Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

85% of People Want Global Ban on Single-Use Plastics

worldwildlife.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 263 posts

Re: 85% of People Want Global Ban on Single-Use Plastics

#231

Post by TylerE »

lolinder wrote: post #162
pembrook wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, asking people vague questions about the boogieman du jour is a questionable excercise at best. If a competing research team had gone out and done a survey with the question rephrased as, "Do you want a global ban on medical syringes and bottled water?" You might find out, amazingly, 92% of people strongly support single-use plastics!

The actual question was [0]: > The United Nations agreed in 2022 to develop a global treaty to end plastic pollution. How important or unimportant do you believe it is to have global rules to… > Ban unnecessary single-use plastic products, e.g., shopping bags, cutlery, cups & plates? As survey questions go, this is actually a pretty precise question. [0] https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/...

That's a horrible question. What exactly is "unnecessary"?

Re: 85% of People Want Global Ban on Single-Use Plastics

#232

Post by [deleted] »

dumbo-octopus wrote: post #184
orhmeh09 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you think is a good sample size? How would you arrive at one?

If your question is asked entirely free of bias from a truly randomly selected population, you can use standard statistical methods to come up with a number based on your desired confidence interval. On the other hand, if you're an organization with your funding tied to the perception that people support your mission, and you're surveying whether people support your mission, I'm going to need damn near everyone in th…

[deleted]

Re: 85% of People Want Global Ban on Single-Use Plastics

#233

Post by dumbo-octopus »

GeoAtreides wrote: post #212
dumbo-octopus wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The response rate is so low as to be entirely meaningless. If you're content with sampling only 0.000001% of the population, you can get any results you want by simply selecting for the people who care the most by taking a bunch of time to lecture the individual if they seem like they'd vote the other way (oh no, you have to leave? but we didn't even have time to submit your vote yet... :( ), and wording the question…

> The response rate is so low as to be entirely meaningless. This calculator says you need a 385 sample size for a billion (or infinite) population: https://www.calculator.net/sample-size-calculator.html?type=... Please check the theory presented below the calculator, it explains why such a low number is enough for a confidence level of 95% that the real value is within ±5% of the measured/surveyed value.

Yes, if you had a list of all 8,000,000,000 people in the world and went to visit 385 truly randomly selected from that list and didn't leave until you got an answer, yes the theory says that would be a reasonably trustworthy sample.

But that theory is useless in practice, when the efficacy of the survey is entirely determined by the sampling bias. Here we have a survey of a few thousand people who had internet access and were on whatever websites promoted this survey and chose to click through the survey and had their votes counted by whatever "spam filtering" logic was used, and multiplied by whatever "population correction factor" was selected, and they're trying to somehow pass it off as "85% of People".

Its bogus through and through.

Re: 85% of People Want Global Ban on Single-Use Plastics

#234

Post by gleenn »

kragen wrote: post #143
gleenn wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I kind of agree. I feel like the word "unnecessary" in that sentence guts it. Of course we should ban unnecessary and wasteful things. If the question was "should we ban plastic bags completely in favor of re-usable ones" might get a very different answer. I would definitely say yes to the first question but I also sometimes forget to bring my reusable bags to the store and then definitely always get the disposable o…

> Of course we should ban unnecessary and wasteful things i strongly disagree with this; in almost all cases, the choice of what is unnecessary and wasteful should rest with the individual person most affected by it, not some kind of political authority or social consensus. even when it's legitimately a question of public policy—alcohol, for example, an addictive drug that causes massive amounts of crime and somethin…

All I'm saying is the word "unnecessary" in that question clearly is a "weasel word" because, just like you're saying, it's subjective and also greatly weakens the statement. Usually unnecessary things with negative externalities are easy for people to say "sure let's get rid of that, it's not providing value". I think you're caveating something which only furthers that sentiment.

Re: 85% of People Want Global Ban on Single-Use Plastics

#235

Post by GreatLdisisp88 »

GeoAtreides wrote: post #212
dumbo-octopus wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The response rate is so low as to be entirely meaningless. If you're content with sampling only 0.000001% of the population, you can get any results you want by simply selecting for the people who care the most by taking a bunch of time to lecture the individual if they seem like they'd vote the other way (oh no, you have to leave? but we didn't even have time to submit your vote yet... :( ), and wording the question…

> The response rate is so low as to be entirely meaningless. This calculator says you need a 385 sample size for a billion (or infinite) population: https://www.calculator.net/sample-size-calculator.html?type=... Please check the theory presented below the calculator, it explains why such a low number is enough for a confidence level of 95% that the real value is within ±5% of the measured/surveyed value.

The calculator also assume random selection. Don't trust statistics math too much. Even in acccounting where only arithmetic is being used, with legal auditing done yearly or quarterly basis, fraud is incredibly common (working in corporates for decades, they even termed it as massaging numbees by financial engineers). This kind of surveys without any audit and legal framework backing it, at 385 sampling is just inviting fraud. At least 2 to 3Mil needed and back by local election boards or local enforcement agencies. If this is done even in communist countries like China or Vietnam will still be way more legit than done in California or Oslo.

Re: 85% of People Want Global Ban on Single-Use Plastics

#236

Post by lolinder »

TylerE wrote: post #231
lolinder wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The actual question was [0]: > The United Nations agreed in 2022 to develop a global treaty to end plastic pollution. How important or unimportant do you believe it is to have global rules to… > Ban unnecessary single-use plastic products, e.g., shopping bags, cutlery, cups & plates? As survey questions go, this is actually a pretty precise question. [0] https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/...

That's a horrible question. What exactly is "unnecessary"?

> e.g., shopping bags, cutlery, cups & plates?

Re: 85% of People Want Global Ban on Single-Use Plastics

#237

Post by kragen »

gleenn wrote: post #234
kragen wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Of course we should ban unnecessary and wasteful things i strongly disagree with this; in almost all cases, the choice of what is unnecessary and wasteful should rest with the individual person most affected by it, not some kind of political authority or social consensus. even when it's legitimately a question of public policy—alcohol, for example, an addictive drug that causes massive amounts of crime and somethin…

All I'm saying is the word "unnecessary" in that question clearly is a "weasel word" because, just like you're saying, it's subjective and also greatly weakens the statement. Usually unnecessary things with negative externalities are easy for people to say "sure let's get rid of that, it's not providing value". I think you're caveating something which only furthers that sentiment.

i agree that it's a weasel word, but it isn't enough of a weasel word to justify your conclusion. we should abstain from unnecessary and wasteful things, and perhaps in a few cases we should tax them, but very rarely should we ban things simply because they are unnecessary and wasteful!

Re: 85% of People Want Global Ban on Single-Use Plastics

#239

Post by defrost »

TylerE wrote: post #238
lolinder wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> e.g., shopping bags, cutlery, cups & plates?

Are trash bags nessesary or unnecessary?

In what context? It's certainly possible to live without them given the existence of large bins, small bins, compost bins, etc.
Post reply on HN