The IARC ruling [...] is intended to assess whether something is a potential hazard or not [... and] does not take into account how much of a product a person can safely consume.
From the article. ^^^
This is something people frequently overlook. A substance may be a "possible carcinogen" and also completely benign at levels any sane person would consume.
Bananas also contain carcinogenic material, but eating bananas is still very much a healthy thing to do. There's a reason banana equivalent dose is a concept, and "the dose makes the poison" is a common refrain in toxicology.
Gary Taubes talks about this in his slew of books about sugar, the historical studies that caused the craze about artificial sweeteners being linked to cancer in the 80's all were done with massive doses in rats so large that a human being physically could not consume an equivalent dose. I still think it's worth considering that there is some mechanism at play between these things and cancer, but like you say, the volume is a very important variable.
Yeah, when it comes to researches on this kind of topics it is best to take it with a grain of salt until there are more studies and the majority of them agree. It's very prone to error. On top of p-value not being that meaningful a concept as some believe, there's nothing to indicate the result isn't statistically manipulated to give certain results by means like p-hacking.
To add to this, this agency only looks at hazard and not risk, giving us almost meaningless information about how we should regulate different substances we commonly come into contact. The agency exists mostly to feed bogus lawsuits to law firms. You can read more about this here.
I want all of the scabs and the naysayers to see this. Without the protest, without the exodus, without the blackout, we don't have Reuters, one of the world's most respected journalistic institutions, publishing disparaging info on Reddit's IPO. The longer this goes on, the worst it gets for u/spez and any other rube who feels entitled to make tens of millions off of the backs of the community they neglected.
Yeah, I agree. I love the idea of u/spez trying to explain to the potential investors why so many users of the investment are working together to actively disturb and destroy the platform as much as they can, while being way more effective than users of pretty much any other other popular social media platform.
good! I more people see Huffman’s bottom tier communications. Reading his comments do not sound like the CEO of a company, it’s always very embarrassing, like he’s cosplaying what a kid thinks a CEO should be.
I am hopeful more people are starting to see that a vast majority of CEOs are conservative terrorists in human clothing. From Elon to Huffman all of them want to rule over the common person for their benefit.
I don't know, the actual tone of the article leaves a very bad taste in my mouth. The basic point seems to be that reddit should become more like a business and stop giving so much of itself to users and mods. In essence, it is exactly the mindset of this writer that got us to where we are.
This writer fails to understand the exact same thing that spez fails to understand: the only reason that Reddit grew, the only reason that Reddit is valuable, is because for the last 15 years it has not operated as a business. Reddit could never become a successful one because in order to do that, all of the community power, customizon, and the inherent human element has to be stripped away and replaced with elements that turn profit.
The only way to make Reddit profitable is for the users to (stealing a line from a blog post a few months ago) "stop talking to each other and start buying shit", i.e. stop having genuine interaction with each other and start being dragged in front of other corporations that paid good money for the user' eyeballs. And the moment that happens, Reddit stops being Reddit.
This was a folly from day one. Spez thinks he owns a cow he can milk for years and years. Really, he just owns a pig, that he's convinced himself will provide bacon forever once he takes the knife to it.
You're not alone, I too am angry at the writer, she doesn't understand anything of what's going on and why, most importantly.
But there's a positive in my opinion, the fact that the protest ended up on Reuters and that's huge, if that doesn't make investors aware I don't know what else could.
The funny thing is, Reddit might have had a chance to become profitable. If spez implemented a reasonable pricing scheme for the API (even charging two or three times what they'd expect to make from a user using the first party app--magnitudes lower than the proposed pricing), and if they made a few other adjustments, it might be profitable. They already had the advantage of not having to pay for moderation, which was huge.
I think the pig is getting away though--he might not even get that first round of bacon.
UPS faces two unappealing choices, Stifel analyst Bruce Chan said in a recent note: Risk a strike and resulting customer losses or acquiesce to Teamster demands that could worsen the company's labor cost disadvantage versus nonunion rivals in an inflationary environment.
I cannot roll my eyes any harder at the words "labor cost disadvantage"
Oh, they absolutely should! As @admiralteal says above, the best play for UPS is to go pro-union and start lobbying that all of their competitors should also be required to have unions! Win for workers, win for UPS.
