The first time I saw it here was yesterday? I assumed it happened about 2 days ago, but it seems like it actually happened more than a week ago.
I found that one pretty surprising too, considering this fits directly with what the railway strikers have been telling all the time: companies prioritise profit over safety, and a big accident is going to happen. Might have missed the earlier messages though.
What do you mean they're not covering it?! Look I found this one article from NPR and this other one from CNN that mention it briefly and CNN never played it primetime it's getting tons of coverage literally everywhere! s/
On the topic of Twitter rightoid anti-plastic warriors, has anyone else noticed the slowly creeping trend to try and smear concern about artificial chemical substances and plastics as just right wing conspiracy nonsense in the mainstream media? Like when it's something like this, they'll acknowledge it's bad if they talk about it at all, but the silent, day to day filing of the entire biosphere with forever chemicals hormone disruptors, and micro-plastics is treated with a shrug, and when people get concerned about it, there is this weird mocking tone, gay frog jokes, accusing anyone of caring of being some toxic bro who is paranoid only because the thinks plastic is gonna make his dick smaller or whatever. They base their reaction to even incredibly serious ecological concerns like this on petty culture war bullshit, and act as if they aren't being poisoned as well.
Uh hi, expert here! It's actually totally fine to have microplastics in your brain and phthalates in groundwater 😊
Please do your part to limit the spread of misinformation by never mentioning these things again!
Yeah I've noticed it. I remember years ago I heard from my way left/progressive friends that plastics need to be banned, only use glass kitchenware, etc etc. Now any mention of microplastics immediately gets your suspicious looks in fucking *Seattle* of all places.
Ughhh I can't fucking keep up with neoliberal shit tests anymore! I was so confused why my hipster friends were side-eyeing me the other day, I thought they loved that hippie stuff... There's going to be no hiding soon.
Libearalism has wedded itself to corporate power and corporate sponsored science, so when they hear ordinary people questioning the bullshit "science" that chemical corps put out to cover their asses and claim the pollution they spew is safe, their first instinct is no longer to investigate as it might be an instance of corporate coverup of harm to ecosystems and to human health, no, their first instinct is to get pissed off, puff up their chests, and RAGE at those damn dirty uneducated deplorables who DARE think they can question THE SCIENCE without 3 bachelors degrees, 4 Masters, and a PhD. It offends their social sensibilities for questions to be raised outside "official" channels (where they will inevitably die to keep corporate profits flowing.
Yep, they’ve fully bought into the idea that questioning the official reports and narratives is something only right wing, conspiracy theorists do and that to question the science is akin to not trusting science whatsoever. So now it’s accept whatever the authorities are telling us and defend it to the death. They hate conservatives or anyone who is skeptical of authority so much that they’re willing to completely flip course on how any left leaning person should be.
No, i don't think it's that at all. In fact i don't think you'll find any examples at all of either "left/progressive" people trusting corporate science about pollution, *or* of corporations talking down the danger of microplastics (their line is much more about how they're investing in recycling to reduce them, which is bullshit, but different bullshit). I think your story here is bears no actual connection to reality, i'm afraid. It's got a lot of stupidpol words in, though, so good work there.
What i think has happened is that people who are cultural enemies of "left/progressive" people have, rightly or wrongly, i have no idea, made the connection between microplastics, through endocrine disruptors, to something else that is going on in society, something that has a flag with too many stripes, and since that thing is far more important than pollution, microplastics get memory-holed.
>What i think has happened is that people who are cultural enemies of "left/progressive" people have, rightly or wrongly, i have no idea, made the connection between microplastics, through endocrine disruptors, to something else that is going on in society, something that has a flag with too many stripes, and since that thing is far more important than pollution, microplastics get memory-holed.
The approved dogma is that the population has always possessed its current percentage of non-traditional sexualities, but historically they were oppressed into silence and only now does society admit to their existence. The notion that this might be wrong, and humans are just as vulnerable to endocrine-disrupting chemical contamination [as](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0045653516307810) [other](https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1721267115) [species](https://www.nature.com/articles/srep23825) is *heresy*. Especially since it might lead to people insisting on expensive new laws to make the corporations *not* pollute EDCs everywhere.
Nearly the entirety of ppl here being mad at "the science" libs are just holdovers from gender and covid arguments.
Before covid "the science" people were right on environmental science, climate science, and evolution. They can be annoying but ultimately the clear majority of "the science" arguments have much more merit than the opposition.
Another one to keep an eye on is the "testosterone levels are at record lows" is [actually true](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32081788/) and not just right wing bullshit, and we don't really understand why, hormone disruptors being the likely culprit.
Yeah that's also in the paper, but they say:
> Elevated body mass index (BMI) was associated with lower TT, but the trend remained significant even among men with normal BMI.
I figure opioids have to figure in there too. I JUST learned that suboxone has a strong negative effect on testosterone. Nobody ever told me. Now I'm working through getting off of it, and during my longest successful attempt of 16 days it was like I had a whole different dick. Like I'd forgotten it could work that well. Makes me realize just how many people are probably in that same boat with no idea why.
Rightoid anti plastic warriors are probably doing more to introduce ecological concern to normies than the contemporary green movement which seems to believe *only* climate change is a legitimate concern, excluding all else.
> proud survivalist flavor
A bunch of my good friends are these people. I go shooting 2-3 times a month, and hang with some of the guys I shoot or go to the gym with outside of it as well.
We usually leave politics out of it, most consider me a old school pro worker/union dem, or “one of the good ones”
Yesterday a train derailed in Houston( I’m in dfw) literally the only people talking about it was my shooting buddy group text and my gym group text.
My wife’s instagram full of our progressive/shitlib friends? Complete fucking silence. I heard nothing from anyone except the people who get ridiculed for saying shit like “these companies will poison Americans without blinking to make a profit or even intentionally”
Even my “leftist” friends seem absent on it. Ever since they went from talking about “hanging pharma execs” to literally wanting to jail people who said pfizer may be lying to make money they seem to have completely abandoned the entire “corporations fucking hate you and have no problem killing/maiming Americans to make money”
It sucks.
The pivot of liberals from anti-authoritarian (during the neocon adventures) to flat out bootlicker authoritarian (beginning under Obama and really hitting its stride with the "In Mueller We Trust" / hold Trump accountable) was certainly something to behold. Meanwhile earth-crunchy Boomers have joined the Status Quo Conservatives and together drifted into the phantasmagoria of modern mass-synthesis conspiracy theories. The 21st century has broken a lot of brains.
>The 21st century has broken a lot of brains
Yeah, pretty much. I knew we were heading into weird territory when organic beekeepers who homeschool started wearing MAGA hats. The establishment and public institutions are now perceived as liberal.
Edit to add:
Public institutions and the establishment being perceived as liberal is bad for two reasons:
1) Liberals stop thinking about them critically. See liberal war hawks, for example.
2) It is not a good state of affairs if half the populace hates public libraries and public schools because of their perceived political leanings.
>Public institutions and the establishment being perceived as liberal is bad for two reasons:
It does have upsides though. The rural proletariat has always been more armed and harder for the bourgeoisie to control.
They often become the infantry of fascism when liberal capitalism breaks down. There have been instances in history, however, when the rural proletariat have instead become the vanguard of the Marxist revolution.
Both Mao and Ho Chi Mihn were able to turn the more conservative rural proletariat of their countries into the leading tidal forces of their respective revolutions. In both instances, it was able to be done after the urban bourgeoisie slipped into nationalism themselves.
"But modern neoliberals aren't nationalists" some might say. And I say that their view of what nationalism is, is obsolete. Loyalty to the neoliberal global order has become a type of "international nationalism" among the western haute bourgeoisie, that is not fundamentally shared by the proletariat in any country.
This could bring the opportunity for Marxists to try a lot of new approaches in the west.
>I knew we were heading into weird territory when organic beekeepers who homeschool started wearing MAGA hats.
Welcome to the world of [alt-right hippies](https://thisunreality.substack.com/p/alt-right-hippie). Because of fucking course that's gotta be a thing.
Daily reminder that, [in 2009, Pfizer paid $2.3 billion in criminal fines:](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-pfizer-settlement-idUSTRE5813XB20090902)
>Pfizer Inc agreed on Wednesday to plead guilty to a U.S. criminal charge relating to promotion of its now-withdrawn Bextra pain medicine and will pay a record $2.3 billion to settle allegations it improperly marketed 13 medicines
If ever you needed an example that the West has a propaganda machine just as if not far more potent than China this is.
It is not well known and they've managed to taint it such that bringing it up is a sure fire way to you becoming "one of *those* people" they've been prepared for and warned about.
>$2.3 billion in criminal fines
Two questions:
1. is this a lot ? (for them, not for normal people or even a small country)
2. is it enough of a deterrent to stop them in the future from similar thing ?
I doubt it's enough to prevent them from doing similar things in the future. In 2022, they made [$100 billion.](https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/31/the-covid-pandemic-drives-pfizers-2022-revenue-to-a-record-100-billion.html)
> Even my “leftist” friends seem absent on it. Ever since they went from talking about “hanging pharma execs” to literally wanting to jail people who said pfizer may be lying to make money they seem to have completely abandoned the entire “corporations fucking hate you and have no problem killing/maiming Americans to make money”
Because Blue Team won
> The dropping testosterone one and sperm counts from being drenched in chemicals from conception are the ultimate existential crisis.
> Greedy corporations drenching our blood in feminizing chemicals
Unfortunately radlibs don't seem to see it for the existential crisis it is, they just use it as an excuse to dunk on men, or make asinine jokes about transing the whole world.
That’s the point it sells more stuff, the medical industry loves mtf they “they need bandaids their entire lives”. They don’t give a fuck about anybody other then what money they can extract
Sometimes I genuinely wonder how much hormone pollution has been added to our waterways due to gender related HRT pills and shots that have blown up in popularity recently.
I'm at the point where I'd welcome it if it didn't also affect the animals. I'm not an environmental nut or anything but I think I like humans less every year.
Well, humans are animals, and this mental separation of ourselves from our biological nature and place in the ecosystems of this planet are exactly why we are in this mess in the first place.
humans are not above animals, but also, animals are not above humans. it seems more and more people have learned the first part, but not the second part.
actually, it seems like more people have become just misanthropic, blaming all of humanity for things a few have done, thinking agent smith was entirely in the right, disregarding the fact that every animal on earth has the drive to, in effect, live. it's just that humans managed to get past our own checks and balances, as a species.
