https://www.iflscience.com/microplastics-found-in-88-percent-of-sampled-food-from-sirloin-steaks-to-plant-based-burgers-72368

https://oceanconservancy.org/news/its-not-just-seafood-new-study-finds-microplastics-in-nearly-90-of-proteins-sampled-including-plant-based-meat-alternatives/

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230103-how-plastic-is-getting-into-our-food

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9602623/

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/microplastics#microplastics-in-food

Would you mind sharing links to prove your point? Let me know if you need more sources on micro plastics being spread through more ways than just water bottles. There are many results if you just search “micro plastics food”.

Scary shit. They’ve even found microplastics in the placentas of unborn fetuses.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33395930/

Ontario got rid of theirs for any newly built/designated residences. Now you also have to look at what year the damn unit was first rented in. If you aren’t careful with that, your landlord could legally hike up your rent by $10,000 or however much they want to, for absolutely no reason. November 15, 2018 is the date to watch out for, specifically. Anything after that is taking on a big risk, imo.

This is all so fucked. Here’s an example of what I was talking about.

https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/this-is-egregious-sisters-shocked-when-toronto-landlord-raises-rent-to-9-500-a-month-1.6548845

What part of Ontario are you talking about? Did you not get any of the ice storms last year? Ottawa was hit with 38.mm of freezing rain just back in April.

IIRC a lot of people were stuck at home around the holidays, too. At some points the snow was blinding. I agree that there is less snow overall through. It’s sad to see.

It’s an insult to everyone who actually earned their honour.

It’s so vile. I detest that so many people are so willingly and freely hateful of complete and utter strangers, over things that don’t effect anyone else.

This is slowly turning into everything history lessons warned me of, and it’s insane. We are in 2023, we have the damned WORLD at our fingertips, yet people happily choose blind hatred, even if it means they also get harmed in the process themselves.

I hate all of this. I used to believe that way more people were actually caring and intelligent, but it seems like many are very eager to prove that as wrong as possible.

If you ask me, it’s fuckin’ ironic that “facts over feelings” is a point that they try to make. Science supports transitioning, so that doesn’t even make sense. Many animals change their full bio sex in nature. It really shouldn’t be rocket science that humans change genders. It’s not a new thing either, historically speaking. We’ve been transitioning for a pretty long time, throughout many years and cultures.

We need to build more housing, holy fuck.

It can be really easy to change what’s on a label, to be honest. Just set everything up with some time buffer, and there won’t be any disruptions.

I’ll never understand why more information is bad. I’m sure some people with allergies would love to easily know what’s in booze before they buy/drink it.

I would honestly recommend for anyone in another country to also use another source for news. Think about it, what would you do if Facebook stopped it all tomorrow, or shut down entirely? Would you still have access to information about the world around you to the extent that you do now?

Should you trust Facebook that much?

I think this is a nuanced situation. On one hand, the government let this slide for a long time, and too many people became reliant on Facebook for their news. I believe it’s very important for people to have the ability to be informed on the world around them. We should be spreading awareness about these things for people who apparently forgot.

On the other hand, it’s Facebook. Facebook is also not exactly known for being unbaised or truthful. Provably false things have no business being passed off as news, regardless of what side of the coin you’re on. Information is power. We deserve the truth.

We can still use news websites, news apps, FOSS sites like lemmy, the newspaper, watch the news on TV stations, etc. Why are so many people acting like this is the end of all free information? It it really that difficult for people to find another source? I can almost guarantee that you can list 4 or 5 news outlets from the top of your head. If you visit their pages, they will still get their ad revenue. They never got that revenue before because of Facebook.

It’s also another situation where people expect other people’s labour for free. It’s becoming grating. Why are we defending a billion dollar company expecting this from small local companies? Journalists have to eat, too. If it was an easy, time-relaxed job, everyone would be a journalist. It’s almost irritating that so many people expect them to permanently lose out on their hard earned money for the sake of saving people the effort of a few different clicks.

Where is any of this anger or frustration towards Meta, the billion dollar company that refuses to pay for these articles? Meta could have negotiated, but decided to just shut it down instead. Why are we cheering on a profiteering company from the US over our own local news sources?

Some people will argue “they’ll get less clicks now”, but I’d argue that many of those clicks just sent people through an amp-website that mainly benefitted Meta. I’m kind of suprised to see these posts on a FOSS- heavy community, to be honest. I though not having one corporate overlord was kind of the whole point.

The cup. That was a whole thing that I completely forgot about lol

We can only hope

Maybe more homeowners should care about the rental situation, if home ownership is such a risk to lose.

By this, I mean people should stop lobbying against new housing being built. People should start caring when renters begin to get screwed over in new ways. The number of renters is going to keep going up unless we hit a solid population hiatus. “Wait and see” just doesn’t work with this.

