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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 1st, 2023

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  • Did you actually do your research on that “deworming drug”? It’s been used to treat a hell of a lot more than parasites. That is just its most common use.

    This has always been funny to me as someone who actually works in healthcare and regularly reads scientific studies. Of all the things you could choose to hate Trump over, the example you give is one that plenty of people in the scientific community considered to be a treatment avenue worth researching.

    Damn, the media propaganda machine is effective. Trump could run into a burning building to save a litter of puppies and they’d still find a way to make everyone hate the guy. It’s impressive.


  • PortableHotpocket@lemmy.catoMemes@lemmy.mlLosing the argument because DDOS
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    1 year ago

    They probably would have just called you names instead of openly engaging with your ideas. That’s the norm in my experience. I sometimes wonder why I bother posting at all.

    Then again, I do get some traction, and some representation of ideas outside the common narratives is better than none. But it does seem like if you aren’t in lockstep with the popular narratives, you get a cascade of downvotes just for entertaining unpopular ideas.

    People don’t want you to think for yourself. They just want you to parrot their beliefs back to them and give them affirmation.





  • This is a semantic argument made to ignore the issue. The reality is that social media platforms effectively have become the “town square” where ideas are shared. Stifling legal speech in that environment is very effective censorship of ideas.

    You can argue that corporations have that right because they own the network. I disagree. Curation of what can be said on their platform turns them into a publisher, not a communications provider. Any lawyer active in that space could tell you how insanely detrimental it would be for that distinction to be made, at least in the U.S.

    Imagine your phone company deciding you can’t say certain words to other people using their service without facing dropped calls, suspensions of service, or being banned. All because your legal speech goes against the morality of the majority.

    That’s essentially what social media does at the moment. They are legally defined as, and receive the benefits of, a communications service. But they are acting like a publisher, deciding what is and is not allowed to be said. It’s a serious problem.


  • We’re always finding ways to interact with the world and perceive it from a different dimension/angle. This comic isn’t so much inaccurate as it is exaggerated.

    I’m pretty sure this is exactly how scientists felt the first time they developed microscopes, electron microscopes, and other technology that lets us experience the world in a different way. A mixture of “woah” and “mind-blown”.




  • PortableHotpocket@lemmy.catoTechnology@lemmy.world*Permanently Deleted*
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    1 year ago

    Take a minute to go and familiarize yourself with the history of the lobotomy, then you can tell me the scientific community is above reproach.

    Speaking as someone who is part of that community, bunk science gets through all the time. Especially when politics enters the fray.

    Do you have any idea how many criticisms from within the healthcare and medical research fields were censored so that people like you would believe there was only one true opinion? Of course you don’t, because you probably got all of your news on the matter from a sanitized downstream source.

    Think for yourself. There were convoluting factors in the way the covid vaccines were developed that left questions of long term side effects completely unanswered and up in the air. If you don’t understand why this vaccine was a special case to be concerned about, that’s okay, I don’t expect you to understand as a layman. But actual medical doctors were being censored off of social media and in professional environments for voicing legitimate concerns. If you’re okay with that, I think you’re making a tribal argument, not an intellectually honest one.





  • I think we need to stop being so focused on the past. I was born in Canada, and instead of complaining and trying to change the world to suit my needs, I accepted the way the world is now, and used it to my advantage as well as I could.

    Do I have all the same cultural elements of my ancestors from 500 years ago? No. Do I still own the land my ancestors did 500 years ago? Nope. But I’ve got a career, a home, a car, and a smartphone. It’s more than a lot of people have.

    Sometimes you have to accept that this is the world you were born into. You can either choose to complain and be miserable, or make it work for yourself.


  • We all use labor to meet our survival needs. Humans were just smart enough to specialize in different tasks, and we had to find a way to quantify our labor so we could trade it for different goods.

    We don’t all need to be farmers, so a doctor will pay a farmer for food, and a farmer will pay a doctor for healthcare. It’s a much more efficient way to aggregate expertise in different areas, which means more services are available for your labor without you having to be capable of all of those different kinds of work.

    A chimp may be able to feed themselves with their labor, but they aren’t making themselves smart phones or performing advanced healthcare. Indigenous societies in North America pre-British are a good example of what humans are capable of without a complex market system to trade skilled labor.



  • There are plenty of valid criticisms of capitalism. Especially the current state of capitalism in the west. It doesn’t mean I want to go full communist, far from it. But I’m a mixed economy man. I think certain things should be highly regulated or even owned by the government (and, by extension, the people).

    Healthcare is one good example to me. I think private is fine to an extent, but I would never want a fully private system. I think the model in Canada is a good place to start, where public is the go-to option, but private exists if you want to skip the queue and can afford it. The dynamic between insurance and private healthcare in the states makes for a toxic experience for patients, and that serves as one of the primary reasons why I would never want to go fully private. Doctors shouldn’t have to fight tooth and nail to get your medication or diagnostic procedure approved when it’s medically necessary, assuming the system can reasonably absorb the cost.

    Mixed economies are the way.


  • PortableHotpocket@lemmy.catoMemes@lemmy.mlNext level -ism
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    1 year ago

    That sounds like too much personal accountability, I don’t think people will go for it. Actually, it sounds like something a conservative would say, and if there’s anything social media has taught me, it’s that personal accountability and conservatism are the stuff of bigots and bootlickers. /s

    But really, I don’t think people will go for this. It’s easier to play the left/right game.



  • That’s not an entirely accurate perspective, but you’re not far off. The problem is that fixing this requires hard decisions, and it requires people in power to act against their own interests.

    You want wealth inequality to get better? You need to increase the value of labor. You do that by eliminating free trade deals, bringing production back to the west, increasing prices on goods, and severely limiting immigration. Do that, and the value of labor will soar.

    You should also severely limit the ability for the wealthy to own properties to rent. One of the main reasons the middle class existed was that the family home was simultaneously shelter, and an investment vehicle.

    The whole structure of investment and shareholding has to be rethought as well. Its built of the concept of infinite growth, something that isn’t possible, and ends with businesses destroying themselves while trying to meet this impossible demand.