In rust we trust!

I realised a relationship was doomed when I had a pregnancy scare. I was overjoyed when I got my period, and he told me he was sad. The man already had 3 kids by 3 different women, none of whom he saw, and I was like wtf how does he think I’d have a kid with him?? We broke up not long after. And every time I see him around town I thank my lucky stars I didn’t get stuck with him, as well as embarrassment I was with him in the first place.

What does the ‘B’ in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for?

Benoit B. Mandelbrot

The church is a guilty institution, it provided abusers with authority and power over their victims, and actively covered up crimes and enabled abusers to continue committing crimes. While demanding money and devotion from it’s millions of followers, many of whom were the victims. Abusers should be punished for their crimes, but we’re talking historic abuse, most perpetrators are probably dead. The church should most definitely pay reparations.

How about carpet beetles and clothes moths?

Ok, but we’re getting dragged into a tangential debate about farming when really my point was that we need to look at waste through the whole supply chain, from farming ingredients to getting put on the shelves. I’m sure we could pick apart the contribution of any one part of that chain and debate how significant it is. Together, at all points in the chain, there is plastic waste that the consumer doesn’t see.

(And btw Canada isn’t in the top 20 of global producers, according to the IMF / CIA World Factbook as at 2018; the EU is number 3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture)

Edited to add: this 2022 UN report states that plastics are used extensively in agriculture and goes into how they are used and how they enter soil and water supplies: https://wedocs.unep.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/40403/Plastics_Agriculture.pdf

And this is another UN report on the issue, stating that Asia is the largest user of plastics in agriculture. When China and India are two of the largest agricultural producers, that’s an issue https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/12/1107342

So according to this link https://www.ciwm.co.uk/ciwm/knowledge/agricultural-waste.aspx

"Plastic packaging waste from agriculture represents approximately 1.5% of the overall volume of plastic packaging in the waste stream in England. The types of plastic wastes arising can vary and be both bulky and dirty often making the management of these wastes difficult. Around 135,500 tonnes of agricultural plastic waste is produced each year in the UK with;

Approximately 32,000 tonnes being produced from plastic packaging waste; and
Approximately 103,500 tonnes being produced from Non-Packaging Plastics (including contamination)."

That’s just England. The data is old (2003 I think), and yes 1.5% is not huge, granted, but that’s of total plastic waste, not just from the food chain. A lot of our produce comes from Asia and North Africa where generally there just aren’t the same facilities for recycling, and environmental issues are not as prioritised. It’s great that there’s very little plastic waste in your farming methods, but it’s not the same around the world.

Which country are you in? Where I live my food comes from all around the world. Recycling is mostly a Western thing. It doesn’t exist in many of the countries that supply our food. I was just going by the amount of crap I’ve seen in many agricultural areas. Plastic sacks, containers etc.

But I bet those paper packages of paper straws were bundled into cartons that were wrapped in plastic, and then those were wrapped with other bundles in more plastic. And even if they’re using cardboard boxes as part of that packaging who knows what percentage of that is recycled, or made from recycled waste. Anyone that’s worked in retail knows the incredible amounts of packaging that get binned every day that’s invisible to consumers.

The problem that strikes me reading through this thread, and similar conversations about packaging, is that we can do all we want to reduce packaging and plastics at the consumer end, but there’s a huuuuge amount of packaging all the way through the supply chain. From farming supplies, to ingredient packaging, and the packaging used to transport food products to stores. By focussing solely on the consumer end we’re not addressing the whole issue. It’s like the obsession with bamboo toothbrushes and paper / metal straws. They’re consumerist solutions to a problem caused by consumerism.

I couldn’t pick just one, but these come to mind right now:

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Maps https://youtu.be/oIIxlgcuQRU

Loads of songs by Anohni / Antony and the Johnsons but particularly this one Hope There’s Someone https://youtu.be/LyMGEq82uL4

Were they genuinely Marxist? Or did people just call them Marxist because they had more liberal policies than the norm for the area? Liberalism ≠ socialism, and socialism ≠ Marxism.

Yes. I’d just say “you know how the Courts have the power to do X, and decide Y? Well the government decided to devolve those powers to an independent office, so that people didn’t have to pay for lawyers and deal with complicated legal processes. I work in that office making the Y decisions.”

Sure, here’s the ones I found on Etsy in the UK:

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/177167563/100-british-wool-filled-inserts-12-14-16

Wool ball filled cushion pads. They’re really plump, and just the right level of firmness, so much nicer than synthetic or feather. Each pay day I’m ordering a couple, and gradually my sofa is turning into a cosy nest.

She was a vulnerable teenager who was groomed and trafficked into a religious cult. A white girl would not have been treated like this by the law, the press and the public.

The three things that stop me moving to another country are money (or ability to get a job for the money I need), family (I have an elderly mum who I need to be around for) and residency issues (thanks Brexit). I guess if I was super rich I would be able to get residency more easily, but in the absence of a teletransporter it wouldn’t fix the family issue.

Antibiotics, and tea

Fuck, that sounds good. Gonna try it!

Probably not the longest, but the most ridiculous. We have a big free African music festival in our city and there are loads of different food stalls with great food. There was a Kenyan one that my best friend really wanted to go to as she lived in Kenya when she was a kid, and the queue was big which usually means good food. However once we were in the queue we realised the queue was moving really slowly… No matter, it must be worth it when we get there surely… After 45 mins I really wanted to go somewhere else but the sunk cost fallacy and the thought of getting in another queue made me stay… After over an hour we finally get to the front and realise that the reason it’s so slow is because they have the most illogical ordering system that doesn’t make sense, and even the staff seem totally confused. An hour and a half later we finally get our food and it’s ok. Just ok. In a big field full of amazing food we managed to pick the most mediocre one, and stupidly queued along with loads of other stupid queueing people for no good reason except being in a queue.