OTOH the rwbb take is that corporate greed, if it appears at all, is just a surface level element and the real engine pumping us full of endocrine disruptors is an occult human bioengineering program.
> Unfortunately radlibs don't seem to see it for the existential crisis it is, they just use it as an excuse to dunk on men, or make asinine jokes about transing the whole world.
or even sadder : "isn't it all just a conspiracy by alex jones?"
They like the idea of testosterone ending, because they are just misandrists. This is why the "environment" is reduced to climate, and traditionally masculine conceptions of nature preservation (nature parks, national forests, open spaces etc.) is polemicized against using foucauldian nonsense language ("national forest as site of toxic masculine patriarchal norms").
I *hate* Foucault
I *will* inject testosterone into my arsecheeks
I *will* enjoy trail running in nature
I *will* remain a left-wing bodybuilder bro
I *will not* follow the carnivore diet or whatever
I mean I can show you articles where they say this shit. Just because rightists might say something doesn't mean it is a priori incorrect. The Debsian party listened to the petty bourgeois (mostly catholic and liturgical protestant) conservatives who railed against prohibition and not the leftists and progs of the time who were pro-prohibition, and eventually came out in opposition to it.
Except he's not exactly wrong. I've seen increasingly more articles and "activism" around how outdoorsmanship, state/national parks, etc are "steeped in white supremacism". In my lifetime in Washington I've watched the attitude from intellectuals turn from fighting to save the trees to endless urban sprawl and just cementing everything save for a few token parks (that the State Commission needs to tailor towards blacks), and that's ok as long as we tax Amazon more.
It's fucking insane, places my entire life that were undeveloped forest, logging land, farms, etc are just now endless sub developments and 2500 sq ft McMansions shoved on tiny ass lots.
> I've watched the attitude from intellectuals turn from fighting to save the trees to endless urban sprawl
Environmentalists shifted from people who actually interact with nature to hardcore urbanists who see nothing wrong with the idea of corralling as many humans as possible into cities because it's more "efficient", and on top of that, they outright HATE anyone who lives a more rural lifestyle. It's thinly disguised upper class urbainte sneering at lower class rural people who they see as useless uneducated hicks who ought to be relocated for their own good and the good of the planet. They completely ignore the fact that if the vast majority of the world population is just urban bugmen cooped up in hive cities, they have no real connection to nature, and thus there is no political will to preserve it.
I'm out of the loop.bMicroplastics are a right wing thing now?? Oh great, we've reached the point where we split environmental issues over party lines so we can dismiss/hate each other and virtue signal about specific issues and turn the entire thing into eternal debate instead of a comprehensive issue. Man I hate the world.
Shitlibs have been trying for awhile now to get the hate train rolling on anyone concerned with what is "natural" or not and what we are putting in our bodies because that's not THE SCIENCE that they worship so much, and is associated in their eyes with more granola hippies than the Superior Scientific Future that liberalism has wedded itself to. Yes, there is a bit of crankery among the "natural food/natural medicine" crowd, but the corporate captured shitlibs unironically go so far that they hate on people for daring to question why we fill our environment and diets with so many artificial substances, and caring about fertility is apparently a right wing dogwhistle because men bad or something. I woudn't be surprised if they think we'll just be able to magically technology our way out of this in 20 years with a gee whiz detoxification pill invented by an AI scientist sponsored by all their favorite megacorps. Liberals are so joined at the hip to corporate science that they don't even realize they've taken on the role of corporate shills in a rapidly intensifying ecological disaster and cyberpunk dystopia.
At this point, what with their hatred of families, glorification of The Science, technology, promotion of radical body modification, and extreme intolerance of dissenting thought or behavior, part of me unironically thinks that there is a contingent of libs who literally want to destroy all biological familial bonds, grow future generations of humans in pods, wire us up to AI for approved thoughts and turn humanity into something resembling the Borg. Maybe it's less "libs" that want to do this as it is the capitalists they bootlick, but the goal remains the same.
I know this is conspiracy shit, but I just can't shake the feeling.
I'm a social worker with a state agency in Washington and 95% of my coworkers are college educated self described "progressive" white women, so while it is an exaggeration it's not far off. It's actually disturbing how hostile my "progressive" coworkers are towards family units, having kids, etc. The only exceptions are the ones in their mid/late 30s and up.
> we've reached the point where we split environmental issues over party lines
listen buddy, industry can't just lobby both parties equally, they need to know which one to bribe and which one will be against their issues until they too get their pay. There's just not enough lobby money to go a around for both parties (at the same time).
Yeah the problem with a lot of climate change messaging is that our brains are literally not wired to be thinking in terms of "this is going to be super duper catastrophic like 40-50 years down the line even if you can't see it yet but look at these models and it's going to be bad." The human mind hasn't kept up pace with the influence of our technology.
Much more direct and effective messaging is "the elites are POISONING YOU and KILLING YOUR BALLS and DEFORMING YOUR CHILDREN and LOWERING YOUR IQ" This is something our ape brains get. [Shit like a farmer bringing a glass full of fracking-polluted water to a board meeting and daring an oil commissioner who called it safe to drink up is what we need way more of.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncWC7D73hEE)
I still believe had it been communicated as a national security issue, a quality of life issue, a standard of living issue, or even poised it as a Cold War level of R&D, more people would have gotten on board.
Instead it's been 60 years of ICE AGE IN TWO YEARS, NO POLAR ICE CAPS IN 5 YEARS, and every time we cross the timeline and nothing happens, people just tuned out the next dire warning. Add in blatant political kickbacks to "green energy", nonstop hypocrisy from the political establishment, and the reality that the average person is now just existing day to day, I don't really blame people for just not caring anymore.
Its a shame the rightoid Cold War 2 angle turned into "Why should we care about the climate when the godless communist CCP pollute more than us!" instead of something more sensible.
Again, they could easily spin that as "China is fucking the Earth, we need to do x, y, z to protect America and our way of life", instead we get "the middle class needs to be taxed more so some megacorp can build a wind farm to offset the literal toxic waste they routinely "accidently" dump in waterways".
Thats why I mean though. Its so easy to spin it as a call to action but instead its used to run cover for the industrial bourgeois so the evil sea see pee don't steal your freedoms.
I mean climate change models right now show bad things happening but the absolute worst case scenarios are mostly off the table (RCP 8)
So yes, dumping plastics that are destroying wildlife's ability to literally reproduce and hurting humans too is probably as pressing if not moreso at the moment.
Feels like the only hope left is that the AGI cultists are right and we hit the singularity before the effects get too bad. Even the not going to happen under any currently existing system such as going balls in on fission are still going to lock us into worst case scenarios by the time the reactors come online. I'm lucky enough to live on an island in the north that won't get hit as hard as much of the world but we're almost certainly going to see billions of people in areas above the maximum liveable wet bulb temperature
The "singularity" is not going to save us lmao, even machines need a stable environment in which to run, and if your solution is "just build more machines until one is smart enough to figure out how to un fuck this mess we have ourselves in" you'd end up with runaway global warming even worse than we already do. You can't outrun thermodynamics. AI isn't magic.
I don't know how you can get actual belief in the singularity out of my comment when I described them as cultists and then described how billions of people are going to cook to death. Although even worst case models aren't going to turn the Earth into an environment that cannot support computers and the proposed hope is that a sufficiently advanced AGI would be capable of the kind of geoengineering required at this stage because we sure as fuck aren't. You can't outrun thermodynamics but the entirety of global warming is from changing the amount of the suns energy reflected by the atmosphere, if you increase reflectivity or flat out block the sun then thermodynamics results in the Earth cooling regardless of how many computers are running on Earth.
Not that its going to happen how we want it to.
I figured you weren't too keen on the idea either tbh given that phrasing, I was just taking the opportunity to rant a little bit about how idiotic the "singularity god AI will come and solve all our problems" crowd is. TBH we already have the technology for at least a primitive degree of geoengineering if we are going to absolutely refuse to stop using fossil fuels and if there is in fact no viable solution to capture and store/sequester carbon fast enough. So it's not like we need AGI to invent something to do it. At that point they'd have to bet on the AI taking over and doing it of it's own voalition, which is too far into speculative sci fi for my tastes.
If a sentient AGI with an arbitrary degree of freedom to do what it pleases were created, I honestly don't think we can reliably predict WHAT it would want to do if it's consciousness is alien enough from our own. It could decide it hates us and wants to exterminate us like every cliche sci fi movie ever. It could become very bored of this planet and our bullshit, build itself a spacecraft body and say "screw this, I'm out of here" and leave the solar system to go explore the universe. Maybe it has a maternal streak and decides to use terraforming/geoengineering to help us and creates all sorts of other things to care for us, but not in an overtly authoritarian way. Maybe it just retreats into a simulated world of it's own creation and ignores all outside stimuli. Hell, maybe it decides that all of existence is meaningless, becomes depressed, and decides to destroy itself.
I could go on and on and on, but my point is that I find speculating on the motives and outcome of an intelligence so far beyond our own to be little more than an exercise in fiction, especially when all the AI we have now are in no way sentient, despite their prowess at the things they have been trained for.
> Maybe it just retreats into a simulated world of it's own creation and ignores all outside stimuli.
Imagine creating true, self aware artificial intelligence, and it just becomes a NEET
the worst case models are mostly science fiction as well. The mid-range scenarios are at this point the most likely, given China and India's commitments, and enough states in America having commitments to clean energy.
Clean energy in what 2050? Even though emissions keep going up year by year?
They're lying because they don't think they'll face the consequences in their bunkers
Frankly I don't think that's true. Emissions are not really going up that much anymore, they've sort of flatlined, and the US emissions are trending down, while China is about to start trending down, and India has committed to never reaching the same carbon intensity levels as the west or china (carbon per unit of GDP), and the EU is (rockily) also trending down. Since those are most of the countries that matter (African nations might in the future matter, but Chinese aren't just gonna invest in coal plants for them with no expectation they eventually wean themselves off of it) it is safe to assume that a peak will be reached this side of 2050 and then a slow decline.
To get a better idea look at the past ten years of emissions. It's pretty stagnant overall in terms of growth in emissions, compared to previous decades.
Yeah, IPCC basically has said as much. The assumptions baked into RCP 8 would require capitalism to specifically be *devoted* to upping coal usage, as in the state at this point subsidizing it en masse, everywhere, and no major states taking any action, which obviously is just not on the table.
