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Comment by micromacrofoot | Hacker News Reader

> after one or two slip ups that someone else is having to clean up for them, and feel bad enough to avoid doing it in the future.

I've lived long enough to know that this won't happen in my lifetime, it requires an entirely different societal mindset... something closer to shame/collectivism a country like Japan has (they still have litterers of course, but a much smaller number)

Chronic litterbugs don't care, they're often low enough on the hierarchy of needs that this kind of morality isn't on their radar at all.

If everyone pitched in, you might pick up a single piece of trash occasionally... so you'd avoid the "I just cleaned up this whole park yesterday" problem, because in theory you'd have a larger number or people doing a little work rather than a smaller number doing most of it.

I regularly pick up trash in my neighborhood, so I get it though... it's impossible for one person to keep up with.

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> Chronic litterbugs don't care, they're often low enough on the hierarchy of needs that this kind of morality isn't on their radar at all.

Don’t forget the deliberate litterbugs. There are plenty of people out there with a “for every bottle you pick up, I’ll litter three” attitude. Belligerence against anything seen as a public good is on the rise. I know someone who believes having a clean, trash-free neighborhood is a “liberal” thing. Blows my mind.

Assholes abound. Don't let them control your life, is my philosophy.

I see you’ve met some of my relatives.

I've seen "this graffiti makes rent cheaper" too, good point

> Chronic litterbugs don't care, they're often low enough on the hierarchy of needs that this kind of morality isn't on their radar at all.

I used to think trash around my neighborhood was from just a general mass of people not caring about littering. It sounds like that's what you think too.

Then, one day, I saw a homeless guy dumping every single trash can on the street out completely, tearing open the bags, looking for maybe 2 seconds, and then moving on to the next trash can.

Call me harsh, but that behavior should merit a serious prison sentence. I think people overestimate the damage something like this causes to the environment, but underestimate the damage it does to society and the way people think about each other.

This is the kind of societal harm that does warrant (apparently) harsh punishment, because if it gets out of control there is just no way to resolve it.

It doesn't have to be prison-prison; but something like that does call for maybe a Nordic-style prison that isolates society from the low-level but consistent harm.

It's all very tragedy of the commons.

I do want to say that we, as a society, place people in the position where they are more likely to do things that hurt everyone far more than it would be to lift them out of whatever position they’re in. It’s hard to make progress on this because, like, the homeless person knows just as well as anyone else that they shouldn’t make a mess, and the person who can’t afford to eat knows just as well as anyone else that they shouldn’t steal toiletries from stores. And many people in those situations do actually avoid doing that, which is great. But what would be even better is removing factors that make it more likely that people will behave poorly or justify it to themselves. I feel really good about trips I make on the train rather than the car but it’s partially because I have the time and money to do this pretty easily.

> Call me harsh, but that behavior should merit a serious prison sentence.

Not harsh, just lacking creativity and losing sight of what prison is for.

For every piece of litter dropped, the sentence should be to pick up 10 more. Make criminals fix the problems they cause.

Yep, although there's also just an issue of people not seeing their surroundings as something they own. I've seen this in collectivist societies too.

For example, in India, there's a pretty jarring contrast in big cities, between pristine modern buildings with immaculate interiors situated on a street literred with garbage. While Indian society loves to label littering as shameful, because no one sees the street as something they also partly own, their idea of cleaning only extends to keeping their own building immaculate.

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