The executives in charge of these organizations would sooner destroy the entire company than be seen willingly acquiescing to their worker's requests. The C-suite at this large of an entity tend to actively revile the rank and file workers, they truly view them as subhuman beggar urchins, crowding around them to try and peel scraps of money away from them, the "real earners". Giving workers a "win", even when it's the smart business move, would destroy their credibility in their entire social circle and would likely lead to the prompt end of their positions.
The idea that those are the only two options is just painful. These are supposed to be the experts, and they cannot conceive of ANY other options, really?
How about addressing that "labor cost disadvantage" by encouraging unions and lobbying for 'em? Fuck it, go to Washington and say it is unfair -- the competitors should ALSO be forced to have unionized labor forces to even the playing field. No more cost disadvantages and UPS made the world a slightly better place in the process.
How about embracing the union as a vital part of the business? Accept that growing profits is not the be-all. Become an employer worthy of those workers even if it means taking a haircut. Because it's worth it in exchange for being able to fucking sleep at night. It is not NECESSARY to treat the employee union as a belligerent that must be fought or "acquiesced" to. Just work with them to make the service better for everyone. In the process, they'll likely find the business gets better in other immaterial ways that more than make up for the reduced profits.
The idea that UPS is on the verge of total collapse as a business if they deal fairly with the union is just noxious. If they're so close to total collapse and bankruptcy that you need to treat your employees like dirt... go ahead and just collapse, please.
My phone's predictive text says-- Hang on, let me check what dumbass thing it's going to say this time-- Apparently that I'm going to "pick up the kids for my husband" except I don't have kids and I'm not married. Predictive text is, at it's heart, the same AI working in chatGPT bots right now. Just with access to a lot more data so it doesn't make rookie mistakes like your phone's predictive text, assuming that because a lot of humans write that sentence that it must be universally true-- That everyone picks up their kids for their husbands. That's all AI it is: Predictive text on a massive scale. It predicts the most likely word that goes next, based on the words that have come before, and the structure of sentences it has studied. ChatGPT (and similar bots) are very, very good at predicting what a human would say. But that's just it: A computer program that puts the most likely word after each successive word, so the end result closely resembles human speech.
It cannot make promises because it has no concept of promises. It just knows that when the phrase "Do you promise..." comes up in a block of text, the next block of text is likely going to contain an affirmation of that promise <Yes,>, then a repeat of that promise <of course I promise!>, and then a statement of trustworthiness<I would never break a promise, not to you.>. The robot isn't promising anything, it's just simulation of a promise.
If you ask it to keep a secret, ask it to make a very simple promise, it will immediately blab that secret the moment you ask it to tell you the secret, assuming it's the kind of chatbot that "remembers" your inputs.
Please stop asking AI to weigh in on great existential questions until we have some sort of back-end working that's capable of actual cognition instead of just a word simulator for fooling your very social brain into believing that you've encountered cognition.
Basically yeah, predictive text is an extremely simple AI built using Markov chains to predict the next word based on probability. What happens next depends only on now, it doesn't have a memory to speak of. ChatGPT is built using artificial neural networks that can take an input and process it in ways that assign weight/value to different bits of data and store that information and reference it later to learn more and teach itself, drawing more conclusions from previous data and in turn storing that data to make even more conclusions!
I agree we're not at the singularity yet and I'm not sure that's even a real thing. It's all still just fancy programming for now but machine learning and AI right is very exciting and who knows what kind advancements could be right around the corner.
So. To the practitioner, or to the internet tough-talker, what does this mean? It means that the law of the land, at least 7-2, is that a threat is only outside the protection of the First Amendment if:
A reasonable person, familiar with the context, would interpret the threat as a sincere statement of intent to do harm, and
The speaker was reckless about whether the threat would be taken sincerely — that is, they “consciously disregarded a substantial risk” that it would be taken seriously.
To play devil's advocate, I think they're making a ruling that's analogous to the murder/manslaughter distinction. Murder (as is commonly defined) requires the prosecution to prove intent, whereas that's not required for manslaughter charges.
Obviously, it's possible to prove intent in some cases because people do get convicted of murder sometimes. They're saying the same thing here - it's okay to convict someone for this kind of speech if you can prove their intent was harmful. But the speech equivalent of "manslaughter", where you haven't proven intent, is constitutionally protected.
I can see ways that this as a good ruling, frankly. I can imagine situations where someone says something that can be interpreted as a threat but that really and truly was "just a joke" or some other such misunderstanding, and I would not want that to result in a conviction.
But proving criminal intent does not require you be able to hold up a magic mirror that reflects the inner thoughts of the person's soul.
