• ChristmasIslandZone@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    When seatbelts were introduced to cars, there was a big movement against them. Some by car manufacturers to keep costs down, but a lot of backlash was from good ol’ natural born idiots so contrarian and averse to change they’d let themselves die just to give a smug look about not doing what someone asked of them. The sort of dumbass who during the height of pre-vaccine Covid would drown in the fluid buildup in their lungs and refuse treatment because doing so would be an admission of fault.

    These past 9 years have made me DEEPLY cynical about my fellow man. There is no bottom. No level of malicious stupidity is low enough. It’s not even disappointment anymore, I’m resigned to it. Some people are so beyond hope, so beyond redemption, it’s like trying to get a fucking deer to recognize itself in a mirror. Just ZERO awareness, no theory of mind, object permanence is a fucking coin flip. If it weren’t for my principles, my absolute refusal to engage in dehumanization, I’d be tempted to write them off as another species just to cope with the dissonance that comes from seeing people acting that self destructive. Like it doesn’t make sense. You’d expect at some point some form of pattern recognition and harm avoidance to develop. “Hey, putting my hand on the stove hurt. It hurt every time I did it. It hurt everyone I saw someone else do it too. I’m gonna put my hand on the stove and it won’t hurt this time.”.

    • Eyedust@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      4 days ago

      I was annoyed about the seatbelt laws, but I was a little kid at the time. I came from an era of riding in the back of dad’s truck and enjoying the breeze. Hell, I went from New England to Canada in the back of a capped truck. I was eight years old and never thought anything of it.

      However, as I got older into my teens I got more adamant about using a seat belt, even when the laws were still sorta gray here (you were let off with no warning most times). Now its second nature, even if I’m heading 3 mins to the store. Some people still don’t because they think that they’re only endangering themselves. Thing is, I have a brother in law that’s a first responder. He’s seen people torpedo out of windows in head-on collisions and into the other car, injuring the other driver/passengers.

      Honestly, I don’t get what the whole problem is. You barely even notice them on you. Most people who don’t put on a simple and comfortable safety belt are just being fucking stubborn children who don’t like being told what to do. I’m glad I grew out of that way of thinking. Some my family are those “good ol’ natural borns”. They’ll tell me I don’t have to put my seatbelt on and every time I adamantly say, “I always do”. My other brother in law will literally crank the radio so he can’t hear the seatbelt alarm. Drives me insane, but I love the idiot.

    • subarctictundra@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      I think there is a growing divide between the most and least intelligent in society, and it has been growing with tech advancement (the gap wouldn’t have been that big in the middle ages). If we ever develop superintelligent AI, I can see that becoming an inflection point in this divide because we (Lemmy dwellers) will become as fallible to that AI as the people you mentioned are today in what is still a human-dominated society. Introducing AGI will vastly exasperate the gap between the most and least intelligent and I can’t see society surviving that in its current form.

    • ceiphas@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      There are still people that buy “belt silencers” or sit on their seatbelts to drive without. Newer cars will alarm, and mine even shuts down if you drive without a seatbelt

      • markovs_gun@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        I think those are mostly for super obese people because seat belts are really uncomfortable if you’re really, really fat. At least that’s what I always assumed because everyone I know who has one is really fat.

    • stembolts@programming.dev
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      4 days ago

      I enjoyed reading this. Well put. I also share this recent realization. It’s made me feel a bit less imposter syndrome. Among other things.

  • Aggravationstation@feddit.uk
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    3 days ago

    My country banned smoking in all public indoor spaces almost 20 years ago. As a smoker at the time I thought it was ridiculous, felt that my rights were being violated and thought it would never last. The quality of life improvement it made is massive. Today I vape rather than smoke but wouldn’t dream of doing either indoors or being where someone else is. It was 100% the right move. Not quite the same thing but you sometimes can’t really understand the benefits of an alternative to the status quo, even if you understand it logically.

    • limelight79@lemm.ee
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      3 days ago

      Oh yeah. “You’re safer being ejected from the car in a crash. My cousin’s ex husband’s sister’s daughter survived a crash that way!”

      • tempest@lemmy.ca
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        3 days ago

        Those people have never seen someone who has been hit by an air bag. It’s not a gentle pillow it’s a punch to the face and if you aren’t strapped in you’re probably gonna bounce around a bit off the interior.

