Regardless of your opinions about her specifically, it’s a simple fact that positive societal change doesn’t happen by asking nicely. Look at every civil rights movement ever. Nothing got done until people were inconvenienced and companies lost money.
No change doesn’t happen by asking nicely, but I think some joined up thinking by these groups would get them further than performative protesting and getting arrested. If you want change then you lobby politicians on the positive benefits of change, and businesses on the potential profits to be had from implementing it.
That’s unrealistic. A supreme court justice only costs an RV and some vacations. You only need a few billion to buy control, assuming your interests are aligned with the other billionaires and they don’t negate your spending.
That’s not the real bribery. The real bribery is uncountable, sometimes literally bribes that are obscured, or more often positions in companies for them and their friend’s and family, consulting fees, etc. This can all add up to hundreds of millions.
Heck… even one of those vacations that the person you responded to was referencing probably comes to over 50 - 100k per when you consider fully burdened cost.
But all the lobbying has already happened - for decades - and nothing has changed. Fossil fuel companies have poured in billions over the course of decades, and still are, to counter lobby and spread misinformation to keep the status quo.
You’re only seeing the ‘performative’ protesting in the media and not the lobbying because it’s easy to report on, but in reality this movement is on its last legs. It is THAT level of desperation now.
Do you think they’d still be protesting if the government actually implemented the policies brought forward by climate scientists decades ago?
Because they are. Groups like PETA, or Just Stop Oil are clowns who hurt their own cause. Performative protesting might win people a participation prize but to everyone else it’s just “look at meeeeee!”. At a certain point it actually becomes toxic to the cause. I know if I wanted to harm environmental campaigning then I’d invent Just Stop Oil.
Meanwhile big business are sending lobbiests in to change politician’s minds, to make arguments that appeal to their rationality, or self-interest. THAT is what environmental campaigners should be doing - lobbying, extoling the benefits of environmental action, changing minds. Getting arrested in front of cameras over and over just becomes pathetic and performative.
Yeah that’s bullshit. Society has been improving overall throughout history. Lots of positive change is brought about by people chasing bigger profits.
I still question the intentions of the media and how a lot of outlets immediate ran to claim his actions as mental health related.
Like sure, I can see where that's coming from in a sense since self-immolation is inherently self-harm and you have to question a person's mental health for doing so, but at the same time, I don't know of anybody off-hand who says the same about the Buddhist monks who did the same in Vietnam.
Maybe times have changed and people don't see that action the same way as they used to back then, but if they are going to call this a result of mental health, I really hope they keep consistency with that from here on forward.
Just to explain why, not to take from your broader point, it’s because he’s not of the people being harmed. Typically this form of protest is done by those being harmed.
The thing is, and I’m not bringing it to say it is anyone’s obligation no matter what they do or who they are, but Bushnell was a soldier. A soldier is usually already not as removed from the idea of death or harm coming their way, unlike most other people. Ideally, they are not readily available to put their own lives in the line, but they are aware the job entails duty and that duty may require more than common resources, hence putting the body at risk.
When you simply shift this duty to uphold justice for oppressed people on the other side of the planet rather than to sit with thumbs twiddling for your own country’s military orders, it is easily justifiable to use this resource in line to protect others.
A journalist, a psychiatrist, or many of the other life occupancies have different resources they use and can also utilize as a last resort.
A definition for soldier is one who serve in an army and an army is “a large organized body of armed personnel trained for war especially on land” (emphasis mine, note not explicitly on land) or “a unit capable of independent action and consisting usually of a headquarters, two or more corps, and auxiliary troops”
There were soldiers dishonorably discharged from Vietnam for shell shock because PTSD was not yet officially recognized at the time. And because of that discharge, they were then not able to get VA benefits for the mental healthcare that they needed.
OP made the connection to the monks and said that what they did was not questioned as a mental health issue. I only meant to point out that there was not a great track record of mental health issues being identified/treated during that time.
It’s still in the cards but would take some major major negative developments for the Russians, like major mutinies or supply issues or economic collapse.
The War could still very much go either way, hence the US and Europe caring about it so much.
Also I apologize if my original comment sounded hostile, your comment came off tankieish and I always get feisty with those.
I think they are setting up the narrative to write off a poor performance. I think if he were going to pull out of the debates that they would have ramped up the rhetoric a lot more than this by now.
You know what would be amazing? If wimping out meant Biden got to debate a sane republican instead. You know, someone Biden probably knew from school, like Teddy Roosevelt or something.
Hmm. The main joke here was meant to be how far back I had to go to think of a sane republican, but flubbed it with a “Biden old” punchline. Hat on a hat.
They've been doing that for two decades. Golden rice could have saved hundreds, if not thousands, of lives by now. Especially the later versions we're on now. Hopefully it doesn't violate the self-promotion rules for me to link an article I wrote a long, long time ago on Golden Rice 3.0 and its improved benefits.