Mens rea in the law is something you can establish. Certain actions a person takes imply intent and that's adequate for the criminal justice system. This isn't being flippant; often the entire purpose of the trial is to establish the criminal intent in a case where the actual facts (actus reus) are not really in dispute.
Colorado's law is defective because it didn't require establishing mens rea. And while some kinds of crime do not require criminal intent, because this particular crime conflicts with the first amendment, the level of scrutiny on the statute is much higher.
The outcome here should be that Colorado corrects its defective law to close the loophole.
Yeah, I think we're in agreement. I brought up the murder analogy because it often does require intent to be proven and prosecutors do manage to find ways to prove intent in those cases. Magic mirrors are clearly not a necessity for this.
I think it's funny that you can't really prep for this. It's going to be a slow collapse, slowly churning and making it impossible for anyone to survive. As critical infrastructure fails, food, water sources dry up, and the only solution anyone is capable of giving: "Try biking to work". Realistically it should be "get ready for an apocalypse." No amount of prep will leave you untouched.
the only solution anyone is capable of giving: "Try biking to work"
I hate this so much, too. We keep seeing these pushes for individuals to reduce their carbon footprint, but it's not the individuals who are responsible for climate change; it's the corporations who continuously skirt emissions laws and lobby for looser regulations on their industries who are polluting the planet en masse. We could all bike to work for a year, and it wouldn't even make a dent to offset the environmental damage caused by a single luxury cruise ship in that same span of time.
actually the largest source of emissions in the US is personal vehicles. I have no idea where everyone got twisted around thinking their emissions amount to nothing.
Many of us live in very rural areas with limited public transportation and really no safe or practical way to bike anywhere except within the confines of the small rural village/city. I drive 10 miles to work each day and back (20 miles total). There is no way I could do a bike even if I were younger and not disabled.
When I was young my small village had a couple of markets where you could buy basic food and supplies. Those have all disappeared and we have to drive 10 - 20 minutes each way to get to a decent grocery store (aside from a couple gas station options).
The system has been collapsing for years. I hate it.
I didn't think this was true, but according to the EPA in 2021 it is
Personal transport road vehicles are the largest category of transportation which is the largest source of greenhouse emissions, accounting for roughly 15% of total us emissions.
The largest sources of transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions include passenger cars, medium- and heavy-duty trucks, and light-duty trucks, including sport utility vehicles, pickup trucks, and minivans. These sources account for over half of the emissions from the transportation sector. The remaining greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector come from other modes of transportation, including commercial aircraft, ships, boats, and trains, as well as pipelines and lubricants.
Heavy duty trucks is broad, and includes semi trucks, buses, tractors, etc
I'd be curious to see those commercial vehicles broken out, and the question answered for how much impact personal transport has on us emissions
Any vehicle exceeding 26,001 pounds is considered heavy-duty. Examples include city transit buses, mobile cranes, cement mixers, refuse trucks, and tractors designed to pull refrigerated trailers, dry vans and other equipment.
Read further down and it breaks down transportation emissions too. 58% from personal vehicles. Transport is the largest source of emissions, and personal vehicles are the largest source of transport emissions. Especially all our damn trucks.
I mean I don't think it's useless. I just think we all fucking know who the biggest polluters are. And how we still don't have carbon caps is insane to me. Edit: fair enough check blazers comments
This isn't my area of expertise, but as I understand the present climate crisis, it's actually misleading to say we're "nearing the point of no return" as so many of these kinds of articles do.
Every single day we pass a brand new point of no return because every day we keep pumping fuel into positive feedback loops that are already in motion. Not only will biking to work not do shit; but even if humans just went extinct right now and all industry/pollution/etc came to a 100% stop, the climate will still continue to (albeit more slowly) spiral into new extremes. What we're feeling today is the 'find out' stage of climate inaction decades ago; and the damage we're doing today won't be be tangible for decades to come.
Best case scenario is the coolest of an array of hellscapes - we're in damage control mode. Rather, we should be in damage control mode; what we're actually in is grind-away-at-our-9-to-5-while-we-watch-oligarchs-consume-our-planet mode.
Why do you think the Saudis are pouring so much resources into these experimental line cities? Even they know that the system they helped create and benefited from is unsustainable, and building a self contained city in the middle of the desert is them testing the hypothesis of, can you build a habitable zone for humans in the worst case scenario of environments?
It also ties into why there are so many billionaires who are obsessed in advancing space travel as quickly as possible. Even they are starting to get nervous about the Earth they have created and will have to live in.
