What’s a common “fact” that’s spread around that’s actually not true and pisses you off that too many people believe it?
That Dems are Communists. Like, if only.
That we eat spiders in our sleep. Just grab them and nomf or they willingly crawl into our mouths of something.
That Social Security is going to collapse. I’ve been hearing it for literally 50 years. I honestly grew up thinking SS would not be there at retirement, and now I’m collecting it (although I’m not retired). It was a psy-op the whole time, trying to keep workers anxious, and at the grindstone.
Social Security is literally the easiest problem in DC to fix. All they have to do is raise the income cap. Right now, the cap is $184,500. You pay into Social Security on the first $184,500 of income, and anything over that doesn’t get touched. If you make less than that, then 100% of your income gets tapped for SS. But if you make more, you pay a much tinier percentage of your total income.
So if SS is looking like a problem, all they have to do is raise the cap. It goes up a bit every year anyway, but there is no reason it can’t be $500,000, or even $1 million. Of course the rich will scream, but they’re always screaming. We have to learn to ignore that as background radiation, nothing to be concerned about.
Raise the cap enough, and you not only protect Social Security forever, you can give Grandma a nice raise. Doesn’t she deserve it for all those delicious cookies? Or brownies actually, in my Grandma’s case. She made the best homemade brownies, and she cut them BIG!
Orrrr just remove the cap entirely. No reason to give them any happiness at all. Raise the floor above 100k and remove the cap. And then change the rate to say 5x.
Or even a sliding scale, so the further you are above the floor, the higher rate you pay.
Over 1 million or so and it gets up to 100%.
I’ve thought of that, but then we miss out on the opportunity to piss them off every time we raise it, and that’s so much fun.
I love when rich people start screaming that they don’t have enough money, and the poor get all the breaks, and it isn’t fair. Hilarious.
Oh I’d rather just drown them in their anger and literally tax them to financial (and in most cases actual) death then keep them around to listen to their torture. I’m actually 1000% ok with making a new law yesterday that just means death sentence for having over a certain amount. Legal to earn only if you can show that you are personally investing billions into infrastructure and public good. To be planned and handled by neutral parties, so you can’t be faking numbers and all that.
I feel like it’s the reverse of that saying from the Incredibles.
Once no one is rich, everyone will be.
Valid perspective, the main point being that it is imperative that we reconfigure our country so that neither society, nor the government serve the needs of the wealthy, the wealthy serve the needs of government and society. The wealthy have no needs, they are wealthy.
They need to learn that they keep their money at the pleasure of the Citizens, and if they step out of line, or even hint at trouble, the Board of Directors goes to prison, and their entire net worth is confiscated. Do that to a few wealthy families, make them destitute, and have to send their kids to {gasp!} public school, and they’ll learn real quick who they work for.
Nah, just guillotine them and make the kids wards of the (new and improved) state. Everybody wins.
Also valid. When the time comes, we’ll have that discussion in earnest. Sociopathic Oligarchs will not be consulted.
That food stamps or any handouts at all are a serious problem. Our (the US) government launches a single bomb that’s worth years of food support. Idgaf if the food stamp recipients never do a damn thing but watch TV. I’d much rather millions of people doing that than bombing brown people half a world away.
Additionally, it’s been proven in scientific study time and time again that giving people enough money to meet their needs significantly reduces crime and costs significantly less money than the “traditional” approach like inflating police budgets. Literally giving people cash money reduces crime better than any other way you could use the money.
The idea of monetary scale is one I think is a big misconception anytime we’re talking about budget. “This committee wasted MILLIONS of dollars on this stupid niche scenario!” Well, yeah; the USA has millions of people in it. If a program affects the entire country, how much are you willing to spend per person? 8 cents?
Exactly. Budgets on national levels do not compute on a personal level. I like it when articles scale down the numbers to a more individual level “so let’s pretend that the federal government is a single family home…”
That the general population are directly responsible for the amount of pollution occurring a la “carbon footprint” when there are 10 companies producing 70% of the world’s pollution
Huh, odd, why do they do this?
To make the general population think that they’re responsible for the problems caused by the massive uncontrolled exploitation of limited resources by corporations.
(Or in simpler terms; So the general population don’t show the CEOs just how fragile their mortal bodies are.)
No, why do they produce all the emissions?
Combustion produces byproducts, such as carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and depending on the fuel or the quality of combustion, sulphur oxides and other fantastically poisonous substances that are building up in our limited breathing air and drinking water.
Engines that use this process are called internal combustion engines, they mix the fuel with air and ignite it, this creates heat and pressure, because the big molecules that make up the fuel are broken down into a massive quantity of smaller ones. That pressure then pushes on pistons which turn a crankshaft that can be connected to a transmission in a car, or a generator in a power plant, the hot exhaust gases that make up a lot of the pollution then get forced out of the engine into the air.
Unless you’re asking why specifically those companies are the ones producing the emissions, in which case it’s a matter of the amount of carbon fuel they use to mine/refine/move the materials and build/run the factories, and the transport they use to move their finished product and run all of the processes that lead up to the product being made. All of which drives emissions.
