Agreed. This argument is one of the more dystopian aspects of late stage capitalism. Not content with controlling basically every aspect of our lives, the mega-wealthy want to shape our education, our knowledge as well. Anything that they cannot profit from is considered worthless.
Yeah, and as someone with a degree they value I’m mad as fuck at it. Yeah of course us engineers need education funding, but we need to be taught the humanities too. I went to school with a woman double majoring in biomedical engineering and women’s studies and in addition to her being the sort of badass that wears blue lipstick to stem classes, she was also one of the most well rounded people in our college.
My English prof taught me to recognize propaganda. My lit classes mattered. My fundamentals of stand up comedy class taught me public speaking. My friend’s philosophy classes got me thinking deeper. Intro to archaeology was mind opening. I didn’t take gender studies but I did feel comfortable reading feminist theory and discussing it with my peers. Hell even my classics class made me a more well rounded person by reinforcing that rome wasn’t some glorious bastion of goodness, but a long standing society that’s overglorified but fascinating for what it actually was.
I am not an economic unit. I am a human being. Just as humanities students need math and science I need humanities.
You say that but then people flip the fuck out the second art and liberal degrees like this go away. Frankly it’s what this guy is doing buddy with a nice racist veneer.
Yeah. After all, when “the market” decides something, that usually means the public interest wasn’t profitable enough to the people making decisions in it
Because our government was fully captured by the wealth class half a century ago when their preferred party® converted their formerly pro-labor opposition party(D) to their economic cause with the promise of larger bribes, leaving us no vote on economic policy, only social issues that are largely informed and exacerbated by economic policy Neoliberals and Republicans get the same marching orders for.
It’s wishful self-delusion to believe this nation hasn’t collapsed into openly corrupt plutocracy. Our nation as outlined in the Constitution is captured and over. We’ll limp along for a time, playing pretend we’re still a democratic republic rather than an oligarch piggy bank, until we collapse. Because Americans are too A) soft, B) addicted to their subsistence opiates (social media, fast food, literal opiates, etc) to risk disruption, and C) thoroughly propagandized to defer to their oppressors through all mjaor media, that they own, and even education that preaches their DIVINE FREE MARKET CAPITALISM doctrine from Kindergarten through colleges of economics to even consider the difficult but necessary step of revolution.
To be clear, not revolting isn’t sparing pain, only prolonging it until the crooked system collapses under the weight of its own corruption, at which point the people will still need to rebuild. Just as with climate change and everything else, we kick the can down the road and hope we’ll be dead before the bill comes due. How American of us.
Purposed solution: make it harder for educated people to stay in the state.
Yeah I fully believe this guy studied economics. This is exactly the kinda ass-backwards logic they would come up with. It not only fails the smell test it does not match up with real world data at all. If you want more of something you dedicate more resources to that thing. The only reason why someone would suggest doing the exact opposite of what should be done is if there is a big incentive to lie. In this case for political advancement. Like I said, he is an economist. A paid shill.
By making programs not available it means that young people leave the state even earlier. It means that they don’t have a career back home when they finish. Which means they have even less resources. A vicious cycle. They suck at subject X, so it gets less funding, which means they suck more, so they get even less funding, and it continues until the subject is gone and with it all the jobs. Instead of a diverse intellectual workforce you are doubling down on the few narrow subjects that show profit in a short period of time. Totally unprepared for any market shifts. And in the meantime you can’t accommodate anyone who doesn’t excel at the thing you doubled down on.
There might be some excuse for this if it were working but it isn’t working. You could imagine San Jose pushing their schools to teach engineering or NYC schools pushing fashion but Mississippi is pushing for degrees in fields that have no hope in competing in.
Every single fucking thing is wrong about this plan and no one gives a shit. This guy is going to get some consulting fees bullshit for telling politicians what they want to hear because fuck truth.
Some of this is dumb (not all, just some). We should be going after the FDA for their contrived distinction on “natural/artificial” and shoddy labeling requirements. The companies are always going to do whatever nets the most profit within the rules, which often means using the cheapest or most minimal ingredients.
Let’s take candy as an example. I mean, I don’t expect lemon Starbursts to contain actual lemon. I think everyone is mostly fine with that being ‘artificial’ flavor.
But what is artificial, exactly? Chemists don’t really make that distinction; just like the FDA, if a molecule is extracted from a living thing it’s called a “natural product”. But that doesn’t actually tell you anything about the molecule itself or mean it’s different than it would be if synthesized from components chemicals in any way whatsoever.