Too many people have the mindset of “f you, I got mine”, without looking beyond their own nose. Many of those people don’t realize how close they are to being in a renter position themselves. Demotions, firings, unexpected disabilities, illnesses, fires, deaths, etc. don’t just wait around until you can afford them. Those things don’t care if you’ve had a bad year, or if you’re the breadwinner of your household.

You or I could suddenly wake up one day and have a stroke. Everyone seems to ignore that as if it’s something that only happens to other people.

It’s not exactly rocket science to avoid vandalizing an active temple.

There are other things literally everywhere that the 17 year old could have damaged instead.

What if Canada became the first country to run it’s own Federation?

Hear me out. There would be different pages for federal, provincial, municipal, news, but also ones for local events and hobbies. The big draw to Facebook was that you could reads news and see what your friends and neighbours had to say about it. I think that’s a big part of what’s missing with individual news stations.

Of course, we would have to put serious limiters on government input on the sites to make sure that we keep free speech. I don’t even mean that in the sense of “I want to say hateful things!” but in the sense that I don’t want heavy restrictions on the news that I see, especially not by any one political group. (Looking at you, elections time).

If Canada runs their own Federation separate from this one, they could still run ads to support the journalists.

There has to be a happy medium between “good luck finding news if you don’t want to use a slow, buggy website” and “most of the profits go out of the country”. There HAS to be.

Historically speakimg, it’s rarely good when the general public panics over their money, even if it’s reasonable. When everyone tries to withdraw everything, it’s called a “bank run”.

Banks use “stand-in” money to make/keep money. The know most people would want to keep some of their savings, so they temporarily use some of that money to lend out and to make their own money. That sounds rough, but with many thousands of people, it can work without anyone missing their money when they need it. Those loans are used for home ownership, opening businesses, and more.

If everyone believes the bank is running out of money, they will likely rush to withdraw theirs before it’s too late. This can just multiply the problem, and a bank may end up shuttering for good.

I’m not saying that we are anywhere near that point, but people don’t always need a guaranteed reason to panic.

Long read ahead.

Loblaws is FAR from alone in terms of being part of the cause. I work in food manufacturing for a very big company.

For at least two years in a row now, my company has held a large meeting to tell us that they are making record profits.

This company has its hand in a pretty large variety of products. If you live in Canada, the US, or Mexico, there is a very good chance that you have either eaten their products or purchased them. If you’re from the UK, you’ve probably seen some of their products on shelves, too. For my job safety, I will not disclose which company, although it’s probably not the one you’re thinking of. They have a LOT of sub-brands, and I probably would have never made the connection between them if I didn’t work with those products myself.

I agree that this goes beyond just Loblaws. Every rung on the ladder is trying to squeeze as much profit as possible. You have the ingredient manufacturers. You have the packaging manufacturers. You have the transportation companies. You have the food manufacturers. You have the retailers. Many manufacturing companies work with multiple suppliers. Every step adds more to the cost. Everyone wants their profits.

If companies throughout the chain decide to charge more, the cost can become compounded. My company sells to Loblaws. If my company charges new high prices, Loblaws’ will use my companies new high prices as a base-line for their own profit goals. That 20% to 27% difference is likely from profiteering behind the scenes. Some of our products have nearly doubled in retail cost over the last 5 years.

I work at one company. I previously believed that it wasn’t that big. I doubt that we are the only company to be like this within Canada.

Many of us also see the things happening to the south of the border and are very FOR voting.

I don’t care if I have to walk across town next time. I’m there.

My parents have been saying that for at least my entire life (20-something years). I’m at the point where I’ll believe it when I see it. It may be pessimistic, but too many people in power are just all too happy to let people become homeless.

In my opinion, Airbnb shouldn’t be a thing here right now. Multiple personal properties shouldn’t be a thing here right now. Certainly not when hard-working, good people are starving on the streets. Nothing will change unless we actually change things. If we keep just waiting for magic to happen, we will be forever disappointed.

Anyone who is upset with the current housing market, please contact your officials, and please VOTE when the time comes around. We need a solution.

Today, it’s a random guy down the street. Tomorrow, it may be you or your family. Inflation hurts us all eventually, especially when it just keeps going up.

If they don’t need us to thrive, they should just get over people leaving.

I don’t care about market values, stocks, “group mentalities”, or any of that. Those specific things relating to Reddit have no bearing on my personal life. I don’t care if Reddit thrives or dies at this point. I am done with that company over personal values.

Additionally, I don’t miss the toxic comments. I don’t miss people insulting others at the drop of a hat over minor disagreements. I don’t the miss the poorly-veiled put downs. I don’t miss the condescending tones.

I am happy that I left Reddit. Now that I’m gone, I don’t think anything could ever make me go back.