World News
A community for discussing events around the World
Rules:
-
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
-
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
-
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
-
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
-
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
-
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
-
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
-
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
Lemmy World Partners
News [email protected]
Politics [email protected]
World Politics [email protected]
Recommendations
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/
- Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link
view the rest of the comments
Not to be defeatist, but...
We didn't abolish slavery... we just replaced it with wage slavery. Sure, the workers are free to leave - and try to survive with no other job opportunities and no money. In fact, for the employers, this is actually preferable to real slavery, because there are lower upfront costs for your slaves, they don't try to run away or rebel, you don't have to pay for their healthcare or long term care, and in many places government tax dollars will subsidize their living expenses. Employers have it WAY better with wage slaves than real slaves.
Child labour is still alive and well in many countries, and even there the ball is rolling on rolling THAT back in the US at least.
I admire your positivity, but I'll believe it when I see it.
Don't forget prison labor slavery, especially in the south. It was specifically added for that very reason.
And also actual old-fashioned slavery. I've read there are more slaves in the world today than there were in the 1700s. Even modern western countries aren't immune, it's just more invisible .Sex trafficking is a good chunk of this.
If you really think that wage slavery is comparable to being owned by a human, then you're delusional.
Yes, slavery and child labour still exists. But if you think living in the US or China or India in 2024 is just as bad as 1850, then you are also delusional.
Some countries like Afghanistan or North Korea might be objectively worse, but those are a minority.
Okay, I can see how you got that from my post. I was a bit hyperbolic in my original post, and I apologize.
I'm not REALLY making a moral equivalence argument or saying anything about comparing the horrors of slavery to work... I'm saying getting rid of slavery was easier to enact because there was an alternative system that happened to be ultimately profitable for the rich at the same time. Yes, wars have been fought to stop abolition, but at the end of the day, after slavery was abolished, the rich found a way to stay rich almost everywhere - abolition came at very little real change to the wealth structure of society. They had a supply of labor to exploit for profit during slavery, and they had one after. The fact is that the moral and financial interests both aligned on making abolition happen - it wasn't caused by pure strength of willpower. And yes, the system we have now is MUCH MUCH better than true slavery, but it's still a stretch to use the current system as a beacon of hope.
On climate change the moral and financial interests are NOT aligned in a clear way. There are always still going to be financial incentives to screw the climate for extra money. By comparison, if slavery were somehow legal again TODAY, it's not clear it would be profitable for anybody to actually do it. That difference will make climate goals harder to enact.
There will always be winners and losers with any change.
Plantation owners definitely lost a lot of wealth due to the abolition of slavery, while the industrial tycoons gained a lot of wealth.
Switching away from fossil fuels will similarly benefit those who invest in the energy sources and technologies of the future, while shrinking the fortune of those dependent on fossil fuels.
Already, some forms of fossil energy are losing new investment.
For example, the high profile Keystone XL pipeline was never built, even though Trump approved it, because investors doubted its profit potential. Biden revoking the permit was mostly symbolic.
Now, I do otherwise agree with this more nuanced take of yours. Morality needs to be aligned with financial incentives in order to achieve change. That's just how our current world works and I don't see that basic mechanism changing.
So it makes more sense to focus on making fossil fuels less profitable, e.g. through taxation.
I agree with your conclusion, but I don't agree that it's feasible. Any tax solutions will involve legislation by a government owned by those same interests. And even if you managed it in major economies, you'd just force the climate issues into places with fewer qualms about their fuel usage. I'd love to see this problem solved, but my faith in our ability to resolve it is far less than yours.
Once the alternatives become more profitable, they will move to legislate in their favour.
Here in Europe, we already have billions in subsidies for wind and solar energy.
Will it go smoothly, or fast enough?
No, I think 3 degrees warming is basically inevitable at this point.
But it will happen, about five decades later than it should have happened.
Guess we will see in the next two decades.
I hope for everyone's sake you're right, but if that does come to pass it will come as a surprise to me.
I agree, all the evils of yesteryear are still there and active, just either well-hidden or people simply don't care/pretend not to know (cfr football world championships in Qatar, ...).
We've made enormous progress technologically, but humans are still the exact same as 2000 or 5000 years ago. We've changed exceedingly little in that time, and the few things that have changed could be reverted very quickly if shove comes to push concerning climate collapse etc.