Hacker News Reader

Comment by mgkimsal | Hacker News Reader

2 weeks ago on my way to work, I watched a guy pull off to the side of the road. He opened his car door, and just dumped trash out - a few small bags of trash. He had just driven past a gas station and convenience store - both with publicly accessible trash cans to throw stuff away - you don't even have to get out of your car. It's a bizarre mindset some people have - let me drive past the driver-accessible trash cans in a paved parking lot, then pull off on to grass and dirt to dump my crap out of the car. There are some aspects of the US which are great, but this large segment of the population which has less than zero regard for public space is... truly crappy.

View on HN

It is utterly bizarre. This stuff angers and confuses me in equal measure. It's like a complete refusal to participate in society, just the expectation that someone else will come and tidy up after you. How do these people behave elsewhere in their lives?

One example I keep seeing is people who buy a pack of cigarettes, rip off the plastic film covering and just drop it on the floor. It sends me into a silent rage every time.

If you've spent your whole life feeling victimized by society then you do whatever little things you can to give a big middle finger back. If you're a Black single mom that has to work two jobs to get by, maybe it's easy for you to justify throwing your McDonald's wrappers on the parking lot ground.

The race of the person was not mentioned, it was interesting that you assumed that they were black -- although I do not disagree with your point.

It was an example of a kind of person being victimized by society.

This is an interesting way of looking at it. I wonder if this really is the psychology of people who do stuff like this.

If this is the case, it would be interesting to find out whether there is some correlation between wealth inequality and rates of littering.

A counter point would be all the smoking middle class people I see everyday that throw their butts on the ground.

I have a different theory: I call it the "raised by wolves theory". If a person doesn't have the benefit of good parenting/good examples, they grow up to be less socialized.

The single mom in your example may have had little parenting because her mom was working 3 jobs perhaps.

Anyone else remember the "don't litter" public service announcement on TV with a crying Indian?

I think a much simpler explanation is that most people don't bother justifying much of their behavior in the first place.

I don't think you can neatly separate people by their behavior in this manner, in general, but also in particular when it comes to 'automatic', frequent behavior like disposing of trash. People are irrational.

Most smokers I know will carefully separate their trash and walk hundreds of meters to put everything in the right bin... and yet dispose of their cigarettes all over the place. To my shame I have to admit I was one of those people. Somehow the inconsistency just didn't cross my mind. So many other thoughts took precedence. I'm not saying that this is an excuse, mind.

I do understand the anger and frustration, but I think it's both fairer and more productive to assume that people are not doing these things to intentionally cause harm, and that they might well be upstanding citizens in other areas of life.

I smoke and I was pretty much the person you described until a couple years ago when I saw a friend going out of his way to dispose of the cigarette butts in a trash can. Since them I do whatever I have to do, including storing it inside my cigarette pack, to not throw any butts on the floor.

Same here! Monkey see, monkey do.

As a non-smoker, it's my number one gripe with smokers and why I used to consider them scum with little remorse when places started restricting where they smoke, this I judge smokers for more than anything else. So many butts strewn about every where, outside side exits, in the grass by benches, do they think fiberglass is biodegradable or something? I can be in a nice place, a outdoor setting that is other wise pristine, but you'll see a mound of cigerette butt's. It'll often be next to an ash tray or cigarette disposal too.

I don't fathom how you don't/didn't notice, it's like throwing bubblegum wrappers on the ground, yeah its small, but when you smoke packs of cigarettes in the same spot it adds up, not to mention more of a hassle to clean up by others like picking up confetti off the ground. I'm glad you realized it, but I can't imagine how people are utterly clueless about it being a problem (I just assumed all smokers were a-holes because they didn't care).

Well, the expectation that someone else will come and tidy up after you is exactly how society works. It's just that everybody is the someone else.

I say this as the weird guy random walking the parking lot, picking up trash and transporting it to the wastebin.

A lot of research has gone into what makes people behave this way. Read about "Tragedy of Commons"[1] and "Diffusion of Responsibility" [2] for more insights.

The net-net is that people rationalize their actions using whatever means necessary.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_responsibility

Counterpoint: I went on vacation to the Dominican Republic a few years back, and went to one of the more remote villages where there was a river outlet. There was a guy there who wanted to take us out on his boat, but we looked in the water and about half of it was covered with an opaque drift of plastic jugs, pieces of styrofoam, etc. I think in the US we have some antisocial assholes roaming around like the one you saw, but it's not like everyone does it by default.

That's awful. I'm fairly sure here in Canada, people would pick the trash up and chase you down the road with it. I've never seen it happen though.

I tried to get a picture of his car, but the sun was at too difficult of an angle. Another thought that made me pause about confronting him was guns. Yay, thanks rampant gun ownership - you certainly prevented an ugly confrontation there, as the idea that I might be shot for confronting someone about trash dumping prevented too much action on my part.

I'd posted in our local facebook community page, and 2 other interesting stories came up.

1. someone posted they'd seen something similar a few weeks earlier. They'd confronted the person, and the other person pulled a gun out and threatened them. I do not know if the original person involved police after that. While it might sound far-fetched to some, I live in the rural south of the US.

2. someone else posted a similar story, and had taken a picture of the person dumping trash in public and posted it to the facebook group. that poster was harassed online, with many people complaining that they were "violating the other person's privacy" by posting their picture online without consent.

I get truly demoralized at time by living in this area (we're planning a move, but possibly not far enough away).

> rural south of the US

That's the problem. Get out of there ASAP. It has no redeeming qualities. Best move of my life.

Unless you have deep roots there and you want to take on the monumental task of actually making your own part of it a better place. Maybe join the city council of a town near a place like Atlanta or Tuscaloosa, and try to spread their civilization a little further into the wilderness.

Wow, you dont like the south, but stop being a bigot. You are demonstrating the EXACT blind hatred you imply you are against. STOP.

Agreed. As someone who has spent most of his life in various parts of the South, there are good and bad parts, same as anywhere else.

I like the warm weather, beaches, neighborhood friendliness, greenery, and relaxed cost of living.

There's absolutely no visible consequence of leaving your trash in the park in a big city. The city workers will be by later that day to clean it up, or more likely in San Francisco where I live, scavengers will pick it up for recycling within minutes. Out of sight, out of mind. And why not? We certainly pay enough taxes to support those services.

Please tell me this a troll.

I think that is probably not an uncommon mindset.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com