161–170 of 190 posts
We survived the first 600 million years of multicellular life without straws, and we can last a few more.
People are at each other's throats over nothing. We could've been a type 2 civilization by now if we spent as much time researching energy extraction as we do talking about straws.
Why does every drink need a straw, anyway?
Consumers demand it, and we chose a society that mostly freely provides goods for consumer demands. So is your issue with the free market, or is it toothless consumer elitism (I don't mean this reply to be a defense of the market either. I'm asking you to evaluate what is core to your criticism)
My problem is with poor education and critical thinking skills, and the anti-intellectualism on display whenever you see full-grown humans stamping with their fingers in their ears because “I just want what I want!”
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The presumption that all advertising is merely crass mass manipulation in order to force consumers to do things they otherwise wouldn't want to do is, I fear, continued elitism. And in the context of this discussion, you might be asked to prove that straws are used purely because of the manipulations of marketers.
So why do advertisers do it?
I work in a business that serves a lot of local advertisers. We do take national and agency client business, but the majority of our work is with local businesses. They do it because it works. People hear the ad and foot and digital traffic to their locations increases.
Advertising is just a market. "Advertisers" are just people with a business who want to reach consumers. I'd be far more comfortable with the case that, as a market, it should be policed by some administrative agency, and like most administrative agencies over the past few decades they're likely asleep at the switch and so the market shows obvious signs of abuse.
This is why I, and the other poster, take some umbrage to what seems to be a very simplistic elitist take from you. This is a market. It has benefits, and it has the potential for abuse. Rather than looking at this as a social problem that simply needs basic agency actions to be solved to defend those benefits, the rather radical idealism of destroying the market entirely gets bandied about a little too comfortably.
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So you're saying you can cut it out and increase profit by a percentage point? That's pretty huge. I recall finance going ballistic on my division at one point because our profit margin dropped by a tenth of a percentage point (and yet was still well above fifty)
99.999% of corporations are way too wasteful to be complaining about a tenth of a percent on 50%+ margin. Think of the savings of slashing that finance department staff :)
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Do we as a society even need [alcohol|nicotine|cannabis|refined sugar|fat|salt]? Maybe not. But I refuse to believe that you asked that question in good faith, because we're obviously going to have all of them. People should be free to live as healthily or as unhealthily as they choose.
People should be free to live as unhealthily as they choose as long as the problems they inevitably create don’t negatively affect other people . Activities high in negative externalities should be prohibitively expensive to help pay for remediation, and the opposite should be positively reinforced, even subsidized. A stitch, in time, saves nine.
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from my point of view, it depends on how much of it there is and what effect it has on the environment sand, glass, metal, and rust aren't biodegradable either, but i don't think we should ban mountains because they throw sand out into nature when they erode plastic straws are generally polypropylene, which is photodegradable to relatively nontoxic materials
Plastic straws strewn in a natural setting feels a lot worse than sand. I can't tell you exactly why, but I still think that "don't throw plastic around" is a good starting place for a discussion and I don't think it's productive to argue that point.
maybe the actual health of the motherfucking ecosystem matters more than what looks nice on a postcard
common sense is what tells you the world is flat, chemotherapy is bad for you, and lead paint and sassafras are good to eat
This is one of the few issues where I feel I'm the only sane person on the planet: you can just drink from the cup. We survived the first 600 million years of multicellular life without straws, and we can last a few more. People are at each other's throats over nothing. We could've been a type 2 civilization by now if we spent as much time researching energy extraction as we do talking about straws.
I'm sure someone probably feels strongly about this, but I will ask anyway: Do we as a society even need straws? I never use a straw at home. The only time I would consider wanting one would be for a milkshake maybe, due to its thickness making it hard to sip otherwise. I am not anti-straw, just think it is sort of a weird thing for our society to use when I stop to think about it.
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Sounds about right. Most grills out here are $200-400, but will rust and fall apart within a couple years in my climate (humidity is insane here). For $2000-4000, you can buy real stainless steel grills that are warrantied to last 15+ years, not 1 year.
Hard to sell people on spending 10x the cost when they can just buy, abuse, replace after 3-5 years what they already have.
This is one of the few issues where I feel I'm the only sane person on the planet: you can just drink from the cup. We survived the first 600 million years of multicellular life without straws, and we can last a few more. People are at each other's throats over nothing. We could've been a type 2 civilization by now if we spent as much time researching energy extraction as we do talking about straws.
But for the sake of devil's advocate: putting your lips directly against a piece of plastic or glass is one of the easiest ways to expose oneself to a myriad of germs and bacteria. a wrapped straws solves many problems about cups in public outings that you cant fully control. and it leaves non-disposable cups just a bit cleaner.
It's also a big factor for the elderly or disabled to prevent spills or worse.