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no offense but your friend sounds like kind of an ass

How did he respond to the "you don't and you don't think about it" bit?

It was kind of a mike drop moment. Honestly, my buddy has associated hard-right and anti-left views as part of his identity. He doesn't wear a seat belt because he doesn't want the gov't telling him what to do. That type of extreme. But he's also smart, so I suspect sometimes he says things as a cry for help, the way an alcoholic will mock you for drinking just one beer because it reminds them that they have habits they can't break or have regretfully become part of their identity.

All sorts of insecurities start to show in people when you decide to go against the grain, choose for yourself and embrace deliberate action without hiding anything. That most people tend to think it's because of trying to show off rather than a small sacrifice that you eventually stop thinking about, is sadly very telling.

It's very natural though to ask about something that is different in some way.

Smart how? Like a good programmer or creative or just some sad contrarian?

> He doesn't wear a seat belt because he doesn't want the gov't telling him what to do. [...] But he's also smart

Is he?

People have weaknesses. Some people are afraid of cockroaches. You can't explain all behaviors with logic

> Some people are afraid of cockroaches

Not so much "afraid" (I don't think they will attack me) as "deeply disgusted", particularly by their smell, and their fouling of my foods. There are lots of reasons to hate cockroaches.

As a mercifully sheltered Brit, what do they smell of?

You are not sheltered - they are endemic in the UK. And if you have them, you will know the smell (human languages are notoriously bad at describing smells).

My 3 yo daughter was afraid of flies. It was REALLY annoying. I tried to teach her she can poke them and they'll leave her alone.

You can be a brilliant neurologist and also be anti-vax.

Expertise in one field doesn't imply expertise in others even if they appear closely related to the layperson.

Uh dunno if you saw his, but this morning I read about a study that shows that PhDs have the highest by-education rate of not getting vaccinated. https://unherd.com/thepost/the-most-vaccine-hesitant-educati...

At the beginning of the year their rate was not the highest, but other groups got convinced (their rates lowered), but PhDs remained constant.

To me it means the PhDs have a high degree of confidence in their own beliefs (surely thinking they've come to their conclusions rationally and with rigorous scientific reasoning), and no push will change their minds. Whether this self-evaluation is accurate or not, is a different question. I wonder what their PhDs are even in, if it's molecular biology, then, well, maybe there's a case there, but a PhD in, say, Polynesian cultures?

My guess is that the level of education required to get a PhD instills in one an extreme level of skepticism; since most PhDs are not in genetics or virology (just simple statistics), most PhDs are skeptical of the fields from which they are not experts.

But if they are skeptical of the experts, why in the world aren't they skeptical of the non-expert saying the vaccine is dangerous?

"They" here are 23.9% of PhDs. So 76.1% believe the experts. The rest are probably like other skeptics (or like most of us humans), they've come up with the conlusion and they've seen the proof that supported that conclusion and dismissed proof that don't.

Although as PhDs they should know more about confirmation bias...

Yeah, but to be fair, if I knew how sausage was made, I'm sure I would eat less sausage

i would expect MDs to have a much higher than average fax rate for that very reason. There’s a lot of really awful illnesses for which we have still very crude protections and treatments. vaccines are a godsend treated as such among all the MDs i know.

The main issue I have seen with people that work in the medical field is when they value anecdote over data. Inevitably, some that work in the field are going to have a disproportionate outcome of some type that doesn't fit the data. So if several of your patients had a bad reaction to a vaccine, you might incorrectly assume that there is an issue.

Why is there a weird stigma about carrying around a reusable water bottle? I’ve experienced it myself when I was younger and in school. It’s something about preparing for the moment compared to just going with the flow of life. I remember being categorized, by a girl, as a pretentious nerd soley based off my water bottle choice.

Sometimes it's easier to make someone feel bad for making a better choice, than to consider the reasons why they are not making that choice themselves. Also once an mindset like being a bottled-water-family is ingrained into a person anything that runs contrary to that can seem to be almost threatening to one's own behavior.

Someone once told me you can learn everything about a person by what they do with their empty cart at the grocery store.

In school, secondary and college, I remember that you fared better socially if you figured out how to not look like you were struggling to transport all your things. People were unkind to students who had useful rolling packs, for example, as well as students who tended to have their hands full in the halls. I’d think a water bottle could play into that. However, I see my daughter and most of her friends bring them everywhere so I think that particular item is perceived differently now so long as it’s the “right” style.

> you fared better socially if you figured out how to not look like you were struggling to transport all your things

To be honest, it does look ridiculous hauling all your shit around like some hiker. It lacks grace and is out of proportion with the task at hand. This must be an American thing. I do not recall students elsewhere roaming school halls around like hobos with all their belongings.

