HardNut @ HardNut @lemmy.world

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2 yr. ago

These are not privately owned companies, they are public corporations.

Take American express for example: "American Express Co is a public company headquartered in New York..." A public company, not a private one.

You would think if something was owned by a private individual or a private organization, we could point to one person or entity that owns and controls it. But, if you look at the ownership of any major American credit card corporation, you will see that the ownership is held by a collective of entities. You might say that ownership is far more held in common than privately:

American Express Company: "Largest shareholders include Berkshire Hathaway Inc, Vanguard Group Inc, BlackRock Inc., State Street Corp, Wellington Management Group Llp, Jpmorgan Chase & Co, VTSMX - Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund Investor Shares, VFINX - Vanguard 500 Index Fund Investor Shares, Morgan Stanley, and Bank Of America Corp..."

Bank of America: "Bank Of America Corp's top holdings are Microsoft Corporation (US:MSFT) , Invesco Capital Management LLC - Invesco QQQ Trust Series 1 (US:QQQ) , Apple Inc (US:AAPL) , SSgA Active Trust - SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (US:SPY) , and SSgA Active Trust - SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (US:SPY)..."

Capital One: "Capital One Financial Corps top holdings are BlackRock Institutional Trust Company N.A. - iShares MSCI USA Min Vol Factor ETF (US:USMV) , Goldman Sachs ETF Trust - Goldman Sachs ActiveBeta International Equity ETF (US:GSIE) , BlackRock Institutional Trust Company N.A. - iShares MSCI USA Quality Factor ETF (US:QUAL) , Vanguard Group, Inc. - Vanguard Tax-Exempt Bond ETF (US:VTEB) , and BlackRock Institutional Trust Company N.A."

I think its safe to say the natural oppoisite of private ownership is public ownership. So, if ownership and control is held in common, then you can't call it private ownership. You may notice that Blackrock is a partial and large shareholder to these companies. Well, Blackrock can't be privately owned either, considering it has no private owner, only shareholders, and all BLK shares have voting rights, meaning that shareholders of BlackRock have a say in the company’s affairs in line with the proportion of ownership they hold in the firm.

Considering science has only gotten robust enough to prove anything like that far more recently than any good examples of ecological collapse, I'd say this parameter is a little arbitrary.

The best example I can think of regarding ecological collapse is during and after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Their climate decreased in temperature, which reduces crop yields, which weakened the empire and encouraged migration from northern Europe, which brought their collapse (plus like 12 other things lol).

In 535AD, during Justinian's reign in the east, the first black plague happened following a supermassive volcano that left the sky covered in ash blocking the sun. This was a massively ecologically damaging period of history and it caused the death of countless plant and animal life, along with the deaths of half the population of the Mediterranean.

It's not like people of this age were taking soil samples and references trends or whatever, but they certainly understood how things were going poorly.

If a cow escapes the pasture, I wouldn't be surprised to find it dead in 20 minutes. They require the aid of fences and the protection of farm dogs in the vast majority of environments they live in. Whoever is getting cattle to live 20 years is not doing so naturally, far from it

Why aren't you responding to the topic of the thread? What you responded to was not the heart of my comment nor was it the point I was trying to get across to you.

Do you think Nestle is acting in good faith?

You really insisted on steering the conversation toward this study, yet it's largely flawed. I know I'm taking the bait, but as someone who grew up on a farm in a rural community, several red flags were very apparent. What they are talking about are gross emissions, that's what's measured by carbon capture. What these types of measurements don't consider, is how much CO2 the immediate environment is going to recapture and make use of. Cattle and buffalo before them have been a part of the north American prairies for thousands of years, and the cycle has always been the bovine graze on the grass, which spurs regrowth, aided by the gasses emitted by the bovine after eating said grass.