    • grrgyle@slrpnk.net
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      3 days ago

      Yeah, one of my grandpas always chafed against wearing one, especially the part that comes across the chest. He was always “forgetting” to put it on, and holding it down so it wouldn’t like press against him.

      Meanwhile I don’t even think about the seatbelt. Actually it feels wrong if I forget to put it on for some reason.

  • limelight79@lemm.ee
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    3 days ago

    I’m a little surprised Trump hasn’t signed the “Asbestos Fibers Are Our Friends” Executive Order.

  • Wilco@lemm.ee
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    4 days ago

    LOL, libs are trying to ban asbestos! They want us all to catch fire! Asbestos causing cancer is a conspiracy, do your own research. Besides, Ivermectin will cure any cancer caused by asbestos.

    /s (because the USA is crazy and someone would really post this and mean it)

    • BeardedGingerWonder@feddit.uk
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      I can see them railing a line of asbestos just to own the libs. Better than vaccine denial I suppose, at least it limits the damage.

      • Raiderkev@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        A guy I went to HS with definitely did this one time on a dare. A piece of insulation fell out of the kiln in shop class n another kid smashed it n told this kid he’d give him $5 to snort it. No one thought he would, but this dude absolutely railed it. Someone asks the shop teacher later what the tiles were made of and he says asbestos mostly, but it’s fine as long as you don’t mess with it. 💀

        I keep checking on his Facebook every couple of years to see if lung cancer got him. So far, he’s still kicking lol.

    • tempest@lemmy.ca
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      3 days ago

      Is that giving a donkey an enema or preforming an enema with a donkey or is it utilizing a donkey to perform an enema…

      • neidu3@sh.itjust.works
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        3 days ago

        I was thinking of taking an enema meant for donkeys, but I guess whichever method is approved by RFK Jr “works”.

  • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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    4 days ago

    I used to live in a city called Asbestos, the mine was closed back in 2012 and older folks are still angry about it, they’ll even tell you that the workers handling it weren’t in worse health than anyone else in the city… The worst part is that it was banned in the construction industry 30 years prior, so they kept exploiting the mine only to export it to countries that hadn’t banned it, even if it meant killing people there…

  • SolidShake@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    Depends who would ban it. From my life experience, we have one side that definitely would because they get mad at anything the other side. ANYTHING. While the other side is typically more rational and has critical thinking skills.

    • bluGill@fedia.io
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      5 days ago

      What other side? Sure there are always a few rational people. However the vast majority choose a side and then blindly oppose anything the other side says/does. When their side happens to have critical thinking on their side they are for that, but that isn’t a factor in why they choose something.

      Trying to convince yourself otherwise proves that you are ignoring the issues on your own side. If you really were a rational thinker you would have to choose your side separately for every single issue - nobody has time for that which in turn means you sometimes rely on someone who turns out to be irrational but because they have proved rational in other areas you trust them here too.

      • SolidShake@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        I’m an independent thinker. In the past republicans and democrats had both good and bad ideas.

        In today’s world democrats are more for the people as a country and care more about citizens, example, making sure kids in schools get free lunches, “no child should go hungry” as they understand not everyone is rich and can afford proper meals for dinner later in the day, the cause being maybe medical debt or other unforseen hardships, example. A car accident and need a sudden co-payment of $2000 to fix or replace their car. While republicans want to stop free lunches to save 12¢ extra in a state/county tax. So I’ve seen Republicans only show greed for themselves which in turn completely halts advancements in a society. Example, private healthcare. You would pay significantly less in a raise in federal tax compared to a monthly premium+ medical bills. The math isn’t that hard to do, but Republicans are so blinded by the thought of "my hard earned money is for me and not for Susan who has 3 kids and her husband has terminal cancer. Now she has to pay $250,000 when he dies.

        So in short. Democratic party in my eyes has been for people. Republican party in my eyes has been for themselves and everyone else can live in the streets.

      • Initiateofthevoid@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        3 days ago

        If you really were a rational thinker you would have to choose your side separately for every single issue

        1. You should already do this for anything you care about? It really, really doesn’t take long for the important stuff. For everything else -
        2. You don’t need to take a side on things you don’t understand. If you haven’t had the time to assess something… don’t share an opinion about it. It’s perfectly functional and rational for humans to specialize and leave problems for other humans to deal with. It is only social media that convinced people they should care about literally everything.
        • bluGill@fedia.io
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          It takes a lot of thought and research to come up with a good opinion on some subjects. Some subjects are easy because of values, but you need a lot of study to understand other subjects.

