Submitted 4 months ago by Grayox@lemmy.ml to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
300 million lbs of fireworks and 2.7 billion dollars gone in a cloud of smoke.
Fireworks are a cool spectacle, imagine never seeing a fireworks show. Also the money isnt gone, its just changed hands.
They probably shouldnt be how they are now though, where every individual family wants to fire their own, thats a waste and really obnoxious when its in the middle of neighborhoods. Keep it to one centralized show, away from residential areas, and everyone gets to watch a bigger show.
3/4 of the fun is doing it yourself.
For you. Its obnoxious for others.
Fireworks are a cool spectacle, imagine never seeing a fireworks show.
Completely agree!
Also the money isnt gone, its just changed hands.
Not with this though. A portion of the money has changed hands, the portion that goes to paying workers and investors. Another portion of the money was used to extract, refine, and process something that just burned up.
It’s also important to consider opportunity cost. That money could have been spent on other things, when you spend it on something wasteful and unnecessary that means it can’t be spent on more useful or productive things.
All that being said, I still think fireworks are rad and worth it, but they are a waste.
Money was used to pay workers to extract, refine, and process resources. Absolutely none of the money is gone.
Money isn’t gone, resources are gone.
That’s like saying vacations or going to the movies are a waste. It’s entertainment and it stays in part as a memory. By your argument the only thing you should purchase is a large decorative rock for the front yard, because it will last longer than you do.
As a veteran with PTSD, I agree
My uncle came back from Vietnam with really bad PTSD (among other problems like alcoholism). Every fourth he would spend the whole day/night in the basement with the curtains drawn (to block out the flashes) and headphones on with the sound turned all the way up (to block out the sounds).
He would also take my cousins to buy fireworks every year.
I don’t mean to minimize your struggle, I just thought the juxtaposition was interesting.
I hope you could work through your struggles. I’m happy to say he was able to. He was able to quit drinking and minimize the effects of his PTSD. By the end of his life he was out there watching us shoot off the fireworks.
Were you drafted?
The military is the only form of upward mobility for large swaths of the population, they are chewed up and spit out by the machine, after being indoctrinated in nationalist propaganda from the time they were able to form memories. Veterans are members of the Prolitariat and should be educated about the system that abused them, not mocked and rediculed for being a victim of it. Yes America has committed mass atrocities, but almost every service member who signed up was completely unaware of that at the time of their enlistment.
Can’t you say the same about virtually any form of entertainment? The electricity that runs the server you used to post this doesn’t come from nowhere.
I don’t think this is a fair comparison. Fireworks launch a lot of nanoparticles, metals, and other harmful chemicals in the sky and directly worsen air quality while lemmy.world’s servers use renewable energy.
I think a fairer comparison in entertainment would be sport. On paper it doesn’t produce anything to better humanity, there’s a ridiculous amount of fuel used by teams and fans to travel especially when it comes to something like a World Cup because it’s on a global scale.
In reality, the world absolutely needs it because that’s what people use to entertain themselves. People can’t be mindless drones fucking about; they won’t just read books all the time or go camping every day. There’s something primal that just comes out when it comes to sport and most people can’t live without it.
The materials to make the servers don’t come from nowhere. And the processes to get those materials are often very polluting.
It’s a totally valid point. Both waste your time and money to distract for a brief moment. You can use all the renewables you want but in the end the consumer is the product and the product needs you to keep consuming it to justify its existence. We need pyrotechnics to excercise ghost as much as we need another season of that marveldisneyfox show to survive. Or the steam summersale to make us think we are saving money by buying more games. Unsub, unsubscribe, smash the bellbutton
The long and the short of it is that we live in a society of different people who enjoy different things. Nearly everything is a trade off of some sort. Some people value the enjoyment they get from fireworks more than others. Some hate it. That is true of litterally everything. I strongly dislike the keeping of pets on anything smaller than a farm. But I don’t tell people they shouldn’t have pets. Being part of a society means living with a mix of things you like and don’t. And the society determines what is so commonly disliked that it should be not allowed by the law. Now many will say the fireworks are illegal in a lot of places. Yes so is speeding. Our system has three parts, the laws, the enforcement, and the penalties. Enforcement of fireworks laws are often pretty lax, same with speeding. And the penalties are almost always purely monetary. So society has said it doesn’t really care that much about fireworks. And the large number of people who use them and who show up to fireworks shows backs that up.
