How is that a lie? I have literally spoken to multiple people who insisted that they had been through being sprayed with pepper spray, or other less lethal weapons who eventually admitted that they got the inert versions or special safety circumstances like wearing padding, etc. In this discussion, someone mentioned training where they were exposed to tear gas, if I recall correctly. They themselves pointed out that it was a weakened version for training. In that case, they weren't using their experience to belittle people who have been through the actual experience, but I've encountered plenty who do. One of my favorites for that kind of attitude is people claiming that torture isn't a problem because special forces guys go through things like waterboarding in training. My usual argument about that is that it's like saying that rape isn't bad because some people have consensual sex. But another important point there is that the experience is a controlled one conducted by friendlies and with a predefined start and end point rather than days, months, weeks, years, or even decades of unpredictable assaults conducted by torturers who don't really care if the victim dies. There's obviously a very big difference in the watered down training experience both in substance and in stakes, but some people still want to play pretend that they're somehow equivalent.

There are, indeed, situations where plastics have served important functions and saved lives. At this point I can't even count the number of plastic things that have been shoved into and implanted in my body that have saved my life or helped me medically, and I recognize that there's no good substitute for them. At one point I was going through more than a quarter of a ton of medical supplies a month, and basically all of it came surrounded in plastic in one way or another (to be clear, it's not a quarter ton of plastic waste, the supplies weighed a lot more than the plastic, but it was still a massive amount of plastic. That doesn't mean that plastic should be improperly disposed of so it ends up in the environment as solids. Or, for that matter, that the mostly CO2 it was converted to afterwards isn't an environmental issue. In general, plastic should always be properly disposed of, not to mention that its use should be minimized. Whatever might be vitally needed, there's a massive amount of plastic out there that's used completely unnecessarily. Many things made of plastic that don't need to be, massive amounts used in packaging that's completely useless, etc.

As for the rest of the shit we litter all over the world, we shouldn't be doing any of that, so your question is a bit silly. Still, it's a question of categories. Biodegradable waste, where it doesn't overwhelm the local environments ability to safely handle it is generally less of a problem than plastic. Some metals also aren't that much of a problem because they corrode and eventually just join back up with the ground again. However there are plenty of things like copper, arsenic, lead, mercury, etc. that can be much worse than plastics. For absolutely all of these, it's better to have a plan rather than overproducing and/or randomly dumping.

It's widely detrimental changes to the environment, and houses can, in fact, count. Generally anyone with a realistic understanding knows that calling some things pollution over others is a matter of degree. For example, all coolants being released into the air are technically pollution, but some are hundreds or thousands of times worse than others. In the end, it comes down to effects and equilibrium/homeostasis. For example, are you releasing something into the environment at a rate where the effects build up, or do they just stay at current levels? If levels are rising, where will they reach homeostasis if at all. Are the levels at homeostasis acceptable, or do they produce unacceptable problems? Are there potentially unknown issues? Issues where A at a certain level and B at a certain level are fine alone, but both together at that level is a problem?

All of these things and more need to be considered. These are complex questions and how things are categorized can vary and be situation dependent. The simple rule though, is, if you must err, err on the side of caution.

I mean, do you read what you write to yourself? "...questioning the safety of vaccines...". As if vaccines are some monolithic entity. Hey, if you want to do a meta-analysis or scientific review of all published papers on vaccine safety, be our guest. That could be interesting. Likewise, if you want to consider a single, specific vaccine, and seriously discuss the safety details and the public health ramifications or even just the philosophy of public health, also be our guest.

If however, you think you're making a contribution by "questioning" the very concept of whether or not vaccines can be safe without actually presenting research or even theories or anything like that... Well it seems like you're just being a pseudo-intellectual who isn't even operating at a grade school level, but somehow thinks that you actually have some superior towering intellect that the rest of us lack. This may be reading way too much into what you said, but most people who say things like what you said are ignorant of the vast scientific apparatus and actual expert discussion that actually exists on the topic. Very often that ignorance is intentional. Also, very often, the person saying such things simultaneously thinks that they're some sort of amazing original thinker, while explicitly using the verbal shortcuts and dog whistles of the groupthink echo chambers they belong to and get frustrated when people in outgroups don't instantly align with the same groupthink when the magic words are spoken.

If you have something to actually say about either vaccines or the actual topic, go ahead. There have, in the past been plenty of discussions on things like vaccines that actually discuss real concerns. If you have that, go ahead and if there's any substance, it can be discussed.

