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A comment on Crews are abandoned on ships in record numbers without pay, food or a way home. Parent comment

Re:Crews are abandoned on ships in record numbers without pa... by shakezula on Friday October 08, 2021 @01:50PM (#28802031)
You can't "buy less stuff" when the things we're talking about are necessities, often times food and critical supplies like fuel. Container ships don't just ship you game consoles and televisions.

And even if you managed to reduce all private consumption to zero, commercial consumption probably makes up an order of magnitudes more than private does. It doesn't matter what YOU do, you can't change the scales that these ships operate.

The only thing that will fix this is government intervention and fines that make it less cost effective to abandon the ship than to deal with the consequences.

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Re:Crews are abandoned on ships in record numbers without pa... by jessaustin on Friday October 08, 2021 @02:04PM (#28802214)
You can't "buy less stuff" when the things we're talking about are necessities, often times food and critical supplies like fuel.

This isn't really an excuse in e.g. USA, which produces surpluses in both of these commodities.

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Re:Crews are abandoned on ships in record numbers without pa... by shakezula on Tuesday October 12, 2021 @04:57PM (#28844986)
Those surpluses are mostly exported, and besides that you're missing the forest for the trees. Individual action, even if completely efficient and pervasive, would not be enough to fix this problem.
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Re:Crews are abandoned on ships in record numbers without pa... by jessaustin on Wednesday October 13, 2021 @09:20PM (#28859503)
That is a related but distinct point. Solidarity and collective action are required, but when we accomplish those we'll be able to just eat and burn what is produced domestically.
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Re:Crews are abandoned on ships in record numbers without pa... by forgotmypw17 on Friday October 08, 2021 @04:41PM (#28803935)
I would hazard an eyeball guess that the overwhelming majority of container ships headed for the U.S. are carrying non-essentials.

I disagree with your statement that "it doesn't matter what you do". It is all that matters, because what everyone else does is beyond my control, and only what I do is under my control.

Individual action and its spread through word-of-mouth is pretty much the only way anything changes in this world.

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Re:Crews are abandoned on ships in record numbers without pa... by shakezula on Tuesday October 12, 2021 @05:01PM (#28845032)
It doesn't matter what you do, because it's not a problem you, the consumer, created.

It's a set of misaligned incentives that create a hole where ships like these fit. No amount of your individual do-gooding will fix that incentive misalignment.

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Re:Crews are abandoned on ships in record numbers without pa... by trangus_1985 on Friday October 08, 2021 @01:51PM (#28802043)
But you can "buy less stuff" in general. And that will reduce your impact.
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Re:Crews are abandoned on ships in record numbers without pa... by shakezula on Tuesday October 12, 2021 @04:59PM (#28845009)
Sure, but that has literally no impact on the incentives that created this problem in the first place. It's not related to volume or frequency, and if anything less frequent and smaller shipments might exacerbate this issue in the current system. Supply chains are counter-intuitive like that sometimes.
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