It's terrifying. I think one of the problems we face in getting people to demand change is that the collapse so terrifying and unthinkable that people don't allow their minds to dwell on it for long.
Payment providers should not be able to control what users are or are not allowed to purchase with their cards. It’s a downward spiral. Electronic payment is a necessity in nowadays life.
In many states, and federally, marijuana sales aren’t legal transactions, and that’s the point. I don’t think Mastercard is necessarily doing anything wrong here, they’re just covering their asses. This one is on our politicians who are still dragging their heels on legalizing marijuana.
You do realize that there are no banks in the United States that will allow marijuana related business to work with them either, right?
It’s highly illegal under federal law. My business is done business with marijuana related businesses in the past, and they all have to operate with cash and hand only. It’s insane.
Nothing like carrying a suitcase full of $250,000 in small sequential unmarked bills to the bank you know…
Sets a precedent though, and implies that the card companies are responsible for what people buy. First it’s drugs, then it’s porn, liquor, gender affirming items and hormones, contraceptives, or whatever else the fascists don’t like. Companies won’t want to be fined by the fascist right once they start pushing to ban things.
Mastercard is adhering to federal laws, not taking a moral stand. Credit card companies aren’t obligated to facilitate illegal transactions. If they were banning something whose sale was completely legal, there would be a argument to be made here, but that’s not what’s happening. They aren’t going to go after porn, liquor, gender affirming items, hormones, or contraceptives, unless some fascists ban them, at which point it’s not the credit card companies restricting you, it’s the fascists. Go after the fascists.
What federal law are they adhering to? Mastercard isn’t buying the drugs they are denying a person access to the funds that that person already owns. Mastercard should be agnostic to what the person uses that money for.
It sets a precedent that card companies are responsible for what their client’s purchase, and can reject transactions based on what their clients are purchasing, not how much money/credit they have.
I can go after corporate shitheads and fascists especially when they are holding each other’s cocks.
The fact that marijuana is still federally classified as a Schedule I drug. Why would you think credit card companies should allow cardholders to make illegal transactions using their credit cards? Do you think they’d be okay with people using their credit cards to purchase child pornography? Or hitmen? Trafficked persons? What about 100 kilos of cocaine? I’m aware marijuana isn’t as bad as any of those things, and it’s way past time for the laws to be updated, but the fact remains it’s still against the law to purchase it. To argue they have no obligation to make sure they aren’t facilitating in illegal actions is absurd. As far as I know they’ve never allowed illegal transactions to be made, so absolutely no precedent is being set here.
It’s not a defense of corporations to point out that the root cause of this problem is the laws, you illiterate baby. “Corporations follow existing laws if they protect their profits” isn’t a surprise to anyone with two brain cells to rub together. Fix the laws around marijuana and the rest of the issue solves itself.
just because something is profitable for a corporation doesn’t mean it’s good or that we should accept it.
Read my comment again carefully, please. I didn’t say it was good or that we should accept it, I said it’s what they do. I don’t like corporations either and I’m not defending them, so calm the fuck down and stop inventing reasons to get mad at people.
If you’re too baby-brained to understand the difference between explaining something and justifying it, that’s your problem, not mine. Don’t take your ignorance out on everyone else.
If you want a reasonable argument, then you need to provide one, too. But you came at me with “what a terrible take” and accused me of defending corporations, then deliberately ignored all the comments I wrote clarifying this was not the case, so why exactly do you think you deserve anything other than condemnation and name calling? If anything I’ve been too polite.
But yeah cry up a storm because someone called you mean names lmao. You’re not a baby at all.
Even if it’s illegal it’s not a bank’s job to enforce the law. Banks exist to move money. If something illegal happens then the police can get involved.
I’m sure this won’t have any chilling effects amongst the researchers who keep us all safe.
Edit to add that Johnson & Johnson is/was also trying to use patent loopholes to make sure poor people die from tuberculosis; until the internet got mad.
The secondary patent particularly irked some advocates because the drug’s development was largely underwritten by public funds, according to a 2020 analysis. That study found public sector funds contributed $455 million to $747 million to getting bedaquiline to market, compared to $90 million to $240 million from J&J.
We pay for the development of the drug, they get the patent, then we pay for the drug. Socialize cost, privatize profits.
most of the hype about danger from talcum powder is quite fake. the link between cancer and the powder is hugely tenuous and the researchers are quite shameful. Poor J&J are being victimised when there are millions sufferring from the absence of their valuable and safe talcum powder,
The money needs to come with contractual obligations and penalties for failing to deliver (for any reason) or government equity in exchange for funding.