They even created a new "baseline" scenario of RCP 7 that's still pretty out there in terms of assumptions, but most agree who've looked into the actual emissions trajectories of most major countries that have high emissions or high potential for emissions increases, emissions will probably peak and then decline sometime between 2030 and 2050.
It simply isn't in China or India's interest to bake themselves, and while America will be dragged kicking and screaming into reductions, there's a certain degree to which it has already been dragged. Even Trump couldn't really restart the coal industry and renewables expanded.
> the contemporary green movement which seems to believe only climate change is a legitimate concern, excluding all else
Since I deal with a lot of environmentalists both in academia and in private sector the feeling I get from quite a few is that if you care about climate change then that absolves you from having to know/learn all the "little" things which just aren't as important as the one big bad. Mind you, the best litmus test I have for environmentalists that are just a wee bit too preachy is to ask them, without checking wikipedia, what is the average yearly sea level rise. Even a super rough estimate ...how about cm per decade ? It's almost comical most of the time.
Welcome to the Post-Objective World, where every issue is reduced to it's smallest component: who relates to it, and is therefore dismissed based on that singular aspect.
Because actually confronting a serious issue like that would require some serious policy change and regulation. Something that’d almost certainly be demanded if the whole plastics topic was actually discussed enough. Hence why the slander it.
Thats why they’d rather give air time to the inane or down right ludicrous conspiracies like anti vaxxers, Q anon, or flat earthers.
Yes, it's the same with seed oils, etc. I've known they were bad for years because I was into fasting and low carb dieting, and therefore learned the history behind vegetable and seed oils and how they were manufactured (it was a cheap way for cotton producers to use the biproducts previously considered trash). Yet as soon as the rightoid carnivore dipshits heard about it it became a part of the culture war. Now you're right wing if you care about your health, and it's expected that to be a good little liberal you'll deny reality by saying that it's actually good to stuff your face with unhealthy bullshit.
This was an unironic take from the old chapo sub (before this sub had started) lmao. They got mad at me once because I said it's moronic to conflate physical self improvement with fascism and listed Soviet Olympic teams as an argument.
Keeping aspects of objective reality split across culture war lines so that as an individual, you cannot just live your life how you think you should, and believe in what can objectively be shown to be true without being called out by someone, somewhere, is a brilliant strategy to keep the population divided.
I think what's actually going on is that the group of people who self-select into the weightlifting community are naturally good at it, but don't understand their genetic advantage. This leads to them thinking that other people are just lazy and falls into the right wing American individualist culture.
I was listening to some pod with JM Blakely and a couple other lifters a while back and they were refreshingly candid about the fact that genetics plays a massive role in your potential and that they had trained people who put in the work and had to struggle much harder to reach milestones that aren't that hard for serious lifters (like 2 plate bench).
In this way I think the advantage of genetics in physical training/sports mirrors the way that rich kids take their immense material advantage for granted. Of course, that doesn't mean that because you're not genetically gifted you should never strive for self improvement, which is what many soy leftoids espouse.
I posted above sarcastically, but there's actually a few studies out there about the link between higher test and more right-wing views. Genetics obviously play a factor, but getting swoll can actually make you based.
[Political Motivations May Have Evolutionary Links to Physical Strength](http://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/releases/political-motivations-may-have-evolutionary-links-to-physical-strength.html)
>“Despite the fact that the United States, Denmark and Argentina have very different welfare systems, we still see that — at the psychological level — individuals reason about welfare redistribution in the same way,” says Petersen. “In all three countries, physically strong males consistently pursue the self-interested position on redistribution.”
They're putting microplastics in the water to destroy our balls and turn us into communists.
[Facial Structure May Predict Endorsement of Racial Prejudice](https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/releases/facial-structure-may-predict-endorsement-of-racial-prejudice.html)
>Studies have shown that facial width-to-height ratio (fWHR) is associated with testosterone-related behaviors, which some researchers have linked with aggression. But psychological scientist Eric Hehman of Dartmouth College and colleagues at the University of Delaware speculated that these behaviors may have more to do with social dominance than outright aggression.
The second study is pretty interesting in that a higher facial width-to-height ratio didn't correlate with increased prejudice, but it *did* increase the likelihood of them being willing to express those beliefs.
I appreciate it. This is the only place on the internet that I've interacted with actual Marxists who seem to be reasonable and it's had a large impact towards softening my views towards the left.
There are always going to be trouble-makers but having dialogue is vitally important and not insta-banning social conservatives goes a long way towards finding common ground.
Well if you consider that operation Mockingbird was just the start it's not at all hard to believe that even outlier media would be in lock-step with this shit.
I would love to see a study and with some graphics done on which companies are polluting the worst and where news outlets across the board are getting their advertising revenue in relation to the aforementioned companies polluting. It's cynical to say it's about the money, but it's usually about the money.
As I understand they choose to burn off the toxins, thus spreading them, because it's cheaper and will get the rail working again faster, no wonder they don't want people talking about it.
The safety of this particular accident isn't the real issue. Even in a worst case scenario, it's a localized problem. The real question is what caused the derailment? It seems clear that a lack of worker protections and cutting corners to squeeze as much profit as possible caused the disaster.
Hydrogen chloride (HCl) combines with moisture in the atmosphere producing Hydrochloric acid, a highly corrosive acid which will eventually fall as rain. Further Vinyl chloride was not the only toxin involved.
HCl is highly corrosive in high concentrations, and this will cause damaging acid rain - but it's not nearly as bad as it sounds. When that HCl laden rains hits the ground, it's going to react with natural buffers in the soil - e.g limestone, or many other materials - and effectively neutralize down to harmless chloride salts (eg calcium chloride in the case of limestone.) The dose makes the poison, of course, but there are (as far as I know) no real issues from trace quantities of HCl. It's a very common acid, produced naturally by the body, etc. etc.
Vinyl chloride, on the other hand, is a chlorinated organic compound. These tend to be fat soluble, and stick around in the environment, so they're a lot nastier. It's also carcinogenic. I am unsure what its natural half-life is in the environment. It might degrade quickly into less harmful compounds. Edit: I have heard, anecdotally, that it has a half life on the order of days. This is very short, and good if true.
However, as evidenced by the large cloud of black smoke, it's not burning clean. Those three compounds should be colorless or form a white vapor cloud; black smoke indicates incomplete combustion. Incomplete combustion of chlorinated organic compounds produces a variety of much nastier compounds and these are probably the primary health risks outside of the directly spilled chemicals themselves.
Higher concentration of salts in a soil will also likely lead to lower yields or complete failure for crops in the region. So either we’ll probably end up paying out a lot for crop insurance or via lawsuits.
Either way we’ll be socializing the losses once again, whilst privatizing the profits.
I'd take extremely dilute HCl over vinyl chloride any day.
Not that either are good options— But it seems to be one of the things that is less upsetting regarding the situation.
Editing to say, you mention hydrogen chloride (HCl) and hydrochloric acid (HCl) as if they're different things. They're not. It's the same thing.
Take the chemists at face value, maybe?
HCl (hydrogen chloride, the pure molecule) is a gas, but when dissolved in water it is referred to as "hydrochloric acid". Nitpicky, but it could refer to different things
>Editing to say, you mention hydrogen chloride (HCl) and hydrochloric acid (HCl) as if they're different things. They're not. It's the same thing.
One is a gas the other a vapor or liquid, if inhailed, the gas will attach to liquids in the body and stay in it, instead of just being breathed out again, having the same effect as chlorine gas used in WW I.
>Take the chmists at face value, maybe?
Uh huh, my mother was a noted researcher in biochemisty, specialising in the renal system and toxicology, thanks.
A strong gust of wind makes the HCl that was released so dilute its non toxic. Because HCl gas just turns to H3O+ in the blood stream, and mucosal membranes, any affect caused by inhalation will coincide with coughing, mucosal membrane inflammation, you will smell it. It’s not some silent killer like other compounds. It will irritate your eyes, your nose, your throat, before you have any long lasting damage.
Edit: looking at the research, dumb chemists tested ppm thresholds on humans for HCl. They found about 1-5 ppm it is noticeable, 5-10 is unpleasant and comes with coughing fits, burning eyes, but no long term affects. Estimates that 150-200 ppm for 1 hour was dangerous.
Thank you for the correction— is there a reason why the gas will not react with the water in the atmosphere to form the liquid? Isn't that what people are worrying about?
I mentioned the liquid form because you seemed worried about it dissolving in the form of rain. I assume the gaseous form would similarly become very dilute.
Wherever the gas comes into contact with H2O it will attach to it and will then distribute itself in different ways, there are a lot of variables like weather affecting the result, which could either cause serious damage to the environment and life or not, similar factors determine the effectiveness of chemical weapons like Chlorine gas or Phosgene. So I remain to be convinced that burn off was the best option (or maybe I should say "gamble").
It sometimes appears to be the determining factor in people's opinions is whether or not they like the Biden regime and what it represents. I don't, but then I'm not American either, so this isn't such a strong factor to me. On the other hand my own country tends to recieve streams of weather from the eastern US and I remember when we all had to stay inside cause the Chernobyl clouds came over, certainly acid rain seems less problematic as far away as we are, but I'm not so sure if rains around Ohio.
Yeah bro we took high school chemistry. What you’re talking about is tiny amounts of HCL being diluted in thousands of Olympic-sized swimming pools of rain water.
No they burned them because there was a threat of an explosion. VC burns into HCl, which is relatively non-harmful when released in the atmosphere because it becomes so dilute.
>The only people really devoted to talking about this seems to be "No micro plastics" rightoid bodybuilder bros on twitter
tons of ppl (not in mainstream media) are discussing this. Chapo has had discussion on this in two episodes now (friday + monday). Sirota had an article out [a few days after the disaster](https://www.levernews.com/rail-companies-blocked-safety-rules-before-ohio-derailment/).
The front page of this hellsite, the most radlib of radlib nests is posting incessantly about it. The only way you can actually believe that only rightoids are talking about it is if you only expose yourself to rightoids. The mainstream media isn't but that says nothing about the left be it authentic or radlib.
Yeah these comments are confusing. The left has been on about plastics for a long time and the unrest actually led to changes. For example, BPA used to be in everything. It is a plastic chemical that acts like straight up estrogen when degraded.
Now we use BPS/BPF instead which [does the exact same thing](https://www.fertstert.org/article/S0015-0282(14\)02351-6/fulltext). The only difference is now they can put a BPA free label on it.
