Motherfucker posted:

BeanpolePeckerwood posted:

now tell us why globalization is not related to economics

Motherfucker posted:

Comptroll The Forums posted:

LOL at millennials freaking out that they can't all have medical care and decent homes while the top 1% hoard wealth. That's how the entire world has always operated. As bad as baby boomers are, millennials are just as bad for fetishizing 1950's middle class America and thinking that was some kind of normal and sustainable way of life that didn't require constant warfare and exploitation of severely impoverished people. Sorry about your student loan debts but you're still better off than 5 billion people in Asia, Africa and South and Central America.

Hopefully the generation or two after millennials will realize what medieval peasants always knew: sharecropping ain't so bad as long as you can gently caress and make fart jokes, and if you're lucky the king just might discard an apple core near your feet. Just because more things have been invented since the 1200's doesn't mean everybody just gets to have it, just like when Europeans found pepper it didn't mean every dirt farmer suddenly had a pepper grinder in their little hut. 200 years from now history books will reflect on mid-late 1900's America as an aberrant period of decadence fueled by racism and jingoism, followed by a return to normalcy. If they're lucky, literacy rates will also drop off enough that the working class won't have to hear about it.

But hey, if talking about taking down the man and ending capitalism gets your rocks off, enjoy it. History shows that any time a bad regime ends it was immediately replaced by a perfect and benevolent regime and never changed ever again. It's the last generation that has all the assholes, there won't be any more assholes after we get rid of those!

qkkl posted:

So the moral of the story is that if you're a cog in the capitalist system then there is nothing you can do personally to destroy the system. What you can do is survive, and maybe some outside force will destroy the system, at which point you can have a hand in building a more just world.

Zzulu posted:

gently caress THE FINNISH

FUK YOU drat BOG PEOPLE

GO BACK TO YOUR FROZEN DEPRESSED MUD HUT OF A COUNTRY

BITCH

FCKU YOU

IF YOU KNEW WHAT WAS GOOD FOR YOU YOU'D LET SWEDEN ANNEX YOU, bUT YOU DON'T

Enjoy russias freezing cock in 10-20 years you fuckkers

gently caress finland

THANKS FOR THE SAUNAS but THATS IT

Away all Goats posted:

Nurge posted:

Goddamnit. I had no idea what this was even about but I assumed it at least happened inside the hotel. Now my hilarious post is factually inaccurate.

Nurge posted:

It's weird there wasn't more noise about it.

Fleetwood Crack posted:

peep that $1,000 sundae

ekuNNN posted:

Mokelumne Trekka posted:

That's the spirit! Individual ingenuity. Like that homeless guy making souvenirs out of trash to sell. No whining, just taking initiative either to help yourself or others

quote:

good policies that tolerated so many homeless living in such a wealthy area

whiter than a Wilco show posted:

I'm the "total" column at the bottom of a list of percentages presented by a company who's every product is maths based.

bag em and tag em posted:

Nice head you have there. would be a shame if something.... heavy and extremely sharp fell onto it severing it from your garbage neck

ToxicSlurpee posted:

Wasn't traditional Chinese medicine literally bullshitted into existence a few decades ago? Seems like we have a worldwide case of alt med bullshit going on everywhere.

But yeah apparently people were grinding up rhino horns for dick pills which led to a lot of poaching.

quote:

Mao understood he needed to deal with criticisms like those of Lu Xun, Wang Qingren, and Wang Chong in order for Chinese medicine to be taken seriously, both domestically and internationally. His solution was a two-pronged approach. First, inconsistent texts and idiosyncratic practices had to be standardized. Textbooks were written that portrayed Chinese medicine as a theoretical and practical whole, and they were taught in newly founded academies of so-called “traditional Chinese medicine,” a term that first appeared in English, not Chinese. Needless to say, the academies were anything but traditional, striving valiantly to “scientify” the teachings of classics that often contradicted one another and themselves. Terms such as “holism” (zhengtiguan) and “preventative care” (yufangxing) were used to provide the new system with appealing foundational principles, principles that are now standard fare in arguments about the benefits of alternative medicine.

