twig

@twig@lemmy.dbzer0.com

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twig, (edited )

That is actually not true. Not downplaying the significance of these effects, but…

In the 60s and 70s a large number of planned parenthood clinics were in low-income and predominantly black neighbourhoods, aimed at reducing the number of black babies.

In the same era birth control (more appropriately termed eugenics) programs forcibly sterilized black and indigenous women. Where it was presented as an option, the consequence for not following through on these doctor’s “recommendations,” were threats to withhold healthcare or public assistance. The statistics through the 60s and 70s were that roughly 1 in 4 were non-consenually sterilized.

But also, yeah, the results of this trial are fucked and people are right to be skeptical of this drug.

twig, (edited )

Fuck leaf blowers. I don’t care if they’re quieter. The term here is “polishing a turd.” They don’t really solve any problems. They’re not good at removing debris, but just blowing it to a place where someone else will deal with it.

Also… removing debris on its own is a dubious pursuit, since “debris” could also be termed “stuff that holds moisture longer and slows the effect of drying soil during drought conditions.”

twig,

Absolutely. And all those emissions are taking place very close to a human’s face.

twig,

So I promise I’m not trying to be a dick here. While what you’re saying is essentially reasonable, it’s actually not true.

The amount of emissions in these small, wildly inefficient engines is considerably worse than even a large pickup truck. The reason is because emissions standards, including the introduction of catalytic converters, etc. don’t apply to lawn equipment. The result is that these don’t actually burn fuel correctly, and spew out lots of harmful pollutants in a way that even large ICE vehicles don’t.

edmunds.com/…/emissions-test-car-vs-truck-vs-leaf….

grist.org/…/lawn-equipment-pollution-report/

Like sure, there are larger sources of emissions, but I’m kinda in favor of making changes that would offer a large benefit proportionate to the amount of lifestyle change needed to make the switch. As in, making this switch would be easier than not. These emissions produce no benefit to us, and they cost us a weird amount of money to produce.

twig,

I think maybe y’all need a couple more Stonewalls to get the message right.

twig,

It is an unfortunate thing, because tankies are actually a problem. And I do mean the real term, as in the folks who identify with dictatorships that are so-called communist.

The reason it’s a problem is that the folks who are left-leaning but uneducated sometimes get swept up in pro-authoritarian rhetoric that happens to oppose the west. I’m anticapitalist, leftist, etc. I see tankies and fascists having a lot in common. That seems dangerous in the sense that fascism is a real threat. Also, then, our ranks are being thinned out and co-opted by specific bad-faith actors. At the same time, when people buy into tankie (pro-Russia, pro-China, pro-North Korea) propaganda, this more or less consolidates some of the power that opposes actual leftists (as in, people who support human rights, equitable societies, environmental protection, etc).

Not really any argument against what you’re saying. Just kind of adding that the term tankie is actually useful to describe a specific viewpoint, but obviously not in the way that the previous commenter used it.

twig,

No

twig,

So this is a horrific stereotype, and it has an even more sinister historical precedent.

Back in the era of slavery (that is specifically in the US, the slavery of Africans abducted from their home countries), there were specifically slave “breeding farms” where slavers would commit massive amounts of sexual assault of captive slaves in order to produce slaves they selected by their own arbitrary metric for specific physical qualities… and to save on what can, again horrifically, be referred to as “import costs.”

I’m not saying this “worked” or produced the results that slavers wanted. What I am saying is that this specific way of subjugating and dehumanizing people has had lasting effects in both perception of black folks and in the ways that systemic racism works.

twig,

Who is “we” in this case?

twig,

Everyone needs a union

twig,

I can only hope they get the Nuremberg treatment.

twig,

Mowing lawns is killing pollinators.

People put so much energy into growing grass. Seeding, liming, fertilising, watering… so they can create endless, mindless busywork and destroy biodiversity.

Lawns were originally a status symbol. A “hey lol look at me I have enough land I don’t have to grow food.” Shameful that it took off as a defacto standard.

twig,

Hell yeah. I love to hear that.

twig,

That’s actually amazing. For real, thanks for sharing that. I love hearing about these decisions can have such a positive impact in our small corners of the world.

twig,

The moon landing happened. With technology available at that time, it would not have been possible to fake in that way.

You are getting downvoted because you’re just wrong.

twig,

Amelie

twig, (edited )

The fact that generative AI is being used as a means of large corporations consolidating even more wealth rather than attempting to free the working class from shitty, menial jobs shows that we’re way the fuck off with how we conceptualize of “work”.

This should be a good thing, but for lots of people this will suck.

twig,

America desperately needs to enact policies that put restrictions on wealth accumulation. There are lots of ways to do this.

twig,

Excellent

twig,

Yes. This on repeat.

twig,

Yeah OK this is dumb.

Average household income in the US (I’m assuming that’s where you are) are 75k before taxes, after taxes is 58k.

Rent is a national average of 2100 monthly, so, roughly 25k annually. The average american household spends 270 weekly on groceries. That’s 14k annually. The average american household spends 12k on transportation annually. The average american household spends about 10k on medical costs.

So -3K is what you’re left with on average.

Accounting for only necessities, the averages mean that people can’t afford to exist, let alone pay a down payment on an average house. 5% of the national average of 495,000 for a house is 24,750. If we’re going off of averages is about 30k more than Americans make per household per year. And again in this case, since the average leaves us with a deficit of 3k just accounting for necessities, extending the timeline for savings doesn’t do any favors.

twig,

So the CEO of Loblaws (the parent company that owns most of the grocery chains/stores in Canada) has very explicitly been engaged in price-fixing of groceries.

These people are stealing from us. It is correct to steal from them.

twig,

I legit can’t imagine ever being indifferent to birds

twig,

Fwiw I fully support your reasoning that TikTok in particular should be viewed as a source of particularly insidious propaganda at this moment. I’ve been tracking this for years and it seems very obvious to me.

However… when you’re talking about Instagram you’re talking about the company that offered the tools used in the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

Disinformation on Meta is not new, and quite suspiciously, Meta is shutting down CrowdTangle (a tool developed by Meta for tracking disinformation) just months before the US federal election. wired.com/…/meta-kills-crucial-transparency-tool-…

Fuck TikTok, and also fuck Meta. I can be happy that tiktok might be banned and also despise Meta

twig,

On private roads in Canada, the mining giant Teck is starting to use autonomous transport trucks.

im-mining.com/…/teck-adds-autonomous-mining-truck…

To me this is less frightening for public safety and more for reasons related to climate change, since this kind of industrial expansion will be less contingent on worker availability.

Mind you, the whole push toward driverless vehicles seems insanely redundant as a concept, since driverless tech in the form of high-speed rail has been around for decades in an infinitely more efficient way than could ever be offered by personal vehicles.

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