Fireworks are a celebration of peace. They’re made from the same ingredients as bullets but they make something beautiful instead of death. I’ve always found this a profoundly meaningful thing.
instead of death
Unless you count birds that abandon their nests, and other animals that flee their homes. Or the heavy metals and other chemicals that are added to the environment. Or the significant increases in particulate matter in the air.
We can come up with that laundry list of environmental impacts for a lot of things. Should we start with the electronic device you used to type your comment?
If you’re thinking to argue that your phone is essential while fireworks are mere entertainment, all I can say to you is “bread and roses.”
“they make something beautiful instead of death” Agreed, but your neighbor’s kid’s fingers might not agree after that M-80
we should ban every single thing that’s dangerous to the user
I swear I didn’t give that kid the M80.
I don’t believe fireworks should be retailed to the public in any form. They’re a very different story from an aeriel display put on by professionals.
I have a dog who would agree. If he could speak English (he’s from Mexico).
My girl only speaks limited English. She is currently in a panic attack and we’re about 8 miles away from the fireworks. She agrees.
That’s fucking hilarious. What is that from?
Honest question: have you considered getting him desensitized to the sound? It’s totally doable; hunters teach their dogs to not be afraid of the bang from their guns after all.
Highly unlikely. He was heavily abused and clearly has trauma, as any kind of sudden noise makes him jump.
Waste of money? No more so than any other form of entertainment that is temporary.
Environmentally, yeah…they’re pretty bad. Air pollution is a big issue. Some birds get killed when they run into things because they can’t see very well after being scared off by the fireworks. Any large human event is environmentally bad, like a sporting event.
We generate literal tons of plastic and other human waste when we gather for mass entertainment.
Okay so we generate literal tons of waste. There are also literally hundreds of millions of us, so “tons of waste” would happen if we gathered to eat brownies distributed on napkins.
Well that makes it all right then, doesn’t it?
Yeah but at the end of the day we’re handing out explosives for people to play with, even kids. Just feels like it’s not the best form of celebration.
Yes. Injury and fires are compounding factors, no denying that.
A local, professional display uses about 35kg of gunpowder (NEQ). When combusted this will produce about 17kg of CO2. To put this in context, most new petrol engines will produce about 190gm of CO2 per mile.
Therefore you would need to travel 88 miles to emit the equivalent amount of CO2 of your typical fireworks display. If you consider the a round trip distance for the entire audience to watch a single fireworks display, gunpowder is a fraction of the CO2 footprint.
The problem is pollution, not GHG emissions. Particles, NOx, Plastic debris…
On top of that your local fauna is not at all prepared for the nosie and light pollution.
Again, probably more particles, NOx, Plastic debris etc. from the audience.
Any football game with a flyover is multiple times more polluting.
Nice.
Now do the calculation that includes all of the direct suffering to humans, pets, and wild life, and then quantify all of the solid and liqueous waste associated with generation, transportation, and utilization, the latter including all of the waste associated with spectators attending the phenomenon.
What I think we’ll all discover is that private transportation and the lack of robust recycling infrastructure and waste recovery the world over sucks. We should all do something about it.
Reddit forces me to use their app and Lemmy forces me to recognize the bad in everything. The internet is basically trash now.
This guy maths
Of course they are a waste of money, and the plastic packaging is incredibly bad for the environment. And they are fun and I will buy them again next year.
Fireworks are like. 000000000000001% of a concern for GHG.
You shut down a coal plant for 1 days because you switched to solar temporarily and you probably offset the output.
The impact on nature goes beyond climate gases. At least here in Germany fireworks produce 1% of the yearly pm10 particulates. That’s not nothing.
It’s not nothing, but 1% goes to show just how much is no5 made by the giant 1 day full of sky explosions, and how likely 70-80% is from transport and energy sector.
Eliminating all fireworks from earth and banning them tomorrow would have a near 0 impact on anything, and be completely erased if a coal plant runs an extra day or two.
Yeah but no one ever actually does that.
Love them. There are tons on unnecessary things we do.
Exactly. Movies, the Internet, traveling.
As a life form, the 4 key aspects of life are:
1). Eat 2). Sleep 3). Defecate 4). Reproduce
Literally everything else you do is irrelevant or secondary to the core mission of life.