The second part of Mao’s project was to provide Westerners with sensational evidence of Chinese medicine’s efficacy, particularly of acupuncture analgesia. The watershed moment was in 1971, when New York Times editor James Reston wrote an article entitled “Now, Let Me Tell You About My Appendectomy in Peking.” In it, he recounted how Wu Weiran of the Anti-Imperialist Hospital had administered “a standard injection of Xylocain and Bensocain” before removing his appendix. Later, while Reston recovered, acupuncture was used to relieve pain from post-operative gas. Eager to believe in mystical Eastern miracle workers, credulous Westerners misreported the story, claiming that acupuncture had been used as an anesthetic during Reston’s appendectomy, a falsehood that still has currency. Fascination with acupuncture exploded, allowing the Chinese Communist Party to put together a media blitz touting its extraordinary powers, complete with what appear to have been intentionally faked surgeries.

Mao’s vision still reigns supreme, and the present state of misinformation about Chinese medicine is staggering, even in what appear to be trustworthy sources. Cancer.gov, for instance, states that “the oldest medical book known, written in China 4,000 years ago, describes the use of acupuncture to treat medical problems.” In fact, the oldest excavated Chinese medical text is no more than 2,300 years old and makes no mention of acupuncture at all—though it does include numerous exorcistic cures, a common element in ancient Chinese medicine that the popularizers of traditional Chinese medicine did well to forget. (Unfortunately, they did not forget about extracting bile from live bears, a practice easily justified by postulating the presence of qi, or life force, in living animals.)

quote:

Guizhentang Pharmaceutical, one of China's largest bear bile medicine producers, announced plans in early February to have an initial public offering of stock in the company to raise funds that would finance an expansion of its bear farm and production.

Zhou Chaofan, a professor of traditional Chinese medicine at China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, said artificial bile has only one kind of cholic acid, while natural bear bile has four other acids that improve the therapeutic effect.

The company said bear bile is now used in 123 traditional Chinese medicines, and 183 pharmaceutical companies use bear bile powder in medicines.

SplitSoul posted:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/council-house-kensington-chlesea-grenfell-empty-any-names-housing-a8456906.html

Reminder that it would've cost literally £5,000 to not wrap Grenfell in napalm and murder 72 people. Half of the families aren't rehoused to this day.

Perry Mason Jar posted:

Oscar Wild posted:

Crowdfunding allows a more efficient way to get resources (money) to where it is needed.

Oscar Wild posted:

The big government is rife with waste and shouldn't be responsible for all its citizens getting health care.

Oscar Wild posted:

Let the people decide.

Burt Sexual posted:

It's not even a troll, Oscar was joking.

Fleetwood Crack posted:

Admit it, you just can't help yourself.

ate all the Oreos posted:

Also if you make corporations pay taxes, they'll move everything overseas to No Tax Land and you'll be out of a job!

Oscar Wild posted:

To do this would be impossible while also paying local taxes

Dave Concepcion posted:

yeah, about that...

https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/12/17337602/plastic-tote-bags-climate-change-litter-life-cycle-assessments-environment
"I felt really good about myself, until I saw a report published earlier this year by Denmark’s Ministry of Environment and Food that said that plastic bags are better for the environment than organic cotton tote bags. In fact, of all the shopping bags the study looked at — from paper to recycled plastic — cotton tote bags fared the worst: they need to be reused thousands of times to have the same environmental footprint as a lightweight plastic bag, according to the report."

https://www2.mst.dk/Udgiv/publications/2018/02/978-87-93614-73-4.pdf (the actual study from the homepage of the Danish environmental protection agency)

Zzulu posted:

All companies will be gobbled up by the big ones eventually

Why allow them to do their thing when you can just buy them and force them to do your thing?

Inzombiac posted:

As a dumbass American I can confirm.
So many people have been convinced that taking any time off is a sign of weakness. Work is something to be proud of, not just a vehicle for paying your bills.

DiHK posted:

Seems like that have skill pride instead of work pride. And that they have little job loyalty.

ate all the Oreos posted:

No millennials have job loyalty because no company has loyalty to employees these days and will not hesitate to fire you on the spot if the math works out so why the hell should we show any to them?

Zzulu posted:

Why haven't americans done a mass exodus yet

Why still live in your country

Raspberry Jam It In Me posted:

20 days are the legal minimum in Germany, but almost everyone gets 30 days. Employers are required to pay you normal wages during that time. Not getting paid during vacation is mind-boggling to me. How are you expected to survive in a month where you take a two week vacation or something. You save up for you r vacation?