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Comment by wavefunction | Hacker News Reader

It's easy to be wasteful and come out ahead in the short-term. I guess it's just some more plastic in the ocean or landfill to him.

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That really is a government and market policy concern though. Expecting people to globabally adjust their profit-seeking behavior to include ecology is just wishful thinking. People simply are not able, even if well intentioned, to decide what matters and what doesn't.

Many will say that expecting the government to help is hopeless. However, that is fatalism, and an improperly functioning government doesn't negate the fact that only government can guide the market to preserve the resources of the future (including our health.)

These are not the people of the lowest class though. The privilege of earning more is given by others, so you should learn how to behave and move the society towards a better future since that future is where your wealth is going to be preserved better.

> "The privilege of earning more is given by others"

Meaning what exactly? Anybody is free to create value and realize profit from it. It's not a privilege. Nor does it mean you "should" do anything.

Except that this exact thinking is what led a bunch of liberally-minded people to be outvoted in favour of Trump.

No one “should” do anything, except that you pay for not doing it in the end.

"Back in the day" this wasn't even a consideration. It's only been very very recently that people have started thinking about plastics breaking down and going into the water system.

That's simply not true. It's been a concern for decades.

Obviously it was a concern since the very first plastic item was manufactured. But who was aware this was a concern? It's only been in the last 5 years or so that I can recall hearing anything about it. And only in the last 2 years or so has it really risen to the level of concern for me. Maybe we are reading totally different sources that it has been on your radar for decades.

As a datapoint... Back in elementary school 25 years ago, they most certainly were teaching my class that plastic doesn’t decompose and how important it was to reduce waste.

As one anecdata point, I was born in 1978 and I can't remember ever not having this concern. Not sure what you mean by very recently, though--one could say plastic was even invented very recently.

My parents grew up in an environment (semi-rural) where/when it seems to have been normal to leave trash around, though. This was in the 50s. I guess they saw the issues and raised my siblings and me differently.

It makes me happy that more people are thinking about not trashing their environment!

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