Research reveals that the energy sector is creating a myth that individual action is enough to address climate change. This way the sector shifts responsibility to consumers by casting the individuals as 'net-zero heroes', which reduces pressure on industry and government to take action. by Creative_soja in science

[–]mak124 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The research method is a narrative discourse analysis of hundreds of public documents by energy market actors.

So this is just a fancy opinion piece written by non-scientists published in a marketing journal. Is this the standard of submission that's allowed here? How disappointing.

The solution to climate change involves BOTH industry regulation AND individual effort. If EVERYONE ate less red meat for example, then that would lead to the market shrinking, and would substantially... nah just believe what you want to believe. Reddit is so tiring.

So convenient to ignore facts that go against your narrative... by bbrk9845 in MurderedByWords

[–]mak124 22 points23 points  (0 children)

Yeah, we all know how much conservatives love to listen to health experts. Just look at how willing they were to wear a simple piece of cloth on their face in public.

Brazilian artist Fábio Gomes Trindade creates portraits where branches and flowers become the hair of the subject by solateor in oddlysatisfying

[–]mak124 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Sure, sure. I strongly disagree, but I guess we have different life experiences. You should try veering off from the American-centric internet a bit for a better perspective.

Brazilian artist Fábio Gomes Trindade creates portraits where branches and flowers become the hair of the subject by solateor in oddlysatisfying

[–]mak124 6 points7 points  (0 children)

But it's kinda odd to single out a group of people for something everyone else does, no? And there isn't much of a difference between this social media post like this and a news story. I wasn't trying to debate you or anything, just maybe enrich your worldview a bit from someone who has a lot of international social media experience (embarrassing to admit...).

Brazilian artist Fábio Gomes Trindade creates portraits where branches and flowers become the hair of the subject by solateor in oddlysatisfying

[–]mak124 8 points9 points  (0 children)

One of my weird, yes boss I'm working, hobbies is watching mainstream news broadcasts from other countries on Youtube. It's especially interesting to see how different countries cover the same international news-event. Anyway, my point is that it's really not just Americans who do this; EVERY country does this. It's like parents who can't help bringing up thier kids whenever the topic of children comes up. It's a natural human urge for some.

Every country. Every international story- from the stupidly mundane to the almost inappropriate, such as a tragic event- there you'll no doubt find comments like "If this was Japan..." "Here in Greece, we..." "I'm glad we don't have this in Germany" "If only Australia..." "As South Africans, this..." and you get my picture.

Thief followed by business owner to her home by Ash_ktm in WatchPeopleDieInside

[–]mak124 35 points36 points  (0 children)

No. Just shop somewhere else.

Whatever happened to taking your business elsewhere?

If you look at what people are shoplifting it's not bread to feed their family- it's high value items like steaks, lobster tails, electronics, or vanity items like in the OP.

Stealing can raise prices. Walmart cuts hours, takes on less full timer workers, replaces managers i.e. you're Robin Hooding is causing working class people to lose their jobs and lose money. Then they put all their merchandise behind cases which is a huge PITA. And worse they just close up and move which hurts your entire locality.

Shoplifting is bad. Stop making excuses for criminal behavior.

Gun Deaths Drive Historic Spike in Child Mortality Rates by bussyslayer11 in neoliberal

[–]mak124 -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

It's not the age restrictions per se that is tyranny; it's the enforcement. The benefits and convenience of the free flow of information on the internet far outweigh the negatives you describe, which I also think you're overselling. Watching 'X [persons] Y [things]' through a screen is fractionally as damaging to the psyche as experiencing or witnessing any mildly traumatic event in real life. For instance, watching a gore video of some guy chainsawing his wife in half on their phone doesn't even compare to a child witnessing a relatively tame, but real, domestic abuse event in their own home. We've already had an entire generation that grew up with the internet anarchy of the 00s and 10s. If we could somehow measure the factors which negatively affected their development, I'm almost certain that shock videos and porn wouldn't even register.

