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commit e697765ca606e3ba91e52130232195617f56e96b7a981bab31a95866c4042e00
Author: yihanwu1024 <yihanwu1024>
Date: Fri Jan 27 00:00:00 2023 +0000
create article condemning American wastefulness
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+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
+<article xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook" xml:id="913afe4074077b81fff47e81f7fb018a5449f6563e5aeaf6ab7dab0ff18fc755">
+<title>A Garbage Thesis</title>
+<para>It was not at all a surprise to me when I witnessed how Americans use resources.
+They would leave lights on during month-long breaks at the university, wrap merchandise in multiple layers of virgin plastic or plastic-paper composite packaging, and finally mindlessly discard them at a bin.
+Americans produce the most garbage in the world per capita, three times the world average—a staggering triumph.</para>
+<para>Indeed, if you remove the outer paperboard box from cereal products and attach a non-sticker 6" by 4" paperboard label to the inner plastic bag—especially its seal—this whole thing would seem as if it came from the third world and magnitudes less appealing.
+Therefore arguably more utilitarian points can be made for the box, such as being able to place the item stably on a flat surface, being able to stack in a block-esque fashion, and to a certain extent protecting the content from stress.
+I love these arguments; they are excellent points.
+It shows some sort of American rationality to a lesser extent, and much of their pride of living decent lives.
+Moreover, they have shown me that the true problem lies not in production.
+Disposal would be the more appropriate subject of interest, because then you meet garbage, such an inferior being you think it is.</para>
+<para>I manage two additional garbage bins at my apartment: the single-stream recycling bin, and the compostable bin, both of which go to the City of Minneapolis.
+(Compostable recycling is on an opt-in basis in Minneapolis.)
+I can do this naturally, without any support or even cooperation.
+I can pick out cans and bottles discarded by my roommates from the unrecycled trash bin and move them to recycling.
+I can take the compostable to a dedicated collection location managed by the City.</para>
+<para>But disposal is not the core of the problem either.
+It has to do with your own attitude to matter.
+I believe any respectable human being should have been (equivalently) educated to eat a toast, or pizza, entirely with its crust.
+Surely, some of us appreciate those dry, smoky and bitter doughs as beauty, but you won’t find enough of these people to offload your crusts to.
+And you entirely shouldn’t attempt to wish someone, some animal, some bacteria or fungi out there to take care of your <emphasis>arbitrary</emphasis> leftovers.
+Similarly, you also shouldn’t waste resources in design and production, because the matter is not there to fulfill your <emphasis>arbitrary</emphasis> desires.
+This is basic responsibility.
+Are you 12 yet?</para>
+<para>So, not <emphasis>arbitrary</emphasis>.
+The threshold of necessity varies across cultures, and I can already tell you that the United States is on the very high side.
+Even though such a fact is alarming, any arguments depending on it are invalid.
+Let me just present—</para>
+<para><emphasis role="strong">One rule of thumb.</emphasis> If the object (sans modern ethics) you might be exploiting understood everything you did, and would therefore come to kill you, don’t.</para>
+<para>Oh, I am not religious.
+For fuck’s sake.</para>
+</article>