fritztastic

I disagree. I don't think ads are the same as individual people being able to express themselves, and having one conpany reject political ads isn't preventing the politicians from expressing themselves altogether. Hulu also has discretion to choose which ads to air. Undoubtedly there are a great number of submissions, I'm sure not all of them make the cut for various reasons. What criteria should they use? Highest paying ads? Extending ad time to ensure all ads submitted can air? What if someone submitted an ad supporting ISIS or other extremist speech?

Should a business be forced to air content they don't want to be associated with or perceived as endorsing? It has already been established companies are not obligated to do business they find violate their 1A rights, so this would seem to fit into that precedent.

Moreover politicians aren't being silenced, there are a vast number of different avenues they can (and do) use to spread their campaign information.

If it's campaign ads being more equitably presented, there are a number of ways to approach this that don't involve forcing a private business to accept any and all ad content.

It can be incredibly draining. I think it's important to also have boundaries and know how to "pick your battles". Some people are unwilling or unable to open themselves up by being sincere, having a genuine discussion can leave people feeling vulnerable and there's a level of trust and willingness to take a risk necessary to truly have a deep discussion about certain topics.

Sometimes it's just not possible. Some people have impenetrable barriers they will defend with no regard for how they do so and the way it affects others.

That being said I like to think of it like I'm reaching out to someone, and often they don't reach back, in a majority of cases they don't want that contact. Those times when someone does, though, brings me great hope.

I think, from anecdotal personal experience, that a lot of people harbor deep seated emotions of anger, fear, and hostility. This makes it really difficult to communicate with them, as defensiveness and distrust are often a part of their reaction- and they sometimes lash out with personal attacks, whicb can beentally exhausting and discouraging.

Even with close family members, it is difficult for me to be able to explain my ideas without encountering a barrier in their reaction where they refuse to consider what I have to say.

I think, and this is just my theory, that a lot of people have traumas (sometimes ones they themselves don't realize relate to their associations with the subject being discussed) that make it hard to communicate and they may not know how to approach considering their view might be wrong, or even not wrong but just not the only valid way to look at an issue.

It's extraordinarily difficult to approach certain topics without also encouraging people to confront their biases and encourage them to question things they regard as absolutes- as I mentioned, even with close family members, it's very hard to communicate and have discussions.

It's not an easy thing for them to do, granted, and there is also very little incentive for someone to introspect on why they feel the way they do about something, even less for them to acknowledge there are alternate ways of approaching topics- even hypothetically.

I don't see the big issue with this. Hulu isn't under any obligation to accept any content.

As much as I may agree/disagree with the topics of the campaign ads, I really don't think these (probably) polemic video snippets are as significant as the people pushing them pretend they are.

I think politicians need to stop demanding private companies allow them to say what they want, when they want, how they want. There are plenty of other advertisements that are rejected- companies have discretion over what they choose to accept, as they should.

Ultimately if politicians want to bring a subject to people, they should figure out other ways of doing so. Additionally, I really don't think anyone with or without a stance is going to be swayed by a 30/60/90 second ad. A short ad on a streaming platform also isn't going to bring discussion or encourage real responses from people besides (probably) irritation.

Ultimately regardless of the message contained, Hulu has the say over what content they want to be associated with. Maybe it isn't even about the topics presented, but about the politicians and political campaigns in general.

Personally I would be irritated to see campaign ads, from either duopolist party- I'd rather not watch it as none of them have anything worth saying most of the time. I wish they'd take their campaign money, use it elsewhere, and stop making a big ado about people not wanting to do what they want- that goes for both Democrats and Republicans- acting like there's some kind of persecution happening, while hypocritically at the same time both are doing their very best to stifle anything outside their big tents.

Maybe revoke the incentives for those who currently already own multiple properties. No sense in putting an additional financial barrier to people attempting to purchase a home to live in. Investors will be slightly affected by this but it seems like the type of measure that would deter first-time homeowners altogether- therefore exacervating the problem of so many properties being taken by people whose primary interest is profiteering, and leaving those who just want to own the place they live in the dust.

