February 2013
    N1tSt4lker wrote: »
    I would posit that any time we keep more trash from being added to a landfill and more energy from being used to make unnecessary disposable products, we are helping. Just because thing X doesn't do as much as thing Y doesn't mean you shouldn't do thing X. What you are saying is like an obese person saying, "Well, since I can't lose all this weight immediately, what's the point of not eating these donuts? I'll just eat them because not eating them doesn't help me as much as losing all this weight immediately." It's silly. Baby steps are just baby steps, but eventually they lead to bigger and better things, like running marathons. We don't poo-poo the baby steps because they aren't marathons. I swear, you really do like finding ways to justify lazy decision making. You'll notice that the speaker didn't negate the green decisions they were making just because not all of them would save the planet alone.

    The more apt analogy would bring obese and knowing that of the 100 lbs you need to lose, you can lose 1 by cutting out donuts, but the rest require you to be vegan. If you won't go vegan, is the 1 insignifigant lb worth missing our on donuts?

    Incidentally, I agree with someone else who said that the message should be "look for all the little things you can do" but I fear that the message was not conveyed as clearly as it could have been. I for one see no issue with sticking with my gas guzzling car and also using energy efficient lightbulbs, even though in my ideal world I would stick with normal light bulbs.

    Why are you sticking with your gas guzzling car? Unlike many posters here, who don't have as many resources as you do, surely it'd be easy to replace it with a greener car if it is a priority for you to preserve the environment.

    Harry Dresden on
  • zagdrobzagdrob Registered User regular
    ITT we find out why the government has to mandate things like energy star or mileage requirements that should just be done.

  • ArchArch Neat-o, mosquito! Registered User regular
    zagdrob wrote: »
    ITT we find out why the government has to mandate things like energy star or mileage requirements that should just be done.

    The Government- solving collective action problems since, well, forever

  • _J__J_ Pedant Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    Arch wrote: »
    zagdrob wrote: »
    ITT we find out why the government has to mandate things like energy star or mileage requirements that should just be done.

    The Government- solving collective action problems since, well, forever

    Collective action problems aren't actually problems.

    They're just excuses for lazy, selfish people.

  • Harry DresdenHarry Dresden Registered User regular
    _J_ wrote: »
    Arch wrote: »
    zagdrob wrote: »
    ITT we find out why the government has to mandate things like energy star or mileage requirements that should just be done.

    The Government- solving collective action problems since, well, forever

    Collective action problems aren't actually problems.

    They're just excuses for peasants.

  • rockrngerrockrnger Registered User regular
    edited February 2013
    _J_ wrote: »
    Arch wrote: »
    zagdrob wrote: »
    ITT we find out why the government has to mandate things like energy star or mileage requirements that should just be done.

    The Government- solving collective action problems since, well, forever

    Collective action problems aren't actually problems.

    They're just excuses for lazy, selfish people.

    Come now, you know that the free market works these things out. Pretty soon a corporate tax lawyer who buys efficient light bulbs comes along and space will......starve or something. I forget how reganomics works.

    rockrnger on
  • spacekungfumanspacekungfuman Poor and minority-filled Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    Arch wrote: »
    zagdrob wrote: »
    ITT we find out why the government has to mandate things like energy star or mileage requirements that should just be done.

    The Government- solving collective action problems since, well, forever

    That is pretty much the only way they are solved, hence my frequent banging on the legislative/regulatory solution drum.

  • _J__J_ Pedant Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    Arch wrote: »
    zagdrob wrote: »
    ITT we find out why the government has to mandate things like energy star or mileage requirements that should just be done.

    The Government- solving collective action problems since, well, forever

    That is pretty much the only way they are solved, hence my frequent banging on the legislative/regulatory solution drum.

    I do not have curb-side recycling pickup.
    I collect my own recycling materials, and drive them to the local recycling collection bins.
    I am not required to do this by the state or federal government.

    How do you explain that? Because, under your paradigm, I'm doing the impossible.

  • MillMill Registered User regular
    It always baffles me when people don't do certain kinds of recycling. For instance aluminum cans, it drives me nuts that people throw those out; especially, when you have a recycling place that will pay cash for them. IIRC it takes an hour for my dad to get the whole process done (drive there, turn in cans, drive back). Yeah, it's a bit of hassle but he solves it by doing the trip once a year and making sure all the cans get crashed before he takes them.

