Littering is one of those things I struggle the most to understand.
I can somewhat grasp it in extreme cases, like when you’re dealing with something really dirty and there’s nowhere to put it. But I’m talking about casual littering - things like throwing candy wrappers on the ground when you could just as easily put them in your pocket.
I don’t think anyone sees themselves as a bad person. Even when we engage in bad behavior, we usually have some story we tell ourselves to justify it. But I can’t put myself in the mindset of someone who casually throws trash on the ground for someone else to clean up. It’s kind of like walking around and cussing at random people - it just doesn’t make any sense. You have to know that you’re the problem.
I’ve put wrappers in my pocket on numerous occasions and lost them over the course of the next hour (usually depends on which clothes/pockets) so that might be part of what causes there to be so much litter but I have never intentionally thrown anything into nature besides a banana peel when I was a child. Throwing the banana peel into nature felt wrong but probably still is better than having walked a couple of hours with it to reach a mixed bin where it would rot and then maybe be burned.
Be of good cheer! We Americans have come a long way since I was a kid in the 70s. If I sent younger folks back, they would shit kittens. This is the UK, but it feels the same. Shit was mounded on the highways. People would casually chunk fast food bags. Can’t remember that last time I saw that. Cigarette butts used to fly like tracers at night. Again, haven’t seen that in ages.
More good news! Sorta. I haul loads of trash out of the woods and waterways around here. To the point where my wife and kids are like, “Daddy! Don’t mess with that!” I’m borderline obnoxious about it, done stupid shit to get a plastic bottle or fishing bobber.
Experience from these adventures tells me that most wasn’t deliberately tossed. Don’t know how to qualify that, I just have a sense for how long it’s been in the sun, how far it’s buried, the type of trash, whatever. It blew off a boat or pickup bed, overflowing trash can flowed downhill with the rains (loads of that), got loose from the trash man and never picked up, drunk and “oops”, stuff like that. Kids ditching beer cans so to not get busted is crystal clear! :)
I’ve cleaned out the woods around here, miles and miles of trails, and there’s hardly anything new to find. Always a little surprised when I see new litter. Know what I do find half the time? My own trash. “Hey! That’s my coozie!” or “How did I drop that?!” or “Shit. Missed my beer can on the return trip.”
Pick up more than you lay down, we’ll all make it.
I saw some dude in a small convertible chuck a whole-ass fast food bag out of his car at a stop light. I sped in front of him and called him a cunt. He was VERY angry. His lil rage-out for some great dashcam footage.
We’re all guilty of littering. Even the most careful of us will drop something without noticing- And I know I’m not the most careful. So I try and make up for what I’ve dropped by picking up bits of litter here and there.
Especially out in nature. When I see a bottle top or something, I tend to think to myself that the person who left that there is a bit of a dick. Now I have a choice - pick it up, or leave it there.
If I leave it there, then suddenly I am the dick I was complaining about.
When walking to a train station, I find fast food meal bags and empty plastic bottles in the sidewalk every day. If it’s not too gross I take it with me the 30 meters to next public bin.
I really don’t get it. Wherever you’re going, there will most likely be a trash bin. It’s not gonna impact your fuel costs. What are they thinking?
I don’t think that dropping rubbish is necessarily that bad. The problem comes when it persists in the environment for hundreds of years because it’s not biodegradable.
How do you separate the two? The fact that it persists in nature for hundreds of years is what makes it bad. I don’t mind someone throwing banana peels into a forest.
Yea, that’s what I mean. I call rubbish anything that gets thrown away though, so for me a banana skin is still rubbish but it is not bad in the same way as a plastic bottle. I probably wasn’t clear enough in my downvoted first comment. But I am sick, so forgive me.
Banana peels take up to two years to decompose, unless they’re in the right environment such as a compost heap where the process speeds to 6-9 months
That’s still lightyears ahead of cigarette butts and plastic bottles, but a lot of people don’t realize how long their trash lasts for
I feel this a lot. Many criminals who have done wretched things at least have a comprehensible motivation, but littering? Cigarette butts in a nature reserve? It’s nihilism, solipsism. That honestly scares me more. I can grasp that some people’s care is misguided or distorted, but a lack of care at all? How do you even contend with that?