          You need to have an opinion on things you don’t understand. There are people for and against vaccines - this is a very complex subject and both sides have what sounds like science behind them, and both also have real medical doctors. You are affected though so you better get to the bottom of it as both sides will tell you the wrong choice is a disaster.

      • Sc00ter@lemm.ee
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        4 days ago

        If you have morals and standards, its not hard to take a stance on every issue. If you support education, it doesnt take much looking into anything about education to understand how decisions fit into your worldview. And even if you support some aspects of one side and some from the other, you still have to pick a side because welcome to Americas 2 party system.

        My experience with many users on lemmy who support “critical thinking” are not actually advocating critical thinking. Theyre trying to justify their mental gymnastics while simultaneously feeding their self-righteous egos

  • ExtantHuman@lemm.ee
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    3 days ago

    The Dipshit tried to bring it back his last term. Guess which country is the top producer of asbestos?

  • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
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    4 days ago

    I’m still in favor of asbestos. It’s an amazing material for preventing fires AS LONG AS you never disturb it. The people that were most at risk of cancers were the people involved in the mining, manufacturing, and installation of asbestos products, but once the asbestos-containing products were installed, they were almost entirely safe for the occupants of the building. You could, in theory, largely mitigate the risks to the miners, manufacturers, and installers, but that is… Well, expensive. And people have a really bad tendency to ignore health and safety warnings when they’re inconvenient. You see the same issue with quartz countertops; they’re known to cause silicosis in people that are doing the cutting unless they do wet cutting for everything, and wear PPE, but a lot of people don’t, because wet-cutting is messy and slow, and PPE is hot and uncomfortable.

    There was a big movement in the late 90s to remove asbestos from old buildings; the current advice is to encapsulate it, and leave it in place.

    • x3x3@lemm.ee
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      3 days ago

      You also have to consider removal at the end of life. Or safety risks if another country drops bombs randomly on your cities.

      • Sneezycat@sopuli.xyz
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        3 days ago

        Fair point about removal; but if you’re being bombed, I think asbestos is going to be low on your list of worries.

    • Cats Akimbo@lemm.ee
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      3 days ago

      they were almost entirely safe for the occupants of the building

      So would you live in a house your whole life that’s “almost” entirely safe? I don’t think I would

      • Test_Tickles@lemmy.world
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        There are plenty of things that you deal with on a daily basis that are significantly more dangerous than asbestos. And if it had been treated like the hazardous material that it is as soon as we knew it was hazardous, then it would still be used just like all the other hazardous shit we deal with daily. However, as is the usual story, companies not only hid what they knew, but outright lied about its dangers. They called it a miracle material with no downsides. And it is amazingly good at what it does, so it was put in fucking everything, much like AI is today. And so people died for profit. A lot of people.

        • mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
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          And it is amazingly good at what it does, so it was put in fucking everything, much like AI is today. And so people died for profit. A lot of people

          funny how history rhymes. I think the confluence of AI and rising fascism is going to kill a lot more people than asbestos if we don’t get our shit together. probably too late now.

      • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
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        I did in Chicago. And I absolutely would again, because it makes my house much less likely to burn down from e.g. an electrical fire.

        I quit smoking a decade ago; my risk of lung cancer was–is–far, far higher from smoking than it ever would have been from living in a house with asbestos insulation in the walls and around pipes.

      • Korhaka@sopuli.xyz
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        3 days ago

        I do. My ceiling almost certainly has asbestos in it. I just don’t touch it. Also uncovered a few chunks that looked kinda asbestossy when breaking up the concrete in the garden, it was only a few chunks so I assume something containing it had been dumped there many decades ago. I just disposed of it with everything else and pretended I didn’t see anything.

        It was a very dusty job in the first place so I started spraying it with water to help prevent the dust getting into the air.

    • Clbull@lemmy.world
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      Aren’t there ways to treat the asbestos and prevent the fibers from becoming airborne and posing a serious risk?

