Just to be clear, I think the act of being religious is harmful even if you were to get rid of every single church. Pedantic, yes, but the point is that this is purely a behavioral thing, not a specific action. I have tax-free ideas on the best ways to go about getting people to stop believing in dumb things but those are far beyond the scope of this conversation.

I am not “confusing” anything. In the case of teenage pregnancy, I have seen the conversation start and stop with “teenagers just shouldn’t have sex”.

If you’re just saying “I wish the world were X”, then sure you can make a declarative statement about what people are doing. That’s not what I have an issue with.

My issue is when people make a statement like “people should just…” without engaging in any meaningful way for that to happen.

Taxes on harmful behavior is one possible way we can curve it. It’s not the only way, and I am not claiming as such, but clearly righteous indignation telling people to stop using single-use plastics has not worked. We can wax philosophical as to why it hasn’t worked, and there might be value in that, but I just don’t think it’s particularly useful to begin an argument with “people should just stop buying single use plastic” as if that by itself is a meaningful thing to say.