I’ve argued with litterers before and it goes along the lines of “it’s already messy, everyone’s doing it”. Same sort of excuses you get from cheaters and such. I don’t mean to go all edgy Joker but there’s probably things you and I do that are a problem but we don’t see it because everyone else does it too. Eating meat and emitting tons of co2 for example.
“Then don’t add to the mess” is my usual response,
I’ve had smoking friends who refuse to stand further from a doorway and blowing it in peoples faces with the “air is already polluted with cars” argument
Me:”then don’t add more!”
It’s a weak argument. One with the easiest hole to poke. Also great answer if you’re trying to filter out the idiots from your friends group.
Most people are courteous enough not to idle their car with the exhaust pipe right in a doorway. Their analogy is some serious mental gymnastics.
Cigarettes are one that particularly bother me, because they’re so gross even compared to most other litter, but throwing them wherever is so normalised among smokers.
I still refuse to understand why littering is so common in my country. It seriously makes the cities look horrible.
Still remember the just piles and piles of garbage at the beaches and shrines around Mumbai.
I thought it couldn’t get any worse.
What?
I meant that I thought the garbage situation in my country was bad enough, I didn’t expect something worse.
How some people have to constantly get into someone else’s business that doesn’t have any negative affect on their lives or society and try to force the latter to conform to the former’s worldview. Religion is notorious for this, demanding others conform to the ideology’s rules even if they have no desire to participate or believe, but it can also be as simple as being critical of someone’s differences and trying to make them change.
People out here stating obvious human problems and I’m out here like: why do humans like Chocolate?
Going to church by choice. That shit is boring.
Though I don’t go now non-Protestant or high church is significantly more personally and religiously entertaining. Garage band Protestantism is the bane of my existence
Littering.
Wanting to be popular. Wanting to know famous people or worshipping them. Dressing the latest fashion. Participating is all the fads.
Handshaking. We’ve both touched our crotch recently, let’s not
But what if I want to touch your crotch?
I was hoping that would go away when covid stuck around. People still want to shake hands!
shakes head
I put out my fist when someone tries to shake my hand.
They shake your fist anyway
I hope you’ve washed your hand since the last time you’ve touched down there.
nahhh I just lick my hands clean
Depends on the bathroom
I support this. Let’s just fuck instead.
I’ve never understood why everyone has their phone out recording at large public events. Surely someone is going to post a video of the event and you don’t need to be recording it
People want to share their own perspective. And everyone thinks that maybe their video will end up being the one everyone else watches.
I realized this a while ago. I was always watching the event through a camera lens, and like you said, it was rarely worth the effort.
Now I’m more likely to forget to take any photos.
The worst is when it’s a highly televised event (e.g. fireworks), so it’s already being recorded in 4k by pros, drones, etc.
Nobody will ever watch your crappy phone recording, including you.
Because I’m not paying $15 for access to the “professional cinematic experience” (aka access to their DRM-infested meh edited cut), or recording it on TV laced with ads and annoying people who love to hear their own opinions every 60 seconds. It’s the same reason people sneak food into movie theaters or steal music. Fucking the man.
My secret is just sneaking the movies directly onto my hard drive and watching snuggled up in bed. This one weird tip has saved me tens of thousands!
I prefer to live special moments with my own eyes instead of staring at a phone screen the entire time.
Usually when I record something like a band playing, I point the camera and then watch the stage with my eyes. I also make sure the camera is not visible to anyone behind me, because that’s annoying.
Same, I put my phone at chin level so I’m not blocking the person behind me. I also record only 1 minute max, just as a memento that I was there at that show.
I recently went to a live event at night and I noticed how many people didn’t take the time to wipe their lens to avoid giant streaks in the image.