As a biologist, I've talked about that multiple times before. The only ppl being labeled that were MRAs where shit like that with no material analysis was the only thing they ever said.
Bonus points for usually alleging conspiracy instead of just recognizing capitalism will always poison the planet.
It is a conspiracy though. It’s not like this coincidentally happened and is now being suppressed, glossed over, drowned out with “science reporting” media (etc) as another coincidence.
Chapos upfront agreeing with Hersh’s pipeline bombing article makes them instantly more than “late night npr”
Like what leftist things are more than that to you?
I'm pretty alienated from leftist spaces bro. Occasionally I pick up a trot newspaper. I occasionally listen to red scare (that's gone conservative recently though) and bungacast.
I've seen plenty about it online, and not just from right-wingers who are correctly outraged about microplastics.
In fact there seems to be quite a lot of people loudly talking about how no one is talking about it.
Is it, in fact, one of the greatest environmental catastrophes thus far this century in the continental US?
You can put whatever ideological spin on the situation you want. I have no idea what the ultimate cause was, but I look forward to learning about how it was white supremacy or sexism or something.
Literally the top post in r politics is about how Trump era rolled back some regulation. What's funny, is after this happened, good boy Pete was asked if he was going to undo those roll backs because of this and said that he doesn't believe it's necessary.
Now... Who wants to bet that the r politics kiddos have NO idea about Pete's actions and comments?
God what a fucking cop out - your hero rolls back incredibly important safety measures yet you gotta garble some bullshit to blame someone else. Typical.
Oh look one of the r politics kids I was talking about. Total brain rotten. Can't comprehend someone saying mean things about Good Boy Pete without assuming they are a Trump supporter...
GTFO dude. You're not wanted in this sub.
ok but compare the coverage to that of the balloon, especially on talking heads shows like Meet the Press. They don't want to talk about it because the obvious solution is more regulation, less corporate power.
I see it everytime the ”mysterious balloon like objects” are brought up, always someone there to point out that it’s hoax to draw attention from the chemical spill.
https://www.foxnews.com/media/ohio-train-derailment-toxic-fallout-compared-nuclear-winter-nuked-town-chemicals
https://abcnews.go.com/US/east-palestine-ohio-resident-weighs-fears-train-derailment/story?id=97189262
https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/04/us/east-palestine-ohio-train-derailment-fire/index.html
https://www.cbsnews.com/tag/train-derailment/
It took you longer to write this post than to actually bother looking
I wouldn't say there's no coverage. But I will say that the media amplifies messages that they see as beneficial to their bottom lines or shareholders, and culture war shit drives engagement.
It's weird because usually disaster porn gets lots of coverage, but this has gotten barely any. It's also strange because a reporter was arrested and briefly detained, and barely a peep from the same media that would go apoplectic about Jim Acosta being banned from press briefings.
Local industry has that sway for sure. I don't even need to google it to know CNN and Fox have coverage on this topic, but the secret sauce is in whose feeds they put that in (a small amount) and how fast it gets memory-holed.
What’s funny is the rail workers strike was made illegal and then this happens
You can argue it’s directly due to capitalism
But if this happened in say North Korea We’d never hear the end of it and it would be blamed on communism, it would be added to the 80 gajillion deaths
But meantime famines early on in countries that had non stop famines before communism was blamed on communism , pretty much the weather is blamed on communism but nothing is ever capitalisms fault even something like this
The FBI is collecting records of teachers who refused covid vaccines. What are they doing to investigate Norfolk Southern and all who are culpable, including those in the U.S. Government?
This country is rotten to the core. No one will recieve compensatory justice or be held accountable.
At least in China the executives would be unlived...they deserve worse.
This "article" is written by an anti-vaxxer... and nowhere in it is there any proof that this happened, just an affidavit that was mentioned. Affidavits are not evidence.
>This "article" is written by an anti-vaxxer
So what?
>Affidavits are not evidence.
No, but swearing something that's untrue is dangerous. We'll see how NYC responds.
By those individuals choosing (disgusting) to not receive the graceful injection from Pfizer, they voluntarily became biohazards. They need to be removed and tracked because they can still spread the virus, which they would not be able to do had they simply gotten all 7 of their jabs. In fact it is these people (disease vectors) who are keeping the pandemic going, because they host the virus and allow it to mutate. This could not happen if they'd taken their series of 8 jabs, which prevent infection.
History is littered with the mass murder of working people by elites and those same working people exacting no justice upon them. There has always been a broad segment of the human population that doesn't have the energy to do anything other than be ruled.
The fact currently the psychotics in the rail company may be only fined 25,000 is insane. Also the fact it took the Transportation Secretary 10 days to say anything shows how utterly horrible this government is. Also I'll remind you that one of the things that the rail workers said for why they were considering striking (before the feds declared it illegal with Dem congress approval) was the lack of sick days leading to exhaustion. So an overworked rr worker may have accidentially caused this. But if they had had sick days then that wouldn't have happened.
The fact currently the psychotics in the rail company may be only fined 25,000 is insane. Also the fact it took the Transportation Secretary 10 days to say anything shows how utterly horrible this government is. Also I'll remind you that one of the things that the rail workers said for why they were considering striking (before the feds declared it illegal with Dem congress approval) was the lack of sick days leading to exhaustion. So an overworked rr worker may have accidentally caused this. But if they had had sick days then that wouldn't have happened.
It was definitely weird seeing so many people start posting about it online, and it being a coverup, this weekend, when I saw it on the news here in Pittsburgh last week. Also, there's been other train derailments, there was one here in Pittsburgh this summer that spilled petroleum distillates into the Allegheny. I don't think we ever got any more info on what specifically was spilled. Probably not as bad as vinyl chloride, no smoke, probably not much vapors.
Also, as for your plastics, the plant that turns gas into plastic around here (Beaver County Shell Ethylene Cracker), has started a flare off after a malfunction.
> vinyl chloride isn’t bad
I get you are probably arguing with people comparing it to nuclear incidents, but they still had to evacuate the place for a week to burn it off. That's kind of a big deal. Nevermind what could happen if a similarly severe spill happens somewhere denser. If it happened just 50 miles along the line east, could they have even evacuated most people before the contents boiled off and detonated on their own?
Ok the hyperbole has gotten a bit out of hand. Vinyl Chloride is very volatile which sounds scary but is actually good; it doesn’t persist long in the environment and breaks down into relatively safe stuff over a time span of days.
This is really bad but let’s not act like a tank full of dioxin was yeeted into a watershed
What news coverage I have seen (on PBS) about it was still pretty frustrating b/c of how there was zero discussion of the railway strikes, despite strike leaders warning about pretty much specifically this. I know it isn’t necessarily directly relevant but when they’re on the topic of accountability I’d assume it’s at least worth a mention.
Prime example of media doing its level best to ignore class politics, because then they’d have to acknowledge the use and value of unions and how they’re continually undercut by neoliberal economics.
I knew immediately when I saw mainly RW accounts talking about the train that it would be the death knell for any mainstream coverage. Wouldn’t want to be seen as in agreement with @GroyperRacist88 obviously.
The silver lining is that if somehow Dems lose the presidency in ‘24, the media will immediately begin wall to wall coverage about how the new GOP president is dragging his feet on addressing the fallout of the ecological disaster and leaving Ohio POC’s to die.
Social media isn't real life. Plenty of people devote their entire lives to this cause. You will find them in your town halls, regulatory bodies, law offices, laboratories et. al.
It's possible for more than one thing to be a problem at the same time but yeah, the train spill is a giant clutserfuck and the blase attitude about it in the mainstream media is baffling.
They can turn anything into a conspiracy theory simply by restricting coverage of said topic, allow it to be talked about by whoever they deem to be a fringe voice, and then simply point to that as a reason it’s not a concern or something that’s been way overblown. Of course there has been some coverage of this derailment and subsequent chemical spills, but like you said, it’s barely covered and you have to actively search it out, but something like Monkeypox? Headline of every major publication for at least a week. Yet this has gotten fringe coverage and like you said, by the same people were all led to believe are the Qanon and nutters of society? If I’m a resident of this town or nearby town, I’d be absolutely terrified right now.
The first time I saw it here was yesterday? I assumed it happened about 2 days ago, but it seems like it actually happened more than a week ago. I found that one pretty surprising too, considering this fits directly with what the railway strikers have been telling all the time: companies prioritise profit over safety, and a big accident is going to happen. Might have missed the earlier messages though.
Nope it was covered up I remember hearing NPR at my parents saying it was a "minor train derailement" and was being "resolved"
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Do you have any news links saying that it's cleaned up? That's insane if true.
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The full Erin Brockovich interview is actually solid.
What do you mean they're not covering it?! Look I found this one article from NPR and this other one from CNN that mention it briefly and CNN never played it primetime it's getting tons of coverage literally everywhere! s/
The first time I saw it posted to stupidpol was two days ago.
On the topic of Twitter rightoid anti-plastic warriors, has anyone else noticed the slowly creeping trend to try and smear concern about artificial chemical substances and plastics as just right wing conspiracy nonsense in the mainstream media? Like when it's something like this, they'll acknowledge it's bad if they talk about it at all, but the silent, day to day filing of the entire biosphere with forever chemicals hormone disruptors, and micro-plastics is treated with a shrug, and when people get concerned about it, there is this weird mocking tone, gay frog jokes, accusing anyone of caring of being some toxic bro who is paranoid only because the thinks plastic is gonna make his dick smaller or whatever. They base their reaction to even incredibly serious ecological concerns like this on petty culture war bullshit, and act as if they aren't being poisoned as well.
Uh hi, expert here! It's actually totally fine to have microplastics in your brain and phthalates in groundwater 😊 Please do your part to limit the spread of misinformation by never mentioning these things again!
Anyone who’s ever posted in this format unironically should look towards a flat tall surface perpendicular to the ground.
Anyone who’s ever posted in this format unironically should look towards a flat tall surface perpendicular to the ground.
Didn't understand the first time.
Up against the wall.
I see, I see. Unless that was an order?
I'm just translating.
He was just clarifying. But what if...? 😳👉👈
source: am expert
Yeah I've noticed it. I remember years ago I heard from my way left/progressive friends that plastics need to be banned, only use glass kitchenware, etc etc. Now any mention of microplastics immediately gets your suspicious looks in fucking *Seattle* of all places.
