I’ll go first: r/kitty. One of the hundred grillion cat subs back on Reddit, the culture in this one was you posted a cat picture, and the only word allowed in the title or in any comments or replies was “Kitty.”

Someone is using that subreddit for covert communications, I just know it. Either on the level of “if u/PM_me_your_nostrils posts an orange cat, we attack at dawn!” or there’s some steganography going on with the pictures, but that subreddit was too stupid to be as active as it was.

  • @Lianodel@ttrpg.network
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    96 months ago

    Paper straws were pushed by big corporate polluters to build a negative association with environmentalism.

    Plastic straws are single-use plastics, but seem unexceptional by those standards. It’s almost a meme that they’re being singled out like they’re the single greatest source of plastic waste, or uniquely damaging to ocean life.

    On top of that, there are way better ways of reducing straw usage. I’ve used bioplastics that seemed way better. You could redesign the lids. You can do the plastic bag thing and charge people a nickel for a straw or whatever. Hell, you could just not give straws with every drink, and plenty of people will just drink from their cups and glasses. Instead, we get paper straws, something that is so obviously a bad idea it sounds like a joke, or a metaphor for a useless invention. Often served with cups and lids made entirely out of plastic.

    So you get a bunch of people who have their drinks kind of ruined by a frustrating straw. It’s a small thing, but it’s just a little nudge away from environmentalism. You build an association with disappointment and inconvenience. Maybe it doesn’t cause a big sway, but it makes people maybe a little more anti-environmentalist than they already were, or just less passionate about environmentalism.

    • @RobotToaster@mander.xyz
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      16 months ago

      When most ocean plastic comes from nets, it’s hard to disagree.

      Honestly the obsession with single use plastic seems like a distraction. Every piece of plastic in landfill is oil that isn’t burnt.

      • @Javi_in_4k@lemm.ee
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        26 months ago

        Every price of plastic in the landfill is oil that was extracted, processed, and required oil burning to get processed. And we do that for something that will be used once. Plastic in the landfill is not a net positive.

    • @Zanz@lemmy.world
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      36 months ago

      The people who are responsible for the turtle with the straw in the nose video where from the paper straw company. That happened right before the corn plastic straws at the market and after the video all plastic straws were banned in most metropolitan areas, that banned the corn plastic “environmentally friendly” straws before they even hit the market. The paper straws have forever chemicals in them and are essentially Teflon coated so they’re not environmentally friendly at all.

    • @CheeseNoodle@lemmy.world
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      16 months ago

      iirc last check it was about 50/50 people vs bots. The problem is people running bot farms or AI generated channels know exactly how to tailor content to the various algorithms used by big social media companies and thus actual human content is actively burried.

  • @Tikiporch@lemmy.world
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    26 months ago

    I think there are secret grades of retail products and stores get these differently graded products based on the “tier” of store they are. So Dollar General candy maybe didn’t pass QA to be sold at, say, Harris Teeter. I’m not talking about selling a package with less candy in it. I mean, for example, that the candy at the Dollar General may inexplicably have a higher percentage of adulterants or slightly off on flavor so it gets assigned C grade so it goes into packages of candy sold at C grade markets.

    It’s probably not a conspiracy so much as I don’t know what industry jargon to search for to find out more information.

    • Captain AggravatedOP
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      26 months ago

      I know that some of them have their own in-house brands, which can actually be pretty good especially given the price. But like, they’ve also got national brands in there, like say M&Ms, you think the Mars company sells the M&Ms with off-center Ms to the dollar stores and the centered Ms to Whole Foods?

  • @bi_tux@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    the feds and big corpos are spying on you and the only reason you’re still alive is because

    a) you’re a small fish

    xor

    b) you help them in some way by being a usefull idiot

    xor

    c) you’re part of the conspiracy

  • Scientology isn’t a religion or a cult-like one - at least not for the top tier.