My high school (and middle school too) was big enough that the time it took to walk from once class to my locker and the to my next class too longer than the time we had in between classes. So I had to carry a lot more shit than I wanted to. Some kids had classes and lockers in better locations. Anyhow, your attitude stinks. Let people make their own choices what they carry and don’t call them hobos without grace because you can’t understand why they might choose to carry some of their things around.

> This must be an American thing. I do not recall students elsewhere roaming school halls around like hobos with all their belongings.

(Not an American here, trying to recall something that might be wrong)

IIRC American schools have classrooms assigned to subjects. I.e. there is an English classroom and a Physics classroom and a French classroom.

So you would typically have the entire student population move between classrooms after every lesson.

This is not how my (German) school worked. Apart from a few exceptions (like the Music and Chemistry classroom), classrooms were assigned to grades. We would have Maths and English and History all in the same classroom, and only switch classrooms once or twice daily.

Yes, as other users said, it’s a consequence of short passing periods, inconveniently located lockers, and students having to move between specialized teachers every hour. I would also add that not many American schools teach in a lecture format, so students feel they need to bring textbooks and workbooks instead of just a notebook and/or computer.

A tall bottle on a table is arguably obnoxious and unsightly. I just put mine on the floor if it is in line-of-sight of too many people especially indoors.

If a popular sports jock starts carrying a metal water bottle, best believe it'll all of a sudden be cool to carry one.

It's not what you do, it's where you rank in the social dominance hierarchy.

Im as cheap as most people you will find. I bought a Sprite 2 litter bottle and after trying to drink the liquid (couldn't bc of the sweet/sugar) I rinsed it, marked it with hourly Mark's (using permanent marker) and use use it as my reusable water bottle every day . It really helps me drinking my 2 lt water every day and prevents me from using several water bottles.

What about reusing containers for drinking water that you would otherwise dispose of? I've been using yogurt bottles for my drinking water for a while now.

No extra resources wasted to produce a fancy water bottle, and you don't need to worry too much if you lose it.

Doing a similar thing; I buy a bottle of plastic water (or some other soft drink) to reuse as container for tap water. I usually replace it when the plastic gets milky, every few weeks.

Yes, I refill bottled water bottles with tap water. I usually replace them once a year. Previously, I would buy whatever brand I found that was the right size for how I store them but last time I ended up spending more on Evian and the bottles are holding up much better. Poland Springs bottles use very thin plastic that crumples easily which is good for minimizing the amount of plastic used but bad for reuse.

I do wonder if, by reusing the bottles, there could be harmful chemicals leeching out.

Bottles sit on the store shelf and have a use-by date of often a year in the future. I figure if there is going to be leeching, it's not going to be significant enough in a day or two. Just to be careful though, even with my 'proper' reusable bottles I won't drink the water if it's been there more than a day or two or if it's exposed to the sun.

It's not about the water inside, it's about the plastic. I do the same as grandparent, refill disposable but sturdy bottles, I change every 6 month or so. I assume the plastic itself is shedding particles away more and more as it ages. There is a bad smell that develops after a few months. Probably from bacteria build up.

I misplace water bottles on a regular basis. So I buy bottled water and re-fill the disposable bottles until they get lost.

The article wholey ignores the costs of production for non-disposable water bottles. They absolutely take more resources to produce and you thus need to refill any given water bottle a certain number of times before you break even with disposable bottled water. For absent minded folks like me, constantly buying replacement bottles can be a worse impact on the environment.

>> For absent minded folks like me, constantly buying replacement bottles can be a worse impact on the environment.

Society doesn't and IMO shouldn't optimize for the absent-minded. Do you also loose your keys, wallet and phone on a regular basis? Maybe it's not a memory thing but more of a value thing.

I agree it's definitely value based. I've own a hydroflask which is a fairly expensive water bottle and I got it for free, so I value it pretty highly. I think I'm more likely to lose my wallet of plastic/replaceable credit cards than I am my water bottle. Plus it's just a big object, so it actually takes up (virtual?imaginary?) space in my mind.

Your comment comes off as needlessly combative.

It is definitely a memory / attention thing. I don't see how I made any suggestion that "society needs to optimize" for me.

My point is that you need to asses the full lifecycle costs of any alternative given individual differences.

I think the other person heard you saying "bottled water has a good purpose" and they replied "It's bad enough of a problem that we shouldn't suggest its continued use because you can't remember to care about your bottle".

This is just how I'm reading the conversation.

As others have said, maybe if you spent $15 on a purpose-built, non-BPA, reliable water bottle, you would use it less because your mind wouldn't perceive it to be disposable.