    Even if there isn't a place paying for certain items that can be recycled, it's not that hard. Newspaper and cardboard are such an item and hell, my dad has to separate the two out when he gets tot he dumb since paper goes in one collector and cardboard in another. Not sure how much sorting he has to do with plastics bottles, but no one had to prompt him there once the dump had a plastic bottle bin (I think they only take type 1 and 2 plastic or maybe it's just type 1). Granted, I'm still trying to get my parents into the habit of recycling tin cans and glass.

  • spacekungfumanspacekungfuman Poor and minority-filled Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    _J_ wrote: »
    Arch wrote: »
    zagdrob wrote: »
    ITT we find out why the government has to mandate things like energy star or mileage requirements that should just be done.

    The Government- solving collective action problems since, well, forever

    That is pretty much the only way they are solved, hence my frequent banging on the legislative/regulatory solution drum.

    I do not have curb-side recycling pickup.
    I collect my own recycling materials, and drive them to the local recycling collection bins.
    I am not required to do this by the state or federal government.

    How do you explain that? Because, under your paradigm, I'm doing the impossible.

    You are not. You are doing the irrational though, unless you place a higher value on recycling than your convenience/leisure time. To take a better example, let's look at the car. My car does not get good gas mileage (17 mpg avg over the 1.5 years I've had it) and it only takes premium. I would like it to get better mileage, both for the environment's sake and to spend less on gas, but I value having an awesome car that I love more than I do either of these goals. The only ways to get me to buy the more fuel efficient car are (1) to force me to do so (regulatory solution) or (2) to make awesome cars that are better in this regard (this is the "easing change" point I was making earlier. Someone else may value the higher mpg more than having the car be fast or have the same features mine does, and that is fine, but for someone with my profile, why hurt myself by buying a car based on features that I care less about if I have the option of buying the car I really want?

  • _J__J_ Pedant Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    _J_ wrote: »
    Arch wrote: »
    zagdrob wrote: »
    ITT we find out why the government has to mandate things like energy star or mileage requirements that should just be done.

    The Government- solving collective action problems since, well, forever

    That is pretty much the only way they are solved, hence my frequent banging on the legislative/regulatory solution drum.

    I do not have curb-side recycling pickup.
    I collect my own recycling materials, and drive them to the local recycling collection bins.
    I am not required to do this by the state or federal government.

    How do you explain that? Because, under your paradigm, I'm doing the impossible.

    You are not. You are doing the irrational though, unless you place a higher value on recycling than your convenience/leisure time.

    Right. I'm not a selfish, lazy, narcissist.

    What does that say about you?

  • JuliusJulius Captain of Serenity on my shipRegistered User regular
    _J_ wrote: »
    Arch wrote: »
    zagdrob wrote: »
    ITT we find out why the government has to mandate things like energy star or mileage requirements that should just be done.

    The Government- solving collective action problems since, well, forever

    Collective action problems aren't actually problems.

    They're just excuses for lazy, selfish people.

    yo J I don't wanna diss you or anything but doesn't that make them problems?

    Like I don't support SKFM's position but it isn't "Imma do nothing about nothing because I'm lazy as fuck", it is "Doing good for everyone inconveniences me and only works if everyone does it too and since not everyone does it I'd be a sucker to sacrifice even a bit of my own comfort". In other words, it exactly a collective action problem and SKFM is the motherfucking model for our understanding of what is and what is not a collective action problem.


    Straight up son has stated that he thinks legislation is the only thing stopping anyone from doing anything. In fact, he has said that he takes the easy route all the time so we must structure society so that doing the right thing is in fact the easy route.

  • _J__J_ Pedant Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    Julius wrote: »
    _J_ wrote: »
    Arch wrote: »
    zagdrob wrote: »
    ITT we find out why the government has to mandate things like energy star or mileage requirements that should just be done.

    The Government- solving collective action problems since, well, forever

    Collective action problems aren't actually problems.

    They're just excuses for lazy, selfish people.

    yo J I don't wanna diss you or anything but doesn't that make them problems?

