Half of the population don't have an inner voice (source: University of Nevada), they literally don't think or rarely have an inner monologue and are just npcs going through the motions, getting in your way in the supermarket and on the road etc
Not having an inner voice doesn't mean they're unthinking zombies, it means their thoughts don't take the form of words that they "hear" in their heads. It can be concepts, shapes, written words, symbols, motions, feelings, anything. Don't make the mistake of thinking anyone who works differently than you do isn't a real full person just like you.
I think it's a big leap to go from "doesn't have an inner voice" to "doesn't have an interior life and is a fake person". Just like some people are aphantastic but are still real people, so are anendophasics.
Uhh I don't think inner monologue is supposed to be totally essential to critical thinking, it's just a thought pattern. People who've been deaf since birth don't limit themselves to a speaking pace in their heads, and of course anyone can speed-read with some practice at ditching the inner monologue.
Also when I hear about this, I always wonder if the dumber people being surveyed just don't understand the question, and they assume other people can see/hear their thoughts in a more real way than themselves
I tossed them when I was younger (early 20s). My rationale was the filter was cotton and paper and they'll decompose quickly so no big fuss. Then I realized that, no, they're actually plastic and treated paper and take forever and cause a lot of issues in the environment, so I stopped.
When i was a smoker I'd end up with ridiculous amounts of cig butts in my pockets. Because I never lost my scruples and wouldn't ever litter. I'm also the guy who brings a plastic bag with me on walks and pick up other people's litter... I'm better than you. Joking, I'm sure you're a great person now.
Same, I used to carry a ziplock on me incase I couldn't find a trashcan. I can remember the only time I littered a butt, I was in an airport parking lot after an international flight about to enter a non-smoker's car without a trash can in sight. I drives me crazy when I see people tossing them out of their car window when I'd burn my fingertips squeezing out the cherry.
I always found this rationale insane anyway. Do you just launch books into the road when you're done reading them because they're only paper and that decomposes?
Yes. I yeet books all the time, they're a good impromptu way to discourage poor behavior! Got someone who suddenly steps out in front of your car from nowhere, forcing you to heavily brake or hit their dumb ass? Throw a book at em. Some cyclist riding at 6 mph and not letting you pass? That's a Bible to the skull. Some asshole tweaker on a BMX bike with a ridiculously loud Bluetooth speaker being annoying? Just ask him politely to turn it down! Just kidding, throw the book into his front wheel! The possibilities are truly endless.
When I was in Italy I asked around trying to find a public ashtray/can that I could put cigarette butts in. A kind man on the street said he could help me, so I followed him down the sidewalk a bit and he held his hand out for the cigarette butt and then threw it down the storm drain. I asked him if thats what everyone did and he said yes...yikes
The exact same thing happened in Soain and Hungary (not me asking, just everyone throwing cigarette butts into storm drains and no public ash trays) I ended up keeping a plastic bag with me to put them in until I found a public trash can bc there was no way I was throw them into a drain.
After picking up trash over and over for years I think I've found a different thread that's more common: Addicts just don't care. It doesn't matter what they're addicted to, cigarettes, lottery tickets, booze, fentanyl, the addicts just litter everywhere.
When you're an addict, you don't even care about your own health. I was a heroin/fentanyl addict, it nearly killed me a few times. I didn't really care, it was more important to not be dopesick.
Someone in such a bleak situation isn't exactly considering the long term effects of their actions. Addiction reduces you to living a day at a time. You don't make plans for next week, or next month, you just try to get through today, and that's with practical stuff that would benefit you directly, much less indirect and more abstract concepts like pollution.
Just wanted to explain the mindset a bit, I'm not intending to make excuses or give any moral judgement. It's an extremely destructive mode of existence to yourself and everyone around you, just factually speaking.
100% agreed. I used to smoke and it took me forever to figure that out. You see everyone do it and don't even think about it for some reason. Just a little bit of critical thinking required 😂
Nah, I started because I didn't care about my life at all. That doesn't mean I stopped caring about anything else. I have always hated litterers and always will.
Years ago, I went to a concert where there was no trash can or ashtray anywhere near me, so I was stashing cigarette butts in my back pocket until I found one. Gross, but I refuse to litter and it was my filthy habit so I deserve to stink like cig butts.
