Intents

05 Feb 2016

I think that the actions individuals take is important.

A recent thread on a community slack I’m in featured a discussion about the resource usage (mostly water) of washing a load of rags per week versus that of throwing out single-use paper towels over the course of that week.

It’s an interesting problem for a lot of reasons, probably most of which don’t form a coherent thread which is why I’m posting it here where my navel is the only thing that can be seen. At this time I’m a pretty frequent paper towel user, though it is certainly the case that they consume more resources than a weekly load of rags. We all make decisions, and which decisions we make are where my interest lies.

On the one hand, individual usage doesn’t matter when compared to the waste generated by commercial use. A simple google search suggests that the average load of laundry uses 19 gallons of water. None of this is verified and I could go look as specific specifications if I really wanted to but it’s not really the point of this paragraph. 19 gallons per week is - I can’t help it I’m sorry - a drop in the bucket comparted to what is used for commercial needs.

I think that individual change does matter though because those corporations are emergent entities, as are really any organization, public or private, for profit or not. The behaviour of an entity that is formed of a group of humans is an emergent property of the behaviours those humans are willing and able to perform.

If individuals start making concious decisions and increase their mindfulness around what is and isn’t wasteful then in time those emergent entities could share those values.

I do things sometimes because I think that if I do these sorts of things, then probably other people are doing these sorts of things. I’m not an individual actor. My specific combination of motivators that drive my behaviour may be unique, but many humans are motivated by similar or identical factors. If I make a choice then people who are like me are also making a choice.

I do like the notion that I’m bifurcating the parallel universe Robs each time I do something though and when I am intentional about the decisions I make then I want to be in the infinite cohort of Robs that are working towards the better universe, whatever it is that better is. It’s a weird sort of weight and absolutely on the woo side of reality but I think that a consideration like this is helpful to me.

If we create a new universe every time we make a decision it doesn’t mean there’s an equal number of universes where a decision was made to follow one of the possible paths. Not every Rob is going to experience the same decisions, but many Robs will experience many of the same ones, if only because the number of Robs that make bad decisions probably experiences more death before they reach the decision point?

Anyway, good morning. It’s time to go see if a particular redis connection is working today.