I have a theory that social media makes it hard to put time into just about anything that you might consider art. You get a constant feed of the best quality art that the internet has to offer, so when you do take the extra minute or two to figure out your settings, wipe their lens, and actually try and take a good picture, the chance of taking a good picture is still pretty low because phones still just aren’t that good at taking pictures.
I brought my DSLR to the event and even with the much larger lens, getting enough light was pretty tough. The few pictures I did take on my phone just didn’t really have a good sense of scale due to the lens’s fixed focal length. Don’t even get me started on aspect ratio.
If you spend those few extra minutes and it still doesn’t look like what your friends are posting to their social media because they’re loading it with filters, why not join the crowd and do exactly that. Put in zero effort and let the filter fill in the gap of making it look interesting, even if it doesn’t look good.
What you did do is show all your friends that you did something interesting, which a few hundred to ten thousand or so people might see that for a couple of second before scrolling into the next 400 things they’ll see that day in their feed.
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What’s this effect? Never heard of it
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When a country goes to war, internal conflicts (i.e. left wing vs. right wing) are forgotten, or at least put on hold, and everyone is suddenly on the same page.
It’s more like, you feel scared so you stick with what you know. Fear causes people to revert to a more tribalist mentality.
People being mean or cruel to other people or living things just to see them suffer. I don’t understand it.
Going to concerts. It’s too loud and it’s crowded, I just don’t see the appeal.
And while we’re at it, dancing. It’s unnatural, I tell you!
There’s something about going to an event with like-minded people, listening to a band you like live with (often, not always) optimized sound for the space, and 99% of folks uninhibitably jamming out and having a good time.
I can definitely see how the experience would be unappealing to some folks, though. And I should note I’m more of a gig goer than concert attendee - so sound optimization is hit or miss, and the jamming out % is lower. Still fun, still not everyone’s cup of tea.
Edit: Idle thought that came up reading this back: what is music, for you - as in, what is your relationship to it? Where does music live in your world? Is it something that comes out of a machine to fill silence in your space or block out noise? Is it something produced by humans, of which MP3s/FLACS/CDs/Vinyl/radio waves etc. are just imprints/simulacrum for wider dissemination?
Basically, is it an activity, or a product at its core? Not really expecting anyone to answer (though they can), just a reflection I personally found interesting. Many acceptable answers.
A happy-ish medium is a well-captured live performance or jam. Alive 2007 (Daft Punk) is a pretty good example of how that can be a thing, for me at least.
Music is so hecken different to everyone, talking about it feels odd. Even sound feels/sounds different to a lot of folks, in enjoyable (soft music for a nice vibe, or a loud af chest-rumbling show) and not-fun-at-all (jarring or unwanted sounds, near-total silence for some) ways.
But yeah, I tend to crave the decibels, because I still have the ability to hear, and must not value it lol… Skull rattling is better to me than unevenly-mixed-in-room jamming, but both can be great in different ways. A fun, more personal experience is nice, but I need sensory overload to recover from, or it’s almost not worth the outing.
I know this is old, but I liked pondering the question because I made me sappy as heck, so I’ll share it with you:
Music is like a cheat-code to life, especially my internal life. The music I listen to determines my emotions, my energy level, my focus and drive, and what activities I want to do. Without music playing I’m like an empty shell. With music I recognise my existence.
I am not musical myself and I know nothing of production or quality, only what I enjoy and how it makes me feel. I was born to be an audience, and that’s a huge part of who I am and how I operate daily.
You must be fun at parties.
Don’t know, never been :P
I’m not a fan of dancing. Love going to my local symphony concerts though. Never crowded; there’s no moshing at an orchestral concert. You get your seat and you sit in it, and you clap when the piece is done.
Plus the music’s just so much better.
Going to concerts. It’s too loud and it’s crowded,
I go to seated events and wear loudness-reducing earplugs, so that solves both issues. If it’s a standing-only concert, I stay at the side areas to avoid the crowd. As for the appeal, I just want see the artist perform the songs I like live. I listen to technical music so it’s awesome to see musical skill up close.
