How does that help the people in the shipping industry? Let's say you did reduce shipping and therefore there were fewer shipping jobs, the people currently doing this work would lose these jobs and have to find other work. Something which would be even less attractive than shipping. How's that help them?
I think there is a difference between guilt and complicity, though they are related.
I have somewhat limited agency in this world, limited to the little bit of money I spend, the movement of my arms and legs, the words I speak, the things I look at, and my thoughts and intentions.
Not really, in a free market consumers directing their consumption away from a sector does not make them complicit in the abuses or bankruptcy of that sector.
They don't have direct relationship to that sector anymore, after all.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I think it's an alternative to second-hand and thrift shops, and the biggest advantage is that it is available even in areas without thrift shops.
The second advantage is that you don't have to pay, so it is more likely that items will find a good home instead of being discarded.
The third advantage is non-participation in the money system, if you're into that sort of thing, and also the elimination of overhead for store and inventory upkeep.
One downside, of course, is that most people aren't willing to keep their "stock" around for too long, so there's limited inventory at any given time that you can browse.
It’s typically just a Facebook group of your neighbors, so “platform” might be a bit strong for what it is. Besides everything being free, I’ve found it helps build a bit of a sense of community for those who participate.
Ah gotcha, I heard about that, the founders sort of stepped back from the FB groups version and started trying to push a standalone app version. I'm guessing the FB groups version is still more popular/useful.
Oh, also, there're a lot of plants and things that get exchanged, another difference from second hand shops.
Is an economic recession or depression necessarily bad, if everyone's basic needs are still accounted for?
If the economy is in a state of overproduction and extreme waste while the effects are the burn-up of our own habitat, shouldn't it tune down a bit anyway?
Think hard before buying something "new". You may not need it, or you may be able to find alternatives, such as hand-me-downs, secondhand, etc.