  • MTK@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    Hey guys! Today we will talk about Asbestos 🤯😵😱 Scary! I know!

    But I’m here to tell you that actually, asbestos is super useful and the health hazards are so out of proportion! And this brings me to my sponsor, Asbet Health! Asbet Health have given my viewers a 20% discount for the next 30 days on ALL of their 100% asbestos clothing! We are talking about light, breathable, fire resistant and stain resistant clothing that has been proven to support your health!*

    *Not FDA approved

  • andros_rex@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    I’m in a comment war with a nicotine denialist on here now!

    In the 90s, there were still tons of people angry about seat belt laws. It’s every American’s God Given Right to fly out of the windshield and probably kill someone else.

        • conditional_soup@lemm.ee
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          As a left libertarian, I have a hard time arguing against seatbelt laws. As in, I know they aren’t consistent with my ideology, but the outcomes of having these laws are so much better than not having them. The only thing that I can say against them is that they’re one of the more commonly used bullshit pretexts for initiating traffic stops. I rationalize this trade off and violation of ideals by pointing out that the government has created a fucked up transportation market by enforcing car centrism, and until we can unfuck that, we need to deal with the side effects.

          • andros_rex@lemmy.world
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            4 days ago

            I think the argument is more about the impact on others. If you aren’t wearing a seatbelt, you become a projectile that can harm others - both in your car and outside of your car.

            In general, I agree that ideologically it’s a little uncomfortable to dictate personal choices, but when it comes to road safety I think the government has reasonable grounds to enforce certain expectations (same with things like insurance.)

            It is uncomfortable to give police more pretenses to stop people but road safety perhaps is one of those things we could have a hypothetical “good police force” take care of.

            • shottymcb@lemm.ee
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              4 days ago

              Government dictating that citizens MUST give money to a private company who then gives money to the politicians who make that mandate is wildly immoral. Insurance should be a government program.

              • andros_rex@lemmy.world
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                4 days ago

                Insurance as a whole should be a sort of “public union” thing. No profit motive, everyone who participates in something like driving has to pay some fee for insurance, maybe along with things like registration. Ideally along with massive improvements to public transit.

                The concept of private insurance under capitalism seems at odds with itself. You have to pay out a good chunk less then you take in to turn a profit, and the best way to do that is be useless and fuck over your customers. (With health - Cigna was supposed to cover my top surgery. Pay for it up front be reimbursed reimbursed later. Then, later, it turns out that my employer specifically included a rider that excluded it. I’ve talked elsewhere about how I’ve paid CareCredit back.)

                I don’t know if we should nationalize auto insurance without doing health insurance first though. Would the government be negotiating deals with mechanics? I think hospitals have structures that are easier to unionize and generally smarter/kinder folks than the general population. Mechanics tend to skew the type that’d get upset over navigating fender bender payouts with Uncle Sam, probably going to be harder to get to understand that their labor rights are good things.

            • conditional_soup@lemm.ee
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              4 days ago

              Ehhhh… Traffic stops are more often than not excuses to fish for other, more serious violations or initiate a civil asset forfeiture. It’s actually one of the big reasons I’m hugely pro-transit and anti-car-centrism, because it robs the state of a huge excuse for initiating police contacts.

    • Glitterbomb@lemmy.world
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      Real men aren’t held back by anything! The belt restricts blood flow through the body! It’s a globalist conspiracy to turn our men into women!

      • Cargon@lemmy.ml
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        4 days ago

        Imagine having a heart so weak that a little piece of fabric over your chest restricts your blood flow.

    • ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world
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      My father was an anti-seatbelter up until 2010-ish, when he got a newer car with a better seatbelt system.

    • Wilco@lemm.ee
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      I am evil for this and I admit it.
      Seat belts laws should not be enforced on adults. A windshield dive is a good cure for stupid, I bet a lot of MAGA would literally go out like that.

      • T00l_shed@lemmy.world
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        Trauma, potential physical harm to others. A whole set of reasons they should be enforced. I get what you’re saying though.

        • Wilco@lemm.ee
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          Oh, I know it’s a bad point of view. In my defense I live in a no motorcycle helmet state. As long as you carry the insurance for it.

            • Wilco@lemm.ee
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              4 days ago

              You should see our gun laws. Buy it, carry it however and wherever you want. Constitutional carry.