    Like I don't support SKFM's position but it isn't "Imma do nothing about nothing because I'm lazy as fuck", it is "Doing good for everyone inconveniences me and only works if everyone does it too and since not everyone does it I'd be a sucker to sacrifice even a bit of my own comfort". In other words, it exactly a collective action problem and SKFM is the motherfucking model for our understanding of what is and what is not a collective action problem.


    Straight up son has stated that he thinks legislation is the only thing stopping anyone from doing anything. In fact, he has said that he takes the easy route all the time so we must structure society so that doing the right thing is in fact the easy route.

    Collective action problems pretend the actual "problem" to be well beyond the scope of one person's sphere of causal influence. So, we pretend the problem to be "elimination of all green house gasses, ever" and so foster that feeling of insignificance onto any particular individual's actions. Or, in the case of this thread, "recycling everything, ever." or "conserving all resources, ever". So, since one person can't influence "all X, ever" it permits the SKFM mentality of "herp derp I'll do nothing".

    The reality is that every particular action has consequences. So the imagined larger "all X, ever" problem is really nothing more that an imagined accumulation of all the minimal particular instances that serve as components to the larger imagined problem. Every individual aluminum can, for example, is a part of the larger problem of conserving aluminum. Rather than priviledge the larger abstraction, we can focus upon the particular instances that are subsumed under the larger abstraction, and so reinforce the degree to which every aluminum can, every light bulb changed, every gallon of gas not used, is, in fact, a solution to each tiny problem.

    We either pretend there is one problem of 7,000,000 aluminum cans, or we discern there are 7,000,000 problems each of which relate to one aluminum can.

    Persons who utilize "collective actions problems" as justifications for their laziness pretend there is ONE problem with 7,000,000 components, instead of realizing that, given the structure of reality, there are actually 7,000,000 problems each of which relate to one particular can. If SKFM got off his ass and recycled 50 cans he could solve 50 problems. But, instead, he imagines that those 50 cans are some "insignificant" percentage of one actual large problem, and so continues to be a lazy silly goose.


    It's a question of scale / perspective. Floundering in "collective action problems" is simply a manifestation of fucking up the scale / perspective. Every can, every light bulb, every gallon of gas matters. Unless you pretend they don't, in order to justify being a lazy silly goose.

  • tsmvengytsmvengy Registered User regular
    Julius wrote: »
    _J_ wrote: »
    Arch wrote: »
    zagdrob wrote: »
    ITT we find out why the government has to mandate things like energy star or mileage requirements that should just be done.

    The Government- solving collective action problems since, well, forever

    Collective action problems aren't actually problems.

    They're just excuses for lazy, selfish people.

    yo J I don't wanna diss you or anything but doesn't that make them problems?

    Like I don't support SKFM's position but it isn't "Imma do nothing about nothing because I'm lazy as fuck", it is "Doing good for everyone inconveniences me and only works if everyone does it too and since not everyone does it I'd be a sucker to sacrifice even a bit of my own comfort". In other words, it exactly a collective action problem and SKFM is the motherfucking model for our understanding of what is and what is not a collective action problem.


    Straight up son has stated that he thinks legislation is the only thing stopping anyone from doing anything. In fact, he has said that he takes the easy route all the time so we must structure society so that doing the right thing is in fact the easy route.

    "Pollution" is a collective action problem. "Recycling" is not a collective action problem. Recycling your stuff means your stuff doesn't end up in a landfill. That is a positive.
    You are doing the irrational though, unless you place a higher value on recycling than your convenience/leisure time.

    Yes there are plenty of us for whom "a couple hours every month or every other month" is not a huge lift and worth the inconvenience. But that pretty much seems to sum up your life, which is that the "how much I care" line is a lot lower than other people's.

    I mean sure, you would like to care about recycling, but since nobody's put it right in front of you then why bother? And you would like to care about how much your car pollutes and how much gas it uses, but it's just so much easier not to care and just have a super fun car!

    steam_sig.png
  • finnithfinnith ... TorontoRegistered User regular
    edited February 2013
    @J

    Then it would follow that people are in general lazy, silly geese, SKFM's mode of thought being very common. Thus his solution of government legislation/regulation. There are other ways you can create incentives/awareness though.

    finnith on
    Bnet: CavilatRest#1874
    Steam: CavilatRest
  • _J__J_ Pedant Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    finnith wrote: »
    @J

    Then it would follow that people are in general lazy, silly geese, SKFM's mode of thought being very common. Thus his solution of government legislation/regulation. There are other ways you can create incentives/awareness though.