I haven't kept up with the project since, I wouldn't be surprised if we're on 4.0 or beyond by now, the scientists involved have been working tirelessly for years to make the rice even better and more beneficial for the people who need it.
And anti-science idiots like Greenpeace have been fighting them every step of the way.
Honestly, I’m a large proponent of conversation and environmentalism. Hell, I sit on a land trust board, and have a very strong technical background in checks notes environmental science.
The thing I keep rolling my eyes at with Greenpeace is their seemingly complete lack of regard for science, like you point out. How can anyone take these guys seriously when most of what they do are stunts.
I doubt anyone would listen even if they did have the technical expertise they need, because support for environmental issues is paltry to begin with. However, it would give them a leg to stand on.
Thing is, these guys have a very narrow view on “environment”, but the conflict here is emblematic of basically everything regarding protection of nature.
Greenpeace is under the (not completely unfounded) impression, that every new technology is a wedge to slowly push the world towards doom. Just one more lane. Just one more gene changed. And so on. They are completely uncompromising, which is understandable to a certain degree.
However, the result is that perfect is the enemy of the good. Here in Germany we have conflicts between people who want to save the planet by installing wind turbines and people who want to save the local fauna by not installing wind turbines. The latter do have a point if you’re very myopic, but they don’t (want to) see that their actions will likely kill the entire species, not just a few individuals.
If it’s been studied and proven safe, there shouldn’t be any room for Greenpeace to make their claims. They’re not a science authority. So what has been done to study its safety and why is anyone even listening to Greenpeace?
As the article points out, it’s not just a question of safety.
“Farmers who brought this case with us – along with local scientists – currently grow different varieties of rice, including high-value seeds they have worked with for generations and have control over. They’re rightly concerned that if their organic or heirloom varieties get mixed up with patented, genetically engineered rice, that could sabotage their certifications, reducing their market appeal and ultimately threatening their livelihoods.”
Their argument continues past that, but yes the court has sided with greenpeace because the of the potential economic losses and the availability of alternative solutions including other crops rich in vitamin A and the effectiveness of food distribution to combat malnutrition.
Greenpeace actively fearmongers with any and every conspiracy claim they can come up with on the subject. If you look at the reasoning they used in the OP article above and given to the Philippines, you'll see that they never use any detailed claims, but always vague ones. They reference "safety concerns" without specification and without any consideration of the dozens of papers published on golden rice in the past two decades.
Golden rice could have saved hundreds, if not thousands, of lives by now.
Serious question. If hundreds of lives were at stake, why were other mechanisms… such as just giving kids vitamin A, not apparently employed? Regardless of the merits of the opposition to this rice, why not pursue this on multiple fronts?
Other methods have been used in the meantime, for decades. But they are only so effective. Vitamins, other foods, and other methods have been in process. But they each have their own limitations, both on supply to remote areas and getting local peoples to take up those methods.
The latter is the biggest issue, especially with trying to introduce alternative foods like carrots. If they aren't a part of the local cuisine, many of the individuals, who are often subsistence farmers who have limited land and only grow explicitly what they need to survive, aren't interested.
Hence why golden rice was developed, because rice is a main part of the local diet in these areas and so it is much easier to get them to adopt growing a different cultivar of something they already eat than it is to convince them to grow a completely different food.
It turns out that, just like fancy graphics, not constantly trying to empty your customers pockets actually represents some kind of economic value. The ironic thing is so many of these old games were literally designed to steal your quarters.
Well, only the arcade versions of games were designed to steal your quarters. The home console versions were much better about not harassing your wallet.
For instance, Gauntlet Legends on its arcade cabinet hardware drained your health at a consistent time based rate. Add more quarters to gain more health. All home console versions abolished this health drain mechanic.
That’s mostly true, except for games made specifically harder so that you’d have to rent them multiple times (eg: ActRaiser 2 NTSC-U/C / SNES is much harder than its NTSC-J / SFC counterpart).
Probably some games did after the home rental market got started, but a lot of older games were difficult specifically to extend the experience. Cartridge storage was small, so if it was too easy you’d get through all 10 levels in less than a day and then feel like you hadn’t got very much for your money.
Well I guess I am just wondering how more rentals from a video store would benefit the developers financially? I mean I’m sure I could research but surely game studios didn’t get any kind of percentage from the rental places based on how many times a title was rented right?
They didn’t want you to rent it multiple times. They wanted you to rent it once, be unable to beat it, but be intrigued enough that you purchased the game from a store. If you could play and beat a game in a single rental, there was little incentive to buy it (so the developers thought, and I imagine had some data to back it up).
There was definitely the occasional tom-foolery with publishers and designers here and there but it was also generally never at the expense of game play.
But is making a game harder to discourage rental and encourge purchasing stealing your quarters? Id argue no. You still get value if you renting the game, and the idea of rentals is really that if you like it then you pay to own it.
