fine_sandy_bottom
@fine_sandy_bottom@discuss.tchncs.de
- Comment on ‘Net zero hero’ myth unfairly shifts burden of solving climate crisis on to individuals, study finds 1 day ago:
Yeah, I absolutely agree with this sentiment. The whole plastic mess really grinds my gears.
The straw thing is classic “industry reference group consultation” stuff. Regulators asked the companies that manufacture stuff wrapped in plastic what they should do, and they said “no more shopping bags!” and “cardboard straws!”, and now consumers feel like they’ve endured some hardship and solved the plastic problem. Meanwhile the assholes can keep selling everything wrapped in plastic because that’s the cheapest way to sell it.
About a year ago I noticed plastic products at the shop like wraps and bin bags with “50% ocean plastic” or some such. They define ocean plastic as plastic collected from communities within 100km of the ocean which have no other plastic reclamation facilities. In Australia 99.99% of the population lives within 100km of the ocean. City Councils pay companies to process waste. If you take the plastic from those companies then it meets their shitty definition of “ocean plastic”. So in summary, they’re not saving any dolphins, but using the plight of the dolphins to sell more plastic. Assholes.
Regulators need to regulate these cunts. Add a levy to any product that includes plastic. Start at 1% and increase by 1% each year forever. I have absolutely no doubt that within just a few years your local supermarket will be awash with products enclosed in amazing polymers comprised of frog spit and corn starch that were invented 80 years ago.
- Comment on Justin Trudeau resigns as Canadian prime minister - live updates 1 week ago:
Yeah, the medical industry in Australia is probably similar, sliding away from universal health care.
I mean it’s nothing like the US but I do feel that we’re headed in the wrong direction.
10 years ago it wasn’t hard to find a GP that wouldn’t charge you anything on top of the government rebate. Now the rebate is usually about half what the GP is charging.
That said, myself and those in my care have spent a lot of time in hospital over the last few years and we haven’t paid a cent for any of that. My partner gave birth to Twins, it was a “complex pregnancy”, all fit and well in the end but we spent 3 months in another city to be near a specialist hospital. Govt paid for a nice apartment for us for the whole time, absolutely gold standard care from the miracle workers at that hospital, just amazing honestly.
- Comment on Justin Trudeau resigns as Canadian prime minister - live updates 2 weeks ago:
We have the same inflation / gouging problem in Australia.
We had a supermarkets inquiry to investigate practices of price gouging. I don’t think anyone has any faith that it’s going to improve anything.
- Comment on Justin Trudeau resigns as Canadian prime minister - live updates 2 weeks ago:
This doesn’t sound terrible?
In Australia, it feels like the inverse. We generally have conservative governments until they do something particularly abhorrent and lose government for a term.
We’re presently enjoying our once-in-a-decade progressive government term and sadly I feel they have squandered their term. They seem determined to ignore the core responsibility of making life better for everyone and instead waste political capital on fanciful notions like banning sheep exports and frivolous changes to the constitution.
- Comment on Are affordable apartments easy and cheap suicide prevention? 2 weeks ago:
No. There’s a reason cheap apartments in China have enclosed balconies.
- Comment on What is the origin of aliens looking like humans? Why and when did it become the norm? 2 weeks ago:
This is my understanding, and rightly or wrongly it’s the theory underlying the artistic license supporting popular fiction like the star trek and star wars universes.
Obviously my views are supported by confirmation bias, but in the only ecosystem we know of the hominid body plan is the most successful.
Things would be different in different environments, like higher gravity or ocean planets, but in the absence of any data about those the safe bet is that most intelligent life looks similar to us.
- Comment on Uber Eats undercover: Delivering your food for $1.74 an hour 2 weeks ago:
Even pizza shops with their own drivers. I’d usually prefer to go get it myself so it’s as fresh as possible.
- Comment on Hey mods or admins can we get a best of 2024 for this year like best questions and best answer? 2 weeks ago:
I mean you’re right, but it’s not very enthralling.
It’s mostly the contentious political questions that hit the front page.
- Comment on Why are vegan and gluten free items more expensive? 4 months ago:
It’s social media, who’s making scientific postulates?
- Comment on Why are vegan and gluten free items more expensive? 5 months ago:
It’s a lemmy comment.
- Comment on Why are vegan and gluten free items more expensive? 5 months ago:
It’s not rudimentary, it’s a complex system reduced to a few sentences.
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Vegan patties have been around forever.
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There aren’t significantly more barriers to entry for food products than other industries.
