youtu.be

Varyk , to Work Reform in From Robber Barons to Bezos: Is History Repeating Itself? America's Second Gilded Age

Is capitalism proceding in an escalating human rights catastrophe the same way it has for hundreds of years?

Why yes, yes it is.

lars , (edited )

Wrong. ↑ This is propaganda from the radical leftist Biden regime.

The government and businesses made reforms so that capitalism doesn’t do that anymore. Imagine what kind of hellscape this place’d be if they hadn’t changed when they realized how much human suffering and planetary destruction they were about to cause lmao.

Editing to add that this is sarcasm. Can you imagine “radical leftist Biden”? 😂

Varyk ,

Is this a joke?

You’re a little too incoherent for it to land.

lars ,

Apologies. Incoherence is my love language.

Varyk ,

Then we all got love bombed. Thanks

Zrybew ,

The American definition of radical left doesn’t even qualify as Centre Right in the rest of the world, it is just pure Right. 😂

Sanctus ,
@Sanctus@lemmy.world avatar

Looks inside.

Finds planetary destruction and human suffering.

pthaloblue ,

Right, also the 40 hour work week and two day weekend happened because capitalists, from the bottom of their hearts, decided to give those things to the workers.

Why can’t people understand how much they really care about us and the planet?

NewNewAccount ,

Is Biden a radical leftist tho?

lars ,

Trump called him “a puppet of the radical left”. So no. Absolutely not.

NewNewAccount ,

Well if Daddy Trump says he’s a puppet he must be a puppet.

OmnislashIsACloudApp , (edited )

the laugh/cry vibes you get when you realize that without a direct acknowledgement of sarcasm this could have been a real statement made by a real dumbass.

https://tenor.com/t0iT.gif

rezz , to Star Trek in Star Trek on LaserDisc, if you've got the right equipment, it looks amazing! (samples in the description)

Please do god’s work and get them on Usenet.

shnizmuffin ,
@shnizmuffin@lemmy.inbutts.lol avatar

And for fucks sake take them off of YouTube until you do.

umbrella ,
@umbrella@lemmy.ml avatar

why?

shnizmuffin ,
@shnizmuffin@lemmy.inbutts.lol avatar

Paramount is litigious and uploading ripped laserdisc is literally broadcasting, “look at this crime I committed.”

sab , to Work Reform in Everyone is Broke and Tired - Tiktok Vents About Inflation
@sab@kbin.social avatar

Reminds me of a particularly powerful passage from the Grapes of Wrath.

One man, one family driven from the land; this rusty car creaking along the highway to the west. I lost my land, a single tractor took my land. I am alone and I am bewildered. And in the night one family camps in a ditch and another family pulls in and the tents come out. The two men squat on their hams and the women and children listen. Here is the node, you who hate change and fear revolution. Keep these two squatting men apart; make them hate, fear, suspect each other. Here is the anlage of the things you fear. This is the zygote. For here "I lost my land" is changed; a cell is split and from its splitting grows the thing you hate - "We lost our land". The danger is here, for two men are not as lonely and perplexed as one. And from this first "we" there grows a still more dangerous thing: "I have a little food" plus "I have none". If from this problem the sum is "We have a little food," the thing is on its way, the movement has direction. Only a little multiplication now, and this land, this tractor are ours. The two men squatting in a ditch, the little fire, the sidemeat stewing in a single pot, the silent, stone-eyed women; behind, the children listening with their souls to words their minds do not understand. The night draws down. The baby has a cold. Here, take this blanket. It's wool. It was my mother's blanket - take it for the baby. This is the thing to bomb. This is the beginning - from "I" to "we".

I have always been very negative of Tiktok, but maybe the format of people talking face to face makes it possible for it to facilitate the transition from "I" to "we" even in an online platform, which is what traditional social media has failed so miserably at.

Maybe, by trying to play the game of surveillance capitalism, the Chinese finally - accidentally - helped the workers of the world unite.

cedarmesa ,
@cedarmesa@lemmy.world avatar

This is an amazing comment. The type of comment that may make a few folks transition from I to We

Mateoto , to Work Reform in Hollywood Shuts Down After 160,000 Actors Walk Off the Set

It’s interesting to see that the discussion about AI (which the writer and actors strikes are based on) have an impact on workers in the US.