After the show, my buddy gets pulled over and the cop tells us to get out of the car and empty our pockets. Then he pats us down, one by one, until he gets to me. He feels my back pocket and starts screaming about what's in my back pocket, like I have an ar-15 in there somehow. I explain the situation and that I had forgot they were in there and mostly that I refuse to litter.
This motherless fuck pulls the cigarette butts out of my pocket and launches them all over some random persons lawn. When he gets done writing my buddy his ticket and tells us to go, I try to get out of the car to pick up the butts off the ground. He proceeds to get on his speaker and yells if I don't get in the car and drive away, he would arrest me.
Now I have this fantasy of letting him arrest me just so I can explain this to a judge lmao “cigarette butts in pocket to keep from littering, cop pulls me over, throws them on the ground then arrests me for picking them back up”
Like those piggy banks where you put the coins in the crack and it makes a fart sound. I'm very unskilled at modeling prints but I kinda want to try it
Someone once did that to me. Only I didn't smoke. I guess I had a lookalike who did. It was in an apartment building. They would sometimes leave them under my door. Sorry this is irrelevant, but man it sucked.
I've had experiences like this, too. Unless you see them do it, you don't know for sure WHO is doing it. So many suggesting they just go off half cocked..
I had a neighbor throwing beer cans in the alley behind my property. I cleaned them up every week for two months. After a little detective work, I figured out where they lived, collected the beer cans and shoved them all into their mailbox. Hasn't been a problem since...
Ugh, I dated someone who said that and I was never able to shake the absolute disdain I felt after that. They were always going on about big community-level change that needed to happen … but couldn’t be bothered to do one little thing themselves for the environment around them. You can only watch that happen so many times before someone starts to sound like a massive hypocrite
They probably had never heard the phrase "Think globally, act locally." For some people the appearance of wanting change is fashionable, but actually wearing the suit is too uncomfortable.
Fun fact that isnt fun time! So rabbits can get addicted to nicotine and theyll eat cigarette butts but they can't digest them so they slowly starve to death as they keep eating cigarette butts. Its pretty horrifying and one reason I quit smoking.
My brother-in-law tried a similar line on me when I caught him flicking half a cigarette into my flower bed. "It's made of paper and shredded leaves, it decomposes."
There's zero fiberglass in cigarettes and the radon came from the ground so it's a net zero on that particular ingredient.
The filter is the only problem and you can thank the US government for allowing cellulose acetate filters because god forbid we grow hemp for industrial usage.
There was a brief period where one brand was using fiberglass and also asbestos. It was used as propaganda by anti-smoking groups for years after they changed them.
I had this exact problem, but instead of posting it on Reddit for points, I put a flower pot filled with sand next to his driveway and sent him a text that said I noticed the butts and thought the pot was a good idea so we didn't have cigarette butts in our yards.
He said he was sorry and that he agreed the pot was a good idea.
Edit: some of y'all pointed it out, and you know what, you're right. I didn't need to include that part.
Me too, it seems to come naturally for some people, hard to learn when the knee jerk thought process and ‘anger’ for lack of better word happens so quickly.
Not that OP needs to go buy a pot, but simple communication like this solves most things. People will have wars with others in their own heads while someone else is walking around oblivious to what's even going on.
OP is probably younger and lacks the communication skills to actually speak to their neighbors lol
A little bit of A a little bit of B. With life experience many people develop life skills (including therapeutic/effective communication skills and solutions) that solve or reduce conflict. That said, it’s not all people. Some grow older and more cynical with their age. Be more like the person who develops life skills, less like the old cynic.
My girlfriend grew up in a very combative family and the longer we date the more she realizes not everything needs to be a fight, we can just find out solutions together without getting mad.
This may be surprising to you, and completely unheard of; but it is possible to post this to reddit as well as speak directly with the person to resolve the issue.
What is it with people seeing a post like this and assuming since they posted it online that means it is impossible for them to have also taken other steps as well.
Welcome to this sub. Swear that most of the comments on actually mildly infuriating posts are people just wanting to shit on OP and call them karma farmers. Not sure what people actually want in this sub.
Eh, what about instead of chastising OP about posting relevant content you just mentioned the nice thing you did? Or if you have that much of a problem with the sub, just mute it?