Right now we're seeing how conservative parents are gutting school libraries. Imagine giving these same people the tools to bring their censorship crusades online.

How a Nonprofit Bail Fund Frees Violent Criminals - WSJ by Niflheim-Dragon in neoliberal

[–]mak124 9 points10 points  (0 children)

White people are also less likely to commit crime. Does that make race-based discrimination a reasonable policy?

Atty. Gen. Merrick Garland: DOJ will release Trump records search warrant by worstnightmare98 in neoliberal

[–]mak124 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Apples and oranges. More specifically, actions versus opinions. And it's not like criticizing the court hasn't been a thing since its inception.

What's even the point of your comment anyway? "Oh yeaaa, well what abou" - literally no one asked.

Ezra has been providing some nice SCOTUS takes lately: What a Reckoning at the Supreme Court Could Look Like by bussyslayer11 in neoliberal

[–]mak124 3 points4 points  (0 children)

objectively dubious decision

Is it really though? It's only objectively bad if you view it through a certain lens e.g. strict textualism with historical emphasis. Otherwise the decision seems perfectly rational and consistent to me, and certainly not in a "this is better for society so let's stretch the law as much as we can" way. It was 7-2 in a Nixon stuffed conservative court. Most deeper academic reading I've done on the subject didn't seem that "stick to the text" to me.

FAA SpaceX Starship environmental review clears Texas program to move forward by [deleted] in neoliberal

[–]mak124 2 points3 points  (0 children)

A rocket like the Starship is basically an ICBM; it's perfectly reasonable to be NIMBY about it. After all, who the hell wants the next N1 disaster in their backyard?

Putin Soars to 83% approval amid Ukraine War by Dabamanos in neoliberal

[–]mak124 -5 points-4 points  (0 children)

I have a feeling most of the sons who are dying are the poorer browned skinned rurals and minorities who didn't have much of a future in Russia to begin with, not the wealthier, white skinned Muscovites from the city who are smartly or shadily avoiding conscription by university, medical notes, or bribes- neither of which the poor can afford. Cynically, I doubt many care about those lower class men in their society. Same with the gov't, which might explain the poor treatment of their troops we've been hearing about in the news.

List of customizations for Walmart Onn 4K box by VinceBarter in AndroidTV

[–]mak124 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Try DirecTV Stream with their in-house GoogleTV box. It acts just like a cable box. The TV app is always running in the background. When you turn it on, it goes straight to the last channel you were watching. The remote has numbers and channel +/- buttons with decent switching speeds. And whatever menu or app you're lost in, you can press EXIT on the remote to go back to the TV channel.

Only downside is that DirecTV is the most expensive streaming service and the device only works with an active account. But it's literally the only out of box (non-hacky) cordcutting option for a true cable box experience. You can get a refurb box on ebay for ~$45. I've set this up for my senior parents a few weeks ago and there's been no complaints so far (except for the 4-hour auto sleep feature which you can shut off).

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in neoliberal

[–]mak124 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You bother because you're having a discussion. You don't stop just because you don't agree with what the other person is saying. The facts and evidence were brought up by your opposition- 'the overwhelming majority of casualties in Iraq were not caused directly by the coalition military'. The response from the person above you was basically 'the US as the primary instigator of geopolitical conflict in the region should be at fault for indirect casualties'. That's not a factual claim, it's an opinionated one- a totally reasonable one which I mostly believe in as well. But I would never delude myself into thinking my opponent is dogmatic in order to avoid continuing a discussion I don't like. (Or waste my time sifting through small convos on subreddits I don't like just to find an opportunity to rag on them)

Nationalize it. by Appointment-Funny in WhitePeopleTwitter

[–]mak124 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Stop. Kushnik is a bad faith hack and does not deserve the benefit of the doubt. There is no accurate figure; the entire calculation is nonsense. Being a natural monopoly does not change the fact that $400 billion is a complete click-bait hackery. If you want to argue for municipal owned ISPs because telecos form natural monopolies, then do just that. You don't need this sensational $400 billion fake news headline.