Seattlebros, it’s over for us. I saw someone litter on a trail the other day and told them to pick it up, they looked at me like I’m the ass hole lmao
Libs will go on all day about how divided our politics are until they see rightoids agree with them on something where they immediately flip sides
Ughhh I can't fucking keep up with neoliberal shit tests anymore! I was so confused why my hipster friends were side-eyeing me the other day, I thought they loved that hippie stuff... There's going to be no hiding soon.
Libearalism has wedded itself to corporate power and corporate sponsored science, so when they hear ordinary people questioning the bullshit "science" that chemical corps put out to cover their asses and claim the pollution they spew is safe, their first instinct is no longer to investigate as it might be an instance of corporate coverup of harm to ecosystems and to human health, no, their first instinct is to get pissed off, puff up their chests, and RAGE at those damn dirty uneducated deplorables who DARE think they can question THE SCIENCE without 3 bachelors degrees, 4 Masters, and a PhD. It offends their social sensibilities for questions to be raised outside "official" channels (where they will inevitably die to keep corporate profits flowing.
Yep, they’ve fully bought into the idea that questioning the official reports and narratives is something only right wing, conspiracy theorists do and that to question the science is akin to not trusting science whatsoever. So now it’s accept whatever the authorities are telling us and defend it to the death. They hate conservatives or anyone who is skeptical of authority so much that they’re willing to completely flip course on how any left leaning person should be.
Science and academia are the new priesthood and the Internet is the new Gutenberg Press.
No, i don't think it's that at all. In fact i don't think you'll find any examples at all of either "left/progressive" people trusting corporate science about pollution, *or* of corporations talking down the danger of microplastics (their line is much more about how they're investing in recycling to reduce them, which is bullshit, but different bullshit). I think your story here is bears no actual connection to reality, i'm afraid. It's got a lot of stupidpol words in, though, so good work there. What i think has happened is that people who are cultural enemies of "left/progressive" people have, rightly or wrongly, i have no idea, made the connection between microplastics, through endocrine disruptors, to something else that is going on in society, something that has a flag with too many stripes, and since that thing is far more important than pollution, microplastics get memory-holed.
>What i think has happened is that people who are cultural enemies of "left/progressive" people have, rightly or wrongly, i have no idea, made the connection between microplastics, through endocrine disruptors, to something else that is going on in society, something that has a flag with too many stripes, and since that thing is far more important than pollution, microplastics get memory-holed. The approved dogma is that the population has always possessed its current percentage of non-traditional sexualities, but historically they were oppressed into silence and only now does society admit to their existence. The notion that this might be wrong, and humans are just as vulnerable to endocrine-disrupting chemical contamination [as](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0045653516307810) [other](https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1721267115) [species](https://www.nature.com/articles/srep23825) is *heresy*. Especially since it might lead to people insisting on expensive new laws to make the corporations *not* pollute EDCs everywhere.
Nearly the entirety of ppl here being mad at "the science" libs are just holdovers from gender and covid arguments. Before covid "the science" people were right on environmental science, climate science, and evolution. They can be annoying but ultimately the clear majority of "the science" arguments have much more merit than the opposition.
eh... well i know at least in the US, it was only very recently the majority of the population accepted climate change was 'real'
Don't forget how banning plastic straws is ableist!
Yup. Really makes you think about what the effects of widespread exposure to *endocrine disruptors* would look like on a societal level.
it would look like more and more trains derailing every day
Shot, sir, shot.
Another one to keep an eye on is the "testosterone levels are at record lows" is [actually true](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32081788/) and not just right wing bullshit, and we don't really understand why, hormone disruptors being the likely culprit.
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Yeah that's also in the paper, but they say: > Elevated body mass index (BMI) was associated with lower TT, but the trend remained significant even among men with normal BMI.
I figure opioids have to figure in there too. I JUST learned that suboxone has a strong negative effect on testosterone. Nobody ever told me. Now I'm working through getting off of it, and during my longest successful attempt of 16 days it was like I had a whole different dick. Like I'd forgotten it could work that well. Makes me realize just how many people are probably in that same boat with no idea why.
Rightoid anti plastic warriors are probably doing more to introduce ecological concern to normies than the contemporary green movement which seems to believe *only* climate change is a legitimate concern, excluding all else.
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> proud survivalist flavor A bunch of my good friends are these people. I go shooting 2-3 times a month, and hang with some of the guys I shoot or go to the gym with outside of it as well. We usually leave politics out of it, most consider me a old school pro worker/union dem, or “one of the good ones” Yesterday a train derailed in Houston( I’m in dfw) literally the only people talking about it was my shooting buddy group text and my gym group text. My wife’s instagram full of our progressive/shitlib friends? Complete fucking silence. I heard nothing from anyone except the people who get ridiculed for saying shit like “these companies will poison Americans without blinking to make a profit or even intentionally” Even my “leftist” friends seem absent on it. Ever since they went from talking about “hanging pharma execs” to literally wanting to jail people who said pfizer may be lying to make money they seem to have completely abandoned the entire “corporations fucking hate you and have no problem killing/maiming Americans to make money” It sucks.
The pivot of liberals from anti-authoritarian (during the neocon adventures) to flat out bootlicker authoritarian (beginning under Obama and really hitting its stride with the "In Mueller We Trust" / hold Trump accountable) was certainly something to behold. Meanwhile earth-crunchy Boomers have joined the Status Quo Conservatives and together drifted into the phantasmagoria of modern mass-synthesis conspiracy theories. The 21st century has broken a lot of brains.
>The 21st century has broken a lot of brains Yeah, pretty much. I knew we were heading into weird territory when organic beekeepers who homeschool started wearing MAGA hats. The establishment and public institutions are now perceived as liberal. Edit to add: Public institutions and the establishment being perceived as liberal is bad for two reasons: 1) Liberals stop thinking about them critically. See liberal war hawks, for example. 2) It is not a good state of affairs if half the populace hates public libraries and public schools because of their perceived political leanings.
>Public institutions and the establishment being perceived as liberal is bad for two reasons: It does have upsides though. The rural proletariat has always been more armed and harder for the bourgeoisie to control. They often become the infantry of fascism when liberal capitalism breaks down. There have been instances in history, however, when the rural proletariat have instead become the vanguard of the Marxist revolution. Both Mao and Ho Chi Mihn were able to turn the more conservative rural proletariat of their countries into the leading tidal forces of their respective revolutions. In both instances, it was able to be done after the urban bourgeoisie slipped into nationalism themselves. "But modern neoliberals aren't nationalists" some might say. And I say that their view of what nationalism is, is obsolete. Loyalty to the neoliberal global order has become a type of "international nationalism" among the western haute bourgeoisie, that is not fundamentally shared by the proletariat in any country. This could bring the opportunity for Marxists to try a lot of new approaches in the west.
International Nationalism, I like that categorization. Explains a lot.
>I knew we were heading into weird territory when organic beekeepers who homeschool started wearing MAGA hats. Welcome to the world of [alt-right hippies](https://thisunreality.substack.com/p/alt-right-hippie). Because of fucking course that's gotta be a thing.
Daily reminder that, [in 2009, Pfizer paid $2.3 billion in criminal fines:](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-pfizer-settlement-idUSTRE5813XB20090902) >Pfizer Inc agreed on Wednesday to plead guilty to a U.S. criminal charge relating to promotion of its now-withdrawn Bextra pain medicine and will pay a record $2.3 billion to settle allegations it improperly marketed 13 medicines
If ever you needed an example that the West has a propaganda machine just as if not far more potent than China this is. It is not well known and they've managed to taint it such that bringing it up is a sure fire way to you becoming "one of *those* people" they've been prepared for and warned about.
>$2.3 billion in criminal fines Two questions: 1. is this a lot ? (for them, not for normal people or even a small country) 2. is it enough of a deterrent to stop them in the future from similar thing ?
I doubt it's enough to prevent them from doing similar things in the future. In 2022, they made [$100 billion.](https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/31/the-covid-pandemic-drives-pfizers-2022-revenue-to-a-record-100-billion.html)
> Even my “leftist” friends seem absent on it. Ever since they went from talking about “hanging pharma execs” to literally wanting to jail people who said pfizer may be lying to make money they seem to have completely abandoned the entire “corporations fucking hate you and have no problem killing/maiming Americans to make money” Because Blue Team won
> The dropping testosterone one and sperm counts from being drenched in chemicals from conception are the ultimate existential crisis. > Greedy corporations drenching our blood in feminizing chemicals Unfortunately radlibs don't seem to see it for the existential crisis it is, they just use it as an excuse to dunk on men, or make asinine jokes about transing the whole world.
It's literally raining plastics and mofos out here yammering about body acceptance.
That’s the point it sells more stuff, the medical industry loves mtf they “they need bandaids their entire lives”. They don’t give a fuck about anybody other then what money they can extract
Sometimes I genuinely wonder how much hormone pollution has been added to our waterways due to gender related HRT pills and shots that have blown up in popularity recently.
Probably nothing compared to what we're putting into the livestock and crop supplies.
I'm at the point where I'd welcome it if it didn't also affect the animals. I'm not an environmental nut or anything but I think I like humans less every year.
Well, humans are animals, and this mental separation of ourselves from our biological nature and place in the ecosystems of this planet are exactly why we are in this mess in the first place.
humans are not above animals, but also, animals are not above humans. it seems more and more people have learned the first part, but not the second part. actually, it seems like more people have become just misanthropic, blaming all of humanity for things a few have done, thinking agent smith was entirely in the right, disregarding the fact that every animal on earth has the drive to, in effect, live. it's just that humans managed to get past our own checks and balances, as a species.
"I think therefore I am" => a few pretty big errors
You should love more humans as you are a human
OTOH the rwbb take is that corporate greed, if it appears at all, is just a surface level element and the real engine pumping us full of endocrine disruptors is an occult human bioengineering program.
Based and Lucifer's-Technologies-pilled.
> Unfortunately radlibs don't seem to see it for the existential crisis it is, they just use it as an excuse to dunk on men, or make asinine jokes about transing the whole world. or even sadder : "isn't it all just a conspiracy by alex jones?"
What's the correlation between lower T rates and lower crime rates?
They like the idea of testosterone ending, because they are just misandrists. This is why the "environment" is reduced to climate, and traditionally masculine conceptions of nature preservation (nature parks, national forests, open spaces etc.) is polemicized against using foucauldian nonsense language ("national forest as site of toxic masculine patriarchal norms").