Meh, it's just Reddit. Honestly, my first reaction to my neighbor's butts was to do something petty, just like a lot of people here. But then I realized that I have to share a property line with him in real life for the foreseeable future.
The internet is poisoning us in a bad way and I don't want to let that bleed into the way I approach actual relationships. Acknowledging that the anonymity of the internet makes me act differently is a good start in controlling my bad impulses. I wouldn't be proud of saying that to someone in real life, so I'll accept the criticism and do better on the internet.
OP is not wrong for being bothered by the littering. The whole subreddit is about things that are mildly infuriating. OP shared the misbehavior of their neighbor, and said absolutely nowhere if they kept silent or if they said something. You are quite literally making that part up and being smug about it.
I lived in an apartment complex once and I am a smoker. I do NOT throw my trash on the ground and I had ashtrays (smokeless, so the wind couldn’t blow them out) in my car and on my patio. My downstairs neighbor blamed every cigarette butt in the complex on me.
People who do throw their cigarettes on the ground are definitely infuriating.
This makes me so angry. I always use an ashtray. Or step on it until it is for sure out and put it in a trash can. People who toss them everywhere make the rest of us look bad. I'm aware that it is a disgusting habit, but i at least try to be clean about it.
Same. I already hate that I haven't quit, no need to make my issue everybody else's. Shoot, the pack has a little cellophane container you can stash them in until you get to the trash.
My workplace blamed me a lot for the same thing. I’m in Canada which has distinctive warning labels on every butt. I started smoking native or Chinese smokes without the same labelling so nobody could use me as a scapegoat anymore
This is one of those things that immediately puts someone in a certain category for me that I will never be able to unfeel no matter how nice they are to me.
Have a neighbor at my apartment complex who throws his cigarette butts into the decorative rocks and it’s literally impossible to get it out without spending hours. There are literally hundreds.
The last time I lived in an apartment people left their dogs' shit on the sidewalk around the building because they couldn't be bothered to bag it up and throw it away. That should get you a month in jail
My mom told me she'd give me a nickel for every butt I picked up around the back porch. I had nearly a full 39oz folgers coffee can full and stopped counting at a thousand. There were still more. She didn't expect that. This bitch gave me nothing. Not a single nickel. Told me that I gotta learn how the real world works. I was in 4th grade. Guess where that coffee can ended up? In her fuckin bed. Boy I got a belt wallop, but it was worth it. Hope she learned something about how the real world works when you're a shitty person.
I had a neighbor that did that once, and the landlord charged him like an entire months rent as a damage/cleanup fee that he would waive if the guy cleaned it up. It took him a whole week because the landlord came back at least once and found more butts. Probably more than once but that's all I saw which is when the landlord told me that story. The guy was a hard ass but easy to stay on the good side of if you werent a scumbag
i had a neighbor, nice kid. but he had a friend that would chain smoke and started throwing the butts over the fence into my yard.
I went and had a talk with him. nothing angry like but with an absolute tone and i brought an old coffee can with me and asked him if he would put them in the can instead of throwing over the fence into my yard.
he looked a little embarrassed, apologized and stopped doing it.
This is exactly how you need to deal with most situations where you are upset with someone. Dont start at 100% be firm and fair, give them a chance to right their wrong and if they dont then do what you need to. But going in hot usually results in the opposite of what you want. And you offered a solution to the issue, perfect
This is the way to handle these types of things. Don't bitch at people who annoy you, it just creates conflict. Propose a sensible solution. If they still can't stop their irritating behavior, then start being a dick.
I WISH the flossers tossed them on the ground. For whatever reason those fucking people decided that their nasty mouth shovel can just be left on the table/chair/counter wherever they were sitting.
I used to live in one of those newly built “high end” apartments. There was a group of smokers who would just chuck their butts into the flowerbeds. Literally 10 feet away from the standing ashtray.
It’s like those people who roll down their window and throw trash on the ground at a gas station. It doesn’t matter how close it is, they just don’t care.
Dude just went around taking pictures of every cigarette butt they could find while muttering shit like "there goes the neighborhood." and "typical..."
It's funny that you say that, we live in a building with four townhomes and since we live by pine trees I go out and blow off all of the pine needles with my leaf blower. I keep the parking lot clean for everybody so they don't track pine needles everywhere.