I believe they're being selective about where they're measuring their data as well, because it does not make sense for land use change to be a factor in the vast majority of cases for grass fed cattle. Again, this is why location matters, cattle do well on grassland. It also makes no sense for the emissions of machinery to be coupled in the data with the emissions of cattle. It's also virtually impossible for the machinery emissions to be that low for wheat and rye specifically, because I know first hand how many diesel tank refills it takes get the seeding done alone, let alone the constant maintenance it takes afterwards. It doesn't take any machinery to raise grassland cattle there but it sure does take machinery to farm grains, farmers have heavy machinery in their fields constantly. You have to plow the field, disc, harrow, spray herbicide, spray pesticide, seed the crop, spray fertilizer, roll the peas, swath the canola, harvest all of it with a massive machine, all while a cow chills watching from the next field over lol.

My guess is that they're referring to warehouse cattle, which don't exist everywhere (outright illegal in Canada I think). This is why it matters where it comes from. Can't really verify any of their data either since the source studies are behind a pay wall.

I'd also even say there's far more to ecology than raw emissions. Almond production has been a massive hindrance on California's water supply, They're prone to drought already, and they're still mass producing almonds while in a drought right now. Regardless of emissions, we would be actively contributing to an ongoing crisis if we increased plant milk demand. To do so out of ecological principle would be incredibly ironic. But, that seems to be what encouraging plant based milk over cattle has done.

Again, you're dissenting on something that wasn't asserted. If that's your opinion, then that's your opinion, and that's fine. But, if there's a conflict of interest in a study, then we have reason to doubt the results are legitimate. This is what the comment was saying, and that's drastically far from a total conclusion one way or the other.

Your question also suggests there's one correct answer, which just plane isn't true. It makes more ecological sense for some people to consume milk products in favor of plant based just based on location alone.

No, they're suggesting that Nestle is probably acting in bad faith by attempting to close a monopolistic gap rather than genuinely doing something for the betterment of the world

You're right people are responsible for things, you're right that that's obvious. In fact, it's so obvious, it's wrong of you to imply that my point suggested otherwise, because it obviously doesn't. Your sentiment supports my comment, people are responsible for things, so if you have a problem with something, and you feel the need to blame someone for it, you should actually blame the right person. "The rich" are not a group of people united out of a common goal, and include all sorts of political and cultural sentiments, many of which you would support. Moreover, the post makes no suggestion as to what problems they're talking about anyway, so you kinda just have to already believe "rich people" in general are the people responsible for any general set of problems you choose to believe. If you don't see the flaw in this thinking, you've got a serious problem with political vitriol, and you need to stop blindly circle jerking everything you see on lemmy.

The sad thing is, I know you'd agree with me if I said the exact same thing in a thread blaming socialists or Marxists or something. My opinion that you shouldn't blame general problems on a general group of people for the sake of hating on them doesn't change based on context.

Anytime you're told that group A is responsible for your problems rather than group B, you're being lied to. Including this post

I'm the opposite. I can't have two monitors of the same size, because then it's like they're both primaries in my brain. With the chaotic good arrangement, it's very clear which one runs the games and which one runs YouTube or what have you

He definitely doesn't say that.

I'm sorry, I'm genuinely not sure I understand your comment. Are you saying that because you believe Christian propaganda to be that powerful, you're ready to believe that Hitler also fell for the same propaganda? I get why you're ready to make that assumption, but I don't think choosing to believe an assumption made out of heavy bias is appropriate in the face of evidence directly to the contrary. Hitler outright condemned the belief more than once

I'd have a hard time believing that Hitler was super cool with the people who worship a Jew as a god.

Hitler in his table talks: "The dogma of Christianity gets worn away before the advances of science ... Gradually the myths crumble. All that is left to prove that nature there is no frontier between the organic and inorganic. When understanding of the universe has become widespread, when the majority of men know that the stars are not sources of light, but worlds, perhaps inhabited worlds like ours, then the Christian doctrine will be convicted of absurdity."

Good rule of thumb is to never underestimate Hitler's ability to hate a group of people lol

Haha, true! I've learned the hard way to try the really whacky shit in a virtual machine first, they're quite handy for that. After lots of trial and error though, and learning what will break things and what won't, I've been on the same install for several years now actually. But yes, back ups are still smart lol

There's been multiple times that I had an issue with a game launcher on windows bugging out and not being able to play my game, but then seeing it work just fine under linux with proton. There's still some issues the devs need to work out, but we're getting to the point that linux is more reliable