And what if that promise is broken? It shouldn’t just have promises, there should be clear consequences attached as well. Else it’ll just be a broken contract or promise. That can end up in legal stuff for ages.
Isn’t that what being paid in stock is meant to do? Reward him for making decisions causing the company to do well? There’s usually vesting periods and someone that high can’t just sell all at once, so it should incent him to act in the long term best interest of the company. In particular, Musk was famous for negotiating a pay package with less salary, and very aggressive targets for the company, to get stock bonuses . It should be good that it succeeded, that he met those targets
This is what I don’t get since reality is so different from the above fable. Where did it all go so wrong?
Sure, they might “win” in terms of military and/or stealing land. But as long as they keep oppressing, stealing and murdering - there will be people fighting against it.
Even if there’s no Palestinian left on Palestinian ground. There will be people from different countries fighting back. One way or another.
“If peaceful revolution is not possible, violent revolution is inevitable”.
This whole thing seems to be a never-ending cycle which makes me immensely sad. For both, the Palestinian people and the normal civilians of Israel.
From what I have read and heard, Israel haven’t seen any actual peace ever since they made the state. I think, they’ve been on ‘high alert for attacks’ ever since being made. Correct me if I’m wrong though.
That’s just the price of being an invader nation. By definition, Israel can never know peace, only armistices between further acts of war. Unless they manage to genocide Palestinians world wide, they will always face attacks on their invader population/infrastructure/society. It’s a feature of colonization. Netanyahu knows this, but is trying to maintain his position by bringing home an unattainable victory.
Peace can happen but the Israelis need to remove Netanyahu and elect somebody who actually wants a two state solution. After that, there’s a whole lot of diplomacy from both sides needed, free Palestinian elections, stolen land being returned, removal of blockades and control of infrastructure, and so on.
It’s not impossible, just really, really difficult. Especially with leadership on both sides not being especially interested in peace. That’s why Bibi needs to be slung out of office ASAP. Nothing good will happen while that monster has power.
You're right in general, but Bibi is a symptom, not a cause. The Israeli public has always been pro-genocide, and they're shifting to, not away, from the right. We need to recognize that a solution is only possible if the international community forces Israel to compromise.
They need to decide if the next asshole strongman who promises to keep them safe is worth their vote, because the current one has completely failed them.
It’s literally in their fucking charter… Do you read?
NOT that Israel is any different, they don’t plan on stopping until they have taken all that land… And probably finished the genocide their currently committing…
accused the company of giving a previous local board and its employees millions of dollars’ worth of tickets, discounted hotel stays, merchandise and other benefits
Netanyahu was asked if Israel has a plan to get fuel into Gaza to power hospitals. “We just offered Shifa hospital the fuel, they refused it,” Netanyahu said.
“Hamas, (which) is hiding in the hospitals and placing itself there, doesn’t want the fuel for the hospital … they want to get fuel that they’ll take from the hospitals to their tunnels, to their war machine.”
Then why didn’t they accept the fuel and just take it? People actually believe this genocidal drivel?
Believing this account outright is just as foolish as dismissing it outright.
There’s a reason “the first casualty of war is the truth” is a cliche— it’s because it’s very hard to know exactly what’s going on when there’s so much chaos and impetus for people to push agendas.
I have some assumptions I’m confident about, but those are fairly broad, and based on the nature of what happens in any war. Specifics I’m trying hard to slow-roll my reactions to and full acceptance of— I’ve seen way too many news stories about active situations be proven in part or in whole false, and most of those aren’t in war zones.
Strikes are caused by management. If the studios bargained in good faith there would be no strike. The studios could have agreed to the workers demands during initial negotiations, but instead they chose to put people out by dragging their feet for 10 months.
Every strike can be averted by bargaining in good faith, and making reasonable concessions in a timely fashion.
" Safety Bill " the fucking irony of it Tories making sure we’re the biggest clown show in the world. Well time to shutdown all those https end points and spool up jhonlewi5.co.uk to my offshore account.
“If companies do not comply, media regulator Ofcom will be able to issue fines of up to 18 million pounds ($22.3 million) or 10% of their annual global turnover.” Yet thier mates can quite happly steal tax money under PPE contracts and pump literal shit into our waterways.
reuters.com
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