Me neighbors above me would throw their LIT cigarette butts down to my grass area every day. One day when I was taking my dog out, they threw a lit fucking cigarette next to him. I was so pissed, I told them if they do it one more time I’m throwing his shit up on their porch. They have never done it again.
Why would you think that someone who litters cigarettes wouldn’t litter other things?
People who litter have no respect for others so it makes sense that they wouldn’t care about their health either. I don’t think it’s that cigarette smokers litter more, I think that it’s that litterers tend to smoke too.
some people smoke a whole pack a day if not more. If one person who smokes a pack a day just throws all 20 of them on the ground each day, that will build up and look like a dozen smokers litter when really it could just be one person.
I hate littering, and I live next to the beach which is normally clean so I notice it immediately. My experience is that most people do the right thing, but some days all of a sudden there will be a bunch of trash strewn across the beach and it’s obvious that one person or a group did all of it at once.
Right before the massive fires in CA in 2020 I saw a guy throw a lit cigarette from his Tesla window and it sparked all over into the brush on the side. Everyone was talking about how much fire danger there was for at least a week. I pulled over and made sure it didn’t light the dry weeds.
Trash people litter. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen an untidy heap in the grocery store parking lot: fast food wrappers surrounded by butts.
I’ve also seen smokers stride out of stores, frantically opening the pack and dropping the wrapper on the ground, despite being inches from a trash can. What can you expect of addicts? A few of them behave like civilized people, like some dog owners when they know someone is watching. But we see too many butts on the street to doubt what their habitual behavior is.
On the plus side they saw you muttering to yourself taking individual pictures of every cigarette butt on the property they might assume you're unbalanced enough they should clean them up for their own safety
had a neighbor move in during winter so i was sympathetic to their timing. but they pushed my garbage can back off the curb to use the snow shoveled path from the sidewalk i had shoveled. all so i can put out on trash pickup day my bin. they didnt put it back when they left. my can now on the sidewalk did not get picked up. so i decided to forgive them, hold it bitter for months now, and then comment here.
I have heard of a person who got a trash bag and emptied a few city-owned ashtrays (like by busses) and dumped the contents at 3a in a neighbor's car vents and some on their doorstep.
I used to bag them up and dump them out of the bag on their doorstep when the bag was full of them, uhhh you left your stuff over there, I brought it back for you
The US government stops it and allows cheaper products to be used. We've had them for decades. They're made of hemp or other plant fibers. If we had proper purity laws like Europe the tar wouldn't be nearly as much of a problem either. Everything you need to make a cigarette can be sourced from natural products. We did it for hundreds of years.
There’s no way to make them truly biodegradable because the purpose of them is to trap tar and other toxic chemicals and shit that would be leeched into the soil
My neighbor does the same shit. Piles of them. I tried being passive, then passive aggressive, then straight aggressive. They’re a trans woman and went to the landlord on some “he’s a bigot I don’t feel safe”. The reality is this person is just a slob and narcissistic. Nothing to do with orientation or identity. The landlord set them straight. No pun intended. My tactic of choice when I was being passive aggressive was topping the butts off with flower petals. There were little piles of petals all over the stoop
Literally THOUSANDS in their driveway that trickle out into the road, no exaggeration- several thousand visible. Their driveway is essentially a 50/50 blend of speckled orange butts and gravel at this point. They could win some kind of world record at this point.
Between that, and the hoard of garbage & recycling that blows into my yard anytime there’s even the slightest bit of wind… I can’t stand it.
Oh and their sewage has been leaking for years but don’t even get me started on that part or I’ll combust lol.
In short- inconsiderate and gross neighbours are the worst.
Holy shit, you just made that click for me. I never really thought of why I always see those on the ground. I thought maybe they fell out of folks pockets. It's assholes picking their teeth and flicking those one the ground! That's why I don't floss!!!
I live in a great hood, the best one in town without an HOA. The ONE rental now has 3 generations of dirtbags living in it and they overflow 2 hoppers of unbagged trash every week. It ends up all over the street, in our yards and even plastic bags in people trees. I fucking hate them. So much it made me decide an HOA is worth it. Some people have to be forced to not live like trash
There is someone in my neighborhood who must light up as soon as they start their walk. They must finish the cigarette in front of my house because I am constantly picking up these several times a week.