We hopefully experience the strengthening of unions and work reforms. Ideally, this will be a general movement bringing back policies that have been teared down since Regean.

Viking_Hippie ,

It’s not ONLY about AI though. It’s one amongst many issues, such as being paid next to nothing in residuals for being in wildly successful streaming shows, having no job security and generally being at the mercy of cruel and capricious bosses who decide their future on a whim and are even capable of enacting de facto blacklists if they get pissed off.

WhatsThePoint , to Work Reform in Formerly Anti-Union Volkswagen Worker Explains Why He Switched to Pro-Union

This is the kind of frank talking missing in so much of today’s discourse. The corporate media has polarized everything so hard for sales it’s really killed good honest discourse.

bmsok ,

He nailed it with bringing nuance into the conversation, too. Very good example of a well thought out opinion.

Mr_Blott , to Work Reform in Why Managers Exist (It's Not Why You Think) - Second Thought

Will number three shock me?

Your title makes me 🤢🤮

cecilkorik ,
@cecilkorik@lemmy.ca avatar

But does it make you want to buy shaving supplies? Oh. How about that, me neither!

CatZoomies , (edited )
@CatZoomies@lemmy.world avatar

Feeling sick? Before you violently expel the contents of your stomach, check out our sponsor - Raid: Shadow Legends! By playing, you’ll unlock a special code at checkout that you can somehow use to get 100 free blades for shaving your face! Buy our wasteful crap!

And don’t forget to stick around and watch the entire video. We have a secret you don’t want to miss out on - #3 shocks you, but #7 will definitely be the shockiest!

Basically we just need you to watch 10 minutes enough of this video so you’ll watch our ads. Thanks, supporter!

Also, click our Amazon referral links pretty please, like comment and subscribe, and here’s another video you can watch. It 👏 really 👏 helps 👏 us 👏 out.

tal , (edited ) to xkcd in What if you swam in a nuclear storage pool? | xkcd What If?
@tal@lemmy.today avatar

fuel facilities generally do a pretty good job of keeping the water clean, but it’s radioactive enough that it wouldn’t be legal to sell it as bottled water. Which is too bad – it’d be an amazing energy drink.

orau.org/…/revigator-1924-1926.html

The Revigator was intended to add radioactivity (radon) to drinking water. Water without redioactivity was “devoid of its life element.” Water without radioactivity was like air without oxygen.

The glazed ceramic body of the jar has a porous lining that incorporated uranium ore. Water placed inside the jar would absorb the radon released by decay of the radium in the ore. Depending on the type of water, the resulting radon concentrations would range from a few hundred to a few hundred thousand picocuries per liter.

Advertised as “an original radium ore patented water crock,” it sold in the hundreds of thousands between 1924 and 1930.

A company brochure stated, “Results overcome doubts.” “The millions of tiny rays that are continuously given off by this ore penetrate the water and form this great HEALTH ELEMENT–RADIO-ACTIVITY. All the next day the family is provided with two gallons of real, healthful radioactive water… nature’s way to health.”

Users were provided the following printed instructions on the side of the jar:

  • Fill jar every night.
  • Use hydrant or any good water.
  • Drink freely when thirsty and upon arising and retiring. Average six or more glasses daily. Scrub with a stiff brush and scald monthly.

The tan version shown here is the most commonly encountered style of Revigator.

nationalgeographic.com/…/100118-radiation-toxic-w…

But according to a new study, radiation from the jug wasn’t the biggest problem. Makers of the Radium Ore Revigator promised the jug would enrich drinking water left inside overnight with “the lost element of original freshness—radioactivity.” The “treated” water was supposed to relieve everything from arthritis and senility to flatulence.

(Related: “Radiation in Teeth Can Help Date, ID Bodies, Experts Say.”)

Such a seemingly wacky belief came from the fact that spring water naturally contains radioactive radon gas, said study leader Michael Epstein, an analytic chemist at Mount St. Mary’s University in Emmitsburg, Maryland.

It wasn’t too big a leap to assume that radioactive water would be a healthy elixir, Epstein said. In the early 20th century, the Revigator sold by the hundreds of thousands in the U.S.

“Unfortunately for them, they were wrong,” Epstein said. By the 1930s scientists had realized that exposure to radiation can cause cells in the body to go haywire, triggering cancer.

However, Epstein and colleagues were curious just how big a risk radiation played compared to the ore itself.