Dancing.
I’m biased because I’m rythmically deficient, but it makes no sense to me. It’s just weird wiggling.
Worse still is clubbing, which is just dancing in a hot, sweaty dark room where the drinks are $13 each amd you don’t get to pick the music, or turn the volume down.
This might be the most boomer thing I’ve ever written.
Smoking. Let’s see, I could pay a ton of money for something that reeks and damages my health and the health of those around me, that once I start I’ll become addicted to so I’ll struggle to quit even if I want to, or I could, uh, not. Yeah let’s go with not.
As someone who recently quit tobacco let me tell you: cigarettes are amazing! A cup of coffee, a crossword and a good summer morning on a patio is basically heaven. Smoking is cool and makes you look cool too! Everyone should smoke.
Yeah, I’ll believe the addictive qualities for sure. However “cool” has not been true for years. I’ll never forget in college where some friends would encourage me to join them outside “where the cool people are smoking”, yet it always seemed like 2-3 people outside alone not enjoying a party or whatever. At least I was there because I’m an introvert and the party is exhausting, not fooling myself about thinking it cool.
Oof you fell for the troll.
Damn
Lol, sorry I wasn’t trying to troll anyone. I was just trying to point out that smoking is pleasurable. After all there’s a reason it became so popular worldwide so fast.
That having been said I do not recommend anyone smoke. Tis a terrible habit on the whole.
Also, vaping. Somehow, vaping seems even dumber than smoking.
Devil’s advocate. (I do not actually condone cigs, they smell like burnt butt).
As a non (extremely sparse) smoker who’s pretty sure he’s incapable of actually getting addicted, counterpoint: nicotine tingly tho. 😚
My uncle always said "he’s not addicted, he can stop at any time.
he knows because he’s done it a thousand times."
It’s like new relationships. The tingles stop after like a week. At which point you’ve got yourself a new obligation and feel increasingly like death with each passing day.
You…might be doing relationships wrong.
I’ve been with my partner over ten years and I get tingles every time I see them if I’ve been away from them for a while.
I also smoke occasionally (when I’m very drunk, cigs make me feel like trash when I’m sober) and they always FLOOR me. The trick is to do it very sparingly (if you want that trash in your life)
“All things in moderation” springs to mind. Hitting the occasional vape at game night or out at the local discotheque certainly works a charm. But on occasion while being, as you said, ripping drunk (ideally at like a metal show or sum’m otherwise debaucherous), honking on a proper ciggy can scratch a very particular itch. Ooh, or that morning after a wild night having coffee and cigarette. Hits different.
Terrible, nasty habit tho’. Getting addicted to nicotine is miserable from what I’ve seen. Stay in school, kids!
I smoked habitually for like nine months when I was younger, and I am very lucky… I smoked like half’a pack a day, and one day I smoked a cigarette and it felt like GARBAGE. I took a couple days off and tried again… GARBAGE. That was the end of my habitual smoking hahaha
Now, as far as my partner goes, no moderation there. I’m with them almost all day every day and we both LOVE that so much. We miss each other when we’re not around each other. I am so thankful to have found my clone.
Celebrity gossip. I’m just not interested in who married who, who’s wearing what, who’s doing who.
And reality TV, but if ratings are any indication, I’m the weird one on that.
Can I add fashion to this?
100% willing to admit I’m the weird one here, or maybe I’m just old enough now, but holy cow some trends are just daft and make people look like absolute idiots.
I live in a regional / remote area where fashion tends to take several years to arrive… presently all the studly men are wearing their socks pulled up? It’s just silly.
… and don’t get me started on sunglasses and frames. IDK how to describe the current trend… it’s like a huge single piece of plastic instead of 2 discrete lenses.
Why people use comic sans
(Don’t come at me, dyslexic people)
My girlfriend has a degree in design and the easiest way for me to piss her off is to remind her that comic sans is a thing that exists
Really, don’t come at him - Dyslexie Exists
And OpenDyslexic. And probably a few others.
