ISSUE IDEA: Plastic Fantastic

[Australian rePublic]

I tried to come up with a non-capitalist version of this issue, I failed miserably.

[title] Plastic Fantastic

[desc] With drought and bushfires depleting and contaminating water supplies along @@NAME@@'s coastline, people are beginning to wonder if the ban on plastic bottles was a good idea.

[validity] must allow capitalism, must have banned plastic bottles

[option] "Look at this @@LEADER@@!" states @@RANDOMNAME@@, the former CEO of Greenville Water Co, showing you a glass full of ash. "I knew you guys wouldn't care, so I took the liberty of replacing all the water in your cups with @@ANIMAL@@ Hills water. This is what the people of @@ANIMAL@@ Hills have to deal with every day. That or diabetes from drinking too much soda! My water bottles used to come from Lake Greenville, which is always filled with snowmelt. My plastic bottles will transport water from places that have too much to places that don’t have enough. That way, I can make a profit agai… I mean, provide an essential service!"
[effect] single use plastic bottles are worth six times their weight in gold

[option] "Yea, that's lovely." Sarcastically remarks @@RANDOMNAME@@, a poor person suffering through the drought. "Big companies can price gouge, whilst we dehydrate. We already suffering the horrors of turning on the tap and watching nothing come out. Now we have to break the bank to get some more? @@LEADER@@, legalise water bottles, but give them to us for free!"
[effect] single use plastic water bottles have been rated the nation's most virtuous product

[option] "How dare you?" questions famed environmentalist @@RANDOMNAME@@, whose Lake Greenville town is currently facing a deluge, taking a sip from @HIS@@ single-use plastic Ecsy-Cola bottle. "People in these situations often look to us to look after the environment and prevent fires and droughts from becoming so server. Yet they themselves don’t want to look after the environment. Just because they’re a little too fussy about water quality or because they want to use excess amounts of water. Keep plastic bottles illegal!"
[effect] citizens are criticising the government for lack of dihydrogen monoxide in the water supply

[Baggieland]

The last option, if the speaker wants to keep the ban on plastic bottles, how come he is drinking from one?

[Australian rePublic]

The last option, if the speaker wants to keep the ban on plastic bottles, how come he is drinking from one?

Thanks for the feedback. The reason why I got him to drink from a plastic bottle is because he's a hypocrite. Should I get rid of that?

[Baggieland]

Thanks for the feedback. The reason why I got him to drink from a plastic bottle is because he's a hypocrite. Should I get rid of that?

How did he get hold of it if plastic bottles are already banned???

[Australian rePublic]

Thanks for the feedback. The reason why I got him to drink from a plastic bottle is because he's a hypocrite. Should I get rid of that?

How did he get hold of it if plastic bottles are already banned???

Ha. I assumed only water bottles were banned, and not soda bottles. Silly assumption come to think of it, so thanks for the suggestion! I'll remove it at next edit

[Candlewhisper Archive]

[desc] With drought and bushfires depleting and contaminating water supplies along @@NAME@@'s coastline, people are beginning to wonder if the ban on plastic bottles was a good idea.

This premise reads like an option, as it's too much of a non-sequitur.

Depleted water supplies might be an issue (and indeed, I think it already is), but drinking water tends to be the last use of water to come under threat, as it has priority over other water uses. Irrigation, industrial water use, washing and so on would all be problems first.

If drought got to the stage where even drinking water was a problem, then that would likely constitute a national emergency with emergency responses being made. In that situation the material the containers come in is hardly going to be top of people's minds. They'll be using whatever container is to hand to deliver water supplies to families, and the question of whether a ban on single-use small-volume disposable plastic bottles has made the distribution of water marginally more difficult is hardly likely to be the first question on their minds.

[Australian rePublic]

Thanks for the feedback

[desc] With drought and bushfires depleting and contaminating water supplies along @@NAME@@'s coastline, people are beginning to wonder if the ban on plastic bottles was a good idea.

This premise reads like an option, as it's too much of a non-sequitur.

Fair enough, thanks!


Yep. This is the current situation right now in Australia (which inspired me to write this issue. Some towns are already under level 5+ water restrictions


See, I'm genuinely not sure if it has, it might have, but don't think so.

Let me clarify, you're saying that plastic bottles would be legalised by default in such a situation? I see. Thank you!

[Candlewhisper Archive]

No, I'm saying that the premise doesn't make sense in terms of priorities. If you have a drought so bad that the drinking water supply is compromised, then there are way bigger issues to deal with.

Imagine the following scenarios, which have the same flaw:

You arrive home to find house is on fire and your wife and kids are trapped upstairs. This begs the question: should you wipe your feet when you step in the house?