Pineapple and pear flavors are just one simple ester each, I’ve easily made them in a lab. Any lack of “real” taste is probably just a matter of sugar or acidity balance or missing texture. If a commercial product is made well, you’ll never know the difference because it’s the exact same compound whether it comes from a farm or an industrial vat. That one ester molecule is literally indistinguishable from either source (assuming it’s been isolated / ‘purified’ sufficiently).
But strawberry and apple are much more complex fruits, with dozens or maybe hundreds of esters and other flavor compounds. Fake strawberry and apple might never be convincing. You can easily tell if those tastes are ‘artificial’ when they lack the nuance of having the right mix of many flavor chemicals.
Now, that claim about the 100% tuna sandwich… that’s totally misleading and a good basis for a lawsuit IMO. Nobody is synthesizing a convincing fish protein at scale.
EDIT: Lots of clarifications. EDIT2: Can folks please explain when they downvote? I’m on topic and discussing nuances of the issue here.
I agree, but I go often enough to know that I do actually expect the real fruit to be in the drink, and now wonder what I’ve been chewing on that tastes like mango. It’s definitely advertised that way, and starbursts are not
That still includes real fruit, but Starbucks has the liberty to name the drink based on its flavors and not solely on the ingredients. I’m not claiming that’s entirely ethical, but it definitely seems allowed per the FDA rules.
Turns out, freeze dried pineapples (in the paradise drinks). I thought it was mango. Honestly now that I realize they weren’t saying what I thought they were, this does seem somewhat frivolous
Right? it’s easy to have a knee-jerk reaction. But compared to all the terrible things companies do, flavoring is super minor. The FDA doesn’t really restrict them much here as long as the ingredients are generally safe to consume.
I’d like to see more people angry about sugar & corn syrup content, that’s actually bad for our bodies and there was half a century of bribes and disinformation behind it.
Here’s the one advertised as Pineapple Passionfruit where the ingredients don’t list actual passionfruit. It has “natural flavors”. Maybe that includes extract from passionfruit, maybe it’s entirely from other fruits, but they’re not required to say.
The FDA makes a distinction between “natural” and “artificial” flavor based on source, but my point is that distinction itself is sometimes completely pointless and misleading. For some flavors there is truly zero difference. I suspect that’s the case for passionfruit, so it’s possible customers are worked up over nothing.
(I would highlight pineapple but Starbucks actually claims there is real freeze-dried pineapple chunks in their drinks, and that seems easy to verify)
This is the first thing I think about whenever I check my credit score and it has magically gone down 5 points even though literally nothing in my life changed and all my bills were paid on time.
It’s so fucking infuriating that these companies that can’t even keep their (our) data safe have such inordinate and arbitrary control over our lives and what we can do with them.
For what it’s worth, a 5 point swing in your credit score is basically meaningless - just noise in the data more than anything. It’s not going to be the deciding factor for someone to decide whether or not to loan you money. It might sometimes make a slight difference in the rate you get.
I think that had more to do with symbolizing a change in the direction of the company (ie: metaverse) and also a global name for a variety of products (instead of just Facebook) rather than just trying to hide who they are. They don’t even have any Meta-branded products. Facebook is still Facebook, Instagram is still Instagram, and WhatsApp is still WhatsApp.
I can see your point but it more so comes off as a “rebrand”. Trying to distance themselves from what they used to be so hopefully people forget all the shit they pulled.
That said, it very well may be just an attempt to shift the direction of a company but I highly doubt thats really the motive or the only intention.
They’ve already removed their logo from several products (ex: Nestlé Pure Life is just Pure Life now). Now you have to check back of the label more closely to avoid them. But rebranding would make that more difficult. Instead of actually stopping the human rights violations they rather just do this. It’s disgusting.
It’s strange how these people always and consistently fall short of the values they’re trying to force on others.
There’s one of those dropkicks in the Australian parliament. One of those staunch conservative, deeply catholic people. Was dead set against same sex marriage because ‘it devalues traditional marriage’. One day it came out that he’d been cheating on his wife and the mother of his four children with a woman half his age (he was nearing sixty at the time). Not only did he get his mistress pregnant, he also set her up with a cushy job in parliament.
His response when questioned about all this in relation to his claims about gay marriage: “I never said I was a saint.”
John 8:7 ESV / 34 helpful votes And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.”
Fucking hypocritical politicians, same the world over.
Edit: I’m not religious overall, but I love throwing scripture in the face of these assholes.
Not to mention that particular passage was added to the bible hundreds of years after it was assembled by a random scribe scribbling in the margins, they don’t even understand the nature of their sacred text… (Check out Misquoting Jesus, excellent read…)
Oh, this guy wasn’t joking. He just thought that his own standards, which he wants to force on others, didn’t apply to him, and was completely unapologetic about that fact becoming public knowledge.
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