What they found is that the jar’s uranium-ore lining released surprising amounts of toxic elements, such as arsenic and lead, into the drinking water.

Arsenic can also cause cancer, and lead can severely damage the nervous, urinary, and reproductive systems.

Toxic Water

For their study, Epstein and colleagues bought four Revigators from antique stores or on eBay. The jars still exude the same amount of radiation as they did in the early 1900s.

Uranium ore contains some amounts of the highly radioactive metal radium, which decays into radon gas.

The team first used a Geiger counter to measure the amount of radon gas the jars emitted. Though radon levels were higher than an average person’s exposure, the risk of death from the jars’ radiation was relatively low.

Epstein’s team also used a highly sensitive instrument called a mass spectrometer to analyze the concentration of toxic elements in the radon-infused water.

If a person had followed the Revigator company’s advice to “drink freely when thirsty and upon arising and retiring,” the toxic water would have drastically exceeded healthy exposure levels currently recommended by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

For instance, the maximum level of exposure to uranium set by the EPA is 0.030 parts per million—one of the Revigators expelled up to 0.056 parts per mllion of the substance.

(Related: “Pick Your Poison—12 Toxic Tales” in National Geographic magazine.)

What’s more, if people added a slightly acidic beverage such as wine or fruit juice to the jar, the resulting fluid contained 300 times more than the maximum arsenic intake recommended by the EPA.

So…probably not really a radiation risk, more that uranium itself is toxic independent of any radiation, and more-importantly that the ore had other elements that could enter the water that were also not great for you. But it’s kinda been done.

pearsaltchocolatebar ,

The poor study leader’s last name.

Gargleblaster , to Work Reform in From Robber Barons to Bezos: Is History Repeating Itself? America's Second Gilded Age
@Gargleblaster@kbin.social avatar

Yup.

Looks at the one MAGA individual who downvoted the article.

YUP.

Shadywack OP ,
@Shadywack@lemmy.world avatar

It’s up to 3 now XD “those darn regulations!” …without wondering where regulations came from.

rynzcycle , to Work Reform in Everyone is Broke and Tired - Tiktok Vents About Inflation

It's really noticeable, especially in the HCOL areas. People are just at their wit's end and all out of fucks to give. And it stacks, because as others care less everyone's life gets harder. Deliveries don't get delivered, food isn't made with care, entertainment is less entertaining. And it's hard to blame anyone in these roles, because I feel the same way.

It's a powderkeg and no one with the power to do something seems to have noticed, but I wonder how much worse it gets before something has to change.

PoliticalAgitator , (edited )

The is no level of “worse” that will make the people responsible willingly change.

The “Inflation” that is crushing people is almost entirely down to executive greed. They’re bringing in record profits, giving themselves giant bonuses and not letting even a crumb escape their snout. COVID showed them they could take even more from people so now that the supply issues have settled, that’s exactly what they’re doing.

And they’ll never feel bad about it. They’re the people who told the radium girls to make a point on their brush by sucking it. They’re the people who put formaldehyde in milk and shrugged when it killed children. They’re the people who don’t even try to hide the foreign and domestic slaves in their supply lines. They’re the people who told us that cigarettes were good for our lungs as they buried research saying the opposite. They’re the ones who astro-turfed and bribed people into doing nothing about climate change.

They’re not going to start suddenly feeling guilty, because if that was an emotion they were capable of, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

The only way to stop this is to put limits on how much they can line their own pockets. No more tax loopholes for the rich, no more insane wages and bonuses, no more brutal exploitation of foreign workers.

Because if there’s a dollar they think they can get their hands on, they’ll do reprehensible things to make it happen.

Col3814444 OP , to Politics in Republican attorneys general demand access to out-of-state abortion medical records

Highly disturbing and obviously the next step in this Christian fascist bullshit - only a matter of time till they start rounding up and charging women who have EVER had an abortion with murder.

specialseaweed , to Work Reform in Formerly Anti-Union Volkswagen Worker Explains Why He Switched to Pro-Union

Good video. The guy was well spoken.

Sunforged ,

I like that he often pauses to formulate how to express his thoughts.

Great interview.

xmunk , to Work Reform in Why Americans Overwhelmingly Back Unions Now with UAW President Shawn Fain interview

I'll give you the meme TL;DR.