I agree, decentralization of food production is critical to sustainable and reliable food production. Some places even have community compost centers where people bring their scraps and can get compost for their gardens.

A shift in growing crops more adapted to the local climate reality is also an important shift. A lot of places grow staple crops brought by colonizers centuries ago, which are ill suited to the local soil and require additional resources to grow, whereas less known types of grain and fruit/veg could be grown to produce higher yields with less effort and be more hardy in the area's temp/precipitation/soil.

Initial costs of setting up local food growth might seem exorbitant, but would bring a lot of long-term cost reduction for people.

Added bonus to this is reducing pollution caused by worldwide shipments of produce, and improving food taste as things grown nearby don't need to be harvested early and ripened in route, refrigerated, treated for pests.

Another thing that would be beneficial, and this is the idealist in me speaking, is giving people the empowerment to control their own food supply, boosting communities, giving people the means to have more autonomy over their basic needs so they're not reliant on a global market currently dealing with a variety of issues, mitigating the risk that food imported will be scarce or too expensive for families to feed their members.

According to Western European culture, sure. Apparently people started thinking of it as an apple because of a choice in translation.

Realistically, scholars believe the forbidden fruit referred to is a pomegranate- because geographically it makes more sense. Apples originally come from the region around Kazakhstan- much further East than where the garden of Eden was supposedly located.

Some people also think it was a fig. Ultimately the way it was originally written, it's impossible to know for sure but it's unlikely that it was an apple.

I don't know about the choice for logo and intent behind the symbol, but I find the geographic origins of plants interesting.

Someone's feeling of safety/nervousness has more to do with a variety of different variables that are unique to them, the place in question, and the situation they're in.

Personally, I'd rather be alone on foot in NYC than alone on foot in some small town where I'd stand out. Maybe because I grew up in a city and have traveled to many places, maybe because of my characteristics that make me feel vulnerable when I'm the outsider in a less diverse area, or maybe because I've lived in a city far more violent than NYC- so for me the things I visit for are worth the possible risk of crime.

NYC isn't even on the top 50 most violent cities in the world, which is quite a feat when you consider how things used to be there in the 80s/90s.

I went to NYC many many times when I lived in New England, my cousin went to school there and took the train down multiple times a week for years, her mother worked and lived there for decades, my father went there every week for work for many years. Anecdotally our experiences have been that the city is generally safe, none of us have any crime stories to tell.

My parents also used to go there a lot in the 90s and the city has come a long long way since then- for the better.

NYC gets dozens of millions of visitors annually, in addition to people commuting in daily and people transiting through the city. So, while the number of crimes is high, the number of people actually in the city at any given time is multiple times the number of people who reside there. Probably the total number of people in the city anually is 10x the people who live there.

I'd also factor in the numbers are higher also because policing is very robust. I can't think of any other city where I saw a cop nearly as often as NYC, they're everywhere.

Anecdotally, I never felt unsafe there. Although where I grew up crime was rampant, common, and expected- so comparatively NYC seemed really safe, and it wasn't hard to avoid high risk places/situations. I do think people hype up the crime numbers, and forget to consider the variables present in a megalopolis which aren't present in smaller cities.

I sometimes refer to Every Noise at Once when I'm looking for the right music as background when I want to focus. https://everynoise.com/

For me the music has to hit a balance between being engaiging enough but not too abrasive, sometimes lyrics can completely derail my focus but I focus better when I have something to listen to to drown out the sounds of conversations and people around me when I'm trying to read.

If I'm doing something that doesn't require too much focus, like cutting things for a collage or cleaning, I can listen to podcasts and songs with singing. But if I need to read, write, or think about what I'm doing I generally cannot have the sound of someone saying something I can understand, sometimes if it's not a language I understand it can be fine though.

That was the first thing on my mind, also. I found that book during a really difficult time in my life and it really helped me find an optimist hopeful perspective when everything seemed hopeless- it inspired me deeply.

