scarabic
@scarabic@lemmy.world
- Comment on I'm pretty sure all of us have given up on any boomer giving us anything anyway 15 hours ago:
My thought is that if you’re going to give money, don’t wait until you die. The earlier you help someone, the more of their life it can improve. Help your kid buy their first house or something. Then spend everything before you die.
- Comment on These are the people behind a major world city's transportation infrastructure. 23 hours ago:
BFD they are the metro, not Indeed
- Comment on Does the USA simply have no food safety standard at all? 2 days ago:
Indeed! Sugar is a chemical!
- Comment on Does the USA simply have no food safety standard at all? 2 days ago:
Your post is unsanitary then because it is making me stupider and that is bad for my mental health, and mental health is health just like dental health is health.
- Comment on Does the USA simply have no food safety standard at all? 2 days ago:
NThis post is all over the place, conflating plastic leeching, throwing out vague concerns and then panicking that there must be NO standards. To really answer it would require giving someone a comprehensive education in food safe materials science, likely fitting though many dearly-held misconceptions along the way. Anyone who thinks that plastic touching food is a health risk must have all their meals brought to them on a plate, and have no idea how food is delivered to stores or packaged for sale.
- Comment on how do I become the dullest, most boring coworker so this needy man leaves me alone? 3 days ago:
I think there are diplomatic ways for you to express your preference. You could say: “I don’t mean to be rude, but I prefer to really stay focused at work and socializing can drain my battery or distract me for a while afterward. Is it all right with you if I keep to myself for the most part?”
He’s obviously taking your behavior as a sign that he’s done something wrong, and not just your preference for how you like to be at work. He’s probably trying to fix it or improve relations with you, and this is making it worse. The standoffish behavior you’re showing him is feeding his sense that he needs to pay more attention to you, so take a different tack.
- Comment on [deleted] 4 days ago:
Given that state taxes heavily support higher education, it’s not the craziest idea in the world to give lower tuition to those who’ve been paying those taxes their whole lives.
- Comment on If a contestant on Jeopardy! gave the correct response "Alexandre Dumas" but pronounced the surname as "dumb ass", would the response be accepted? 5 days ago:
Ouch. This reminds me of a coworker of mine: they were born in one country, grew up in another, and then moved to the US. Despite only being here 5-ish years they speak perfect American English with no accent. However they are missing the last 20-30 years of American culture. They’re extremely smart but every now and then a conversation will trip up and we’ll have to explain something like “these guys are as bad as beavis and butthead.”
Now Achilles is a little better known than beavis & butthead but I don’t know how much Greek mythology they read in different countries. Especially the ones pumping out STEM geniuses like my coworker. Wow is all about catchphrases and references so I could easily see how an otherwise extremely intelligent guy could totally bomb like that dude did.
- Comment on If a contestant on Jeopardy! gave the correct response "Alexandre Dumas" but pronounced the surname as "dumb ass", would the response be accepted? 6 days ago:
I once watched an episode of Wheel of Fortune where the puzzle was completely solved: “Don’t let the bedbugs bite.”
But the woman giving the solution, who happened to be black, didn’t pronounce the “s” is bedbugs audibly enough. It sounded more like “don’t let the bedbug bite” which I think was just an accent thing. Her “the” sounded more like “de” too, and her “don’t” sounded like “don.”
But they didn’t give it to her. Maybe she did think it was “the bedbug” as if there’s one big bad boogeyman bug out there. I dunno. But it was pretty sad. The guy next to her was given a chance and walked away with the win.
- Comment on Hey is Sharing Luigi’s Manifesto on Social Media Actually "Glorifying Violence"? Because Reddit Said So 😭 6 days ago:
There are like 50 sentences of basic reality in there, but I suspect that a lot of the moderation challenge comes from one small phrase dropped into the middle: “it had to be done.”
With the inclusion of that, the 50 sentences of reality are recast as not just true but a valid justification for murder, and that’s the rub.
- Comment on If we're living in a simulation, why would the simulation creators allow the sims to ponder and speculate whether or not they live in a simulation? 1 week ago:
Exactly. For some people, maybe it’s part of the definition of a simulation that we are also simulated, but that’s not necessarily a part of the definition. We could be a part of it, or we could be an audience or consumers of it. Occupants. Whatever.