The game companies also wanted gamers to call their hotline if they get stuck, where they would charge by the minute to give tips (and they weren’t known for their brief calls).
Except this is totally wrong. Israel is doing it out of self interest, not some weird conspiracy to drag the west into something. They want to gain power for themselves, just as Iran, the US, and every other country wants to do. There is zero reason to think it’s more than that. Bibi needs a distraction, and that’s what all of this is.
It’s not a weird conspiracy though. It’s just that dragging the US into protecting Israel from Iran has the effect of halting US criticism of the Gaza genocide.
Or maybe Iran is making a play by saying something to enflame Americans? I don’t know why anyone would listen to Iran suddenly. Sure, they’re against Israel, which is the popular stance here right now (for good reason), but they don’t care to be accurate. They say something because it’s useful.
I wasn’t on Lemmy then, but I’d be curious to see what Lemmy would have been like during the Iranian protests that I think we’re last year. I’m sure they’d be saying Iran is lying about everything then and only saying what’s useful. I don’t know why anyone would trust a word they say now.
Anything with power is always lying. Consider what purpose saying it has. Even if it’s true, they’re saying it to manipulate. The actual implied intent is a lie.
I don’t think Iran is trying to inflame Americans, but more noting that the continued attacks on Palestinians are not going to be tolerated diplomatically for long. This is a diplomatic crisis and different sides are negotiating both publicly and privately.
That’s not what I’m trying to say. Obviously that happened. This post is about some master plan to drag the west into a war with Iran. That’s almost certainly not happening. Israel is just trying to do things to gain power, and so is Iran.
I mean, yes. Iran is unironically very talented at manipulating regional politics to their favor. You don’t have one of the best systems of proxies and catpaws in the region without knowing shit like that.
Iran’s international competence isn’t generally the problem - but whether to trust what they say. Usually, the answer is “No, you shouldn’t trust anything out of their mouth”, but in this case, it’s a “The sky is blue” moment.
“Appellant obtained a jury verdict of $10.53 billion in its Texas state-court suit alleging that appellee tortiously had induced a third oil company to breach a contract to sell its shares to appellant.”
Bombing everyone in Gaza is a great way to turn many of them into hamas. How are those kids going to grow up sane and normal and make peace with Israel? Imagine a whole society with PTSD, it’s horrifying. Israel knows this too, which is they want to protect themselves through genocide. They really do think those kids are hamas.
Once they’ve turned everyone to Hamas they can justify their genocide that way. Or they can just keep genociding anyway and claim it’s because they heard Hamas was in the hospitals, the schools, the universities, the people’s homes, the shops, the refugee camps, the streets, etc.
No, you see the pediatric doctors were seen talking to Hamas heath ministry officials so they’re terrorists too! And it’s really their fault because when they talked to the kids that made them Hamas as well. Sadly killing everyone is the only option left.
Remember kids, the market does not aim to produce food but profit. If it can get you to pay for eating sawdust or forever chemicals it will and it has.
Since we’re not starving to death, in fact are more likely to be obese, the addition of fiber can be a good thing. It helps move the starch molecules through the stomach and small intestine faster so they don’t cause a blood sugar spike, and helps you feel full longer. In the case of cheese, which is very constipating, the addition of fiber can mitigate that effect. It’s good for the bowels and may help prevent hemorrhoids. Psyllium is more effective because it absorbs water and surrounds the starch and fat molecules, but it has a negative effect on the texture of dough and would make the grated cheese more gluey rather than keeping it from sticking together. Cheese itself isn’t starchy but it’s often eaten with starch, like pizza crust or croutons. Wheat bran is full of cellulose, it’s part of why whole-wheat flour is healthier.
(Sorry for disorganized sentences but hard to fix on little phone text box)
Meh, this is just the free market in action. Now after decades of “collateral damage,” the market can correct itself. People will stop using the offending brand(s) because everyone needs to be an expert on literally everything or else they too can become collateral damage while the market “corrects.” It’s their own fault really.
And in this case, customers will stop using companies and services that use RoundUp, because again, they need to know everything including what chemicals that the contractor their town hired uses in the public park. And then lobby them to switch to a (likely more expensive) alternative.
Don’t forget people use a lot of Roundup for lawns and weed control too. Few homeowners wear respirators when using the stuff and pets track it back into homes. Also glyphosate remains in the soil for years too.
Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle” gave a [somewhat] fictionalized account of the conditions of the meat packing industry in the early 20th century. It paints a gruesome picture. Federal agents sent to the Chicago slaughterhouses to investigate by then President Theodore Roosevelt confirmed the truth of most of the books details. And that was after the plant owners found out they were coming and had the plants thoroughly cleaned.
The market (aka greedy assholes) have conned people into paying for and eating worse things than sawdust.
theguardian.com
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