Alterecho @ Alterecho @lemmy.world

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2 yr. ago

I mean if you want to talk about sequestering carbon, there's all sorts of natural lawn options that aren't actively planting an invasive species that has proven to be really bad at doing any sort of water filtration or absorption. In fact, I'd wager that planting (and letting grow) prairie or whatever your native biome supports probably sequesters more carbon, assuming your native ecosystems aren't straight up desert. Even if they are, you're now using so much less water that it's a huge net win there.

As an environmentalist, fuck Kentucky bluegrass, fuck golf, and fuck lawns while we're at it

Joke's on you, I have a humiliation kink

The healthcare industry is not providing you any service by buying your personal data and using it to determine that your rates should be extortion-level high. It doesn't matter that some companies are benign in their usage of your data, because there are organizations who have incentives to act on that data in ways that benefit them, directly at your expense. Do you understand what I'm saying?

Yeah, for sure lol someone could dox me and steal my identity or set me up for murder tomorrow, bad actors are bad actors. My point isn't that the data is highly abusable, though it for sure is, my point was that even the people WHO DON'T GIVE A DAMN ABOUT YOU are exploiting your personal information for monetary gain. In, again, the case with health indicators and the medical industry, the insurance companies don't give a damn about you outside of your worth and your potential liability. There doesn't need to be any one person responsible for that fact- it's just the way the system is set up. So if they get data showing that I'm prone to leukemia genetically, then yeah, they're going to make it impossible for me to get insured at a reasonable rate, because I'm suddenly a huge risk for them.

I feel like the issue is more nuanced than this scenario you've provided- there are legitimate concerns as to whether your personal data can be ethically handled by a chain of organizations and individuals that have no linkage to you and see you as nothing more than income. That's aside from the fact that selling personal data raises moral concerns akin to those raised by the usage of DNA-testing services as they relate to things like healthcare coverage, and blood quantum in tribal nations- issues of not having control over who can and cannot access personal, private information that could potentially be used against you. Once that data is collected, it's effectively impossible to control who has it.

These scenarios are also assuming that everyone handling your data is, at best, a neutral entity. If your personal data is collected and makes its way to someone who would like to steal your identity or otherwise cause you harm, that's a really big problem.

Who the hell is beef stroganoff

It's a protectorate of the greater Sugondese nation

Controlled burns are unironically based and a good way to cut down on old biomass that can cause these huge uncontrollable wildfires

Heh

Ahh, the Gipper strikes again. Famously an expert Economist, Rocket Scientist, and "totally not a racist"

No but like that's the point - the basic human decency thing means that it's basic, inherent and needs no qualifiers. Even people you disagree with are still people who have inner lives all their own. They don't deserve to starve and die just because they didn't play some arbitrary money game we decided was important however many centuries ago the right way.

I hear you, but what if, and hear me out here, human beings deserve the basics of living even if they, say, lost all their money due to medical debt, education debt, credit card debt, natural disasters, and/or just plain shit luck?

I don't think anyone is saying that the average person looking to retire is planning on throwing millions of tax dollars around, they literally just want to live a decent quality of life. If you had to rely on something like the government when you couldn't work any more, wouldn't you want the same kindness?

There's been some interesting modern takes on the Greek schools of philosophy, with particularly stoicism seeing an uptick. If I had to recommend someone who was all about questioning assumptions - similar to cynical philosophy - Hume comes to mind, I think? Maybe someone else has a better recommendation than that, though!

Ay, based- the smth was an abbreviation of "something". Confucian ethics is absolutely at odds with your post lol, but Confucius isn't everyone's vibe!

I think that there's this place that a lot of people reach when grappling with the meaninglessness of existence, where they get stuck in existential despair.

My comment was glib, but the core of it was meant to be like: "keep going, keep investigating those ideas and push yourself to learn more." If you can get ahold of some Emil Cioran, Kirkegaard, Ernest Becker, and José Ortega they're good- I'd revisit Camus, then touch on Cioran first, probably. Deals a lot with absurdity and failure. Try not to get put off by the religious overtones of Kirkegaard.

Stick with it!

Dang bro go read Nietzsche or Camus or smth. Learn to love the boulder

One of my favorites!

Is this just better SWTOR?

Idk why I was genuinely looking for a dead man on that billboard. RIP darkness

"the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house" or smth