- Comment on If we're living in a simulation, why would the simulation creators allow the sims to ponder and speculate whether or not they live in a simulation? 1 week ago:
Just because we’re living in a simulation doesn’t mean we are simulated. So perhaps the architects of the simulation can’t simply program our questions away.
- Comment on Should we create a new political party in the US, specifically for shitting on the rich? 1 week ago:
Well I’m aware of them, however small they might be, and I support their values. I would still never vote for their presidential candidates because of FPTP.
So I don’t think that funding and awareness are the issue. Even with those out of the way, it just doesn’t make sense to vote for them.
You’re probably thinking I’m not a real left voter but I assure yo I read the Green and P&F voter guides every time I fill out a ballot, to understand their advice on measures and candidates, but would never, ever vote for one of their candidates in any FPTP race. It would only help conservatives.
- Comment on Should we create a new political party in the US, specifically for shitting on the rich? 1 week ago:
I answered you, mate. These parties DO exist in the US they are just really small, and this is why.
- Comment on Why can't someone create a public alternative to health insurance in the USA? 1 week ago:
Not exactly. In theory corporations need workers so they should benefit from a healthy public.
In reality, their needs for workers are met. They’ve been exporting and automating jobs for decades. So even with the system leaving lots of folks behind, enough are left over to occupy the jobs that are needed. If anything, we have more healthy people than corporations need - what is lacking are skills.
And so in a very American sense of “business first,” the current system is operating just fine. People and their health have no intrinsic value here.
- Comment on Why can't someone create a public alternative to health insurance in the USA? 1 week ago:
And now they say Obamacare didn’t go far enough and is kinda weak. I could strangle them.
- Comment on Why can't someone create a public alternative to health insurance in the USA? 1 week ago:
Blue Shield of California is a “big corporation” that employers here often contract with for health insurance, and it is a non-profit. Somehow this doesn’t really result in a dramatically different experience.
- Comment on Should we create a new political party in the US, specifically for shitting on the rich? 1 week ago:
This video gives a great visual explanation of why third parties in US politics can only be spoilers. They cannot build anything.
youtu.be/qf7ws2DF-zk?si=WRctK96W6GrJJO2S
America already has “real left” parties like the Peace & Freedom party and the Green party. Starting yet another tiny party to occupy the left will add nothing. And trying to grow any of these third parties can only do one thing: take votes from Democrats, thereby helping Republicans.
It’s easy to say “USS doesn’t have a real left party” but most people who care about that would rather not hurt Democrats and help Republicans, because Democrats are at least closer to the left out of the two major parties, even if neither is as far left as we would like.
The only option is to join the Democratic party and attempt to shift it left. This is exactly what America’s most prominent 3 leftists have done: AOC, Dennis Kucinich, and Bernie Sanders. They know that 3rd parties are a death wish. This is an objective fact. Everyone who cares about the left needs to grow up, accept this, and move on. Just like Bernie has. You don’t see him falling for a 3rd party. And he’s clearly a “real leftist” by any measure.
- Comment on Should we create a new political party in the US, specifically for shitting on the rich? 1 week ago:
Thank god the actual answer is already here. Now let’s please vote it above the well-meaning fantasy comments saying “yeah! do it!”
- Comment on Should we create a new political party in the US, specifically for shitting on the rich? 1 week ago:
Because it will only spoil whichever major party is a little more closely aligned with it.
- Comment on Should we create a new political party in the US, specifically for shitting on the rich? 1 week ago:
We need one, but a third party will not get the desired result. It will only subtract from whoever major party is a little more like it, in this case probably the Democrats. Sad to say: the only meaningful path forward is to change the parties from within. I know that sounds daunting and boring. But can anyone reasonably think this will be easy and fun?
- Comment on Should we create a new political party in the US, specifically for shitting on the rich? 1 week ago:
We should not. This idea of starting a new party to do something has been exhaustively understood for a long time. All it is capable of doing is hurting the major party your new party is closest to. Best explained here.
It is exciting to create something new you have total control over, and that excitement can help you get off the ground and feel like you’re going somewhere, but this is an illusion, an eventually that momentum slams into a wall as you realize you’ve only shifted de facto political reality in the United States in the opposite direction you wanted to (again: because all third parties can do is steal votes from their most closely aligned major party).
