Comment on There are solutions to our problems...

• faythofdragons@slrpnk.net ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  People tend to waste what is given freely

  Do they though? I grew up below the poverty line, and nobody wasted the free food from the food bank.

  I posit that people waste what they don’t need, monetary value has little to do with it.

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  • Gullible@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Unequivocally, yes. Programs that freely give things beyond base needs tend to have anywhere from 100-200% increases in material usage. See: Iran’s free gasoline for a societal example, or help in most soup kitchens or volunteer at a food bank. It’s still the right choice, but requires slightly more nuance than immediately apparent.

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    • faythofdragons@slrpnk.net ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Iran’s free gasoline

      I am entirely unfamiliar.

      help in most soup kitchens or volunteer at a food bank

      I have, there was very little waste?

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      • Gullible@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        tehrantimes.com/…/Iran-s-gasoline-rationing-schem…

        Reasonable enough overview of the issue.

        As far as food bank and soup kitchens, have you really never noticed the abundance of discarded bags and bowls? Heard the endless nimby complaints from people in the neighborhood? Encountered, in marketplace style systems, the random hoarding that needs to be stifled?

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    • d4f0@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Did they waste the gas/food or did they use what they needed instead of what they could afford before it was free?

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      • Gullible@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        Oh, people just drove everywhere, always, anytime, and without concern. Ran generators rather than purchasing electricity from the grid, didn’t care about their car’s fuel economy because it didn’t financially impact them. Iirc, they alone were contemporaneously above the US in petroleum use per capita, and by nearly 2x. And the US is disgustingly over-reliant on petroleum to this day.

        worldometers.info/…/oil-consumption-by-country/

        (Today’s numbers for perspective)

        If you read the article, you’d see that Iran ended up a net importer of gasoline as a result. Iran. That’s like Canada becoming a Net importer of maple syrup because they had a custom of pouring syrup over their nipples and inviting people to lick it off at the turn of every hour. People in Canada would unequivocally be happy about it, but it doesn’t seem like the best use of resources.

        As for food, I’m going to consider my opinions a bit more before offering anything.

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  • CompactFlax@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    I believe there will always be individuals who put themselves first in any scenario.

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

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    • faythofdragons@slrpnk.net ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Yes, but that’s about perverse incentives to hurt those around you. Currently, there is an economic incentive to let food go to waste to keep prices high, rather than distributing it freely.

      How would freely distributing food result in more waste, due to tragedy of the commons?

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