Dearche @ Dearche @lemmy.ca

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2 yr. ago

The issue is a lack of money studying them, as the only group with the money to do all the studies needed are the ones producing the pesticides, and they have a dedicated interest in only doing enough studies to prove that there are no immediate issues with their products.

It's a conflict of interest unless if there's more government funding into examining these sorts of things, as there are no other major forces that don't have a invested interest in making sure that the studies make the products look good.

Well of course the moment you've processed the crop it's too late to wash them. I was mostly just talking about fruits and vegetables.

But for grains and legumes, washing them before hulling them shouldn't be a problem. Of course there's the issue of added costs, but spraying additional pesticides is also a cost.

Bell is usually the only provider for fibre, as it usually replaces DSL and Rogers uses cable. Most of the time the starting price I've seen is about $100, but that's for a gigabit minimum.

On the other hand, $13?! I've never seen any sort of internet connection going for so cheap in the entire country!

I don't remember which one, but I have read about two different organic pesticides that were particularly dangerous. One had high mercury levels, and the other had something about it that made it illegal to use outright in the EU, but was legally used in the US.

It's been a while since I heard about this sort of stuff, as organic was only starting to become mainstream when I had originally heard about them.

Possibly. But indoor produce is less likely to use any sort of pesticide or fungicide, as they are lightly sealed environments.

I won't say zero, as of course fungi are much harder to keep outside compared to insects, but indoor farms are quite controlled to maximize production. I imagine that fungal infections are much likely to occur for most produce, with only some specific ones being particularly vulnerable depending on the location.

I seem to recall something like that.

Frankly speaking, I don't think there's any actively used pesticide that is particularly fine to ingest on a regular basis, even at extremely low levels. That stuff circulates throughout your entire body, and is particularly harmful to both fetuses and breastfeeding infants. And I imagine that pregnant/breastfeeding women are the group that is most conscious about eating healthily, which means tons of fresh fruits and vegetables.

I think that depends on quality. A gigabit fibre connection is pretty damn good. Far faster than most households need by a good magnitude. And the fact that most places offer such a thing for under $100 is pretty decent.

The real question is how much does it cost to get a 10mBit connection. It's been a while since I've checked, but I'm pretty sure that it's also pretty close to $100, which is definitely a problem.

Local farmers, sure. But from what I know, industrial farmers all use pesticides unless if it's grown indoors. And a lot of the organic pesticides are more dangerous than artificial ones. Especially since the farmers need to use more.

I understand to a degree allowing an increase in pesticide use (though that'll seriously impact the water quality due to runoff), the only thing that the industry needs to do to reduce pesticide residue is to just spray the produce with water.

It's just a way to cheapen out the process at the expense of people's health. And I don't just mean the end shoppers', but also all the industry workers along the way. While I imagine the amount isn't a lot, but an increase in pesticide residue that makes it all the way through the supply chain increases how much the workers are exposed to as they handle the produce.

You mean like those no employee convenience stores?

I like the principal of it, but wonder how much extra work is involved in making sure all the products are properly tracked.

There's also the fact that you can have three self checkout terminals in the space of a single cashier. Even if it takes you twice as long as a cashier to cash out, you'll be spending 50% less time in line for every cashier that's been replaced with self checkout.

Nowadays, I only use self checkout as well, because I can get through it in less than 30 seconds, almost never any lines.

This article goes in circles and repeatedly contradicts itself. Basically saying that it's not a failure of the markets, but one of exploitation.

Except, it is exactly a failure of the markets. It states that the exploitation comes from the ability of landowners to charge whatever they want, but they don't address the fact that they can only charge high prices because of the lack of those who are willing to charge low prices. And nobody should be expected to charge a low price if they can charge a high price and still sell/rent easily.

It's an issue of people treating homes as an investment, and that can only happen because the price of homes skyrocket far faster than inflation and wages. And that happens because of a lack of supply.

Sure, treating homes as an investment is fine for apartments and condos, but if the land itself ends up being worth a million for a single lot, there's no way anybody can afford it without both a high wage and putting themselves into debt for a half century. And if that happen, the entire spectrum of housing goes up in price as there is a lack of competition to lower prices.

The only real way to lower home prices (from houses to apartments and condos) is to significantly increase competition, and that can only happen if supply actually comes close to demand, not falling so far behind that people share a single place, even to the point that they bribe the local authorities to look the other way that they have too many people in a single unit.

I've started listening to Ryan Hall on youtube, and unlike these guys, his prediction is that the prairies are going to be pretty warm due to the El Nino this year, and instead the cold burst is going to be further east in Ontario and Quebec.