Both you and the GP are following a fairly Eurocentric perspective though. I mean, you even note sugar as a luxury, but the reason it was a luxury in Europe was because sugar cane did not grow well there and, as you note, sugar beets weren't a thing yet, so the sugar they did have was part of the spice trade from areas where sugar cane and the other spice plants grew. There was heavy sugar production a thousand years ago in the middle east (where they basically invented the modern idea of dessert). China had heavy sugar production around the same time. India was producing sugar at high levels over two thousand years ago. Observations of the health risks of excessive sugar consumption such as diabetes goes back over two thousand years.

Production in the Caribbean lead to high availability in Europe through an increase of what we would today call vertical integration. Instead of having to deal with trade through the Middle East and numerous middle men, Europeans owned the plantations, the people working on them, the refineries, and the transportation networks. So, through mercantalism, slavery, and just general exploitation all around, cheap granular sugar came to Europe, but it was not the first time in history that it was widely available to populations.

Adding sweeteners to foods does go back thousands of years even in Europe though. The ancient Romans, for example, often used a calorie-free, non-nutritive artificial sweetener. Of course, it was lead acetate, so it had some health problems of its own.

Only comment along the lines of my earlier comment, but I forgot to mention that the Chinese government is also too good at keeping secrets. Seems quite possible to me that the Chinese AI we should be worrying about is not public. Especially not in the stock market sense.

Fusion? Where?

What is non-Fauci-ized science? Do you mean not watered down for mass public consumption? That would be a fair thing to request, the job of communicating science to a broad population does often include pushing the descriptions towards what the lowest common denominator might understand. Still, it's odd to specifically mention Fauci there. He's hardly the first person to need to explain public health/science policy to the population. Or do you have something more specific in mind invoking Fauci? If so, you need to be more explicit because you're probably assuming that others are on the same page as you when they're not even reading the same book.

Well, after it was broken up into "baby Bells", the parts mostly merged back together. Sure, the part that originally kept the AT&T name was technically absorbed by one of the other parts, but the result was more or less the same. A couple of bits formed Verizon. The original shareholders ultimately profited unless they sold at just the wrong time. The rise of cellular service completely altered the landscape and allowed a new round of corporate control. The situation of people in the US having to rent a phone from the phone company was briefly interrupted, but now most people in the US "buy" their phone in an arrangement that's basically a rental ("buy" on an installment plan, get an "upgrade" offer as soon as it's paid off). Also, partly due to this arrangement, most people buy one brand of phone from one manufacturer. They get away with advertising fake prices and then tacking on all of their operating expenses as arbitrarily alterable "fees" on top of the agreed upon price. They regularly receive massive sums of our tax money in exchange for projects which they almost never complete. Everyone who uses their services or those of any of their competitors is subject to what is effectively a contract of adhesion which includes numerous anti-consumer provisions, including waiving the constitutional right to sue. Not to mention that a large number of those bound by such contracts are minors.

Basically, the largest, most dramatic use of the Sherman Antitrust Act in US history did tick the needle in one direction, but it swung back hard the other way. It was the exception, not the rule.

Thanks for the insight - that rings true to me and sounds like a major piece of the puzzle. It has me wondering if maintainers of the open-source software critical to so many companies could find a way to be more public about what they do. If more people in high places understood how important the maintainers' work is - and how little money it would take to keep the software they provide solid and secure - maybe the projects would be better funded.

Whoops, I meant great-grandparent, but when this gets posted it will be great-great-grandparent. I mean the joke by Junta. That's where I'm suggesting the Funny should go.

That should have been obvious, but it went off my scale in relation to stock prices. A thousandfold drop? Impressive crash.

Mod grandparent very funny.

Why does it need to be quoted against censor mods? What was offensive about your attempted joke? Or who have you offended who has mod points to waste?

In solution terms, I have a stupid idea. How about if they only change things when enough people agree to donate actual money to make the change in question? That means any new feature should be considered rather carefully including the real costs of testing it. They could also collect donations to keep things the same, as in keeping crucial servers running for the next year. Actually, the key stuff should be funded several years in advance. Actually strikes me as a nice thing knowing something will keep working for a certain period of time...

Whole branch needs a bunch of Funny mods, but I think the peak funny was probably the suggestion about the gas giants. We want Helium, not Hydrogen.

But there are still no Funny comments on the story. So sadness?

A comment about your sig, but I better quote it because some folks change theirs frequently:

I prefer to thing of them as the cowardly orange-nosing Rumplicans mostly focused on grabbing the money and running away versus the delusional and feckless Dumbocrats dreaming of flying elephants. Advantage who? Certainly not the citizens.