r/machinesinaction 2d ago

And I can't have plastic straw?

2.9k Upvotes

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41

u/Paraselene_Tao 1d ago

The whole straw topic has been a minor smokescreen from serious, bigger issues anyhow. Your straws barely add much to the pollution on our planet; meanwhile, fossil fuels still lobby for government policies, control large financial institutes, control the media in its myriad forms, astroturf or top-bottom propagate misinformation on a scale never seen before, and do all kinds of other bullshit to mind control the population. Meanwhile, that guy's exhaust and our straws are close to the least of our problems. You and I shouldn't even be having this fucking discussion if our government(s) properly handled climate change >50 years ago. Instead, here we are.

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u/HyperionSaber 1d ago

The FF industry new about the negative effects of their product in 1959. Think about where we'd be if they had done the decent thing and not lied about it for profit.

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u/Girderland 1d ago edited 1d ago

I signed a petition to make Ecocide a crime a couple of months ago. Wouldn't it be nice if the corporations destroying our planet would have to pay astronomic reparation sums and if the decisionmakers who chose to make life worse for all of us in exchange for profit would face long prison sentences?

That'd be nice. It would also be nice if we would just chill out for a couple of generations, plant hemp and poppies. They say that for the climate to recover, even if we stop all emmissions, would take 200 years.

Stop producing crap. There are already more cars than people on the planet. Make stuff repairable. No need for a new phone every 2 years.

Let's just ride donkeys and plant cabbages and if we are lucky our great-great grandchildren will have pre-industrial climate again and hopefully they will do a better job at not ruining it.

It could be so easy if there was a will.

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u/ManyThingsLittleTime 1d ago

Do you own a donkey or a car?

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u/Christophe12591 1d ago

Right this is a guy who probably lives in a city and walks to wherever he goes and definitely doesn’t have kids , ya lemme put the 3 car seats on the back of a donkey lol

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u/Dissentient 6h ago

You're saying "lives in a city and walks" as if that's not an objectively cleaner lifestyle compared to people who need to produce 20 tons of CO2 per year just because they chose to live in places that were designed by car manufacturers to sell more cars.

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u/Christophe12591 6h ago

And I’m sure you and him the same person who preaches clean lifestyle and then flys on an airplane once in a while, who produce more co2 going on vacation more than I ever have or could in ten lifetimes

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u/Dissentient 6h ago

Those are unrelated things though. It's not like car owners take fewer plane trips. They would just be emitting even more CO2 on top of what they do as a baseline.

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u/Christophe12591 6h ago

I don’t. I hate planes I won’t go on one

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u/Dissentient 6h ago

Well, I never fly on planes too, but I also hate cars.

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u/Christophe12591 6h ago

And I’m sorry for being crass I guess we got off topic, what I meant to say in my original comment is I think it’s a fantasy world where no one uses cars, I HAVE too. Or I would lose my house and job so it’s a necessity. That’s all I meant.

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u/ArugulaEnthusiast 3h ago

You may have to now, you may have to forever, but that doesn’t always have to be the case for everyone. We can start by building better communities so cars become more about recreation than survival.

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u/Collypso 7h ago

You and I shouldn't even be having this fucking discussion if our government(s) properly handled climate change >50 years ago. Instead, here we are.

Governments respond to what the people want and the people don't give a shit about pollution or climate change. Especially not when they feel like they'd have to sacrifice anything.

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u/money-for-nothing-tt 4h ago

Not even if they have to sacrifice anything. They just have to feel that other people might get more benefit out of something than they do. Like if they made transit options free which would raise ridership and lower the amount of people on the roads by car, benefiting them in air quality, pollution, faster travel times (since less cars on the road), public health. That would be bad because they themselves wouldn't use transit so other people would be getting something for free and that's unacceptable.

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u/Collypso 4h ago

That would be bad because they themselves wouldn't use transit so other people would be getting something for free and that's unacceptable.

They'd be paying for something they wouldn't be using. They're not spiteful; they just believe that people should be solving their own problems. They would have no issue with other people having easier access to transport if it didn't affect them at all.

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u/money-for-nothing-tt 4h ago

They'd be paying for something they wouldn't be using.

They themselves are paying for something they're not using right now, and other people are paying for things they are using yet that's considered acceptable. For example every tax payer no matter what is subsidizing car usage, even if they don't own a car.

They're not spiteful; they just believe that people should be solving their own problems.

But it would solve their own problems too. They just think it solves someone else's problems more.

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u/Collypso 3h ago

But it would solve their own problems too. They just think it solves someone else's problems more.

It might solve their problems indirectly. You keep trying this spite angle but it's just wishful thinking. People who disagree with you aren't evil, spiteful, or petty. They're just normal people who have different opinions.

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u/money-for-nothing-tt 3h ago

You're the one trying to bring emotional language and moral judgements like spiteful and evil. Everything I've said holds up in how people behave in reality. If you think it's spiteful and evil that's your interpretation of it. Personally I'd start with the word ignorance.

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u/orangeman5555 4h ago

You should look up the concept of 'market failure.' Because that's not how that works.

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u/Collypso 4h ago

How does a market failure relate to what I'm talking about?

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u/kvaks 4h ago

I bet the oil industry lobbied for a plastic straw ban just to turn people (even more) against environmentalism.