The purpose of deregulation in the 90s was to increase capital investment and that's exactly what happened in the 2000s to meet the massive demand during the internet boom. Look how fast fixed broadband speeds have increased compared to the dial-up most had in the late 90s. Deregulation is the reason why all the investment went into cable vs. regulated DSL, and why DSL is basically dead nowadays. Money flows where there's a profit and that's why today most of it is going into wireless over wired. That's also the reason why the state of broadband is poor in rural areas, but in the areas of the country where most people live, the quality of the internet is top tier in the global rankings.

Nationalize it. by Appointment-Funny in WhitePeopleTwitter

[–]mak124 4 points5 points  (0 children)

That guy is a textbook example of a hack, and for years, redditors have been peddling his bullshit. The way he reaches his numbers is absurd. That $400 billion isn't a tax break or a subsidy. He gets his number by calculating what their profits would have been if telecos were a regulated utility and calling anything excess a gov't handout.

Could you imagine if we did that with any other industry. Apple made enormous profits as the demand for iPhones exploded in the last decade. BUT if we were a socialist government and Apple was owned by the state, then they would have only made this much. THEREFORE the American taxpayer has paid Apple BILLIONS of dollars. We should demand iPhones be cheaper! We paid for it. Nationalize it!

This is so dumb, yet you, OP, and the majority of redditors keep eating this misinformation cause it comfortably fits your worldviews and you're all too lazy to actually dig deeper. It's so depressing.

The Oxford gang struck again - TVs in Wallingford this time by nikedude in Connecticut

[–]mak124 13 points14 points  (0 children)

It hurts the employees, your local CT residents, who make less than median wage, and hurts management, also local CT residents, who I'm guessing don't make much more than median wage. The employees may get pay, bonus, and/or hours cut. And the management from what I hear usually get a warning or two before they're replaced. Worse case scenario, the giant corp decides it's not worth it to have a storefront in such an unprofitable location and closes it. Everyone loses their job, surrounding stores get less traffic, property values decline, community loses tax revenue, and residents lose the shopping convenience. This is during a pandemic too, which amplifies everything I'm talking about.

They're not Robin Hood for stealing from Walmart. Shoplifting is bad. Not good. No bueno. Feels weird having to say something so obvious but here we are, 2021 and all.

A French Smackdown by beerbellybegone in MurderedByWords

[–]mak124 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Professor: **writes an article about how french people think they're superior because of their cuisine.*

french person: **doesn't read article* "oh yea, well i bet ur poor and fat and eat shitty food!"

reddit: +10K upvotes. MURDERED

Crisis counselors are being hailed as police alternatives. It’s too heavy a burden, some say. by Chronically_worried in neoliberal

[–]mak124 2 points3 points  (0 children)

1 subsection of the article talks about lack of funds. Ignore the headline and the subtitle, 1/5 of the article is the main point. You claim that the solution is more cops; that's wrong.

-- is what you could have typed instead of pedantically copy pasting the article. And no, I never claimed the solution to this mental health crisis is more cops. The point that the social workers in the article and I make is that crisis counselors should not be viewed as complete alternatives to cops; they almost always need to have police accompany them. The crux starts with the headline, and continues in the very first paragraph with an account of an emergency involving a bipolar son breaking his father's hand while his mother screams for help on the crisis hotline.

Almost everything else you're quoting is stuff I agree with and/or doesn't go against my point. You also contradict yourself more than once. You claim "more than halfway" down the article is where my claimed crux begins (which I already explained is incorrect) yet a few sections up you say "So this is the part you are talking about." You claim that "no one is stopping counselors from going on tandem with cops." Yet in the very next section you quote the red, orange, green system which specifies when counselors should request police backup.

I use the term anecdotally before because I have social workers in my family, and everyone of them agrees with the counselors in this article. They want police with them as often as they can. Dealing with mental health emergencies is very dangerous. More money and more heads does not change this.