Bernie Sanders has had this figured out for a long time. He shits on the rich morning and night. He’s also a grownup and knows that his only viable course is to try to shift one of the major parties themselves. He thinks he has better odds with the Democrats, and he’s probably right, though maybe “less bad odds” is a better characterization.
Entering into a major party is not fun and exciting and you don’t have a lot of control and quick momentum. But it is the only way. Small progress, long game. A flash in the pan 3rd party will only burn you.
- Comment on When leftists say "landlord are parasites" or similar dislike of landlords, do they also mean the people that own like a couple of houses as an investment, or only the big landlords? 1 week ago:
Individual landlords can be the worst ones. Here’s what that often looks like:
- individual inherits a home
- they rent it out and quit their job
- the rent is their only income so they are really cheap about maintenance and repairs
- they make any repair the tenant’s “fault” and force them to pay for it
- they raise the rent at every opportunity to the maximum the market will bear, because that is the only way their own income ever rises
- they do repairs and maintenance themselves, even though they are unskilled, because that’s cheaper, and the quality of all the work is poor, using the cheapest materials possible (I once had a landlord paint our house puke orange because she got a deal on that awful paint).
- Comment on Why don’t more people start profit-sharing companies or co-ops? 1 week ago:
We’ve gotten so far away from that communal living spirit, culturally. Look at the way people get into snits with their neighbors over little things like fence repair or whatever. It’s been a long time since people depended on the folks next door for survival, and we’ve forgotten how to give a shit. It can be relearned, and there are little candles of that spirit burning here and there still. But it ain’t the old days in the farming village anymore.
- Comment on What was going on in England in the 1970s to give Monty Python so much comedy fodder that is still relevant today? 2 weeks ago:
To make your little prank more airtight you should say “driving force behind the feminist movement,” not “in the feminist movement,” because he was not in the feminist movement.
- Comment on Why do I tend to reply in the same amount of time it took my friends to? 2 weeks ago:
Because you probably think that your friends behavior is their way of showing the world what they think is reasonable, and they probably expect something similar in return from others. And you are probably right. You are meeting people where they are and trying not to disappoint them based on what you know about them. This is emotional reasoning so it’s not surprise that it’s unconscious.
- Comment on Am I the only one who feels uncomfortable about people making such big deal out of whether they're "black" or "white"? 2 weeks ago:
Exactly. Very well said. And with all respect to Mr. Freeman, he is rich and famous and enjoys a certain level of privilege in that.
- Comment on Am I the only one who feels uncomfortable about people making such big deal out of whether they're "black" or "white"? 2 weeks ago:
Obviously he has had an extensive career making films that talk about race, so it’s contradictory on the face of it for him to say “stop talking about it.” Okay, dude! Stop making films that talk about it then!
Yeah. It was an off the cuff remark and right before it he commented on Black History month as limiting black people’s history to just one month a year, which is plainly stupid. Are we offended that Veterans Day bans all appreciation of service folk the other 364 days a year? No.
He is rich and famous and would love to not have the “black actor” label applied to him but again, an extemporaneous comment by a celebrity does not make a thorough analysis that works for everyone.
- Comment on Am I the only one who feels uncomfortable about people making such big deal out of whether they're "black" or "white"? 2 weeks ago:
Answer: you’re white, right? Few people who experience growing up black in America come away saying “what’s the big deal about race, anyway?”
If you want to know what the big deal is with being black, there’s wonderful tradition in American literature of telling you all about it. Pick up a copy of Black Boy by Richard Wright for a place to start.
Why are people making more of a thing out of it than they were 10 years ago? Well, my personal view is that the whole “just don’t talk about it and it will go away” has not worked. Life outcomes for white and black people are statistically quite different and it’s due to more than just talking about race. So I think people are getting sick of being quiet about something that clearly matters, and are talking about it openly. Others are responding by saying that talking about it is the entire problem and is, itself, racist. This is about the dumbest shit ever IMHO but some people are just really sick of having to hear about it and as a sheltered white person you have little personal reason to care. That is unless you care about other people.
- Comment on Should Germany aquire nuclear weapons? 2 weeks ago:
2 only works with countries that have something to lose. Don’t assume that a deterrence strategy that works with other major powers is going to work with some small, hellish Islamist dictatorship.