> As others have said, maybe if you spent $15 on a purpose-built, non-BPA, reliable water bottle, you would use it less because your mind wouldn't perceive it to be disposable.

You have the causality exactly backwards. It is the frequency with which I have lost expensive water bottles that caused me to stop using them in most situations.

I don't understand why people only replied to try and tell me how my brain works rather that to engage with the core idea of comment.

> I carry a reusable water bottle

Every so often I think about this. I use a 32 ounce insulated stainless steel bottle, no disposable bottles. However, every time I have to wash it I take note of the fact that it take several fill-swish-dump cycles to clean it. If I use soap it take even more to get it all out.

In other words, someone could make an argument that I am wasting water. I haven't quantified it yet, so I don't have a really good metric from which to judge this. I probably rinse the bottle every couple of days.

Even in that case, you're wasting less when compared to disposable. From the article:

>it takes three times as much water to produce a plastic bottle as it can hold.

I also use an insulated stainless steel bottle will only wash if I notice a scent. It's been over 6 M since the last time I washed.

I tend to wash it more often because I switch between water and other powder-mixed drinks. When you switch you either accept the mixing and taste "pollution" or wash it. Going from something like gatorade to water does not require rinsing. I found that switching from powder-based fiber to water or gatorade does. I tend to schedule these for minimal rinsing though.

> and asked "does that make you feel good about yourself ?" implying I am virtue signaling

Is there more context to this conversation? The reason of course could've been that, but it also seems like there's a chance (not high, I admit) he might've seen the local tap water as dangerous and tried to think of a compelling reason why you would still drink it despite that. Especially if the topic has previously come up.

Beach city LA, so water quality isn't bad. As for context, he's a pathological right wing troll and we both have ADD and find mild periodic confrontation stimulating. Everyone I know mocks him for being an absurdist, but he has many friends because he's damn funny, helpful, and caring.

Unless you clean it like a champ, not sure how sterile your bottle is...

I've got news for you, none of the dishes you use, at home or when you're out are "sterile". The good news is humans don't require anything close to this; we're pretty hardy creatures.

Water is a bit different tho as it provides the basic stuff for bacterial life and while you cook you process food thermally.

I've got bad news for you - look up into antacids and how they block acid barrier. Every other one uses them.

I am not into cleaning frenzy, quite the opposite, but water should be kept as sterile as possible IMO.

I use plastic bottles 30+ times. Is there any way to get sick or die from this?

It depends on how you keep them. Plastic may leak stuff (BPA and friends). Bacteria could build up.

regarding BPA, older bottles are more sanitary because most of the BPA has leeched out over time.

It’s the heat not the time that causes BPA leaching.

You can buy some quats (quaternary ammonium compounds) which is a good safe food service sanitizer.

Ecolab oasis multiquat is what I buy, it’s like $80-100 but the dilution ratio means you are unlikely to run out.

Was the documentary "Tapped" by chance? I saw that one around that same timeframe you mentioned and it inspired me to get a reusable bottle I still use to this day.

> throw his trash out the car window, which is what we city kids (and adults) used to do in the early 80s

This must be an American thing. I do not recall this being the case elsewhere that I visited.

There were real pushes from the early 70s on to combat pollution from many sources. One thing that many Americans will remember from then (or from seeing it later) is the "Crying Indian" ad from 1971. Pollution also made it into songs about little things like the 1969 Cuyahoga River fire that provided a lot of push for the passage of the Clean Water Act not long after.

America solved a large part of air and water pollution issues as a side-effect of policies which shifted production largely off-shore. That solution won't work for the remainder.

The trash problem seems to have worsened - especially in the cities. Municipal governments have eliminated street cleaning from their service portfolio and now seem to mostly rely on things getting so bad that some civil group sign on to their adopt-a-highway program and make some effort to clean things up once or twice a year. Hard to take care of the home when you're busy sending trillions to destroying people's lives in other parts of the world.

The difficulty I have in looking optimistically toward the future comes from my lack of confidence in the leadership of this nation. An entrenched two-party system and a complicit media has led us to a place where we cannot adequately provide for basic human needs (education, health, and housing). Without caring for those things for all of the people living within our borders, the hard choices we will need to make are going to bring us through a period of turmoil as the pains of adjustment are felt unevenly throughout our society. Someone is going to lose and it probably won't be the rich and upper middle class. We will likely end up covering them for the loss of their beach-side property while the poor sod living in the countryside will be treated like we currently treat our homeless.

If they were littering like that in the early 80s, their community was very much lagging behind the American culture overall. Or maybe it was just the people they were around literally being trashy.

It wasn't, and isn't today, an American thing. Plenty of countries had, and even still do have, casual attitudes about littering.

Visit India or South America, 10x worse now than the US was in the 80s.