    Or we get people to not be lazy, silly geese.

  • finnithfinnith ... TorontoRegistered User regular
    ... That's what the incentives/legislation would be for. Unless you're hoping that we just start to pop out babies who end up being active citizens on their own.

    Bnet: CavilatRest#1874
    Steam: CavilatRest
  • _J__J_ Pedant Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    finnith wrote: »
    ... That's what the incentives/legislation would be for. Unless you're hoping that we just start to pop out babies who end up being active citizens on their own.

    Or adequately educate them, yeah.

  • Harry DresdenHarry Dresden Registered User regular
    _J_ wrote: »
    Arch wrote: »
    zagdrob wrote: »
    ITT we find out why the government has to mandate things like energy star or mileage requirements that should just be done.

    The Government- solving collective action problems since, well, forever

    That is pretty much the only way they are solved, hence my frequent banging on the legislative/regulatory solution drum.

    I do not have curb-side recycling pickup.
    I collect my own recycling materials, and drive them to the local recycling collection bins.
    I am not required to do this by the state or federal government.

    How do you explain that? Because, under your paradigm, I'm doing the impossible.

    You are not. You are doing the irrational though, unless you place a higher value on recycling than your convenience/leisure time. To take a better example, let's look at the car. My car does not get good gas mileage (17 mpg avg over the 1.5 years I've had it) and it only takes premium. I would like it to get better mileage, both for the environment's sake and to spend less on gas, but I value having an awesome car that I love more than I do either of these goals. The only ways to get me to buy the more fuel efficient car are (1) to force me to do so (regulatory solution) or (2) to make awesome cars that are better in this regard (this is the "easing change" point I was making earlier.

    So you're admitting its waste of time to argue with you about the environment since you need to be forced by the law to make the earth habitable by humanity. Do you not care about breathing oxygen, having water thats not filled with poison and running out of animal populations to eat? And you have the nerve to call J irrational.
    Someone else may value the higher mpg more than having the car be fast or have the same features mine does, and that is fine, but for someone with my profile, why hurt myself by buying a car based on features that I care less about if I have the option of buying the car I really want?

    You're not hurting yourself by getting a car that's better for the environment or devoting more time to recycling.

  • QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    finnith wrote: »
    ... That's what the incentives/legislation would be for. Unless you're hoping that we just start to pop out babies who end up being active citizens on their own.

    Many people already are active citizens without government intervention. The world is noticeably better for them too.

    And sometimes when confronted with people like SKFM in life they're rightfully dickish when that person throws their hands up in the air and declares that nothing they can do would matter anyway, reality be damned.

  • spacekungfumanspacekungfuman Poor and minority-filled Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    _J_ wrote: »
    Julius wrote: »
    _J_ wrote: »
    Arch wrote: »
    zagdrob wrote: »
    ITT we find out why the government has to mandate things like energy star or mileage requirements that should just be done.

    The Government- solving collective action problems since, well, forever

    Collective action problems aren't actually problems.

    They're just excuses for lazy, selfish people.

    yo J I don't wanna diss you or anything but doesn't that make them problems?

    Like I don't support SKFM's position but it isn't "Imma do nothing about nothing because I'm lazy as fuck", it is "Doing good for everyone inconveniences me and only works if everyone does it too and since not everyone does it I'd be a sucker to sacrifice even a bit of my own comfort". In other words, it exactly a collective action problem and SKFM is the motherfucking model for our understanding of what is and what is not a collective action problem.


    Straight up son has stated that he thinks legislation is the only thing stopping anyone from doing anything. In fact, he has said that he takes the easy route all the time so we must structure society so that doing the right thing is in fact the easy route.

    Collective action problems pretend the actual "problem" to be well beyond the scope of one person's sphere of causal influence. So, we pretend the problem to be "elimination of all green house gasses, ever" and so foster that feeling of insignificance onto any particular individual's actions. Or, in the case of this thread, "recycling everything, ever." or "conserving all resources, ever". So, since one person can't influence "all X, ever" it permits the SKFM mentality of "herp derp I'll do nothing".

