Displaying the price you will pay at the counter is my personal benchmark for civilized society. No price tags? You’re a medieval backwater. Wrong price tags? Go see a shrink, USA. Correct price tags is the way to go.
Would it change your assessment if they have dynamic price tags that you can only see with the aid of some network-connected augmented reality solution or an online catalog (that you access with a QR code you scan, geotagged software, or something along those lines)?
It’s weird here too because states set sales taxes. I live in Oregon, and we don’t have a standard sales tax here. That means what you see is what you pay at the register for most things, and it’s so freaking nice.
About the only thing I regularly see is the bottle tax (0.10/can added at the register). That’s refundable too, at least theoretically, so it’s not that bad.
Something (almost) no one has mentioned: factory farming of livestock. I’m not gonna say a person who engages in subsistence farming shouldn’t be able to keep a coop of chickens for eggs (as long as their chickens are well cared for), but large scale animal husbandry and livestock is devastating to the environment and genuinely cruel.
That’s great in theory, but there’s just too many people for that to be anywhere close to realistic. If we had about 20% of our current global population, then I’d agree with you, but even the worst pandemic in modern history couldn’t scratch 1%.
my parents grew up eating meat once a every few months, from animals they raised themselves. No big farm, just a house in a village. Is that not sustainable?
No it isnt because unless you eat/drink enough dairy or take B12 supplements, youre going to have a B12 deficiency if you do that. People forget that meat actually serves a nutritional purpose.
Vegans and vegetarians (once a month meat consumption isnt really an omnivore diet) are more likely to be deficient in Zinc, Iron and are more susceptible to osteoporosis due to poor Calcium uptake. Because animal protein does help the body to absorb minerals like Iron, Zinc and the like (it isnt known for sure why and phytates in certain plant foods also hampers mineral uptake) vegetarians and vegans need to overcompensate for those minerals in their food. On the order of about 50% higher than the RDA for omnivores.
Now I am not saying it cant be healthy, it can and there certainly are problems with how the average westerner eats, but I have no confidence in this being done correctly on a mass scale given the data that has come out. eg. 50% of vegans are deficient in B12 as measured by blood test and thats among a population that is likely much more aware of B12 being problematic since it is only naturally found in significant quantities in animal products and almost every meat and dairy substitute on the market is fortified with B12. And that widespread deficiency STILL happens. Vegetarians are less susceptible to B12 deficiency but still generally rely on the dairy industry to obtain that B12 along with Calcium and Zinc. And because B12 is water soluble not fat soluble, it needs to be obtained daily or in higher doses, semidaily. And the effects of B12 deficiency can be delayed months (pernicious anemia) or years (permanent nerve damage with the anemia hidden by excess folate consumption)
People need education and better meat and dairy substitutes that arent as processed to make this work. Right now, most of them have too much salt and saturated fats to be an improvement.
Denying that there are substantial differences between animal and plant protein is a weird take. (Anyone with a milk protein allergy is grateful that the proteins in plant milk arent the same as the ones in cow milk) Plant proteins arent always complete and the type of proteins arent the same. Plants for example, dont have proteins like casein which is present in cow milk. And as is pointed out in the linked review, can be deficient in amino acids such as Lysine, Cysteine and Methionine. (The sulfur containing amino acids they refer to) There is also evidence that plant protein by and large isnt absorbed as effectively as animal protein. Which is fine for the vast majority of people. i.e contrary to the fear mongering, vegetarians and vegans still get plenty of protein unless theyve done something horribly wrong. And the lower digestability of plant proteins has been useful in treating proteinuria (excessive protein in the urine) which is usually associated with kidney failure.
“A recent meta-analysis concluded that soy protein resulted in similar muscle mass and strength gains as animal protein”
“Meta-analysis revealed that although consuming animal protein provided a favorable effect on absolute lean mass compared to plant protein, the result was not statistically significant”
“As for muscle strength, meta-analyses showed no statistical difference in effect between animal protein and plant protein”
Also all the protein they are talking about is dairy not meat.
If youre going to cherry pick links that agree with you you can fuck right off. I have no patience for dishonest people. I gave you a chance to not be a cunt and you fucked that up.
I agree there are differences in the proteins, and thay was an interesting read but its clearly much less than you suggest, they are talking 1% differences or statistical anomalies. I took the time to read what you’d posted so I’m clearly not acting dishonestly but I am reporting you for offensive language.