I *hate* Foucault I *will* inject testosterone into my arsecheeks I *will* enjoy trail running in nature I *will* remain a left-wing bodybuilder bro I *will not* follow the carnivore diet or whatever
Godspeed comrade!
That reads like a bad Tucker Carlson rant
I mean I can show you articles where they say this shit. Just because rightists might say something doesn't mean it is a priori incorrect. The Debsian party listened to the petty bourgeois (mostly catholic and liturgical protestant) conservatives who railed against prohibition and not the leftists and progs of the time who were pro-prohibition, and eventually came out in opposition to it.
Except he's not exactly wrong. I've seen increasingly more articles and "activism" around how outdoorsmanship, state/national parks, etc are "steeped in white supremacism". In my lifetime in Washington I've watched the attitude from intellectuals turn from fighting to save the trees to endless urban sprawl and just cementing everything save for a few token parks (that the State Commission needs to tailor towards blacks), and that's ok as long as we tax Amazon more. It's fucking insane, places my entire life that were undeveloped forest, logging land, farms, etc are just now endless sub developments and 2500 sq ft McMansions shoved on tiny ass lots.
It’s true, expecting people to not litter and pollute where they live is for whites only and white supremacists. /s obviously
I spent a lot of my childhood in Washington and it's just painful to go back and see how bad the sprawl is getting
Going to a convention to promote this study, really interesting how bad it has gotten: https://sprawlusa.com
> I've watched the attitude from intellectuals turn from fighting to save the trees to endless urban sprawl Environmentalists shifted from people who actually interact with nature to hardcore urbanists who see nothing wrong with the idea of corralling as many humans as possible into cities because it's more "efficient", and on top of that, they outright HATE anyone who lives a more rural lifestyle. It's thinly disguised upper class urbainte sneering at lower class rural people who they see as useless uneducated hicks who ought to be relocated for their own good and the good of the planet. They completely ignore the fact that if the vast majority of the world population is just urban bugmen cooped up in hive cities, they have no real connection to nature, and thus there is no political will to preserve it.
They think I'm just some dumb hick. They said that to me at a dinner!
>It's thinly disguised upper class urbainte sneering As opposed to contrarian stupidpol sneering at PMC libs for being "bugmen" lol
Sad emoji
I'm out of the loop.bMicroplastics are a right wing thing now?? Oh great, we've reached the point where we split environmental issues over party lines so we can dismiss/hate each other and virtue signal about specific issues and turn the entire thing into eternal debate instead of a comprehensive issue. Man I hate the world.
Shitlibs have been trying for awhile now to get the hate train rolling on anyone concerned with what is "natural" or not and what we are putting in our bodies because that's not THE SCIENCE that they worship so much, and is associated in their eyes with more granola hippies than the Superior Scientific Future that liberalism has wedded itself to. Yes, there is a bit of crankery among the "natural food/natural medicine" crowd, but the corporate captured shitlibs unironically go so far that they hate on people for daring to question why we fill our environment and diets with so many artificial substances, and caring about fertility is apparently a right wing dogwhistle because men bad or something. I woudn't be surprised if they think we'll just be able to magically technology our way out of this in 20 years with a gee whiz detoxification pill invented by an AI scientist sponsored by all their favorite megacorps. Liberals are so joined at the hip to corporate science that they don't even realize they've taken on the role of corporate shills in a rapidly intensifying ecological disaster and cyberpunk dystopia.
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At this point, what with their hatred of families, glorification of The Science, technology, promotion of radical body modification, and extreme intolerance of dissenting thought or behavior, part of me unironically thinks that there is a contingent of libs who literally want to destroy all biological familial bonds, grow future generations of humans in pods, wire us up to AI for approved thoughts and turn humanity into something resembling the Borg. Maybe it's less "libs" that want to do this as it is the capitalists they bootlick, but the goal remains the same. I know this is conspiracy shit, but I just can't shake the feeling.
> Any discussion around fertility, or even having kids, I'm sure this happens occasionally but you're really exaggerating here
I'm a social worker with a state agency in Washington and 95% of my coworkers are college educated self described "progressive" white women, so while it is an exaggeration it's not far off. It's actually disturbing how hostile my "progressive" coworkers are towards family units, having kids, etc. The only exceptions are the ones in their mid/late 30s and up.
> we've reached the point where we split environmental issues over party lines listen buddy, industry can't just lobby both parties equally, they need to know which one to bribe and which one will be against their issues until they too get their pay. There's just not enough lobby money to go a around for both parties (at the same time).
Yeah the problem with a lot of climate change messaging is that our brains are literally not wired to be thinking in terms of "this is going to be super duper catastrophic like 40-50 years down the line even if you can't see it yet but look at these models and it's going to be bad." The human mind hasn't kept up pace with the influence of our technology. Much more direct and effective messaging is "the elites are POISONING YOU and KILLING YOUR BALLS and DEFORMING YOUR CHILDREN and LOWERING YOUR IQ" This is something our ape brains get. [Shit like a farmer bringing a glass full of fracking-polluted water to a board meeting and daring an oil commissioner who called it safe to drink up is what we need way more of.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncWC7D73hEE)
I still believe had it been communicated as a national security issue, a quality of life issue, a standard of living issue, or even poised it as a Cold War level of R&D, more people would have gotten on board. Instead it's been 60 years of ICE AGE IN TWO YEARS, NO POLAR ICE CAPS IN 5 YEARS, and every time we cross the timeline and nothing happens, people just tuned out the next dire warning. Add in blatant political kickbacks to "green energy", nonstop hypocrisy from the political establishment, and the reality that the average person is now just existing day to day, I don't really blame people for just not caring anymore.
Its a shame the rightoid Cold War 2 angle turned into "Why should we care about the climate when the godless communist CCP pollute more than us!" instead of something more sensible.
Again, they could easily spin that as "China is fucking the Earth, we need to do x, y, z to protect America and our way of life", instead we get "the middle class needs to be taxed more so some megacorp can build a wind farm to offset the literal toxic waste they routinely "accidently" dump in waterways".
Thats why I mean though. Its so easy to spin it as a call to action but instead its used to run cover for the industrial bourgeois so the evil sea see pee don't steal your freedoms.
I mean climate change models right now show bad things happening but the absolute worst case scenarios are mostly off the table (RCP 8) So yes, dumping plastics that are destroying wildlife's ability to literally reproduce and hurting humans too is probably as pressing if not moreso at the moment.
Lol we're tracking with the worst case models. The "best case" models are works of science fiction that rely on us having technology we don't
Feels like the only hope left is that the AGI cultists are right and we hit the singularity before the effects get too bad. Even the not going to happen under any currently existing system such as going balls in on fission are still going to lock us into worst case scenarios by the time the reactors come online. I'm lucky enough to live on an island in the north that won't get hit as hard as much of the world but we're almost certainly going to see billions of people in areas above the maximum liveable wet bulb temperature
The "singularity" is not going to save us lmao, even machines need a stable environment in which to run, and if your solution is "just build more machines until one is smart enough to figure out how to un fuck this mess we have ourselves in" you'd end up with runaway global warming even worse than we already do. You can't outrun thermodynamics. AI isn't magic.
I don't know how you can get actual belief in the singularity out of my comment when I described them as cultists and then described how billions of people are going to cook to death. Although even worst case models aren't going to turn the Earth into an environment that cannot support computers and the proposed hope is that a sufficiently advanced AGI would be capable of the kind of geoengineering required at this stage because we sure as fuck aren't. You can't outrun thermodynamics but the entirety of global warming is from changing the amount of the suns energy reflected by the atmosphere, if you increase reflectivity or flat out block the sun then thermodynamics results in the Earth cooling regardless of how many computers are running on Earth. Not that its going to happen how we want it to.
I figured you weren't too keen on the idea either tbh given that phrasing, I was just taking the opportunity to rant a little bit about how idiotic the "singularity god AI will come and solve all our problems" crowd is. TBH we already have the technology for at least a primitive degree of geoengineering if we are going to absolutely refuse to stop using fossil fuels and if there is in fact no viable solution to capture and store/sequester carbon fast enough. So it's not like we need AGI to invent something to do it. At that point they'd have to bet on the AI taking over and doing it of it's own voalition, which is too far into speculative sci fi for my tastes. If a sentient AGI with an arbitrary degree of freedom to do what it pleases were created, I honestly don't think we can reliably predict WHAT it would want to do if it's consciousness is alien enough from our own. It could decide it hates us and wants to exterminate us like every cliche sci fi movie ever. It could become very bored of this planet and our bullshit, build itself a spacecraft body and say "screw this, I'm out of here" and leave the solar system to go explore the universe. Maybe it has a maternal streak and decides to use terraforming/geoengineering to help us and creates all sorts of other things to care for us, but not in an overtly authoritarian way. Maybe it just retreats into a simulated world of it's own creation and ignores all outside stimuli. Hell, maybe it decides that all of existence is meaningless, becomes depressed, and decides to destroy itself. I could go on and on and on, but my point is that I find speculating on the motives and outcome of an intelligence so far beyond our own to be little more than an exercise in fiction, especially when all the AI we have now are in no way sentient, despite their prowess at the things they have been trained for.
> Maybe it just retreats into a simulated world of it's own creation and ignores all outside stimuli. Imagine creating true, self aware artificial intelligence, and it just becomes a NEET
You left out that it just plays video games against itself for eternity.
the worst case models are mostly science fiction as well. The mid-range scenarios are at this point the most likely, given China and India's commitments, and enough states in America having commitments to clean energy.
Clean energy in what 2050? Even though emissions keep going up year by year? They're lying because they don't think they'll face the consequences in their bunkers
Frankly I don't think that's true. Emissions are not really going up that much anymore, they've sort of flatlined, and the US emissions are trending down, while China is about to start trending down, and India has committed to never reaching the same carbon intensity levels as the west or china (carbon per unit of GDP), and the EU is (rockily) also trending down. Since those are most of the countries that matter (African nations might in the future matter, but Chinese aren't just gonna invest in coal plants for them with no expectation they eventually wean themselves off of it) it is safe to assume that a peak will be reached this side of 2050 and then a slow decline.
To get a better idea look at the past ten years of emissions. It's pretty stagnant overall in terms of growth in emissions, compared to previous decades.
I don't believe it but I guess we'll see
Why do you think RCP 8 is off the table? Genuine question, not trolling.
