Think this post confuses veganism and vegetarianism. Also it’s chemicals all the way down. Those spices? Made of chemicals.
Those alternative burgers are actually pretty tasty but also very heavy because they are imitating beef. For American fare I’d generally prefer a sandwich with deli style meats made out of tofu or seitan, or a bean burger.
You know what has protein? Every whole plant food. You don’t need a dedicated part of a meal that is high in protein when the whole meal contains protein.
I like to think of it this way:
2^3 is the same as 2 x 2 x 2.
But you can arbitrarily multiply by as many 1s as you want because 1 has the identity property for multiplication.
So we can also write 2^3 as 2 x 2 x 2 x 1 x 1.
2^2 as 2 x 2 x 1 x 1.
2^1 as 2 x 1 x 1.
2^0 as 1 x 1 or just 1.
Multiplying a number by another number is the same as adding a number to itself that many times. And 0 is has the identity property for addition, so similarly:
2 x 3 = 2 + 2 + 2 + 0 + 0
2 x 2 = 2 + 2 + 0 + 0
2 x 1 = 2 + 0 + 0
2 x 0 = 0 + 0
If you actually care about animals dying in kill shelters the solutions are to open more shelters, do more to stop abusive conditions for animals before they get out of hand, and most importantly stop breeding animals. Animals are killed either because shelters don’t want to take them in do to their condition or they are too full. You can blame the no kill shelters as well, because they don’t take in every animal. But they aren’t really to blame either, people who support the industries that breed pets are.
certain factions within the US government have been untrustworthy.
between far-right, corporate factions and those groups that actually defend some semblance of democratic liberty.
This just sounds like a whole lot of liberal US apologia. It isn’t actually far off from regressive phrases like MAGA or A Few Bad Apples. There was no golden time when the US has been a bastion of freedom and human welfare and it mostly shows signs of getting worse, and you cannot fix the US by removing a few politicians.
Are they at all comparable as reflections of the viability of each respective state’s potential to sustain human liberty? No.
I don’t see what the point is of picking two specific events when we are discussing nations and governments as a whole. Taken in totality the US does not and has not ever shown signs of sustaining liberty as you put it. The law and order system is a joke, human welfare is a joke, safety is a joke, education is a joke, foreign policy is a joke. A lot of these fundamental issues are completely ignorable for the privileged, and the last one ignorable if you live in the US itself, but I am not looking to have liberty for some and not others.
You’re not required to sing the praises of the US, but acknowledging the meaningful degree of difference is critical to preventing the world sliding further into an authoritarian paradigm.
I disagree. I think what you’re doing right now is what strengthens authoritarianism in “Western” countries. Always framing Western countries, especially the US, as the lesser of two evils just justifies nationalism and militarism and downplays the need for radical change. What’s the point of this liberty you speak of if we don’t use it to criticize our own governments, and why stop at just criticism? The truth is you’ll only realize how thin your liberty actually is when you actually pose a threat.
But I’m not sure how we got on this tangent. I was simply responding to the notion of geopolitical trust and how that relates to the US and China. The US reneges on international agreements all the time or simply does not adhere to them. The government also partakes in the manipulation of foreign governments, extrajudicial murders in foreign countries in “times of peace”, and sabotages countries with embargos. All of this should make the US untrustworthy, but the unspoken part is that when we talk about trust we are taking about among Western countries. These nations have some shared geopolitical goals and because the US’s violations aren’t against these nations but against ones where say the common religion is different or the people have a darker average complexion they can be ignored.
The government of the United States is also highly untrustworthy, but plenty of other nation’s governments engage and cooperate with the US. This isn’t whataboutism, it’s evidence that there must be other factors.
I dunno, the sway of Apple, MS, whoever else just doesn’t have the same weight as the CCP and Tencent.
The fact that you name Apple and Microsoft makes me think there is a blind spot here. If you are taking about big tech with it’s tendrils in US policy I’d go for Google and Facebook. Big pharma and the military industrial complex are even bigger issues. These industries don’t just undermine the US but harm the global community as well. Then you have think tanks, often funded by capital, shaping narratives and foreign policy.
He describes cyanobacteria as “nature’s little alchemists” as they absorb large amounts of CO2 and can convert it into useful resources, such as fuels or biodegradable plastics.
Capture the CO2 just to release it again? This is a problem with carbon capture schemes even if you solve efficiency, where does the carbon go? The next paragraph says something about them falling to the floor of the ocean due to their density, but I’d be surprised if most of that CO2 didn’t end up back in the atmosphere or even worse, temporarily acidifying the water.