You need cows to produce all of that just like you would meat. The way cow physiology works requires that calves be birthed periodically to maintain milk production at large scale. The dairy industry is to a large extent, a by product of the meat industry. Those new calves have to go somewhere. And you have to keep in mind that 70% of the world’s population is lactose intolerant as adults. They rely on nondairy meat products for the majority of the B12 they get. OR you switch people to vegan substitutes that have B12 added to them. Right now those are niche/luxury products which is problematic for developing nations. Like… imagine going from small scale cattle and poultry farming to relying on B12 bacterial fermenters and soy production at large scale. That might be doable if new processes for using certain strains of B12 producing pseudomonas bacterial cultures can be developed for fermented soy products like tempeh can spread there but again, those arent there yet. More R&D is needed.
Trading at all by Congress. They should be required to lock their money in a blind trust with heavy oversight. If a CEO has to publish their stock sales months in advance, congresspeople should too.
Fun fact: Pyramid Schemes (now called MLMs) cannot be made fully illegal because they are pure expressions of capitalism. In order to make them fully illegal they would have to admit the entire system is a scam, which they obviously aren’t willing to do since they benefit from it.
Selling life-saving drugs at large multiples of the cost to manufacture + distribute. The most obvious example being insulin.
Switching political party in the same term that you were elected to office.
CEOs making 100x the median worker at the same company.
Assault rifles and other automatic or military-grade weapons. They have no practical purpose in the hands of a citizen. Pistols, shotguns, and hunting rifles should be sufficient for hunting and self defense.
Generic finance bro bullshit. Frivolous use of bank credit for speculative investment. Predatory lending. Credit default swaps. It’s just a spectrum of Ponzi Schemes. Let’s reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act.
Non-disclosure of expensive gifts to Supreme Court judges. Looking at you, Clarence.
Military recruiting at high schools.
Junk mail. You literally have to pay a company to stop sending it.
Automatic weapons for the most part are already illegal, assault rifle isn’t a term that actually means anything and neither does military grade. In fact only 3% of gun deaths in the states are from rifles. The real issue is the illegal gun market and the endless supply of hi-points and other pistols.
That’s what you hear about. You don’t hear about the other 40,000 gun deaths (almost half suicides) anymore than you hear about the 40,000 vehicular deaths.
Kis shoots up a school and kills 5? All over the media for a solid week. Asshole ripping down the interstate takes out a family of 5? Meh. Quick local news blurb.
OP’s point is that rifles, legal or not, aren’t what’s doing all the killing. It’s the pistols. Nobody will talk about it because there’s no way in hell for a pistol ban to pass. But words like “assault” and “military” get traction.
Remember Virginia Tech? Worst mass murder at the time? Kid did most of his killing with a .22 pistol.
They were. They were horrific tragedies. They are also the outlier of outliers. And any legislation targeting them is either a) going to have zero effect on crime, b) only going to harm law abiding citizens or C) both
isn’t it specifically going to rein in the outlier of outliers that school shootings are? I think people would be really happy with that, even if the average crime rate doesn’t go down
I doubt it If they cant get an ar they’ll just go get a black market pistol for $100. And besides, the way to curb school shootings isn’t through firearm restrictions. It’s through actual proper mental health programs and funding. Something that the US government refuses to fund because it’ll actually fix the problem instead of just being a feel good gesture.
The only shootings where mental illness plays a major factor are suicides. When it comes to gun violence, only 4-5% of perpetrators have a severe mental illness. When it comes to school mass shootings specifically [ source ]:
67% are white
100% are male (95% according to a different source)
“Severe mental illness (e.g., psychosis) was absent in the majority of perpetrators; when present, psychotic symptoms are more associated with mass murders in academic settings involving means other than firearms”
And with regard to school shootings generally:
77% of the time, someone knew about their plans for the shooting ahead of time
more than half of K-12 shooters have a history of psychological problems, but the bigger issue is that nearly three quarters of the time, they had been being bullied or harassed in school
depending on the source, nearly half or more than half got the gun from home or a relative, often by stealing an unsecured or under-secured firearm
If we could reduce bullying and do a better job at making students feel like they have value and matter, that would go a lot further toward reducing school shootings than anything involving mental illness (aside from, perhaps, efforts to reduce the stigma associated with it).
Substance abuse - drugs, particularly those that are illegal, and alcohol - as well as poverty and inequality is much more strongly linked to gun violence.
I’m not saying that we shouldn’t continue improving our available mental health resources (the majority of deaths from guns are by suicide, after all), but we shouldn’t use mental illness as a scapegoat.
An “assault rifle” is specifically a selective-fire rifle with detachable magazines and intermediate cartridges. AR-15s, AK-47s, and M16s meet this definition. You are likely thinking of “assault weapon,” a term which is not well-defined.
And while it’s true that most mass shootings and gun deaths in general are perpetrated by handguns, assault rifles are responsible for the deadliest mass shootings.