There is a book about how people come together during times of disaster, called A Paradise Built in Hell by Rebecca Solnit. One of the distinct things I got from it is how the media often focuses on the gruesome details rather than how people more often than not help one another out. It is an eye-opening read that gave me a lot of hope and inspiration.

From the Publisher:

"The most startling thing about disasters, according to award-winning author Rebecca Solnit, is not merely that so many people rise to the occasion, but that they do so with joy. That joy reveals an ordinarily unmet yearning for community, purposefulness, and meaningful work that disaster often provides. A Paradise Built in Hell is an investigation of the moments of altruism, resourcefulness, and generosity that arise amid disaster’s grief and disruption and considers their implications for everyday life. It points to a new vision of what society could become-one that is less authoritarian and fearful, more collaborative and local."

<https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/301070/a-paradise-b...>

Simply put, it's a trust issue.

I think in many places people establish a relationship with their primary doctor, where the Dr knows them and their medical history in detail. Growing up, my family doctor had treated my family for generations and was familiar with me as a person even though I did not have many appointments.

But since I've moved to America most of my Dr. appointments are focused on the issue I am having as opposed to treating me for an issue. The Dr skims through my medical history to see if the issue relates to anything relevant. The appointments are hurried and impersonal.

There is a business aspect to medicine in America- it's business more than it is healthcare, really. I have often felt more like I am going in for maintenance like a machine than going in to speak to someone who uses their knowledge to help me be the healthiest I can be.

I know a lot of people here who also go to doctors and have their issues dismissed, minimized, or attributed to stress- and leave without any sense of what to do, besides grab a prescription or see a specialist. There is a helplessness I perceive in many people, and some end up with many prescriptions for different things and later find out there is an underlying issue that was overlooked all along. There are many many stories of people whose problems may not have persisted so long if their medical providers had communicated better- which perhaps most of them have no incentive to do, because this is time consuming and therefore loses them time/money. Whereas in a system where private doctors have to conpete with state provided healthcare, my anecdotal belief, they have an incentive to do better.

Anyway, having an impersonal system leaves people feeling like they need to look for solutions themselves, looking for hope at a cheaper price than a stack of copays and possibly having to deal with waiting long times for referrals. This is also true of anyone anywhere feeling desperate and looking for some control in regards to their health problems. So this opens the door to a market of people offering miracle cures. Just happens to be there is a lot of distrust baked into the reality that healthcare in America prioritizes profit over people.

It's not that doctors resent people improving their health, it's that people are wary of their healthcare services existing in a for-profit system- these types of scams play to the paranoia and fear that people associate with medical establishments selling treatments rather than establishing preventative health. Basically it boils down to the sentiment people generally have that doctors benefit from sick people because they make money from people being sick.

Anecdotally, I remember growing up in Brazil and we were taught in school about human anatomy and all sorts of health issues and how nutrition, immunization, proper hygeine, etc. helped prevent being sick... as well as home remedies for simple illness. But here in the US people seem to seek some authority to provide solutions, and these scam pseudo-medical ads play to this and fill the gap where state medicine and folk knowledge would otherwise be.

I thought it was just annoying that they're often on the top results of searches and thought of them as just digital clutter.

But for people to post outright dangerous and deadly instructions is negligent at best and I would say more accurately in the realm of manslaughter at least.

I think for many of them they direct themselves to the subject passionately because it is easy to advicate for an unborn person.

The unborn don't have flaws that make their lives unworthy of advocacy- unlike the unhoused, migrants, felons, etc. whose deaths at the hands of others so-called "pro-life" advocates are silent about.

Notably, I've also heard those who are fervently anti-abortion respond to the issue of women dying from abortion with almost a sense of glee- as though women who die for lack of proper safe options deserved to lose their life.

I think most important is considering the 1A. I don't think it's likely to persuade people on this topic, change their minds about what they believe in regards to the subject. But surely we can agree the 1A should be respected? Not everyone agrees life begins at conception/implantation/etc. Opening the door to one religion dominating the laws seems to lead to outlawing contraceptives (preventing implantation of a fertilized egg) on the basis of enforcing the belief that life begins at fertilization of the egg.

