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What widely-praised historical figure do you think was actually not very admirable when you scrutinize them?
  • Had a book assigned for history class that totally and forever changed my understanding of Genghis Khan. Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World I think it's called.

    Dude and his empire basically singlehandedly spread the written word, religious freedom, and lots of other ideas we generally consider good today. Not saying he didn't kill a lot, because he did, but his historical impact is much more complex than "barbarian invader kills a bunch of people"

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  • Tipping culture in the U.S. is fucked. Who does it benefit most? The employers who are able to underpay their workers. (Even minimum wage these days is horrifically low.)

    The companies are able to externalize the wages they should be paying to their customers, who really pay huge portions of the employees' "wage". (E.g. I'm a gig worker doing deliveries, and more than HALF my pay comes from tips.)

    If you don't tip or tip very low, you're using the employer's negligence as an excuse not to pay the service workers a living wage. For this reason, when considering engaging with the service industry, you should assume you will pay a healthy tip, unless the service worker truly and massively drops the ball. If you can't afford a healthy (20%) tip, then you can't actually afford the service.

  • Capitalism is Still the Problem
  • Capitalism is the greatest generator of wealth ever created

    I feel like when making that "calculation", you've forgotten to figure in the complete and utter destruction of the biosphere, the impending losses due to climate change, the cost in human lives and well-being and dignity of enslavement, exploitation, and so on.

  • Is America Really That Bad?
  • Even when you CAN do this, it's usually because the employees are either kind enough or inattentive enough to let you do this. And if you are clearly unhoused or poor, your chances of being able to do this are much, much lower than if you can fit in in a middle class white area. (Restaurants with predominantly poor clientele or many homeless people nearby tend to be much stricter about this.)

  • Is America Really That Bad?
  • I guess the one argument for "public restrooms" is rest areas along major highways and restrooms in public (usually national or state, not little municipal) parks.

    So we do have public restrooms...they're just nowhere near 99% of the population most of the time.

  • The other day I heard a friend talking about how "the moon's gravity affects our internal organs." This sounds like bull, but is it? And if so, how would I correct their misinformation?

    I think the reason some people might believe this claim is because we're taught in school that the moon's gravity causes the tides. I think the reasoning goes, "well if the moon's gravity can affect the tides, surely it can affect smaller things too"

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    Eating meat creates four times more greenhouse gases than being vegan, landmark study finds
  • I believe both of these questions have been thoroughly answered by the scientific community.

    You're right that meat is more nutrient dense than plants. But if we were to replace meat production with crop production for human consumption at scale, we would be averaging far more (I think on the order of 10x) human calories per acre.

    When you replace a beef farm with vegan food production, you're not just planting crops on the beef farm. Each of those cows eats for years--crops that humans generally wouldn't eat grown on other farms specifically as livestock feed. You need much, much more land and resources to produce 100 calories of meat than you do to produce 100 calories of vegetables.

  • How many Lemmy users are non-technical background?
  • I'm a gig worker who delivers food to people.

    I almost went into CS and consider myself fairly well-educated, so I think although I'm not in tech I share a slightly similar background and sensibilities with Lemmy folks. I just got on here a couple days ago and it kinda reminds me of reddit back when I joined (hopefully minus the racism and spez's favorite subreddit)

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    guangming @lemmy.world
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