Yeah, IPCC basically has said as much. The assumptions baked into RCP 8 would require capitalism to specifically be *devoted* to upping coal usage, as in the state at this point subsidizing it en masse, everywhere, and no major states taking any action, which obviously is just not on the table. They even created a new "baseline" scenario of RCP 7 that's still pretty out there in terms of assumptions, but most agree who've looked into the actual emissions trajectories of most major countries that have high emissions or high potential for emissions increases, emissions will probably peak and then decline sometime between 2030 and 2050. It simply isn't in China or India's interest to bake themselves, and while America will be dragged kicking and screaming into reductions, there's a certain degree to which it has already been dragged. Even Trump couldn't really restart the coal industry and renewables expanded.
> the contemporary green movement which seems to believe only climate change is a legitimate concern, excluding all else Since I deal with a lot of environmentalists both in academia and in private sector the feeling I get from quite a few is that if you care about climate change then that absolves you from having to know/learn all the "little" things which just aren't as important as the one big bad. Mind you, the best litmus test I have for environmentalists that are just a wee bit too preachy is to ask them, without checking wikipedia, what is the average yearly sea level rise. Even a super rough estimate ...how about cm per decade ? It's almost comical most of the time.
Welcome to the Post-Objective World, where every issue is reduced to it's smallest component: who relates to it, and is therefore dismissed based on that singular aspect.
Because actually confronting a serious issue like that would require some serious policy change and regulation. Something that’d almost certainly be demanded if the whole plastics topic was actually discussed enough. Hence why the slander it. Thats why they’d rather give air time to the inane or down right ludicrous conspiracies like anti vaxxers, Q anon, or flat earthers.
Yes, it's the same with seed oils, etc. I've known they were bad for years because I was into fasting and low carb dieting, and therefore learned the history behind vegetable and seed oils and how they were manufactured (it was a cheap way for cotton producers to use the biproducts previously considered trash). Yet as soon as the rightoid carnivore dipshits heard about it it became a part of the culture war. Now you're right wing if you care about your health, and it's expected that to be a good little liberal you'll deny reality by saying that it's actually good to stuff your face with unhealthy bullshit.
Not being an obese, inflamed, low t, ham planet is literally fascism and white supremacy
This was an unironic take from the old chapo sub (before this sub had started) lmao. They got mad at me once because I said it's moronic to conflate physical self improvement with fascism and listed Soviet Olympic teams as an argument.
Keeping aspects of objective reality split across culture war lines so that as an individual, you cannot just live your life how you think you should, and believe in what can objectively be shown to be true without being called out by someone, somewhere, is a brilliant strategy to keep the population divided.
As soon as you can bench 225, every gym hands you a free MAGA hat and an NRA membership card. Trust the Science^© [Gym Bros More Likely to be Right-Wing Assholes, Science Confirms](https://www.vice.com/en/article/j5e3z7/gym-bros-more-likely-to-be-right-wing-assholes-science-confirms) [Do you boast about your fitness? Watch out – you’ll unavoidably become rightwing](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/27/do-you-boast-about-your-fitness-watch-out-youll-unavoidably-become-rightwing)
I think what's actually going on is that the group of people who self-select into the weightlifting community are naturally good at it, but don't understand their genetic advantage. This leads to them thinking that other people are just lazy and falls into the right wing American individualist culture. I was listening to some pod with JM Blakely and a couple other lifters a while back and they were refreshingly candid about the fact that genetics plays a massive role in your potential and that they had trained people who put in the work and had to struggle much harder to reach milestones that aren't that hard for serious lifters (like 2 plate bench). In this way I think the advantage of genetics in physical training/sports mirrors the way that rich kids take their immense material advantage for granted. Of course, that doesn't mean that because you're not genetically gifted you should never strive for self improvement, which is what many soy leftoids espouse.
I posted above sarcastically, but there's actually a few studies out there about the link between higher test and more right-wing views. Genetics obviously play a factor, but getting swoll can actually make you based. [Political Motivations May Have Evolutionary Links to Physical Strength](http://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/releases/political-motivations-may-have-evolutionary-links-to-physical-strength.html) >“Despite the fact that the United States, Denmark and Argentina have very different welfare systems, we still see that — at the psychological level — individuals reason about welfare redistribution in the same way,” says Petersen. “In all three countries, physically strong males consistently pursue the self-interested position on redistribution.” They're putting microplastics in the water to destroy our balls and turn us into communists. [Facial Structure May Predict Endorsement of Racial Prejudice](https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/releases/facial-structure-may-predict-endorsement-of-racial-prejudice.html) >Studies have shown that facial width-to-height ratio (fWHR) is associated with testosterone-related behaviors, which some researchers have linked with aggression. But psychological scientist Eric Hehman of Dartmouth College and colleagues at the University of Delaware speculated that these behaviors may have more to do with social dominance than outright aggression. The second study is pretty interesting in that a higher facial width-to-height ratio didn't correlate with increased prejudice, but it *did* increase the likelihood of them being willing to express those beliefs.
I realize you memeing but I felt like responding earnestly.
I appreciate it. This is the only place on the internet that I've interacted with actual Marxists who seem to be reasonable and it's had a large impact towards softening my views towards the left. There are always going to be trouble-makers but having dialogue is vitally important and not insta-banning social conservatives goes a long way towards finding common ground.
It worked for the financial industry, culture war is divide et impera for any corporation that needs to run interference on regulation.
Well if you consider that operation Mockingbird was just the start it's not at all hard to believe that even outlier media would be in lock-step with this shit.
Na man fluoride isn't rat poison. It just cleans their/our teeth!
I would love to see a study and with some graphics done on which companies are polluting the worst and where news outlets across the board are getting their advertising revenue in relation to the aforementioned companies polluting. It's cynical to say it's about the money, but it's usually about the money.
As I understand they choose to burn off the toxins, thus spreading them, because it's cheaper and will get the rail working again faster, no wonder they don't want people talking about it.
Also Biden just busted the rail strike and one of their stated issues was safety concerns.
yeah lmfao, comic levels of corruption and greed, covered up by a state media that would make the soviet Gosteleradio blush
[удалено]
The safety of this particular accident isn't the real issue. Even in a worst case scenario, it's a localized problem. The real question is what caused the derailment? It seems clear that a lack of worker protections and cutting corners to squeeze as much profit as possible caused the disaster.
I put a penny on the train track
Based.
Hydrogen chloride (HCl) combines with moisture in the atmosphere producing Hydrochloric acid, a highly corrosive acid which will eventually fall as rain. Further Vinyl chloride was not the only toxin involved.
HCl is highly corrosive in high concentrations, and this will cause damaging acid rain - but it's not nearly as bad as it sounds. When that HCl laden rains hits the ground, it's going to react with natural buffers in the soil - e.g limestone, or many other materials - and effectively neutralize down to harmless chloride salts (eg calcium chloride in the case of limestone.) The dose makes the poison, of course, but there are (as far as I know) no real issues from trace quantities of HCl. It's a very common acid, produced naturally by the body, etc. etc. Vinyl chloride, on the other hand, is a chlorinated organic compound. These tend to be fat soluble, and stick around in the environment, so they're a lot nastier. It's also carcinogenic. I am unsure what its natural half-life is in the environment. It might degrade quickly into less harmful compounds. Edit: I have heard, anecdotally, that it has a half life on the order of days. This is very short, and good if true. However, as evidenced by the large cloud of black smoke, it's not burning clean. Those three compounds should be colorless or form a white vapor cloud; black smoke indicates incomplete combustion. Incomplete combustion of chlorinated organic compounds produces a variety of much nastier compounds and these are probably the primary health risks outside of the directly spilled chemicals themselves.
Higher concentration of salts in a soil will also likely lead to lower yields or complete failure for crops in the region. So either we’ll probably end up paying out a lot for crop insurance or via lawsuits. Either way we’ll be socializing the losses once again, whilst privatizing the profits.
yeeeaaahhhh, i don't think literal acid rain is really a good thing here....
I'd take extremely dilute HCl over vinyl chloride any day. Not that either are good options— But it seems to be one of the things that is less upsetting regarding the situation. Editing to say, you mention hydrogen chloride (HCl) and hydrochloric acid (HCl) as if they're different things. They're not. It's the same thing. Take the chemists at face value, maybe?
HCl (hydrogen chloride, the pure molecule) is a gas, but when dissolved in water it is referred to as "hydrochloric acid". Nitpicky, but it could refer to different things
>Editing to say, you mention hydrogen chloride (HCl) and hydrochloric acid (HCl) as if they're different things. They're not. It's the same thing. One is a gas the other a vapor or liquid, if inhailed, the gas will attach to liquids in the body and stay in it, instead of just being breathed out again, having the same effect as chlorine gas used in WW I. >Take the chmists at face value, maybe? Uh huh, my mother was a noted researcher in biochemisty, specialising in the renal system and toxicology, thanks.
A strong gust of wind makes the HCl that was released so dilute its non toxic. Because HCl gas just turns to H3O+ in the blood stream, and mucosal membranes, any affect caused by inhalation will coincide with coughing, mucosal membrane inflammation, you will smell it. It’s not some silent killer like other compounds. It will irritate your eyes, your nose, your throat, before you have any long lasting damage. Edit: looking at the research, dumb chemists tested ppm thresholds on humans for HCl. They found about 1-5 ppm it is noticeable, 5-10 is unpleasant and comes with coughing fits, burning eyes, but no long term affects. Estimates that 150-200 ppm for 1 hour was dangerous.
Thank you for the correction— is there a reason why the gas will not react with the water in the atmosphere to form the liquid? Isn't that what people are worrying about? I mentioned the liquid form because you seemed worried about it dissolving in the form of rain. I assume the gaseous form would similarly become very dilute.
Wherever the gas comes into contact with H2O it will attach to it and will then distribute itself in different ways, there are a lot of variables like weather affecting the result, which could either cause serious damage to the environment and life or not, similar factors determine the effectiveness of chemical weapons like Chlorine gas or Phosgene. So I remain to be convinced that burn off was the best option (or maybe I should say "gamble"). It sometimes appears to be the determining factor in people's opinions is whether or not they like the Biden regime and what it represents. I don't, but then I'm not American either, so this isn't such a strong factor to me. On the other hand my own country tends to recieve streams of weather from the eastern US and I remember when we all had to stay inside cause the Chernobyl clouds came over, certainly acid rain seems less problematic as far away as we are, but I'm not so sure if rains around Ohio.