Reproduction is not nor has it ever been proven as a core mission of life and shouldn’t exist in that list. It has nothing to do with your core basis of life. It’s only to continue a life line or a cell decision reliant on environment. But it is not a core requirement in life.
It may be continuing a line but it is not proven as a core ‘mission’ of anything. It’s a bias decision and much of that relies on environment in which the cell lives in. It’s as much a ‘core mission’ as the effort of immortality should an environmental condition not be met. Some species continue their strain of life by cloning and some if even just one has achieved immortality and has no necessary core mission to reproduce.
This is sort of where I get confused about people pissed at Taylor Swift for having a private jet. Like I totally understand that some of the trips have been shown to be unnecessary and I agree. But how many sports teams and equipment do we transport for greater carbon emissions to bring joy to a fraction as many people? Like think about an American football game, world cup game, Olympics, F1 race, Golf tournament… hell even Burning Man? I feel like it’s just low hanging fruit for her critics to stir up shit.
I wouldn’t say it’s ridiculous if it’s once a year. If we did it every night…yeah. But people spend more money on a lot dumber stuff, like expensive purses and giant luxury trucks.
Yeah, the places that do it every night like Disneyland should get in some real trouble for it.
if it’s once a year. If we did it every night…
Around here (MidWest city), fireworks go off every night for a month before, and then a month after the fourth. And I don’t mean a small amount, either.
Basically, most of summer is devoted to fireworks play, with the fourth being a deluxe version of the “fun.”
It’s only a waste if you don’t enjoy it. Just like some people think painting a bunch of nonsensical images is a waste of time and money but you might thoroughly enjoy it
At least in that case you have a choice of whether or not to look at those nonsensical images. With fireworks the general disruption and potential danger is not a choice.
You can always hide in my basement, I’ve got video games and ice cream down there. We can play a game of twister if you’d like 🙂
I think they’re amazing. The chemistry of colored flame has fascinated me since I was young, and there’s nothing quite like being close to explosions. If I had more time and lived in the US I’d be a hobby pyrotechnician.
What are your hobbies, OP?
I paint, crochet, and listen to audiobooks. What about yourself?
Watching grass grow? Joke
Knitting
I hate fireworks and always have. I get people like them, but I wish they didn’t go all night from every direction. If each area had a central park/spot where they did a big firework show for everyone for a little bit I wouldn’t mind it as much, but now every street has they’re own fireworks that go off randomly through the night.
Also something I don’t think a lot of people think about. In my old neighborhood a lot of us had varying forms on PTSD and couldn’t deal with the loud bangs. Holidays where fireworks were heavy were treated as a ceasefire/peace day for the most part since basically everyone who had been involved in a shooting was a mess, which was almost everyone. Others took the chance to disrespect that and use the fireworks as cover, they weren’t treated well.
I’m sure most veterans feel the same or worse.
It’s not just dogs who lose it at fireworks.
I’ll disagree on the “most veterans” part. The people who I know who fire off the most and biggest fireworks are vets. They seem to be more comfortable around explosives, or just more used to it. I don’t know which.
I think they’re fun
I am not worried about their environmental impact, but I hate seeing my dog spend the evening shaking because of the explosions. Even sedatives aren’t enough. If you could have fireworks without the big booms, I wouldn’t care, but the big booms scare the shit out of a lot of animals.
I like them. The big shows are a rare form of artistic expression. And even the stuff you can buy, is a form of fun you cannot get anywhere else.
Drone shows are boring. You can watch them on a screen and lose none of the experience. I mean, the first time you see it it’s interesting, but then you remember it’s just a bunch of drones, and your going to be stuck in traffic just so you can see a pixilated coke can or something. There’s nothing unique or special about the experience I feel. Unlike fireworks, while they can look fine on a screen (if recorded properly) but you can see the difference on someone’s face when you’re there. You see it, feel it, and smell it. It makes sense why humans have been doing this for hundreds of years.
Several other people feel this way and you’re all wrong. Is good food wasted because after you eat it it’s gone? Are vacations stupid because once it’s over nothing has materially changed? No? So why are fireworks pointless simply because they’re temporary?
I love animals. So I would agree with you. I do enjoy watching fireworks but it’s not worth the suffering of innocence creatures.
2.7 billion dollars gone in a cloud of smoke.