Child abuse scandals have rocked the church, with hundreds of victims coming forward to speak of their suffering at the hand of priests. Is the rule of celibacy creating sexual frustration for priests?

The people are starving! Let them eat cake! But chocolate or strawberry?

I mean, that last one might actually work, because its self-aware in it's ridiculousness and has a satirical intent, so maybe a bad example. But yeah, what I'm basically saying is that the question you present might be tangentially related, but the framing suggests that it isn't the issue that should be dealt with. Nobody is going to go "oh terrible droughts leaving people without enough water even to drink, if only they sold water in the shops in plastic bottles instead of glass bottles, that would be so much easier for those poor people."

If you want to present a decision that calls for plastic bottles to be restored in response to a drought, then do so as an option, not as an issue premise.

[Australian rePublic]

No, I'm saying that the premise doesn't make sense in terms of priorities. If you have a drought so bad that the drinking water supply is compromised, then there are way bigger issues to deal with.

Imagine the following scenarios, which have the same flaw:

You arrive home to find house is on fire and your wife and kids are trapped upstairs. This begs the question: should you wipe your feet when you step in the house?

Child abuse scandals have rocked the church, with hundreds of victims coming forward to speak of their suffering at the hand of priests. Is the rule of celibacy creating sexual frustration for priests?

The people are starving! Let them eat cake! But chocolate or strawberry?

I mean, that last one might actually work, because its self-aware in it's ridiculousness and has a satirical intent, so maybe a bad example. But yeah, what I'm basically saying is that the question you present might be tangentially related, but the framing suggests that it isn't the issue that should be dealt with. Nobody is going to go "oh terrible droughts leaving people without enough water even to drink, if only they sold water in the shops in plastic bottles instead of glass bottles, that would be so much easier for those poor people."

If you want to present a decision that calls for plastic bottles to be restored in response to a drought, then do so as an option, not as an issue premise.

Except that this is literally Australia's approach:

https://amp.smh.com.au/national/nsw/ars ... 53l89.html
https://amp.9news.com.au/article/a57b02 ... r/?cs=9397
https://www.theleader.com.au/story/5838 ... -dry-town/

[Candlewhisper Archive]

And is the issue there what the bottles were made of?

Would the response have changed if they were glass bottles or cardboard cartons?

[Jutsa]

I attempted to coauthor a draft like this, except it was about the price of bottled water rather than the material.
boop
oh my god the writing... how the heck I thought my English was bad now
No wait I'm suddenly remembering that for about a year I couldn't type worth a tarnation.

Frankly, bottled water being an issue for nations without a drought would make more sense than bottled water being the issue for nations with a drought.

Edit: Sorry, accidentally said I attempted it, when in fact I had not; I had attempted to coauthor an existing draft from someone who's long-since CTE'd.

[Bears Armed]

Imagine the following scenarios, which have the same flaw:

You arrive home to find house is on fire and your wife and kids are trapped upstairs. This begs the question: should you wipe your feet when you step in the house?

Child abuse scandals have rocked the church, with hundreds of victims coming forward to speak of their suffering at the hand of priests. Is the rule of celibacy creating sexual frustration for priests?

The people are starving! Let them eat cake! But chocolate or strawberry?

The middle question in that list has been raised in RL, as an argument against the policy of [expected] celibacy for Roman Catholic priests.

[Trotterdam]

Child abuse scandals have rocked the church, with hundreds of victims coming forward to speak of their suffering at the hand of priests. Is the rule of celibacy creating sexual frustration for priests?

The middle question in that list has been raised in RL, as an argument against the policy of [expected] celibacy for Roman Catholic priests.

Yeah. There are conceivably more important issues, like if priests who aren't themselves commiting abuse are nonetheless aware of their fellow priests' misbehavior but keeping silent about it as a gesture of "institutional solidarity", but without that angle specifically being brought up, the biggest question would be "why does this keep happening and how do we stop it?", and that is a commonly-suggested answer. What to do about the criminals themselves is pretty obvious and a matter for the courts, not @@LEADER@@. (Admittedly, questioning the rule of celibacy is probably also a matter for religious authorities, not @@LEADER@@.)

[Australian rePublic]

And is the issue there what the bottles were made of?

Would the response have changed if they were glass bottles or cardboard cartons?

Oh, I see. Right. Makes sense. Thanks. I wrote this issue under the assumption that there were no single use water containers, period. I was actually thinking of adding an option about glass/canned/boxed water containers, but thought it was too obvious, so I chose not to. I see. Cheers