I dunno.

The earth is pretty big, and vape batteries are tiny, and we keep finding substitutes.

I'm all for reducing waste, but it seems unlikely we'll run out of metals in our lifetimes.

Keep in mind, things keep getting more efficient, and rich nations are finally tending toward using LESS per capita.

Sure, the poor nations might eventually become rich and the global population has not yet peeked, but there's no reason to assume our materials usage will grow exponentially forever.

And, even if you assumed we were going to run out of whatever is in these tiny vape pens - the percentage of all usage going to tiny applications like this is a rounding error. It's not what you would attack if you really wanted to move the needle.

You'd probably try to reduce the number of people buying new cars, for example.

> in our lifetimes

Is the key here. We need to think beyond our lifetimes. We should be treating the earth like we're going to live on it for (tens or hundreds of) thousands of years, because I sure as shit hope we (meaning humans) are going to.

Yes, reducing creation of cars would certainly have a much bigger impact, and should be done. But it's also a lot harder than dealing with vapes.

Anyway, as far as I understand it, the main reason this is happening isn't happening to reduce waste, it's happening to stop a rise in nicotine consumption in children. Preventing waste is more of a nice side effect.

The UK isn't a 'free country' in the way American's use the term. It took me a few years of living in America to understand the nuance. I think the 'freedoms' Americans have raises it's own problems for society (eg guns) and there isn't a right or wrong, just different.

The joke I always like to make is that in the US everything is legal unless the government legislates to say you can't, in Europe everything is illegal unless the government legislates to say you can. :D

> The joke I always like to make is that in the US everything is legal unless the government legislates to say you can't

Guess where the US got that from? Yes, the UK, and it still applies.

I think you're forgetting something called the CONSTITUTION which gives a number of rights that one doesn't have in the UK like

-Freedom of expression (can't be arrested for social media posts, can't easily get sued into the ground for libel[0])

-Right to bear arms (technically legal for citizens to organize their own militant force, though often discouraged)

-Right to remain silent (it is always advised to never talk to the police under any circumstances).

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPEECH_Act

As an American, I'm still often baffled by American Exceptionalism. Often people who say stuff like this have zero actual clue about how things are done in other countries. And it's laughable to call out the right to bear arms when just being suspected of having a weapon is enough to justify an execution by the police.

I recall the time the Japanese imprisoned the CEO of Nissan on trumped up charges and he had to smuggle himself out of the country to escape. Of course the US has Gitmo, but in general the justice system is remarkably fair compared to other countries, since its much harder to get a guilty verdict, which is why so many criminal court cases end with plea deals instead.

Good thing we don't have a history of mistreatment of Japanese nationals. We clearly have clean hands in this regard.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_America...

Especially considering the fifth amendment was specifically intended to allow for a militia to defend against the government, not to enable students to carry an automatic rifle into school—but here we are

2nd amendment, 5th is the "right to remain silent" etc.

Still, the issue with school shootings is mostly that it targets the wrong people. After school programs, community support for troubled youth, options for local service or a job placement program for kids would all be solutions, but the youth only sees other kids at school as the problem. If the system is so screwed up that a kid feels the need to take up arms to fight against it, then they should, but school shootings are unnecessarily cruel and generally fail to lead to progressive changes; more often than not they become justification for increases in the very authoritarian measures that promote the violence in the first place.

That sentiment originated in discussions of English common law, where it was being contrasted with European legal codes.

> in Europe everything is illegal unless the government legislates to say you can.

That doesn't seem accurate. I'm guessing you haven't lived in a country where that's much closer to reality?

> The joke I always like to make is that in the US everything is legal unless the government legislates to say you can't, in Europe everything is illegal unless the government legislates to say you can.

That's pretty good. It's a succinct contrast of the difference between a citizen and a subject.

That's the joke they made about the Soviet Union; it's inaccurate for Europe. But in Europe the government isn't afraid to make things illegal.

That's just nonsense.

I have a different thought about that kind of stuff in that in 100 years or so landfills will probably be literal gold mines (or whatever else you're looking for).

at least we'll mine them. with helium, we put it in party balloons and lose it to space.

There's plenty of helium in the solar system (granted, a bit further out) and the sun is producing 595 million tons per second.

Let me guess, you have plans that to mine that helium by working at night?

yes, and it'll be very easy to capture in commercial quantities, I'm sure.

What, you've never heard of star-lifting? Or just getting it from Saturn? Commercial/economic quantities are all about the necessity versus scarcity, and helium has unique properties that can't be synthesized in sufficient quantities even if you ran all of Earth off fusion of hydrogen into helium.

> Or just getting it from Saturn?

always love a good laugh in the morning!

I'm as much a fan of sci-fi as anybody, and the last 5 years of space x should make anybody optimistic about the future of space exploration, but strip mining Saturn is a long way away from providing for the needs of MRI machines and other essential modern technology. what will happen first is that the prices will rise and we will stop using it in party balloons, and then it'll be too expensive for the lower 95% of the population for any use at all for decades/centuries - and that's even if we do manage to escape the local gravity well for good. even that's doubtful - space is just unbelievably hostile.