    The reality is that every particular action has consequences. So the imagined larger "all X, ever" problem is really nothing more that an imagined accumulation of all the minimal particular instances that serve as components to the larger imagined problem. Every individual aluminum can, for example, is a part of the larger problem of conserving aluminum. Rather than priviledge the larger abstraction, we can focus upon the particular instances that are subsumed under the larger abstraction, and so reinforce the degree to which every aluminum can, every light bulb changed, every gallon of gas not used, is, in fact, a solution to each tiny problem.

    We either pretend there is one problem of 7,000,000 aluminum cans, or we discern there are 7,000,000 problems each of which relate to one aluminum can.

    Persons who utilize "collective actions problems" as justifications for their laziness pretend there is ONE problem with 7,000,000 components, instead of realizing that, given the structure of reality, there are actually 7,000,000 problems each of which relate to one particular can. If SKFM got off his ass and recycled 50 cans he could solve 50 problems. But, instead, he imagines that those 50 cans are some "insignificant" percentage of one actual large problem, and so continues to be a lazy silly goose.


    It's a question of scale / perspective. Floundering in "collective action problems" is simply a manifestation of fucking up the scale / perspective. Every can, every light bulb, every gallon of gas matters. Unless you pretend they don't, in order to justify being a lazy silly goose.

    They're different problems, and there is nothing inconsistent with caring about the big problem of the 7,000,000 cans but not caring about the problem of individual cans, because the outcomes from solving them are very different. I care about not having the environment ruined by carbon emissions, and would take actions that could solve that problem, but I do not care about the small goal of reducing emissions by one less car as an end unto itself, as the impact is negligible, and I would bear the entire cost of that decision in exchange for a negligible diffused gain. The former outcome is worth sacrificing for, but imo the latter is not, and importantly, since I dont value the latter solution, my actions re: car selection are only impacted by the former, and guess what? The impact of my car selection really is negligible on the larger issue of carbon emossions. So you are right to say that you can look at big problems and individual problems, but you have to remember that they are seperate problems, and if you don't care about solving the small problem, then your decision making should only be based on impacts re: the bigger problem.

    Collective action problems are not illusory, and they are not a crutch for the lazy. They are the outcome of rational actors pursuing their own rational self interests in a world which does not constrain their choices.

  • DarkPrimusDarkPrimus Registered User regular
    It's incredible how you can talk about how you aren't contributing to the very same problem you mention in your exact same post. Again and again and again.

  • spacekungfumanspacekungfuman Poor and minority-filled Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    DarkPrimus wrote: »
    It's incredible how you can talk about how you aren't contributing to the very same problem you mention in your exact same post. Again and again and again.

    I never said I'm not contributing. The contribution is just negligible, and in my mind, a tiny, diffused benefit is not worth taking on a personal concentrated cost in most cases. Put another way, the impact of my car on pollution is so tiny that it isn't worth it to not have the car I want in exchange for that tiny benefit, but I would support legislation which prevented cars like mine from being made, because now the cost is more wide spread and the benefit is much greater.

  • _J__J_ Pedant Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    DarkPrimus wrote: »
    It's incredible how you can talk about how you aren't contributing to the very same problem you mention in your exact same post. Again and again and again.

    I never said I'm not contributing. The contribution is just negligible, and in my mind, a tiny, diffused benefit is not worth taking on a personal concentrated cost in most cases. Put another way, the impact of my car on pollution is so tiny that it isn't worth it to not have the car I want in exchange for that tiny benefit, but I would support legislation which prevented cars like mine from being made, because now the cost is more wide spread and the benefit is much greater.

    Nice job missing the fucking point: There are no negligible, insignificant acts.

    Thinking that there are is just you rationalizing your laziness.

    Every act matters, damn it.

  • DarkPrimusDarkPrimus Registered User regular
    "Collective action problems are not illusory"

    Those are your own fucking words, SKFM.

    You know what a collective action problem is? It's when a bunch of individuals tell themselves that their actions won't make a difference, so they might as well not bother.

  • CalixtusCalixtus Registered User regular
    DarkPrimus wrote: »
    It's incredible how you can talk about how you aren't contributing to the very same problem you mention in your exact same post. Again and again and again.