… you know that’s not how money works right?
It hurts so many animals too.
in this part of the world, we are blessed with stray dogs who are also protected by our supreme court. it’s quite literally against the law, for example, to prohibit the feeding of strays by animal lovers.
i once saw one of them shudder and whine at the sound of fireworks. its tail scrunched under and it pissed itself in fear and confusion. its plaintive moans were drowned out by the incessant blasts of the “mala” crackers (a literal garland of 10,000 or so crackers strung out in sequence that goes on bursting for an hour or so). the poor thing just did not know what was happening and it became a shivering ball of anxiety until the blasts stopped.
anyone who sees an innocent animal suffer like that will never, ever, want to light a firecracker again.
Yes. They only exist for brainless people who think blowing useless things up, annoying neighbors, scaring pets, and waking sleeping babies is fun.
Does anyone else feel like adding salt to food is a complete waste of money?
Fire, explosions and bang sounds are fun. It gets old quick (I’m not a fan of firework shows), but I do enjoy lighting a small bunch of fireworks with some friends.
I’m ok with professional firework shows.
I’m not ok for every kid in the neighborhood having access to little explosives.
i think fireworks are nice but they’re to a large degree something from a different age and at this point we should only really be using smaller volcano-style ones, and like holy shit we have drone technology, why aren’t drone displays standard in any vaguely populated area?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lnBmYAiduo
www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyEWcfn7rT0
look at this shit, it’s so cool! can we please push for this to be the standard?
Xantar@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 months ago
Yup, that could also be said about music, cinema and any other form of art that doesn’t produce anything “useful” but again, what is “useful” varies from one person to another.
Ultimately nothing matters because there is no true meaning of life, so anything that pulls you away from the dark nothingness of existence is good to take.
rodbiren@midwest.social 4 months ago
I can’t think of other art forms that blow off the hands of so many people, wake up my daughter in terror at 11PM, and make both dogs and veterans suffer for an extended period of time. I’m fine with the large group spectacle that is planned and controlled. What I can’t stand is the widespread uncontrollable nonsense of just anyone buying them and setting them off at any hour on the 4th. Law enforcement can do absolutely nothing about it. I’m just gonna have to deal with it. I’m just surprised we haven’t collectively shifted to something less harmful.
illi@lemm.ee 4 months ago
Not just dogs or other pets, but also farm and wild animals. And it may not only lead to suffering, but also lead to their deaths.
A_Union_of_Kobolds@lemmy.world 4 months ago
That’s what I’m saying. One day we’ll look back in amazement that we let the public buy fireworks willy-nilly. Even the “it was good enough for me!” crowd of angry old-timers will have to go “Well, yeah, people blowed they hands off. And it bothered my veteran son and the neighbor’s dogs a lot. They’re alright.”
Now, I fully admit later today I will be running around in a country field with my friends shooting bottle rockets at each other. But we won’t be bothering SOMEONE ELSE, and that’s my thing.
Xantar@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 months ago
You make a good point. Which can also be made about any form of freedom as soon as it encroaches on someone else’s comfort.
Ignoring the obvious nuance, a loud concert or a horror movie are also not something law enforcement will do anything against but it could terrorize people as well.
intensely_human@lemm.ee 4 months ago
Do you understand why this is our way of celebrating Independence Day? Fireworks are a loud, visible, symbol and example of freedom from authority.
Grayox@lemmy.ml 4 months ago
Yeah but none of them are anywhere near as ephemeral as a firework display.
Xantar@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 months ago
That doesn’t make them more/less worth it.
If your criteria for worthiness is persistence then is a nice looking meal as worth it as a goop ?
Feathercrown@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Something like a sunset, a blizzard, or a thunderstorm are the more closely comparable natural equivalent. They’re special because they’re short-lived or rare.
howrar@lemmy.ca 4 months ago
A theater performance is equally ephemeral. Or a concert. Or meeting your favorite celebrity. Or a good meal.
Thavron@lemmy.ca 4 months ago
It’s a nihilist, Donny!
Land_Strider@lemmy.world 4 months ago
There’s nothing to be afraid of.
mecfs@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Eh. Half of that 2.7 billion being put into research into a disease like Myalgic Enceph. (ME) could probably significantly improve the quality of life of 80 million people who have one of the worlds most disabling diseases.
bungalowtill@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 months ago
BS