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Yes vendors want high prices, but that applies to any product, not only vegan products.
The answer is, as everyone else has pointed out, economies of scale. There’s a larger market with more participants producing more beef burgers than there are vegan patties.
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- Comment on Why are vegan and gluten free items more expensive? 5 months ago:
This is contrary to basic economic principles.
If a beef burger and vegan burger cost the same to make, but people will pay more for the vegan, that world attract more vegan producers to the market, and more competition would reduce the price.
- Comment on The Google antitrust ruling could be an existential threat to the future of Firefox | Financials show 86% of Mozilla's revenue came from the agreement keeping Google as Firefox's default search engine 5 months ago:
Obviously. Why is that threatened by this antitrust ruling ?
- Comment on ISS astronauts on eight-day mission may be stuck until 2025, Nasa says 5 months ago:
I would be mad.
I just don’t really think that the ISS is such a nice place to be.
It would be absolutely amazing to be lucky enough to visit there for a few weeks.
By that time though it would start to get old.
It’s not exciting space exploration - it’s being stuck in a smelly can in zero-g.
- Comment on Some subreddits could be paywalled, hints Reddit CEO 5 months ago:
Nonsense. The users who have left are an infinitesimal portion of users.
- Comment on The Google antitrust ruling could be an existential threat to the future of Firefox | Financials show 86% of Mozilla's revenue came from the agreement keeping Google as Firefox's default search engine 5 months ago:
This article doesn’t even bother to explain the connection. I don’t get it if I’m honest.
- Comment on Decentralised YouTube alternative Odysee no longer serving ads 5 months ago:
So that makes odysee’s behaviour OK?
- Comment on Decentralised YouTube alternative Odysee no longer serving ads 5 months ago:
Yeah it really does seem this way.
I’ve never been a “free speech absolutist”. I acknowledge that censorship is problematic, but it seems much less so than the alternative.
- Comment on Reddit blocking all major search engines, except Google 5 months ago:
Nonsense.
- Comment on YouTube tests server-side ads to make your coveted blocker obsolete 5 months ago:
Honestly the shitter they get the more content creators will publish elsewhere.
Honestly idk why more don’t post to peertube already. It costs nothing to cross post if you already have the content.
- Comment on 77% Of Employees Report AI Has Increased Workloads And Hampered Productivity, Study Finds 5 months ago:
Well yes, but it’s not often I encounter an easy or menial task for which AI is the best solution.
For example, searching documentation us usually more informative than asking a bot trained on said documentation.
- Comment on Bing has been revamped to prioritize AI search results – whether you like it or not 5 months ago:
Kagi & DDG already have their own ai stuff
- Comment on [deleted] 5 months ago:
It is if you control the judiciary.
- Comment on What do to if I survive a nuclear blast in my city? 5 months ago:
Everyone is talking about radiation but IMO having food and water is more important.
In a large city, things would turn to shit within hours. There would be violence.
Honestly, if you don’t have a relative on a farm within a days walk, then your best bet is a refugee camp.
- Comment on What do to if I survive a nuclear blast in my city? 5 months ago:
If cities are being nuked it probably is the apocalypse.
- Comment on An Algorithm Told Police She Was Safe. Then Her Husband Killed Her. 5 months ago:
Is it really too much to want enough resources to respond appropriately to all cases?
- Comment on What is the actual point of a bra? 5 months ago:
It’s definitely a me problem, not a you problem, but I do find nips distracting. I’d like to get better at not being distracted by visible nips and I’m here for that journey.
- Comment on If everyone is fired by AI, who's going to buy the products and services made by the companies if no one has money anymore? 6 months ago:
The thing is though, everyone needs to do something just for the satisfaction of not doing nothing.
- Comment on Restaurant in NYC offshores cashier job to Philippines so they can pay below minimum wage ($3/hr in Philippines) 6 months ago:
No one wants to see the people who are being exploited.
- Comment on Most consumers hate the idea of AI-generated customer service 6 months ago:
In my experience the AI assistant is just trained on the information available on the firm’s website.
In 2024 I never just call a company expecting to be able to be assisted by a person. It’s always quicker and easier to figure out how to interact with said company online. The only times you call are when it’s not possible to resolve your query by interacting with them online.
That being the case, the entire purpose of the AI in this case is just to make it less convenient to call them. “Have you tried to resolve your issue online? Are you really sure about that? Maybe I could paraphrase this blog post from our website written by an intern 12 years ago.”