We're all looking at the labor market, saying, "There's got to be a better way!" And unions showed up with the fucking ShamWow.

DerArzt ,

Let's just hope they didn't bring Vince with them.

hydrashok , to Star Trek in Shatner's "do over" of the Veridian III death scene on Kimmel

He looks damn good and mentally sharp for 93. We should all be so fortunate.

JWBananas ,
@JWBananas@lemmy.world avatar

Way better than Patrick Stewart at 83.

youtu.be/38WlCqgWgas?si=ygpvUL8unLZ-1kq0

Corgana ,
@Corgana@startrek.website avatar

IDK he seems pretty high energy for an 83 year old here.

Jaccident ,

Yeah. Not sure what that poster is on about, Sir Patrick is in terrific form still. The only thing I think maybe differs is the energy, but that’s down to personal tone and timing, Sir Patrick hasn’t aged or changed massively from his prime, he’s always been of less jubilant character, but still very present and engaged.

wjrii ,

Shatner has good genes but also seriously one of the best plastic surgeons in Hollywood. The man just stopped aging at 69 (nice).

rob_t_firefly ,
@rob_t_firefly@lemmy.world avatar

Not to mention the secret society of highly-trained weavers who have made his toupees for 70 years.

Stormygeddon ,

It’s unfortunate how unfair aging can be between individuals.

RoyalEngineering , to Star Trek in Riker sits down

The Riker Maneuver

Zeppo , to Men's Liberation in Are Men Okay? – SOME MORE NEWS
@Zeppo@sh.itjust.works avatar

easy answer: no
also, I appreciate this dude but it gets difficult sometimes as he is so relentlessly negative. He's right, but it can be hard.

glimse ,

I'm happy to see someone express that opinion. I have so much in common with this guy's stance on things (and even a lot of the bitterness) but I just can't stand watching him. I really, really don't like the "I'm hungover and angry" schtick and it makes it hard to watch.

anon6789 ,
@anon6789@lemmy.world avatar

Also in this camp. The news he covers is depressing enough without purposefully making it more gloomy. I've liked him just fine on things like Behind the Bastards where he's just been regular Cody. Robert will beat some things into the ground, but for the most part it's tolerable because he's just trying to lighten the mood.

I wish some of these podcasters and YouTubers would just be themselves and let the content speak for itself. They do a great job and don't need bits to get attention. I'd think anyone watching it for the bits doesn't really care about the message anyway.

glimse ,

I don't mind a good takedown video but I'm not big on alcoholism as the punchline. "I drink because I'm so angry about this" just doesn't resonate with me

But in his defense, his fans LOVE that presentation style and he's catering to them.

I also had no idea he was in the Behind The Bastards crew! I wanted to check it out but I only drive for like 20 minutes twice a week (and that was my podcast time)

anon6789 ,
@anon6789@lemmy.world avatar

Robert has the same substance abuse jokes, which are the ones in particular that annoy me also, but it's generally just at the ad breaks when I hit skip anyway. They were together at Cracked, and many of his guests are former Cracked employees. I gave up on Cody's show with that Wormbo puppet thing becoming a regular feature. That on top of the downer mood was too much for me.

The actual Behind that Bastards show is my favorite of the group's work, but if you're interested in their product but also interested in social activism and learning about political movements, unions, immigration, and civil rights, perhaps give their It Could Happen Here a listen. I listen to it in the big weekly compilation, but it's a series of 20-30 minute stories, each hosted by a different person on the team.

glimse ,

That last suggestion seems very up my alley, thanks!

jh29a ,

yeah oh my god

WanderingVentra ,

He has the occasional show on happy things, too. I like the shtick but it did take me awhile to warm up to it, and I could see how others couldn't get to that point. Tbh, I think the puppet helped me, too. Muppets automatically add silliness and happiness to any show. Except for maybe the Dark Crystal lol.

Zeppo ,
@Zeppo@sh.itjust.works avatar

I enjoy it in some moods, not as much in others. I generally like it for 20 minutes but can't watch an entire episode at once. My ex would just screech "WHAT IS THAT TURN IT OFF I CAN'T TAKE IT" but well, that's sort of how I feel about her.

In defense of his exasperation, the topics he discusses generally are infuriating and deserve such treatment.

WanderingVentra ,

Ya I have to do like 20-30 minutes at a time, too lol

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