Hillock

joined 1 year ago
[–] Hillock@kbin.social 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Your assumption of what the graph displays is wrong. Yes, it lacks a lot of information and the post could have clarified more.

But at the bottom of the graph you can see that the x-axis is years. Which is a strong indication that this graph displays the life expectancy of latin american countries. Whicha quick goolge seems to confirm. And it shows that El Salvador ranks poorly even amongst them. Since most migrants move to a country for a better life, the pool of countries that El Salvador can pull from is rather small.

But that obviously misses the point that many people who would move to El Salvador on using this opportunity either move there to help improve the situation for the average person. Or at the very least would have enough money to afford a better lfiestyle and not be affected by the average life expectancy. Which obviously is going to be low for a country that suffers from poverty and gang violence as El Salvador does.

So the "general" assumption of migrants moving to a "better" countries doesn't quite apply here.

[–] Hillock@kbin.social 31 points 7 months ago (2 children)

That's a misbelief, most lottery winner do just fine long after winning. We just only hear about the ones who go broke because that's report worthy.

And it's almost impossible to go broke with winning 1 billion. Even if you are only left with "only" 500 mil after taxes, and you manage to lose 99% of that, you are still left with 5 million. Which is still enough to have a comfortable life.

[–] Hillock@kbin.social 2 points 7 months ago

Biden is an average to above average president.

It's mostly republican lawmakers passing shitty laws in republican states that makes live for many American worse. DeSantis is the one fucking up Florida. Gregg Abott and Ted Cruz are fucking up Texas. Biden has very little influence on that.

And Biden is fighting the terrible decisions from the previous Trump administration. Were many shitty things are only now starting to show their full efect. Like the increase in higher income tax for lower brackets. Or deregulating coal mining operations that were in place to protect rivers, or defunding the women's health budget. Most of these things take time for the average person to feel the impact. And Biden is actively trying to reverse some of them. He recently signed a new bill that gurantees funding for women's health research. Biden rejoined the Paris agreement (which Trump left), with the goal of reducing emissions and combating climate change. And a lot more. But just as with the negative efects taking time to be felt, so does reversing them.

Biden for some reason just isn't liked by many Americans. It has little to do with his policies or (in)actions as a president. People like to bring up the geonicde for why they don't like him. But many of the same people have been critizing him before the situation in Israel even started.

[–] Hillock@kbin.social 4 points 7 months ago

No, public pensions don't function like a ponzi scheme. There are actual pension funds that are actively invested and these profits do indeed help cover current and future pension payments. Yes, the government uses current pension payments to pay out receivers. But that's because it would be stupid to take out part of the pension fund, pay the people, and then put in the exact same amount from new payments. Instead you keep a balance sheet of how much was paid in and how much was paid out and the difference is added or deducted from the pension fund.

Yes, there are a few mismanged public pension funds. But they aren't nearly as common as people believe. And even in mismanaged pension funds the situation is still different from a ponzi scheme. Mismanaged pension funds use part of the deparment budget to cover the difference. This comes at the cost of cutting programs or downsizing in other ways. The more mismanaged the fund, the higher the percentage of the budget goes towards it. But that's another reason why they aren't lik a ponzi scheme, because there are different methods of funding them than just the payments of "new members joining".

Most mismanaged pension funds are from the private sector, not from the government. And there most aren't a ponzi scheme either and instead some other form of fraud or just plain old theft.

I still agree with an UBI being a better alternative.

[–] Hillock@kbin.social 15 points 9 months ago

would be like if someone an ethincally Asian UK citizen won miss UK and then got accused of pushing an Eastern standard of beauty in an ethnically Anglo-Celtic-etc nation.

I mean that is happening all the time. Especially if the winner is black. So the controversy isn't new. It's still racist and stupid.

[–] Hillock@kbin.social 2 points 9 months ago

If I am on the beach or near a lake/river 2nd row from bottom the middle one. It looks like an old flint lock and then I can be a pirate.

Otherwise 3rd row from bottom 2nd from the right.

[–] Hillock@kbin.social 10 points 10 months ago (2 children)

You could start as a ranch hand, especially if you know how to ride. You can work on both a regular ranch or on a "resort ranch" that focuses on tourism. You just have to find a ranch that has around that 20ish employees.

But then it would fit all of your points. You are spending your whole day with the same group of people.

Drifting between groups will depend a bit on your exact duties but no matter what you are going to get to know everyone and work with others occasionally.

New things are constantly coming up to do. Your duties also change with the season. And even if there is "nothing" to do you will still hang out with the other farm hands.

You have that authority over you in form of the ranch manager/owner.

Pay isn't great but it might come with free lodging, then it isn't that bad.

[–] Hillock@kbin.social 24 points 10 months ago (5 children)

It's not a legitimate competition, that's the entirely point. The claim is AI models rely on stealing content and changing it slightly or not all. And if a "regular" journalist does this, they would get into trouble. Just because the entity switches to an AI company doesn't make this business model legitimate.

A few years ago there was a big plagiarism scandal on IGN because one of their "journalists" mostly took reviews of other people, changed a few words, and published it. Obviously that's not fine.

[–] Hillock@kbin.social 3 points 10 months ago

Started playing yesterday, I can agree. I just need to get used to playing slower. It's so easy to put it on speed three and then suddenly I am falling behind and can't deal with the issues anymore.

[–] Hillock@kbin.social 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

That depends a lot on the exact prison. Because many prisons don't follow guidelines and provide less food than they are supposed to.

In theory, inmates are supposed to get between 2,400-2,700 calories a day. The actual amount might be closer to 2,000 or even below that. For a small person that might be enough to sustain themselves but bigger people will lose weight.

Unless a prisoner has money. Then they can use the commissary store to buy additional food and eat as much as they can afford.

And that's for the entire western world. Some countries are better at enforcing guidelines than others but every country has a few prisons that are run terrible.

[–] Hillock@kbin.social 16 points 10 months ago

Scottish Highland clans would use something called the "Fiery Cross" or "Cross of Shame" as a symbol for a call to arms/war. Basically sending a person carrying the thing from village to village and every able-bodied man had to get ready for war or be shamed.

But whether or not they actually used a burning cross is very disputed. The main source for this is the author Walter Scott. He wrote Rob Roy, The Lady of the Lake and other Scottish mythology/historical fiction. While he claimed to try to be as historical accurate as possible, there are a lot of made up facts in his books. So not really a good source and sometimes even the only source for Scottish mythology.

The original KKK didn't burn crosses. But in the early 1900s Thomas Dixon wrote a book series that romanticized the KKK. He was very inspired by Walter Scott and included the Fiery Cross in his novel. Saying the flames symbolizing purity, purifying the people of their sins, and the light it gave is a symbol for "The Holy Light".

His books were the source for the movie " The Birth of a Nation" and that movie included the burning cross scene. And KKK members thought it looked cool and started to use cross burnings using the made up justification of purity and holy light.

[–] Hillock@kbin.social 6 points 10 months ago (4 children)

It should be common knowledge that you can't just bring prescribed medication into a foreign country. There is even plenty of OTC medication you can't bring into some countries.

Heck, in many places you can't even bring fruits, meat, or dairy. Not doing your due diligence before traveling is on the person traveling.

I don't think she deserves to be in prison for that and I would assume if relations with Russia at the time were better she would have just been denied entry/fined.

But breaking the law is still entirely on her and returning such a high profile prisoner in exchange for her mistake stings.

view more: next ›