Post #4250069
2026-07-30 18:10 UTC
When someone says “There are some downsides to the choice you made,” even if that’s followed “but you are probably still making the best choice,” as often as not people experience it not as the frustrating reality of life but as an ego threat.
Replies (2)
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@inthehands@hachyderm.io 2026-07-30 18:16
To my mind, one of the psychological pillars of good engineering of any kind is letting go of that egocentric mode, accepting (deeply, philosophically, rationally, and emotionally) that •everything• is tradeoffs, and embracing correctness and goodness as a direction, and endless process and never a destination.
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@donw@mastodon.coffee 2026-07-30 18:18
@inthehands@hachyderm.io It’s been over thirty years but I still remember the disgruntled silence that settled over the room in my intro to environmental science class. The professor had just told the class that if the bag is one-use and will simply be recycled/discarded that choosing plastic was the lower-impact decision.