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Comment by alt227 | Hacker News Reader

Such a shame that easily broken and disposable pieces of plastic are shipped around the globe in huge numbers, all in the name of selfish first world comfort.

How future generations will look back at our convenience online ordering practices and be absolutely horrified at how we thought it was no issue to get some bit of plastic made in Asia and shipped over to US or Europe, then next or same day delivered just for for a few dollars/pounds.

Sorry OP, not aiming at you. You just triggered a sad rant.

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The ships are already making the trip carrying cars, furniture, medical equipment, and all kinds of critical things. The drop shipped trinkets basically hitch a ride for free.

Yep, thats the attitude thats keeps pushing the machine forward.

For example its the same as flying on planes. Number one worst offenders for C02 is frequent flyers, yet whenever you question anybody on it the argument is always "the planes are flying anyway why does it matter if Im on it or not".

> critical things

You miss the whole aspect of production and waste pipelines, which was kind of the point.

Those employees were going to sweep the floor anyway, why not throw my trash on the floor?

You had good luck navigating a house of mirrors. It's still a house of mirrors though.

Thinking about some of the business practices of our ancestors, shipping bits of plastic seems like a great improvement.

Our great-great-grandchildren will probably be getting their gadgets via some kind of Star Trek replicator rather than a container ships and no doubt some moral hazard will be involved in that practice.

Generally though, things are getting better, no?

We do the same for groceries though. Only a few generations ago, oranges or bananas were a luxury if you didn't live in an area where those fruit grow. Now we get avocadoes and berries way out of season, shipped from across the world.

Yep, and it is terrible for the planet. Avocados use disproportionate amount of water to grow, and the boom of their popularity n the west has caused massive water issues in already resource stretched parts of the world.

https://sustainablefoodtrust.org/news-views/avocados-sustain...

All for what, so someone in a western cafe can have some smashed avocado on their sourdough toast? I'm pretty sure people could do without out of season berries, and avocados at all. We used to east locally and seasonally for millennia, forcing over production of anything to ship it round the world is a recipe for disaster.

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