Barx [none/use name]

The main ways you’re exposed to microplastics is through ingestion and breathing it in.

To limit ingestion, yes the main thing to do is to avoid food and drink that comes in plastic containers. Reducing your consumption of processed foods will help with this. Eating mostly produce is a simpler way to approach this. Even though produce may often be transported in plastic, if you wash it before consumption you’ll have done pretty well. Ideally you would also have a reverse osmosis filter at home, as your water probably has microplastics as well (but less than bottled water!).

To limit breathing it in, yes avoid frequent exposure to busy roads. They are often full of tire dust that is getting kicked up. This is cumulative, though. Walking by a busy street once is no big deal. Walking along one twice a day may add up.

Overall, however, to address microplastics we will have to control the production of plastics and the use of plastics in the first place. For example, there would be a lot less tire dust if we used more rail to get around. And there would be less need for bottled water if water fountains were ubiquitous and so were standardized stainless steel water bottles. In addition, we could use biodegradable plastics for more packaging so that they don’t accumulate in bodies or the environment.

But this last point, despite being the only real solution, will literally require the overthrow of capitalism. I’m for this and am happy to talk about it more, but it is a lot.

Such an amazing turnout

The company you work for is not your friend. If it is their body can they will use it to their benefit. Any benefit you receive will be incidental or simply part if their propaganda to get you to wear it for them.

It will be used, primarily, to surveil employees. They will track your habits and ensure you are aware that every single thing you do for your shift is something your boss or their boss or their boss can come back to you with and reprimand you for. They will try to set performance targets that can be compared to your videos so they can tell you what an algorithm or a petty middle manager says you are doing wrong. Too much time helping a customer. You’re not folding clothes fast enough. Walk faster. No sitting. They will set keywords. Union. Break. Curse words. Your bosses’ names. They might not even review these things. The intimidation is enough. Maybe you’ll get new policies. See that black guy? Follow him. Get video. The algorithm said to do it so it can’t be racist. We’ll pass it along to the cops.

Companies wouldn’t pay for it if they didn’t see a business angle and the obvious ones are control over employees and being able to use more video for “liability” defense.

Al-Jazeera also posts bullshit. They’re useful for specific issues in the Middle East because they aren’t totally bought off against Palestine or Iran. They still suffer from the core fallacies of corporate journalism.

Ask certain NGOs and governments for takes, reoeat them uncritically or have some criticise others. Easy way to create or support a nonsense narrative.

A ton of countries send delegations to Venezuela to monitor elections and they always report boring results or are vague (from oppositional countries).

The AP is happy to reprint nonsense, especially if it is coming from a government or NGO.

The working class cannot win without overthrowing the owner class. The owner class is the ruling class and functions, under capitalism, to extract from the working class and make capital into more capital. It cannot escape this role so long as capitalism exists and the owner class is in charge. The fundamental mechanisms by which that system works is coercive on both classes. “Nice” members of the owner class are hammered into complacency through failure and exit (becoming working class again) or abandonment of their principals. Or they luck out and are minor and largely irrelevant, facing no competitors or predators. Real solutions require that we organize and spread class consciousness.

On an individual level, you can try to protect yourself from some of the most extreme economic violences, but they are inherently limited. Fiat currency only has value because the issuer is “good for it” and you can use it as capital and for personal purchases of commodities. Crypto is not money at all, it is an unlicensed security. If your interest is in money-like things, I would recommend inflation hedge-alikes gold and real estate. But these require you to already have significant savings. And they are something to hawk in order to leave the country and cannot replace a functional economic base or allow you to weather a true crisis staying in the country. Having a backup shelf-stable food supply and means to boil water is also a good idea.

Our fates are all tied together under this economic system. We will quickly starve and die of preventable disease in a real, sustained crisis, as it will disrupt agriculture and utilities. Only a stable productive base, a real economy that produces what humans need, can provide when borders close or trade halts. And, realistically, everything you can do as an inflation hedge is much better when done at the community level. Mutual aid is more effective than a personal bean stash (do both!). A network of like-minded people can secure travel and estimate when to leave vs. fight. You can buy real estate with less capital if you go in together. Etc etc.

Invidious does have APIs. People host invidious servers and the clients connect to them, similar to piped. I don’t know anything about Redlib but it might work the same!

You have to set a goal of what you want to understand and why you want to understand it, then read accordingly. If your goal is to know the usual number of eggs laid by a bird because you are trying to identify one from its nest in your yard, sure just read some Wikipedia and maybe read its sources. If you need to understand a broad topic in the social sciences in order to do your job or organize politically, well sucks yo be you, you need to spend months to years getting a handle on the various schools of thought and approaching them humbly and critically, reading many books.

Don’t spend time with them unless you have to.

What was the insult? The description of your behavior? Ponder that for a few seconds.

You have been blatantly inconsistent twice and trying to run little circles in bad faith isn’t going to change that. Please get rid of your Reddit brain where you’d rather die than acknowledge an error.

And now you’ve flip flopped back to the first claim lmai

It is worth noting that the ones who chose to return had the unfortunate circumstance of not having transferable skills and ended up working low paying jobs compared to what they had at home. Most of the people who had transferable skills have good paying jobs and are living comfortably.

Yup, I am not claiming it is the root issue, just that I think it’s one of the reasons for their struggles, based on the examples given by the article, and because I can relate.

You initially attributed all of it to not having transferable skills lol.

Instead of changing up your story, you could just admit you’re projecting.

Cats like pulling things down off of other things. It entertains them.

It was Big Pencil all along

An invasion of Lebanon risks direct Iranian involvement. Not sure if they’re trying to call a bluff or if they actually want that.