To draw on an example thats incredibly apt right now, considering Utah is now allowing a datacenter that will use 9 GW of power, more than every combined person and business in the state uses.
A data center is designed in CAD software - electrical energy from the grid is used in the computer
The data center is built - Heavy machinery prepares the ground and Concrete is poured - earthmovers use carbon fuel, the concrete manufacturer itself burns fuel to create the concrete, then ships it via trucks to the building site where it is poured, setting concrete also releases carbon dioxide.
The computer components are built - rare earth metals are dug from the ground and refined into chips that are shipped to factories where they are assembled onto circuitboards - the material and manufacture requirements of these components take a lot of fuel, and a lot of highly specialised equipment that is energy intensive
The computer components are shipped to the site - this also takes fuel.
This is all contributing to the emissions cost that the company has racked up, and the datacenter isn’t even active yet.
ALSO, NONE of these examples take into account physical pollution, where crude oil or a carbon product (such as in Palestine… the American one; where a derailed train load of polyvinyl was set on fire and left to uncontrollably burn because it was cheaper than calling a chemical spill team) is either poured into the worlds water from crashed tankers or from drilling platforms (or from military actions where refineries are burned, and we get events like the mass swathe of marine life dieoff thanks to oil being spilled into the ocean)
Hopefully that answers your question, if not you’ll have to ask a different way because I don’t know what you mean when you say “why do they produce emissions?” (The answer is burning things makes emissions, and they’re burning the lot.)
That WW1 was the same moral black and white as WW2.
In my opinion, every country in WW1 was the villain just that one side was impatient enough to be the aggressor first.Yeah. When you look at how the war even got started, you start to see that Germany didn’t expect Austria-Hungary to be that incompetent diplomatically and that Russia was the one who threw away a potential peace plan before the war started.
Ooh this is a hot take, can you explain a little?
I don’t think it is.
They all were colonial powers that oppressed and subdued their colonial holdings, extracting wealth and even soldiers. France was the only republic, all the others were monarchies and Russia had the most absolutist monarchy. But that doesn’t really factor in, because even France wasn’t fighting to spread or preserve democracy.All were fighting to beat them arch enemies, to steal a piece of land or two or maybe a colony and to test their newly developed industrial weaponry. They were all
stompingchomping at the bit before it started.The German Empire was surely the most militaristic society. But they still fought all for the same ideology and reason.
To my last point, you can see that in the result: the losers had to gave up colonies but not to independence but to the victors as spoils.Stomping at the bit? I’ve never heard that phrase
Yeah I meant chomping at the bit. It comes from horses chewing the metal part of the bridle because they’re fired up and want to run.
Ah, thanks. I am not a native English speaker.
May you explain why you think it’s controversial? Only if you want to.
That you only need headlights to see in the dark. Headlights are just as much so other cars can see you, than they are so you can see. In the rain and in the fog, they’re crucial to have on.
Agreeing to disagree is only applicable to matters of taste.
Example would be a preference of maple or agave syrup with your choice of cooked dough.
One cannot agree to disagree when one of the parties is factually wrong.
I see the “agree to disagree” as a bit of a social flag for the conversation that says “I don’t wish to get into it / continue arguing about it” because there is no way to respond to it. If you try to continue the debate you look like an asshole, and if you drop it the person who says it gets to continue being wrong without being challenged.
It’s very annoying and I hate it.
That all the Y2K preparation stuff was a waste of time / a scam, instead of an example of massive success (people coming together and pulling off something to avoid a disaster)
Also see Acid Rain and the hole in the ozone.
A friend of mine got a high-paying temp job reprogramming servers in some obscure programming language. I think the client was a major bank.
Yeah, a lot of dirtbags took advantage of Y2K, but that doesn’t mean Y2K wasn’t a serious problem. It easily could have been.
It easily could have been
It was a very serious problem.
Very few dirtbags took advantage of it.
Obscure language was probably COBOL. Obscure in the sense that it was once immensely popular for business applications, but by the late 90s there were very few new applications written in it, but a huge number of large businesses still ran it.
You are really underselling the fact that many of these businesses are still running COBOL despite it being the equivalent of ancient Mayan.
That’s not a fair assessment really… Some of them are still using PROLOG.
I meant “it easily could have been” in the sense that it if it hadn’t been taken seriously, it would affected virtually everyone in some way.
You’re tired of this? Like, you’ve encountered people actively talking about it so much you’re tired? Besides the odd online post, I’ve never met anyone making reference to or talking about this.
Dozens of times yes
Mate i pulled 70+ hour shifts for months on end to make sure it wasn’t a problem, it only takes one fool for me to be tired of hearing it
Fair enough.
Things being “illegal”.
No it’s not against the law. Just because someone can sue you doesn’t mean what you did was a crime. Just because a business can’t sell a particular product doesn’t mean it’s illegal to have. You can’t ‘get arrested’ for half the shit people think is ‘illegal’.
The birth rate going down = the population is collapsing.
No.
The birth rate is going down and the population is increasing. Both of these are happening at the same time.