I don't fully understand anti-choice advocates and most of the ones I know refuse to discuss the subject, of those who do their reasoning most often comes down to their religious beliefs- and if the basis of outlawing a medical procedure is one specific religious belief, is it not a violation of the free expression of other people's beliefs to deny them the ability to make decisions because of one specific belief system?

Opinions aside, it looks like a fundamental disregard for other religions and beliefs is at play here.

I don't think most pro-choice people are anti-natalists nor would they advocate for the death of people who have been born... the main reasoning seems to be women's access to healthcare, privacy, not criminalizing the decision of people seeking a procedure based on moral judgements built on spiritual beliefs, protecting people from collateral criminalization relating to miscarriages, and preventing needless mortality in pregnancy-related issues.

Seems like a rather strange thing to believe, given that they're essentially worshipping a being that would send an unborn person (in their belief) to suffer for eternity for the transgression of not being able to prove their worthiness of salvation (faith).

We read this in 8th grade, and I remember connecting to it very deeply. I think I related to it because when I was very young I was mostly oblivious to the people around me, I lived in my own imagination a lot of the time- probably to escape the traumatic reality I was living in. When I grew older I began to be more aware of people around me, at first I I was very naïve but slowly grew to realize some of the people I sought validation and acceptance from were cruel, sometimes through indifference, negligence, or abusiveness. I cared very deeply about many things, and I used to believe this was something everyone felt. It was an incredibly painful experience to invest so much effort in order to begin to interact with others, only to find a reality drastically different than what I had when I was sheltered in my mind. Reading that story resonated with my sense of loss, alienation, and being ridiculed for things that were beyond my control. There were times I wished I could hide in my mind and regain my ability to tune everything out, and the story spoke to me very personally when I read it even though it wasn't until many uears later that I understood why.

I could see something like this being a nightmare for non-native speakers. English is my second language, but I speak it fluently so this is somewhat coherent. However, if I encountered something like this in other languages I understand but not fluently (French, Arabic, Italian), I would be very confused and frustrated- especially if I attempted to transcribe it from audio to understand it better.

I was about to write something similar, but your comment did so much more eloquently than anything I'd be capable of producing.

My ultimate viewpoint is that criminalization makes criminals and a lot of people want sex workers and drug users (there are others, of course) to be considered criminals and be treated as such. I don't see the societal benefit of this, as it just leads to illicit systems taking place that serve to exploit people. Sex work isn't harmful, but sex trafficking and abuse are- there is definitely a way to allow people to participate in sex work with dignity and protection from exploitation- and criminalizing sex work only contributes to forcing people into situations where they operate in shady unregulated realms where the control rests with organized crime instead of giving that control to the sex workers themselves. Because they can't operate legitimately, and the status of criminalization comes with stigma and marginalization that further create more issues rather than solving any issues.

People will buy sex and people will sell sex, they have been doing so since time immemorial regardless of the law- so IMO the priority should be in making sex work safe, focusing LE and CJ systems toward human trafficking, exploitation, abuse, and slavery instead.

Temperature changes are only a small part of climate change.

The majority of the concern has to do with ocean temperatures, sea levels, melting of permafrost, etc. how these cause changes in climate patterns, chemical changes to the oceans and atmosphere (besides GHG, water vapor affecting the ozone layer and UV) among many other factors, including extreme weather patterns- all of which affect the ecological balance in ways that may be disastrous as fauna and flora are not able to adapt at a fast enough pace to survive. Each of these things causes a domino effect of simultaneous chain reactions that also directly impact human life.

Additionally these temperature readings don't factor the specific location of the thermometers, correlating variables specific to airports, the reality that climates of different regions are affected differently by climate change, among other considerations not explored.

This seems like an overly simplistic "I am skeptical of scientists and science", when in fact climate change is much more complex than "temperatures are higher everywhere"- just looking at thermometers in airports isn't going to bring clarity or disprove the science that has been repeatedly warning about the impact of releasing excess greenhouse gasses for over a century now.