Because it is so challenging to pass gun control legislation in the US, the least we can hope to do is forbid ownership of the deadliest types of guns.
I agree that this is not sufficient though. We need to have more stringent requirements for acquiring any firearm. 28 states don’t even require background checks for private sale of guns. Our laws fall way too short on gun trafficking.
The illegal gun market is just a symptom of the very legal gun market. The head of the ATF even said, “virtually every crime gun in the US starts off as a legal firearm.”
We need background checks, and I don’t think private unlicensed gun sales should be legal either.
Okay except most rifles, including AK47’s AR15’s and M16’s are semi automatic only so they aren’t selective fire. And if we ignore that requirement and go with the the other two requirements it means that .22lr hunting rifles with a box mag count as “assault rifles”
Pistols are still the deadliest type of guns no matter what metric you use.
The head of the ATF is also responsible for operation fast and furious. Not to mention that is a nothing statement when you think about it. Of course they start off as legal firearms. Gun traffickers are “legally” buying these weapons overseas end mass from firearm companies and warlords or they’re being stolen from legal gun owners.
Pistols are still the deadliest type of guns no matter what metric you use.
That’s a silly statement. Why do you think soldiers prefer to use assault rifles in combat? I said “deadliest” meaning the most capable of killing, not the most statistically likely gun to kill someone.
“Most capable of killing” doesn’t mean anything though. A bullet is a bullet is a bullet. What gun its fired out of doesn’t really matter when its against soft targets. 9mm 5.56 and 7.62 are all the same lethality.
Edit: Also comparing the use case of gangers and even school shooters with soldiers is foolish. The main benefits of a rifle (in war) are range, stability and higher cyclic rate. Virtually all rifles are semi automatic so cyclic rate doesn’t matter. And at the range pretty much all school shootings take place in, pistol vs rifle doesn’t matter. Stability is also largely irrelevant based on distance and the fact that unarmed civilians dont shoot back.
All this to say, 91% of school shootings are perpetrated with pistols. So this hyperfixation on “assault rifles” is silly. I say again, you’ve been lied to.
Ok I don’t really agree with all of your lines of reasoning but I’m curious what you think the solution to our gun problem is. We at least agree that we have a problem, right?
Honestly true. I just think he’s a moron so I discount much of what he says.
Also I looked up the statement about most guns being legal. Based on data from his own agency its 54%. While that is technically the majority, thats a coin flip. “Virtually all” in my books is 70% or higher.
What the fuck? You have to pay to stop getting junk mail? We in Australia just put a little sign on our letterbox saying ‘no junk mail’ and we stop getting it. That’s insane. Same thing with the insulin comment and some of the stuff other people said like forced arbitration. America is crazy.
Yup I paid the fee to stop getting marketing junk mail. Then when I started an LLC, they started sending all of that mail again addressed to the LLC. You can’t fucking win.
Free paper is free paper. You can also mess with them by signing them up for each other and/or sending them stones (if there’s a return envelope; they’ll be charged for it).
Giving tips is okay. Paying your employees less because you expect them to be tipped is stupid. Culturally requiring tips to make up the majority of a positive income is ridiculous, but very difficult to change.
Yes exactly. And now every payment maybe has tipping options enabled it seems, and it takes more steps to skip tipping options than to tip. Ridiculous.
I don’t think that’s realistic. Even the guy at the local market shouting “get your potatoes here” is technically advertisement.
What could work instead is to make both the company that advertises and the one that displays the ad liable for the ad itself. If it’s inappropriate, contains malware or is in any way malicious, the company displaying it should also be liable for endangering the customers. Also outlaw tracking for advertisement purposes altogether
São Paolo in Brazil and Grenoble in France completely banned outdoor advertising, various other cities and regions (Amsterdam, Bristol, Vermont) have heavily restricted them. Dare to dream bigger than policies which have already existed for decades 😝
This one is pretty location specific but I agree that US law doesn’t make any sense. Like, physician and pharmacist spend 10 years at university to learn all the details about prescription medication and then have to get yearly retraining, so how do you even do ad’s for that
Two ways: first, you go to doctors offices and hospitals and give gifts to the person responsible for picking which version of this medicine to buy/prescribe.
Second, convince patients to ask for your version when they see their doctor by telling them on tv that it will make their life better or whatever
I left the US to work overseas and when I came back the law changed and everyone was hooked on viagra, the “little purple pill” and everything else…it was VERY obvious what happened…after we sttled down we went to establish care woth a GP & I walked out of my initial appointment with 6 prescriptions.
I will quote George Washington to explain the why: “However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.”
There is no ethical way for an individual to possess a billion dollars. The amount of harm an individual would have to cause to attain and retain assets of that magnitude should not just be criminal; it should be a capital offense.