Barx [none/use name]

Governments have frequently laundered the surveillance state as “child protection” laws, pushing for a cozy relationship between companies with data and cops et al. They want the ability to snoop more or less whenever they want and will push in that direction. This kind of relationship is not just for cops, though. The same companies also gladly work with and hire people from intelligence agencies to craft narratives and manipulate sentiment. When a company doesn’t play that role as well as feds want, the hammer comes down (TikTok, Telegram).

Though really, the actual question is why they are writing this article and why now. The answer is that Durov has been arrested and the author is attempting to justify it by piling on “Telegram is bad” claims while avoiding discussing the actual legal basis and evidence around his arrest. You will also note the sources used in this article are entirely government officials and NGOs in the constellation of NGOs that work directly with the government - or are unsourced stipulations. No academics were cited, nor free speech advocacy groups, or even lawyers.

Trump isn’t a fascist. In action he is actually a pretty standard reactionary liberal. You will notice that Biden has continued the salient policies that made liberals call him a fascist, such as extreme and horrible border policies (Dems actually outflanked the GOP on this from the right), anti-China policy, and extending militarism (like maximum pressure on Russia via Ukraine).

He’s mostly just openly racist whereas the political class usually wraps itself in polite jargon bullshit before it fucks with a bunch of brown people.

The main ways you’re exposed to microplastics is through ingestion and breathing it in.

To limit ingestion, yes the main thing to do is to avoid food and drink that comes in plastic containers. Reducing your consumption of processed foods will help with this. Eating mostly produce is a simpler way to approach this. Even though produce may often be transported in plastic, if you wash it before consumption you’ll have done pretty well. Ideally you would also have a reverse osmosis filter at home, as your water probably has microplastics as well (but less than bottled water!).

To limit breathing it in, yes avoid frequent exposure to busy roads. They are often full of tire dust that is getting kicked up. This is cumulative, though. Walking by a busy street once is no big deal. Walking along one twice a day may add up.

Overall, however, to address microplastics we will have to control the production of plastics and the use of plastics in the first place. For example, there would be a lot less tire dust if we used more rail to get around. And there would be less need for bottled water if water fountains were ubiquitous and so were standardized stainless steel water bottles. In addition, we could use biodegradable plastics for more packaging so that they don’t accumulate in bodies or the environment.

But this last point, despite being the only real solution, will literally require the overthrow of capitalism. I’m for this and am happy to talk about it more, but it is a lot.

I avoid erythritol because you have to use so much of it. With something like aspartame it’s so much sweeter than sugar per gram that even if it all converted to formaldehyde a few sodas would be nothing to worry about. But erythritol is 30% less sweet than sugar so they put a bunch in. And the full effects of a bunch of a not-very-metabolized substance haven’t been well-enough studied for me to not just get some other fake sugar thing instead.

As the other commenter said, though, this study had very small N.

Redditors struggling to understand words citing a red-brown alliance stan lmao. They have no idea where to even start thinking about this so they just fixate on the word, “tankie” and the contradiction of Imperialist narratives and successfully leave the cognitive dissonance behind.

Both the division of Korea and establishment of Taiwan are examples of the US carving out its own occupied zones to encircle China and the then-USSR, preventing internal fighting - literal civil wars - from resolving on its own terms.

Imagine if Spain popped in to prevent the end of the US civil war by militarily supporting Florida as the confederacy and then 70 years later everyone says, “yeah how dare America claim Florida! Confederate pride!” due to decades of Spanish propaganda. All the while, the main confederate legacy party still claims the entire continental US and Canada as their rightful territory and liberals call anyone that disagrees a yankie (epithet) and gets boosted in social media.

Such as?

What in Marxism needs to be upgraded, specifically?

What in Marxism do you think needs upgrades?