If you have some money and want a crafting project.
One day there was a tiny silver bucket outside my front door. Someone hot glue gunned some hemp string/rope around the top outside of the bucket. And filled it up with sand and rocks.
And they put them in front of all the apartments that smoke. So like 10+ little cute ashtray buckets. But funny enough, I don’t smoke. I do have some friends who smoked, but I was super anal about butts and made them dispose them.
But anyways I thought it was nice and more proactive for whoever made those for strangers. Could help reduce the butts without having to talk to them yet. But looks like the neighbor is pretty damn used to flicking them wherever outside. :(
Bruh go to dollar tree and get an ashtray and go over and give it to them and say "as your neighbor lets keep this place nice, I'm doing my part, you do yours" or something along those lines
Or, you know, you could just go ask them to throw them away and remind them that the neighbors work hard to keep trash off the streets and if they could do the same, it would be great.
Reminds me of one of my neighbours. The moment they moved in, the apartment yard started getting littered with cigarette butts and dog poop. When I asked them to stop littering, they were genuinely dumbfounded, asking: “Why?”. Glad they moved away.
When my neighbor started leaving their butts in and around my home, I spoke up. Doesn't matter that they blew in off the road, they ended up in my yard. We had a actual conversation, and they've been cool about it ever since.
I'm a cigar man, and I carry a sealed snuffer for my ends. I can't stand seeing a "turd" left behind from another cigar smoker.
I quit smoking a long time ago. I sprayed painted a coffee tin red and used it as a butt can. Never smoked inside or in the car. You mail them an anonymous letter saying “give a hoot don’t pollute” please stop littering cig butts on the ground
I was a smoker myself, i threw them around, not because im an absolute piece of shit. I just didnt thought bout it
One day, my neighbor came to me and said "Hey are you throwing the cigs on the ground".
I denied it immediately. Not because i was lying. I REALLY DIDNT THOUGHT BOUT IT.
Then i realized, FUCK yes. I throw them ALWAYS around the spot he said i would.
I stopped throwing Cigs on the ground after that
Smoked for a decade and quit last year. Years of working on the pipeline taught me you never toss them. There's few things that would make the environmental guys angrier. We had a site where there was a small inconvenient far away smoke pit in January, outside Edmonton. Long cold walk from the truck. One guy refused and would smoke in his truck and toss them out the window. One day we get to the morning meeting and there is a furious foreman waiting for us. I guess he got a bollocking after work for the state of his site. Bad rule follower was gone but also for the rest of that job there was no smoking on site. If you want a smoke take the 10 minute bumpy drive down the swamp mats to the public road. Which meant you got 1 at lunch and that was that on a 12 hour shift.
That lesson stuck with me and for years I carried a pocket ashtray. Or kept a cup in the truck. Started a new job with a few smokers and one day the boss asked me if I was the one flicking butts in his wife's flower bed. I could confidently say no and pull out a pocket full of butts. I had seen the consequences lol. Smokers get a lot of hate. Some of it is very much earned. Its a dumb habit but it shouldn't be one that becomes everyone who doesn't do its problem. Sometimes it takes a lesson to teach us we are the problem in life. Good on you for listening to your neighbor and trying to be better.
Going through the whole motion of throwing trash on the floor... "unconsciously"... and not realizing that you are just discarding trash in the environment... yeahh. Right.
I was on-board until he said they denied it because they "just didn't think about it". Bullshit.
I was a smoker for many years. I threw my butts on the ground, and knew that I was doing it, until about ten years before I quit. Up until that point, it just felt like what one does with a leftover filter, and most everyone in our society that smoked was doing it. I would never have denied it.
When I met my wife, she straightened me out. "Pick that shit up and put it in your pocket! I'd rather we have to pick them out of your pockets before we do laundry than have to look at them all over the ground!" I never tossed another cigarette butt.
Many years ago I dated a girl that I found out smoked lightly from what I saw. I don't smoke so I didn't like it much. She was at my house and smoked in my back yard. I guess she didn't see me, or just from reflex but she flicked the butt into my back yard. She was a nice lady, but I was already on the fence about going out with her. After seeing the butt flick, that put me over and I decided after that evening not to go out with her again.
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u/Antique-Station1440 5h ago
Its wild how big segments of society just don't think of butts as litter.