stabby_cicada

I think Disney is to American culture what McDonald's is to American food. A corporate juggernaut that markets product not through quality but through advertising and name recognition, and starves out genuine American culture in the process.

I mean, what does it say that one of the most recognizable symbols of the United States, worldwide, is a cartoon mouse whose job is to sell toys to kids?

What message does that cartoon mouse send to the world about American values and American beliefs?

The idea that giving money to a corporation has become a rite of fucking passage in American society - the number of people who think their kids need to watch Disney movies so they can fit in with other kids, who think their kids will miss out on a fundamental part of American culture if they don't take them to Disneyland at least once - absolutely horrifies me. Especially since the only political and moral message kids learn from Disney is "uphold the status quo and buy more Disney merch".

Also, Disney is known for racism and sexism and cultural appropriation and union busting and copyright trolling and all sorts of general corporate bullshittery, and is currently shoving its feminist and LGBT representation back into the closet to appease Trump and avoid offending big conservative audiences in India and China and the Middle East, and there are plenty of smaller more specific reasons to hate them, but for me the whole "cultural vanguard of capitalism" thing outweighs the rest.

I've always found it funny that the right invented the term "virtue signaling", in order to accuse liberals of spouting empty words to make themselves look good.

With conservatives, every accusation is a confession.

Toronto has restricted development in the ravines and other low-lying areas since 1954, when a freak hurricane caused severe flooding that killed dozens of people and washed away homes and bridges. 

Today, the ravines include restored and artificial wetlands that soak up rainfall and mitigate flood risk.

There's the most important part of the article, I think. It's a lot easier to get buy-in for urban green spaces when the land involved is "useless" (from a capitalist standpoint) for development.

Fuck Midjourney, and also, fuck Disney. I hope they spend years in court blowing millions on high priced lawyers and making each other look bad.

On an individual level, doing the right thing for the environment generally saves you money.

On a collective level, policies that are good for the environment generally save everyone money.

This should have been a no brainer for Democrat pols, but they couldn't resist the temptation to give green-colored pork giveaways to big business and the 1% instead.

How would you feel about purely secular "mumbo jumbo" ceremonies meant to encourage care for the environment? Like, for example, an organized moment of silence before or after a cleanup (to stop and think about the natural area you're cleaning up, listen to the birds/bugs/water, whatever)?

How can you say "be careful what you wish for, violent revolution never ends well for anarchists no matter who wins." ? What about the outcome of the american revolutionary war ? What was it's outcome. Was the outcome not good ?

The Revolutionary War is an excellent example of the winners of a violent revolution turning around and wielding state power against their former supporters - look up Shays' Rebellion.

More generally, the outcome of the Revolutionary War was good for America's landowning oligarchy. Not so good for ordinary white Americans. Definitely not good for slaves, nonwhites, and the Native Americans of the continent - particularly since one of the biggest reasons for revolution was that the colonists wanted to break their treaties with Native American tribes, kill them all and steal their land, and Britain wouldn't let them.

Green roofs do need more support. But think of it by percentages. A one-story house is going to need significantly more structural stability than a normal house if it wants to support a green roof. If your building is already built to support 10-20 stories, the additional weight (and cost) of the green roof and the reinforcement underneath is not as big a concern.

Personally, I would prefer solar panels on roofs and green spaces on the ground where the public can enjoy their benefits. But more green is better than less.

Joke's on them, I already talked like that 😆

The form factor is the problem. We carry a propaganda faucet slash ad delivery service with us 24-7-365, we check it obsessively for a quick dopamine fix throughout the day, and we have convinced ourselves this is good for us.

Low margins just means big corporations have th advantage, because they make profit through volume.

If renting wasn't profitable at all, landlords wouldn't rent.

And in many cases they don't. Which is one reason why ten percent of US houses are vacant.

But that misses the point, which is that housing should not be a for-profit industry.

If you repair a house, if you maintain a house, if you renovate a house, you have the right to be paid for your labor. Any profit you "earn" from rental payments, above that amount, is money you didn't earn - it's money you were able to extort from your tenants because you have a piece of paper saying you own the house and your tenants do not.

Whether a landlord makes $1 profit or $10000 profit, that profit is still "earned" by collecting rent on property, not by creating any value for anyone.

Housing is a human right. And rent collection is theft.