    I never said I'm not contributing. The contribution is just negligible, and in my mind, a tiny, diffused benefit is not worth taking on a personal concentrated cost in most cases. Put another way, the impact of my car on pollution is so tiny that it isn't worth it to not have the car I want in exchange for that tiny benefit, but I would support legislation which prevented cars like mine from being made, because now the cost is more wide spread and the benefit is much greater.
    Neither of these are true statements. The personal cost is exactly the same, and the personal benefit infered by that cost is exactly the same in both scenarios.

    Me paying ten bucks for something, and 40 people paying ten bucks for 40 of something, does not "spread the cost".

    -This message was deviously brought to you by:
  • spacekungfumanspacekungfuman Poor and minority-filled Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    _J_ wrote: »
    DarkPrimus wrote: »
    It's incredible how you can talk about how you aren't contributing to the very same problem you mention in your exact same post. Again and again and again.

    I never said I'm not contributing. The contribution is just negligible, and in my mind, a tiny, diffused benefit is not worth taking on a personal concentrated cost in most cases. Put another way, the impact of my car on pollution is so tiny that it isn't worth it to not have the car I want in exchange for that tiny benefit, but I would support legislation which prevented cars like mine from being made, because now the cost is more wide spread and the benefit is much greater.

    Nice job missing the fucking point: There are no negligible, insignificant acts.

    Thinking that there are is just you rationalizing your laziness.

    Every act matters, damn it.

    If 999,999 cars have effectively the same impact as 1,000,000, then deciding to drive a car is not a meaningful decision on its own. If everyone but you decides to drive, your choice not to has no appreciable impact. If everyone but you decides not to, then your decision to drive still has effectively no impact. The impact is asked entirely on large scale movements or shifts in behavior, but no shift will ever render your choice meaningful in and if itself. The problem is that any rational actor should conclude from this that he will maximize his own outcomes, because he will always be better off acting in his own interest. That is why collective action problems exist, and why government regulation is the best solution, since it lets you enforce the wide scale shift. This is very basic stuff. Given the volume of cars on the road, there is no circumstance under which my personal decision of what car to drive will matter to a degree which any reasonable person would say matters.

  • spacekungfumanspacekungfuman Poor and minority-filled Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    Calixtus wrote: »
    DarkPrimus wrote: »
    It's incredible how you can talk about how you aren't contributing to the very same problem you mention in your exact same post. Again and again and again.

    I never said I'm not contributing. The contribution is just negligible, and in my mind, a tiny, diffused benefit is not worth taking on a personal concentrated cost in most cases. Put another way, the impact of my car on pollution is so tiny that it isn't worth it to not have the car I want in exchange for that tiny benefit, but I would support legislation which prevented cars like mine from being made, because now the cost is more wide spread and the benefit is much greater.
    Neither of these are true statements. The personal cost is exactly the same, and the personal benefit infered by that cost is exactly the same in both scenarios.

    Me paying ten bucks for something, and 40 people paying ten bucks for 40 of something, does not "spread the cost".

    It does as a relative matter. In the first scenario, you are comparatively poorer than the other 39 people. And if we are talking about collective action problems, then we are talking about a benefit which can only be fully realized if a lot of people participate, so the idea would be that having all 40 people make the purchase benefits you and society more than just you making the purchase. If it isn't that type of scenario, then it isn't a collective action problem at all, and is not relevant to this discussion.

  • spacekungfumanspacekungfuman Poor and minority-filled Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    DarkPrimus wrote: »
    "Collective action problems are not illusory"

    Those are your own fucking words, SKFM.

    You know what a collective action problem is? It's when a bunch of individuals tell themselves that their actions won't make a difference, so they might as well not bother.

    I have no idea what this is responding to, as all my posts after that are just saying, "yes, this is a collective action problem, and we all know what the optimum approach is to collective action problems in a world without regulatory constraints on activity."

  • MorranMorran Registered User regular
    _J_ wrote: »
    DarkPrimus wrote: »
    It's incredible how you can talk about how you aren't contributing to the very same problem you mention in your exact same post. Again and again and again.