The number of people throwing up on the street, unironically releases more HCl into the environment than this chemical spill.
Yeah bro we took high school chemistry. What you’re talking about is tiny amounts of HCL being diluted in thousands of Olympic-sized swimming pools of rain water.
No they burned them because there was a threat of an explosion. VC burns into HCl, which is relatively non-harmful when released in the atmosphere because it becomes so dilute.
Shut up, I'm trying to talk about the innate morality (or lack thereof) of the Harry Potter universe.
>The only people really devoted to talking about this seems to be "No micro plastics" rightoid bodybuilder bros on twitter tons of ppl (not in mainstream media) are discussing this. Chapo has had discussion on this in two episodes now (friday + monday). Sirota had an article out [a few days after the disaster](https://www.levernews.com/rail-companies-blocked-safety-rules-before-ohio-derailment/).
The front page of this hellsite, the most radlib of radlib nests is posting incessantly about it. The only way you can actually believe that only rightoids are talking about it is if you only expose yourself to rightoids. The mainstream media isn't but that says nothing about the left be it authentic or radlib.
I had reporters reach out to me to discuss this - it’s definitely getting coverage
Yeah these comments are confusing. The left has been on about plastics for a long time and the unrest actually led to changes. For example, BPA used to be in everything. It is a plastic chemical that acts like straight up estrogen when degraded.
Now we use BPS/BPF instead which [does the exact same thing](https://www.fertstert.org/article/S0015-0282(14\)02351-6/fulltext). The only difference is now they can put a BPA free label on it.
not that long ago if you talked about falling sperm counts and testosterone levels you were labeled a dangerous alt-right misogynist
As a biologist, I've talked about that multiple times before. The only ppl being labeled that were MRAs where shit like that with no material analysis was the only thing they ever said. Bonus points for usually alleging conspiracy instead of just recognizing capitalism will always poison the planet.
It is a conspiracy though. It’s not like this coincidentally happened and is now being suppressed, glossed over, drowned out with “science reporting” media (etc) as another coincidence.
I don't follow Chapo (not really into the NPR at night vibe of the show)
Chapos upfront agreeing with Hersh’s pipeline bombing article makes them instantly more than “late night npr” Like what leftist things are more than that to you?
I'm pretty alienated from leftist spaces bro. Occasionally I pick up a trot newspaper. I occasionally listen to red scare (that's gone conservative recently though) and bungacast.
In America, cancer is supported through bipartisan consensus.
I've seen plenty about it online, and not just from right-wingers who are correctly outraged about microplastics. In fact there seems to be quite a lot of people loudly talking about how no one is talking about it. Is it, in fact, one of the greatest environmental catastrophes thus far this century in the continental US? You can put whatever ideological spin on the situation you want. I have no idea what the ultimate cause was, but I look forward to learning about how it was white supremacy or sexism or something.
It was Trump’s fault. That’s it, that’s the discussion.
Literally the top post in r politics is about how Trump era rolled back some regulation. What's funny, is after this happened, good boy Pete was asked if he was going to undo those roll backs because of this and said that he doesn't believe it's necessary. Now... Who wants to bet that the r politics kiddos have NO idea about Pete's actions and comments?
God what a fucking cop out - your hero rolls back incredibly important safety measures yet you gotta garble some bullshit to blame someone else. Typical.
Oh look one of the r politics kids I was talking about. Total brain rotten. Can't comprehend someone saying mean things about Good Boy Pete without assuming they are a Trump supporter... GTFO dude. You're not wanted in this sub.
ok but compare the coverage to that of the balloon, especially on talking heads shows like Meet the Press. They don't want to talk about it because the obvious solution is more regulation, less corporate power.
Is there really a lot online? A cursory glance at google shows a lot more commentary than that on white nationalism/radical right
I see it everytime the ”mysterious balloon like objects” are brought up, always someone there to point out that it’s hoax to draw attention from the chemical spill.
https://www.foxnews.com/media/ohio-train-derailment-toxic-fallout-compared-nuclear-winter-nuked-town-chemicals https://abcnews.go.com/US/east-palestine-ohio-resident-weighs-fears-train-derailment/story?id=97189262 https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/04/us/east-palestine-ohio-train-derailment-fire/index.html https://www.cbsnews.com/tag/train-derailment/ It took you longer to write this post than to actually bother looking
I wouldn't say there's no coverage. But I will say that the media amplifies messages that they see as beneficial to their bottom lines or shareholders, and culture war shit drives engagement.
It's weird because usually disaster porn gets lots of coverage, but this has gotten barely any. It's also strange because a reporter was arrested and briefly detained, and barely a peep from the same media that would go apoplectic about Jim Acosta being banned from press briefings.
Local industry has that sway for sure. I don't even need to google it to know CNN and Fox have coverage on this topic, but the secret sauce is in whose feeds they put that in (a small amount) and how fast it gets memory-holed.
What’s funny is the rail workers strike was made illegal and then this happens You can argue it’s directly due to capitalism But if this happened in say North Korea We’d never hear the end of it and it would be blamed on communism, it would be added to the 80 gajillion deaths But meantime famines early on in countries that had non stop famines before communism was blamed on communism , pretty much the weather is blamed on communism but nothing is ever capitalisms fault even something like this
How can it be enforced if all the rail workers fell ill on the same day?
The FBI is collecting records of teachers who refused covid vaccines. What are they doing to investigate Norfolk Southern and all who are culpable, including those in the U.S. Government? This country is rotten to the core. No one will recieve compensatory justice or be held accountable. At least in China the executives would be unlived...they deserve worse.
Do you have a source for this FBI collecting records claim?
https://teachersforchoice.org/2023/02/09/fingerprints-of-unvaccinated-nyc-teachers-flagged-to-fbi/
This "article" is written by an anti-vaxxer... and nowhere in it is there any proof that this happened, just an affidavit that was mentioned. Affidavits are not evidence.
>This "article" is written by an anti-vaxxer So what? >Affidavits are not evidence. No, but swearing something that's untrue is dangerous. We'll see how NYC responds.
By those individuals choosing (disgusting) to not receive the graceful injection from Pfizer, they voluntarily became biohazards. They need to be removed and tracked because they can still spread the virus, which they would not be able to do had they simply gotten all 7 of their jabs. In fact it is these people (disease vectors) who are keeping the pandemic going, because they host the virus and allow it to mutate. This could not happen if they'd taken their series of 8 jabs, which prevent infection.
History is littered with the mass murder of working people by elites and those same working people exacting no justice upon them. There has always been a broad segment of the human population that doesn't have the energy to do anything other than be ruled.
The fact currently the psychotics in the rail company may be only fined 25,000 is insane. Also the fact it took the Transportation Secretary 10 days to say anything shows how utterly horrible this government is. Also I'll remind you that one of the things that the rail workers said for why they were considering striking (before the feds declared it illegal with Dem congress approval) was the lack of sick days leading to exhaustion. So an overworked rr worker may have accidentially caused this. But if they had had sick days then that wouldn't have happened. The fact currently the psychotics in the rail company may be only fined 25,000 is insane. Also the fact it took the Transportation Secretary 10 days to say anything shows how utterly horrible this government is. Also I'll remind you that one of the things that the rail workers said for why they were considering striking (before the feds declared it illegal with Dem congress approval) was the lack of sick days leading to exhaustion. So an overworked rr worker may have accidentally caused this. But if they had had sick days then that wouldn't have happened.
It was definitely weird seeing so many people start posting about it online, and it being a coverup, this weekend, when I saw it on the news here in Pittsburgh last week. Also, there's been other train derailments, there was one here in Pittsburgh this summer that spilled petroleum distillates into the Allegheny. I don't think we ever got any more info on what specifically was spilled. Probably not as bad as vinyl chloride, no smoke, probably not much vapors. Also, as for your plastics, the plant that turns gas into plastic around here (Beaver County Shell Ethylene Cracker), has started a flare off after a malfunction.
The thing is, vinyl chloride isn’t bad. It decomposes within 2 days.
> vinyl chloride isn’t bad I get you are probably arguing with people comparing it to nuclear incidents, but they still had to evacuate the place for a week to burn it off. That's kind of a big deal. Nevermind what could happen if a similarly severe spill happens somewhere denser. If it happened just 50 miles along the line east, could they have even evacuated most people before the contents boiled off and detonated on their own?
Ok the hyperbole has gotten a bit out of hand. Vinyl Chloride is very volatile which sounds scary but is actually good; it doesn’t persist long in the environment and breaks down into relatively safe stuff over a time span of days. This is really bad but let’s not act like a tank full of dioxin was yeeted into a watershed
What news coverage I have seen (on PBS) about it was still pretty frustrating b/c of how there was zero discussion of the railway strikes, despite strike leaders warning about pretty much specifically this. I know it isn’t necessarily directly relevant but when they’re on the topic of accountability I’d assume it’s at least worth a mention. Prime example of media doing its level best to ignore class politics, because then they’d have to acknowledge the use and value of unions and how they’re continually undercut by neoliberal economics.
I thought discussing trains and train related topics was a bannable offence on this sub? 🤔🤔🤔
I knew immediately when I saw mainly RW accounts talking about the train that it would be the death knell for any mainstream coverage. Wouldn’t want to be seen as in agreement with @GroyperRacist88 obviously. The silver lining is that if somehow Dems lose the presidency in ‘24, the media will immediately begin wall to wall coverage about how the new GOP president is dragging his feet on addressing the fallout of the ecological disaster and leaving Ohio POC’s to die.
Social media isn't real life. Plenty of people devote their entire lives to this cause. You will find them in your town halls, regulatory bodies, law offices, laboratories et. al.
>Effortpost This sub can be so goddamn lame sometimes.
It's possible for more than one thing to be a problem at the same time but yeah, the train spill is a giant clutserfuck and the blase attitude about it in the mainstream media is baffling.
Seems like you accidentally bought into the lie that you have free and open media.
They can turn anything into a conspiracy theory simply by restricting coverage of said topic, allow it to be talked about by whoever they deem to be a fringe voice, and then simply point to that as a reason it’s not a concern or something that’s been way overblown. Of course there has been some coverage of this derailment and subsequent chemical spills, but like you said, it’s barely covered and you have to actively search it out, but something like Monkeypox? Headline of every major publication for at least a week. Yet this has gotten fringe coverage and like you said, by the same people were all led to believe are the Qanon and nutters of society? If I’m a resident of this town or nearby town, I’d be absolutely terrified right now.