Though he's American centric, so you can only inference results from his predictive maps, but he does say that there's a high chance (something like 25%) of a massive snow storm either around Chicago or Boston, which also means that the entire area around them including southern Ontario is going to be pretty cold.

Other early winter predictions I've seen suggest that western Canada and the prairies are going to be pretty warm this winter, while Ontario and Quebec is going to be hit by a rebounding polar jet stream. The coasts are going to be pretty wet on both sides, but the prairies are going to be very dry and warm, all the way to including most of northern Ontario.

Every source I've seen contradicts what these guys say aside from the obvious no brainers like BC's forecast.

This summer? This winter was insane as well! (at least in my area). Two weeks of actually below zero, and virtually no snow outside of those two weeks this entire summer. The average temperature, once you exclude those two weeks, was like +5-10! It felt like we were living a good 20 degrees further south or something this winter.

Sure, I understand that the system failed him, or at least failed someone close to him. But what he's doing is just generally raging against the leaders and using random excuses to justify causing chaos.

There's no focus, no message. No way for anybody to respond in any way other than flat out rejection. How can you respond to something like this if when you try, it's like "okay, I understand this this this, and this. But this one and these three others are unacceptable to us. But then there's another sixteen that we can talk about. Please give us your side of the story and we can continue from there." How do you form a conversation with that?

Not to mention that he's trying to gather people from the widest spectrum he can, each with a different grievance. How do you talk when you have a dozen "I won't budge on this one thing" when each one thing is something different? Just like the previous convoy, it's just plain civil disobedience for the sake of letting out steam, no actual attempt at making change.

True free markets don't exist here, or almost anywhere in the world (thankfully). But that doesn't mean that free market tendencies don't happen. Lots of companies take advantage of the countless loopholes and blind spots in the regulations that exist, and in those places act like a free market.

Two big examples are lobbying and lawsuits. Both are things that give you massive advantages just by having a lot of money to push around, and both that tend to be pretty consequence free if done right.

I don't deny that the rich use blatantly illegal methods as well. You'd be amazed at how much sexual violence is committed in the entertainment industries. Lots of powerful people in that industry do that sort of stuff so they have blackmail material on up and coming talent in case they try to report on the stuff they witness. It's one of the reasons why so many of them suffer from mental issues.

By law, lobbying isn't bribing. Or else you wouldn't see so much of it so blatantly in the States.

It happens in every government, here as well. Just not as obvious.

And while yes, theoretically these sorts of issues can be redressed in a completely free-market system, the degree the stars need to align for such a thing to happen, you might as well hope that everybody who makes more than $1000 a year in North Korea suddenly have a heart attack on the same day and the rest of the country come together and make peace with their southern neighbours.

Market forces always drive towards whatever is cheapest and pushes for the greatest profits, and a billionaire is going to be far likely to get their way than a few thousand people who combined still make less than 10% of that one guy. It takes a colossal combined effort to move a massive mountain of cash.

I suppose that's true. Harper specifically is a good example of that after all, as you say.

$15B a year subsidizing private for-profit corporations by cutting the budgets of all sorts of public institutions. Great.

And that doesn't even mention that these corporations are double-dipping by charging the government then charging individual customers.

I do agree that the governments are just coasting, and have been for decades. Some parts of certain governments have had their wakeup calls and are starting to make the changes needed, but they still feel few and far between. Either that, or many of them are having trouble waking up the parts of the government that they need their funding or plans approved.

I don't think much of those solutions would have much of an effect. Especially without addressing other issues first.

Taxing the rich doesn't matter when most of the rich get paid through investment loans and juggling stocks with assets, rather than having an actual income. Minimum wage increases are a band-aid solution that would need to be addressed every decade, presuming that it doesn't tank the economy during the adjustments. Basic income is nice, but if important things aren't affordable now, it would have no real impact on making them affordable.

I'm not saying that they fundamentally don't work, but that it's just not enough.

The most important thing is to make the things needed to have a decent life affordable to everybody. And of those things, I think two are just plain necessary. The first is a minimum level housing. Some sort of apartment complex that is free and safe, no questions asked. Basically a shelter that has separated units. Without the minimum of being able to have a safe space to sleep and clean yourself up, there's no way a person can get a job. But with this sort of safety net, no matter how bad things get, the future won't look hopeless, and almost everybody should be able to get back on their feet without needing extensive interventions.

The second is a housing supply that suppresses prices. I don't mind foreigners buying houses, as long as the supply can handle such things happening, and keep basic homes affordable. Apartments shouldn't cost more than 25% minimum wage at full time, and condos should be easy to pay off in 5-10 years. As long as the supply is high enough, it would be impossible to make a real profit from treating it like an investment, as houses are a non-performing asset. It creates no more value than what you put into it, and should thus depreciate if anything, just like a car.