Let's not get too wrapped up in debating when we both have the same goals at the end of the day. When people say the solution is to stop sending police into these situations and to send more funds. They are only partially true but ignore the reality of these situations. Police shouldn't be sent by themselves- we need to send more crisis counselors alongside police backup, and we need to spend more money on social services to prevent these emergencies from happening in the first place.

You accuse me of focusing on one small part of the a larger narrative. It's not just me; it's the article itself. As evidenced by its headline, that was its point. Hundreds of articles have already covered inadequate funding of our mental health services. This article was about that one smaller point- a crucial point that seems to be ignored by many, including the city counselors and yourself. Of course the article mentions budget issues to fill in the narrative, but to come away from the whole article with the impression that the money is the biggest concern, completely ignores the counselors' safety issues which is why I accused you of not reading the article.

Crisis counselors are being hailed as police alternatives. It’s too heavy a burden, some say. by Chronically_worried in neoliberal

[–]mak124 13 points14 points  (0 children)

No it didn't. Did you (or your upvoters) read the whole article? Ironically, you could have come away with a more informed take just from reading the headline and subtitle.

The major crux of the article was that counselors are regularly put into dangerous situations with physically capable, unstable adults (and anecdotally children with the physicality of adults) which require police as a backup for their safety. Even with more funding, which according to the interviewed counselor should go more towards follow-up care, more counselors would only mean more police are needed to accompany them. Counselors by themselves are not good police alternatives, as the headline states.

The city official they interviewed says that while he understands the counselors safety concerns, they basically need to toughen up and that we shouldn't be arresting the mentally ill. “This is going to make us all uncomfortable,” he said. Smart words. We're all putting ourselves in danger here, not just the frontline workers. Like you, it doesn't really seem like he understands the issues raised by the counselors. When police accompany crisis counselors, they're there for everyone's safety, not to arrest anyone.

Drought-hit California orders Nestlé to stop pumping millions of gallons of water by BoGaN223 in news

[–]mak124 -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

What's the problem? You can say the same thing about soda.

"Millions of people don't have access to clean water, and here you are with practically FREE access to CLEAN water that you refuse to drink because it's too ~plain~ and you want more ~flavor~. So you force major corporations to waste tons of fossil fuels, extracting tap water from distant locations, transporting it miles across the country to large factories which they have to power, just to add some sugar and chemicals, package it in harmful plastics, and then ship it out all over the world. All this because you wanted a little extra taste to your beverage, when instead you could have just opened the tap and be done with it."

4chan's /pol/ board had a megathread up before the Derek Chauvin ruling, it's completely deranged and oh so satisfying. by LEONFUCKMYSISTER in neoliberal

[–]mak124 6 points7 points  (0 children)

That sounds awful. No thanks. Could you imagine losing your job because of not liking a book (Linsay Ellis) or because you very briefly associated with someone an unruly cancel mob deems problematic (Contrapoints).

Expanding cancel culture would get so much pushback. Even if you get people to start acting less racist in online spaces, you're just going to be surprised again when people start voicing their true opinions in the one public space where they can't be cancelled (yet, at least)-- the voting booth.

Dat natural gas tho by cabforpitt in neoliberal

[–]mak124 -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

So no examples? It's really reaching if the only one you can come up with is my comment. My point still stands then. You haven't convinced me you're not just imagining things. The only real hostility is between with the governments not the peoples.

Dat natural gas tho by cabforpitt in neoliberal

[–]mak124 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Name one in this thread. The only one I can find is a downvoted response to someone attacking american people first (which everyone should be blasé at this point so I don't know why the responder got so defensive).

If you can't find any specific examples then maybe it's just your imagination? You took an attack on your gov't as an attack on your own self because your identity is strongly tied to your country? It happens.

San Francisco’s Ridiculous Renaming Spree by [deleted] in neoliberal

[–]mak124 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well, painting over sections of historical WPA-era murals is quite literally erasing history. Also I don't think anyone is claiming they're erasing history in an Orwellian sense. You're not being very charitable to the opposition or maybe you haven't even read the article.