I've long suspected that the ban of plastic drinking straws was a manufactured distraction to turn people against environmentalists. The environmental and economical effects are so small, while it so distinctly affects so many Americans every day.
I'm sure you're saying that fully tongue-in-cheek and not genuinely proposing a coordinated anti-environmentalist false-flag conspiracy.
But it is funny to me that, under the interpretation you're (facetiously!) suggesting, if someone believed that sincerely then they would essentially be trying to "attribute to malice what is adequately explained by incompetence"... Presumably because that has the benefit of assigning the fault to whichever side this particular person happens to like less.
Out-group's malice is much easier for many to stomach than in-group's stupidity.
In this particular case, it is likely that it started as a genuine campaign. But the reason it actually was successful I suspect that some corporate strategiests realised the many things this could do for them:
1. Give them some goodwill for doing something for the environment.
2. Distract from the things that did matter. They were happy to replace the straws in their drinks if that meant that people thought less about the burning of Amazonas to create graze-land for their hamburgers.
3. It made the environmentalists look like fools.
I don't question the "in-group stupidity" (I can think of some other examples of, let us say, misdirected campaigns.) On the other hand, considering what we have learned from the actions of anything from tobacco to fossil to pharmaceutical, you don't need to be particularly paranoid to suspect conspiracies both here and there.
You mean the floating plastic islands in our oceans? Or microplastics found everywhere?
The only thing I don't like about the paper straws is that they're worse, they're coated with pfas and they disintegrate while drinking causing it to be ingested where the previous straws didn't. In that particular case yes I think banning them was the wrong move, or at least the paper straws were the wrong replacement.
But the need to reduce single use plastics, yeah that's crystal clear.
We're literally talking about the capacity of vibes-based regulations to turn out doing more harm than good.
"We need to reduce single use plastics" + "Banning plastic drinking straws reduces single use plastics" => "We need to ban plastic drinking straws" is a logic trap, and we've got to stop falling for it and ones that pattern match to it.
Does it feel good? Does it have good optics? Will it get someone somewhere reelected? These are not scientific questions.
Is this an effective thing to mandate? What does it actually do (as opposed to what it seems like it will do)? Is it literally even better than doing nothing instead? These are scientific questions.
I believe policy decisions should be governed by the latter far more than by the former.
I've long suspected that the ban of plastic drinking straws was a manufactured distraction to turn people against environmentalists. The environmental and economical effects are so small, while it so distinctly affects so many Americans every day.
I'm sure you're saying that fully tongue-in-cheek and not genuinely proposing a coordinated anti-environmentalist false-flag conspiracy.
But it is funny to me that, under the interpretation you're (facetiously!) suggesting, if someone believed that sincerely then they would essentially be trying to "attribute to malice what is adequately explained by incompetence"... Presumably because that has the benefit of assigning the fault to whichever side this particular person happens to like less.
Out-group's malice is much easier for many to stomach than in-group's stupidity.
In this particular case, it is likely that it started as a genuine campaign. But the reason it actually was successful I suspect that some corporate strategiests realised the many things this could do for them:
1. Give them some goodwill for doing something for the environment.
2. Distract from the things that did matter. They were happy to replace the straws in their drinks if that meant that people thought less about the burning of Amazonas to create graze-land for their hamburgers.
3. It made the environmentalists look like fools.
I don't question the "in-group stupidity" (I can think of some other examples of, let us say, misdirected campaigns.) On the other hand, considering what we have learned from the actions of anything from tobacco to fossil to pharmaceutical, you don't need to be particularly paranoid to suspect conspiracies both here and there.
You mean the floating plastic islands in our oceans? Or microplastics found everywhere?
The only thing I don't like about the paper straws is that they're worse, they're coated with pfas and they disintegrate while drinking causing it to be ingested where the previous straws didn't. In that particular case yes I think banning them was the wrong move, or at least the paper straws were the wrong replacement.
But the need to reduce single use plastics, yeah that's crystal clear.
We're literally talking about the capacity of vibes-based regulations to turn out doing more harm than good.
"We need to reduce single use plastics" + "Banning plastic drinking straws reduces single use plastics" => "We need to ban plastic drinking straws" is a logic trap, and we've got to stop falling for it and ones that pattern match to it.
Does it feel good? Does it have good optics? Will it get someone somewhere reelected? These are not scientific questions.
Is this an effective thing to mandate? What does it actually do (as opposed to what it seems like it will do)? Is it literally even better than doing nothing instead? These are scientific questions.
I believe policy decisions should be governed by the latter far more than by the former.