    I never said I'm not contributing. The contribution is just negligible, and in my mind, a tiny, diffused benefit is not worth taking on a personal concentrated cost in most cases. Put another way, the impact of my car on pollution is so tiny that it isn't worth it to not have the car I want in exchange for that tiny benefit, but I would support legislation which prevented cars like mine from being made, because now the cost is more wide spread and the benefit is much greater.

    Nice job missing the fucking point: There are no negligible, insignificant acts.

    Thinking that there are is just you rationalizing your laziness.

    Every act matters, damn it.

    If 999,999 cars have effectively the same impact as 1,000,000, then deciding to drive a car is not a meaningful decision on its own. If everyone but you decides to drive, your choice not to has no appreciable impact. If everyone but you decides not to, then your decision to drive still has effectively no impact. The impact is asked entirely on large scale movements or shifts in behavior, but no shift will ever render your choice meaningful in and if itself. The problem is that any rational actor should conclude from this that he will maximize his own outcomes, because he will always be better off acting in his own interest. That is why collective action problems exist, and why government regulation is the best solution, since it lets you enforce the wide scale shift. This is very basic stuff. Given the volume of cars on the road, there is no circumstance under which my personal decision of what car to drive will matter to a degree which any reasonable person would say matters.

    I think you answered this in another thread, but following your line of reasoning, why would anyone who is sane and rational vote? Voting requires non-zero effort, and will make no meaningful difference?

  • Rhesus PositiveRhesus Positive GNU Terry Pratchett Registered User regular
    Luckily for SKFM, there are people who do vote, so it isn't a problem for him. It's like having servants - they do the hard work so he doesn't have to change anything about his behaviour. The problem comes when all us pesky plebs decide that we want to do something counter to supporting his apathy.

    If last election the turnout was 1% and the US was currently being ruled by write-in candidate Bonerchamp McGee (R), there would be a SKFM thread entitled, "How do we get people to vote? People that aren't me, obviously, but peasants who don't have better shit to do on a Thursday."

    [Muffled sounds of gorilla violence]
  • Eat it You Nasty Pig.Eat it You Nasty Pig. tell homeland security 'we are the bomb'Registered User regular
    Portland recently moved to collecting garbage only once every two weeks. This reason for this was primarily to save the city money (sanitation dudes get paid), but they've used it as a way to encourage more recycling/composting.

    Basically every residence now has a solid-recyclables container, a food waste/yard debris container, and a regular old trash. They get picked up on a rotating schedule. It pissed everybody off at first (some people presumably are still pissed), but it's also 1) saved money and 2) forced everybody to sort their waste in a way that makes disposal more efficient/environmentally friendly.

    also did moniker come into this thread and tell everybody to read Cradle to Cradle yet?

    NREqxl5.jpg
    it was the smallest on the list but
    Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
  • tsmvengytsmvengy Registered User regular
    Calixtus wrote: »
    DarkPrimus wrote: »
    It's incredible how you can talk about how you aren't contributing to the very same problem you mention in your exact same post. Again and again and again.

    I never said I'm not contributing. The contribution is just negligible, and in my mind, a tiny, diffused benefit is not worth taking on a personal concentrated cost in most cases. Put another way, the impact of my car on pollution is so tiny that it isn't worth it to not have the car I want in exchange for that tiny benefit, but I would support legislation which prevented cars like mine from being made, because now the cost is more wide spread and the benefit is much greater.
    Neither of these are true statements. The personal cost is exactly the same, and the personal benefit infered by that cost is exactly the same in both scenarios.

    Me paying ten bucks for something, and 40 people paying ten bucks for 40 of something, does not "spread the cost".

    It does as a relative matter. In the first scenario, you are comparatively poorer than the other 39 people. And if we are talking about collective action problems, then we are talking about a benefit which can only be fully realized if a lot of people participate, so the idea would be that having all 40 people make the purchase benefits you and society more than just you making the purchase. If it isn't that type of scenario, then it isn't a collective action problem at all, and is not relevant to this discussion.

    Is answer is essentially: well I like keeping up with the joneses and having nice things, and then a bunch of irrelevant crap. We understand collective action problems; you should understand that your cost and contribution to the problem are the same whether you are legally obligated to recycle or not.

    steam_sig.png
  • QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    And that, shockingly, people judge you for your actions. Something you're all too thrilled to do regarding hats, space.

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