We've ruined the sea

[Autumnlicious]

Yes, and that is always the initial intention, to help people... but then I realise how the majority of other people probably genuinely believe a sieve might actually help re-separate things at a molecular level and I don't actually want to live on this planet any more.

The majority of people would shrug their shoulders and say "So?"

They wouldn't even care to envision a solution.

Of course, if they get panicked into action, they might choose to follow some sieve toting jackass.

I mean, I can't communicate this in a way which average people genuinely have empathy with. You're right, people do have a careless attitude, and it does lead to this mess. But their lack of education or tolerance for sincerity probably isn't through choice and it probably allows them to live a happier existence than all of us aware of how fucked the resources are for 7 billion + people, and especially for those of us who aren't going to Disneyland after we die.

To communicate to others not like yourself requires you to, in some way, pick up their mannerisms, their concerns and most importantly, how they go about identifying a problem.

Asking questions on an increasingly specific level is useful as a tactic for mapping such.

I think I'd rather think that this could be solved with a sieve. After all, me not using plastic for the rest of my life still isn't going to give me a clean conscience when I have to pay taxes to a government that thinks depleted uranium missiles are a good idea.

Now we see why you can't communicate.

Ironically, you're manner of thinking for the quoted above is precisely how the common parsnip... I mean person thinks.

Let's diagram it out:
1) You encounter a problem (garbage plastic in the ocean)!
2) You think up a simplistic solution that will never work.
(Please note said solution may have parts of it included into a much greater and more complex solution)

3) You come up with a Prohibition-style answer if the former simplistic solution would not work
3A) You do not notice that Prohibition is a simple answer in it of itself and suffers from the same faults the first solution runs into

4) Bargaining. You bargain away your disappointment at there being unpleasant solutions that you thought of by exchanging it with another "evil".

5) And that's where you give up.

Surprisingly, I've grown very used to defusing precisely the above, but only if I can inject before step 2 something like:
" 2A) Assuage yourself or the other that it is not hopeless/lost/impossible."
" 2B) Setup a collaboration between learned experts to consult on methodologies from solving 1)"
" 2C) Based on the cost-benefits analysis of 2B, decide upon a course of action to support."
" 2D) Continue on evaluating through your ideas and compare/contrast."

It's never the facts or the severity of nature that bothers me... it's just trying to co-exist with people who I know can't comprehend it in a similar way and probably never will, no matter how many ways I try and communicate it.

If I can teach a six year old girl on the public subway the essential background of wave/particle duality using shoes, mirrored surfaces (windows) and arm gestures, what makes you think that the other (they) can't comprehend it in a similar way?

The primary rejection of external, deeper thoughts for most people is an identification of the other as "not friendly".

When you assuage them, build a rapport, have them trust your approach, you'll find other people to give you many deep and interesting insights of their own.