To me this seems to be a case of whataboutism. Just because there are worse things to do environmentally speaking does not mean that this is not a problem.
Actually, from an economic perspective, you should tackle the lowest hanging fruit. Assuming we can only tackle a non-unlimited amount of issues at any given time.
I'm assuming this article hits the dopamine because everyone has a phone, and it's a very personal item and everyone upgrades / replaces them eventually. A window A/C on the other hand, not so much.
Usually I don’t like this argument because it shifts the discussion from something you can control to something you can’t which justifies doing nothing.
But in this case, talking about the difference between multiple consumer goods makes sense because you are in control of all of them.
Simply not buying an oversized car does more than a lifetime of using phones for longer.
What you are stating implies that environmental responsibility is non existent and that everybody is entitled to consume all the resources his/their money can afford.
it may well be racist or more likely overly western-centric, but it’s mostly just not helpful to talk like that. besides, these issues aren’t solved by well-meaning volunteers in developing nations, they’re solved by government action on a macro scale
> if you think there should be less crime and a better police force, you don’t go and fight crime on the streets, do you?
Because I don't feel like beating up minorities like Batman does.
But hey, a comic book understanding of the world is precisely what's required to think that we could solve environmental problems by recycling. Which is why industry invented it in the first place.
I don’t mean this to be facetious, but they pointed out that this is whataboutism, and you, in more or less words, disagreed and said ‘what about this other e-waste that should be dealt with?’
besides this, how many people do you know that don’t have a phone? how often on average do you think people replace their phones?
compare those answers to other tech/machinery that you may be thinking of starting with.
also, finally, the top-level comment here takes a really shallow view of how the world economy works. yes if there was a shortage of these materials, there would be an economic incentive to recycle them properly, but that doesn’t mean that the obtaining of these materials doesn’t have a huge human or environmental cost. just because you can get a material cheaply doesn’t mean there’s nothing wrong with doing it
Sure, but not everyone has the same opportunities. So I'd say we should focus on the best we _can_ do personally.
It's better for me to focus on recycling my electronics than focusing on the ecological impact of the modern commercial satellites madness. Because I cannot do anything about Starlink and the likes, but I can recycle my phone.
> The 1880s German immigrants to the US completely missed slavery and the Nazis so its tragic for some kid of that heritage to be grouped into the generic white guilt idea if they accidentally walked into a segregated space at Berkeley, for example. Its just not nuanced enough.
What difference should it make for you? I honestly don't get this idea of inheriting guilt or being directly responsible for the actions of your forebears.
It doesn't make a difference to me, some people are susceptible to actually playing along with that idea of responsibility. My observation is that some of those people are less applicable participants than others.
How many such stations will be built and how many different shapes, sizes, battery chemistry, and capacity batteries will each station have to have in stock?
It sounds like it isn't even possible except in the trivial sense that if one has a fully charged battery of exactly the right type on hand, then it can be swapped in five minutes. Sounds like each station would either have to have a large store of batteries or it would have to only serve one model of car. The first is a large capital cost, the second generates very little revenue.
To compete with, say Tesla, Nio would have to build hundreds of battery swap stations in Europe. Tesla has 601 sites in 27 countries. When I drive from Norway to the UK I am rarely more than 50 km from a supercharger.
Just a simple question. Do you believe in freedom of speech? In freedom of the press? If yes, why do you think it would be shocking if you are spied on?
You are being spied on at this moment. So what are you going to do?
We’ve just got a different interpretation of what I wrote. Of course my data and location is tracked all the time - it’s an endless stream. I was referring the thought I’d have if I was to become aware that my Bluetooth signal of my “powered off” iphone was the data source used to spy on me. There are plenty of easier ways to do it… and my phone is usually powered on.
Amazon's product offering is also seemingly getting worse, lots of five-star rated products which feature obviously paid reviews and are cheap copies. Other retailers feature good-quality brand names.
For technical hardware I can recommend geizhals.de over idealo.
I was hoping for a friend to buy a laptop for me in Germany (generally low availability of new products where I live) and was positively blown away with how detailed and useful their (geizhals.de) search based on laptop specs is. Excellent stuff.
At the end of the day, you have to trust someone, whether it's a tech vendor, a software project lead, or even the person you're conversing with. What's important is that you get to continue to consciously exercise that choice.
I choose to use signal, and have no interest in this random crypto nonsense thingie, so I'll choose to not use that bit.
> I was phrasing that unclear, I meant that you have to trust Intel if you use Mobilecoin.
Ah, fair. I think you could also argue that you have to trust Intel if you use Signal anyway.
> Why wouldn't you be able to exercise that choice?
I'm not saying you can't (unlike some), but I think it's worth underlining the point that "trusting nobody" is rarely, if ever an option. So in a world where you end up having to trust someone, being able to continuously exercise that is important.