It does mean population aging. Which isn’t great.
That the granny who sued McDonald’s was just upset that her coffee was too hot.
She suffered from either third or fourth degree burns, on her lap.
Parts of her were fused together.
She just wanted McDonald’s to cover the medical bill, but they dragged her name through the mud.
This misconception was well paid for. McDonalds and a large group of fortune 500 companies started a slander ad campaign against lawsuits. They literally paid people to write and run stories about “stupid and unjust” lawsuits, claiming the lawsuits wee a waste and of course bringing up this one.
It worked.
Yep, also they had previously been warned about serving coffee that hot, but studies had shown that serving it that hot meant that people drank less of it. And that “crazy” judgement (2.5 million?) wasn’t a random number. That’s how much they make off coffee in one day.
Yeah we actually learned very quickly about that in legal studies (high school) way back in 2000s and it was presented like a silly Americans (Australian here) kind of thing, just a quick silly case in a small box in the textbook. Wasn’t til I got older I learned the full story!
We had an Aussie silly case too, not just picking on the US 😅 ours was about some drink in an opaque bottle and someone drank it all before they could see there was some kind of bug or even a snail in the bottle? Something like that so they sued the drink company 🤢 can’t remember enough about that one to find anything on it!
I saw that, yeah McDonald’s really tried to blast her as a sue happy bitch. All she asked for was medical bill costs initially which is reasonable.
The best first aid for someone having a seizure is to shove a wallet (or something) in their mouth, so that they don’t “swallow their tongue”.
NO!
Never do this. Absolutely never. It’s far more likely that you’ll injure the victim (or yourself) in the attempt.
Furthermore, don’t restrain a seizure victim in any way unless it’s absolutely necessary for their physical safety (like if they’re in danger of falling down a stairway. Even then, it’s usually better to just stand at the top step and act as a barrier). Whenever possible, move things they may hit out of their way; don’t try to move the victim. If there’s something you can’t move, try to put something soft between the victim and the object.
Most of the time, the best thing you can do for a seizure victim is to not touch them at all, and simply give them room.
Is putting a pillow or something soft under their head adviseable? I know the floor is considered a hard immovable object but it putting something under them sorta so im not sure if that qualifies
Generally the advice is moving everything out of the way, if possible a blanket or something under their head as quickly as possible if they are on a hard surface and calling the ambulance (if someone else is there get them to do that straight away while you move stuff!) Also a good idea to time the seizure if possible! When they come to, have them stay laying down for a few minutes at least before sitting up. Some people can appear to be okay but go back into seizure so slowly, slowly with sitting up and even before offering a water.
If you know someone who has seizures, even irregularly, it’s a good idea to ask them about it beforehand in case it ever happens when you’re with them. People can have different management plans and it also just gives you some guidance and the other person some control should it happen.
(I work in disability!)
Thank you. I work with someone that can have seizures and we have a looot of hard floors so this is great advice for me.
Just adding, TIME the seizure. Super important.
Propaganda from the fossil fuel industry.
Solar panels are the cheapest source of electricity now. Batteries have dropped in price by more than 90% in the past decade, and are now viable for grid-scale storage, addressing the main issue with renewable energy. EVs are competitive with combustion cars, and in some ways superior. Heat pumps are now superior to furnaces in many locations. The solar punk future is now! But you wouldn’t know any of this by listening to the public discourse, mainstream media, and many politicians.
Relevant video from Technology Connections
I got the vibe of his video as soon as I read the first sentence lol.
The average person only lived to be 35 back in the day.
No, the average lifespan was like 35 back in the day. 40 year olds weren’t some rare wrinkled old person, the average was affected by the extremely high childhood mortality. If you could survive the first few years of your life your chances of surviving the next 60 were pretty good.
I got relatives that lived to their 90’s in the 1600’s, we may have skewed it a bit
That being said, even among people who survived childhood, living to the ages we see nowadays was more rare than it is today due to a lot of environmental and societal factors like plagues and war. It wasn’t unheard of, but that is also something that brought the average down to an extent.
We essentially had a plague in 2020, and there are multiple wars going on as we speak. Those factors didn’t disappear.
True, but we don’t wholesale shit in our drinking water any more while riddled with syphilis
The deaths from both the wars going on in the modern day and infectious diseases like COVID are nowhere near on the scale that they were before, especially in terms of the percent of the world population killed by them. We haven’t had deaths on the scale of WWI or the Spanish Flu since those events.
Fun fact, the bubonic plague never went away. It’s still kicking around the world. Obviously not like it was with The Plague, but still.
We haven’t had deaths on the scale of WWI or the Spanish Flu since those events.
WWII had 3-5 times the number of deaths (depending on whose numbers you trust) as WWI though? Like, it’s not even close. Even using the highest estimate for WWI (22 million) and the lowest estimate for WWII (70 million) WWII was more than triple the deaths.
The global population at the time of WWI was ~1.8 billion, and at the time of WWII is was 2.3 billion.
So in terms of of percent of the world population, WWI loses.
I will concede that the Spanish flu was a lot worse than COVID.
