Amazon's Vulcan Robots Now Stow Items Faster Than Humans

If your argument begins with "people should just..." then generally you've already lost the argument. The fact is that people aren't doing whatever you're suggesting, for whatever reason, and no amount of righteous indignation is going to suddenly make people change that. I guess you can sit there smug and feel good about yourself, and that's worth something, but you can't expect people to give a shit about that.

In this case, legislation could help ameliorate this problem, and maybe taxing the actual cost of things (e.g. environmental impact) instead of just letting the future generations deal with it.

sounds like you are saying that "people should just" stop making that argument and that "people should just" pass legislation.

Most of what you said can be applied reflexively.

Humans will and agency is the foundation of society. It is required to pass legislation or taxes as well.

> I guess you can sit there smug and feel good about yourself, and that's worth something, but you can't expect people to give a shit about that.

You can assume that that’s the kind of person you’re conversing with but you’d be wrong.

I agree with you on taxing things to account and pay for externalities.

At the risk of splitting hairs, I was suggesting that people "promote the right to repair" more and not necessarily "pass legislation". While I agree that it's a good goal to buy less plastic junk, the subject probably needs more of a positive narrative behind it to gain traction. Repairability is a positive way to look at our stuff (eg speed queens and Toyotas last forever!). Plastic junk is a negative.

We probably agree in our interests. Almost nobody is for "plastic junk", described as such. Im not opposed to repair rights in general. I think it is relatively niche, but that isn't a reason to oppose it (people can be for multiple thing).

What I do think is powerful is cultivating anti-consumerism or selective consumption behavior and belief. The desire for reparability falls within within this.

Well, no, when I say "people should just" arguments, I'm referring to arguments that talk about society at large. I think those are bad arguments. I didn't say "people should stop", I just think it's a bad argument, they're obviously free to make bad arguments. I wouldn't take that right away from them even if I could.

"People should just" pass legislation would be specific to congress, so not quite the same thing, or at least not the kind of argument that I was referring to. You're free to think it's a dumb argument but there's a slight pedantic difference.

Sorry, I think I read a bit more indignation in your message than you intended.

I mostly have a visceral reaction to "people should just.." arguments because I heard stuff like that brought up a lot during abortion arguments, particularly in regards to birth control.

"Teenagers should just stop having sex!!" was something I thought was particularly dumb, because a) have they never been a teenager? that's all a lot of them think about cuz hormones and b) whether or not they should, they're going to anyway.

Anyway, sorry for the kind of pissy response, no offense meant.

>People should just" pass legislation would be specific to congress, so not quite the same thing, or at least not the kind of argument that I was referring to.

Isn't that even worse? In that case it's entirely externalizing the problem.

I think I take the opposite position to you. I think that arguments (or discussions) about society at large are the most important and critical.

I think there is a common trend to ignore and dismiss the importance of decentralized social values and individual choice, instead only focusing on concrete policy proposals.

The latter is almost never productive without consensus on the former. If 90% of people want disposable crap, it will be difficult to shove a law down their throat preventing them from getting it.

Either way, as a result of being triggered by social opinions, you seems to miss the point of the parent post, namely, that right to repair only addresses a tiny fraction of consumerism, nor is it a prerequisite to buy less garbage in general.

The solution to people buying single use toys and inflatable Jacuzzis on Amazon is not to mandate their repairability.

I think religion is stupid. I think it’s harmful. If I said “people should just stop being religious” and acted like that in itself was in any way insightful, you would consider that a dumb argument.

To be clear, this isn’t to say community outreach is bad or a waste of time. I think getting the larger populous onboard with the narrative that you think is going to make the world best is a good thing, please don’t let me stop you.

I have mostly seen these arguments pop up with giving teenagers access to birth control, with conservatives saying stuff like “people should just stop having sex out of wedlock” or something to that effect, and act that argument along is an insightful or useful comment.

The people were going to church and getting harmed and someone proposed a 5 cent wafer tax as a solution, a response that "no, people actually just need to stop going" is useful and insightful.

It points out that the tax doesn't solve the actual problem. It points out that any solution will require people not wanting to go to church. It is not a complete instructions set.

I think you are confusing use in normative statements (value judgments or opinions) with instructional statements (step by step how to).

Just to be clear, I think the act of being religious is harmful even if you were to get rid of every single church. Pedantic, yes, but the point is that this is purely a behavioral thing, not a specific action. I have tax-free ideas on the best ways to go about getting people to stop believing in dumb things but those are far beyond the scope of this conversation.

I am not “confusing” anything. In the case of teenage pregnancy, I have seen the conversation start and stop with “teenagers just shouldn’t have sex”.

If you’re just saying “I wish the world were X”, then sure you can make a declarative statement about what people are doing. That’s not what I have an issue with.

My issue is when people make a statement like “people should just…” without engaging in any meaningful way for that to happen.

Taxes on harmful behavior is one possible way we can curve it. It’s not the only way, and I am not claiming as such, but clearly righteous indignation telling people to stop using single-use plastics has not worked. We can wax philosophical as to why it hasn’t worked, and there might be value in that, but I just don’t think it’s particularly useful to begin an argument with “people should just stop buying single use plastic” as if that by itself is a meaningful thing to say.