I've seen a lot of discussions that tend to go with 25 as the age of maturity, based on studies of brain development. It seems to me that the ages for things (weapons, voting, marriage, joining the military, drugs [alcohol, cigarettes, etc], entering a strip club, being charged as an adult, and so on) have been determined/changed over time separately, and there are exceptions to each rule as well as different standards in different parts of the world. I agree that 25 is a good standard generally for many things- although I also think a very important discussion needs to be had about the subject.

When I was in high school I went out to catch the bus around 0630, and if I didn't have some caffeine before starting the day being able to focus was nearly impossible. I could function with less sleep then, but even so mornings have always been difficult. I tend to be far more productive at night, and falling asleep is earier during the day.

Perhaps someday the routines of society will be able to accomodate starting the day a little later, at least I hope so. Maybe having the first few classes be less mentally intensive. It's difficult to implement changes, though... and there is no universal solution that would work for everyone. Maybe some more flexibility so teens can choose their schedules to suit their individual routines- that would be a good starting point- or something like some light calisthenics or a little stretching before beginning the school day... I feel like it might be helpful to ask teens themselves what they think would make their ability to study more productive and it would be very interesting to know what they have to say.

The US sends millions of tons of trash to China, India, and other places. Perhaps it would be better for places to implement local sorting (glass, plastic, paper, etc.) and composting- as many other nations do as opposed to disposing of all trash in the same containers and shipping the problem off for someone else to deal with. But even better would be to generate less trash in the first place or at least have an attempt at transitioning to using biodegradable packaging. Packaging, which also is excessive and unecessary in the first place, like items in layers of plastic casing, plastic boxes, plastic wrapping, and so on when there are ways of distributing goods without convenient prepackaging in favor of instead refilling reusable containers or utilizing materials such as fabric, glass, or others which can be repurposed and reused more flexibly and reliably than plastic.

Not even going to get into plastics being contaminated by toxic things, leaching chemicals, microplastics, affecting acquatic life, a variety of other problems relating to plastics and excessive plastic waste.

I really wish people would push to decrease the production and use of plastics in the first place, seems more sustainable than trying to engineer solutions at the tail end of the issue. Seems to me much more effective to curtail the source of the problem than to attempt to implement solutions later on although I do appreciate that some people see the issue and are working to do something about it.

The US sends millions of tons of trash to China, India, and other places. Perhaps it would be better for places to implement local sorting (glass, plastic, paper, etc.) and composting- as many other nations do as opposed to disposing of all trash in the same containers and shipping the problem off for someone else to deal with. But even better would be to generate less trash in the first place or at least have an attempt at transitioning to using biodegradable packaging. Packaging, which also is excessive and unecessary in the first place, like items in layers of plastic casing, plastic boxes, plastic wrapping, and so on when there are ways of distributing goods without convenient prepackaging in favor of instead refilling reusable containers or utilizing materials such as fabric, glass, or others which can be repurposed and reused more flexibly and reliably than plastic.

Not even going to get into plastics being contaminated by toxic things and leeching chemicals. Landfills are not harmless to ecosystems and aquifers, either- they're a short term way of not dealing with the issue of waste materials, at best.

I've been on multiple prescriptions for depression/anxiety/panic attacks (had a lot of traumatic events happen in close succession to one another). Combinations of different SSRIs and whatnot but the one thing that had an immediate and hugely beneficial effect was Xanax. I truly felt like my problems were solvable and I could see how to go about making the necessary changes. It was truly life changing for me because up until that point I could no longer believe that sich relief was possible. I haven't ever had a prescription though, and most doctors will refuse if asked. So I just have that one experience where it was given to me during a panic attack emergency, but knowing that it is even possible to feel like things can get better was a huge help to remember what to keep fighting for.

This reminds me of an article regarding Saudi Arabia's dairy industry owning land in CA to grow alfalfa.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/25/california-w...

I should add, there are ways to digitize written notes. I personally don't do this, but I know of projects like Paper Website. Just something to keep in mind.