Before making up your mind, especially on a matter of principal, it's important to think things through. Here a some recent examples from my personal experience.
Because of a reduction in space at a new facility, I have been storing in my garage various items for the entertainment committee. Recently in preparation for the annual holiday party, the organizer asked me if I had any coffee cups in one of the half dozen storage bins. I told her I had many sleeves of foam cups. She was distressed, "I hate to use those. I worry about harming the environment." "Well," I said, "We can throw the out, possibly harming the environment, or we can use them and then throw them out possibly harming the environment. Once they are purchased, those seem to be the only options." I guess we will eventually use them.
Many years ago an admin associate at my work confessed to me an unusual situation. She was asked to make several copies for a meeting of the executives. After the copies were printed, she realized that she stood a good chance of being reprimanded by the cost conscious group for not printing them on both sides. To avoid the risk, she threw them out, reset the printer for two-sided copies and ran another batch. She was off the hook, and the executives were happy, little realizing that their bullying approach to cost-savings was driving counterproductive behavior within the organization. (And based on this and other examples, it was clear that they also didn't have a business climate or culture that would lead to correcting the problem.)
In a conversation at a family get together, the subject came up about self-checkout at the grocery store. It seems many people in person and on social media like to brag/virtue signal about how they only use live checkers because they don't want to take jobs away from people. I said that I don't worry about that because my local grocery store has had help-wanted signs up for a couple of years. Nobody's jobs are in jeopardy. The situation is quite the opposite. He responded, "Now that you mention it, my grocery store also has help-wanted signs up. I never thought about it that way."
Related to the last story, how many people worry about all the telephone operators, who used to work as intermediaries for all long-distance phone calls (or elevator operators or gas station attendants)? Most people today are not old enough to remember those jobs and would feel inconvenienced at the added wait time.
Imagine all the other situations where people make up their minds and take a stand on problems that only need a little more thought, a little critical thinking.