    It’s a doomsday cult disguised as a religion to be a tax dodge. Scientology has Gold Base and Trementina base among others, all bunkers. The famous people get money, tax free, donated to their “church”, and is used to fund doomsday bunkers.

  • @JakenVeina@lemm.ee
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    16 months ago

    Also related to reddit, since that’s where I was always inundated with this shit, before moving here: the constant stream of Genshin Impact leaks that come out, that the whole obnoxious subculture is built around, are just released by Mihoyo, intentionally, under the guise of all the anonymous leakers that constantly come and go. Seems to me like the only explanation for how CONSTANTLY leaks come out, and how they’re basically never actually damaging to the game or the company, while being REALLY effective at stirring up obsession in the fanbase, and driving people to invest more time and money into the game to be prepped to get the next new character immediately on release.

    Also how so many of the leakers would release extremely accurate stats and numbers, but then drop statements like “if I release any more than this, I’d be risking my safety” or “since everyone’s been asking about it, I’ll go ahead and confirm X, but after this I’m gonna have to go on hiatus for a while, until things cool down”. Seems like nonsense meant to either inflate the leaker’s ego, or rile up the fanbase.

  • @USNWoodwork@lemmy.world
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    36 months ago

    Anti-perspirant causes breast cancer. You look at data for Japan back in the 90’s-2000s and breast cancer was like 80 times less prevalent in Japan vs the US. Now Japanese are starting to use it more and breast cancer instances are raising to be more on-par with the US. The NIH did a study that was inconclusive so everyone assumes its not true. However, if you read the study you realize exactly how inconclusive it is, and that the answer was truly more along the lines of: “We don’t know”.

  • @bi_tux@lemmy.world
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    06 months ago

    I got another one (that’s pretty much a fact) in order to get facial recognision, fingerprint sensors, etc working you have to login with your ms/apple/google acc, on windows 7 you didn’t have to… now why would you need an online connection to setup a piece of physikal hardware with local sofyware??? It’s pretty simple: apple, google and microsoft know your face, your fingerprint, your voice, your location, etc

  • @hperrin@lemmy.world
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    16 months ago

    They build our houses specifically to be inefficient at staying cool, then they sell us AC units and power to cool down our inefficient houses. They must be stopped.

      • @EnderMB@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Rule under Mufasa was essentially an oligarchy, with oppression everywhere. Unlike the other RACIST lions, Scar would spend time with the hyaenas, providing them food and protection. He skipped the crowning of a new pampered little shit, and after getting shit from his king brother he had had enough - he ended the bloodline.

        His first act was to remove oppression, giving equality for all. Then a huge natural disaster happened, absolutely no fault of Scar’s, and life was harsh.

        Then, Simba the little prick just fucks off, lives the dream in luxury like the pampered little asshole he is, and then decides “fuck it, this is too nice, let’s bring back the racism”. He comes back, plants doubt through a hate campaign and the hyaenas kill Scar. The drought ends, Simba brings back oppression, and has another little cunt kid.

        Scar was a hero. He undid years of ruthless oppression against other species, and got shit for it because the land was left in a poor state and couldn’t handle a downturn in weather.

  • @elollie@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    46 months ago

    Windows, Android, & Apple software used to nag you about installing updates endlessly. They don’t do that so much anymore. I think it’s because instead of alerts asking us to install updates, they now create network outages, software crashes, and other minor issues that require a restart. How often do you have some inexplicable problem, restart your device to fix it, and your machine is like “Hey while we’re in there we’re also installing this update we just downloaded a moment ago.”

    • Captain AggravatedOP
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      26 months ago

      The number of updates I’ve seen on my phone has decreased because it’s old enough to be done with feature updates. I got out of Windows before it got that bad.

      Something I don’t miss from Windows was each app was responsible for its own updates, so you’d sit down to draw something in CAD or whatever and it would say “need to update to continue” so you’d have to sit there listening to the fans whine for a few minutes before you could start. This still happens occasionally on Linux because some software is just the Windows version running in some compatibility layer or something, but it happens a lot less because the package manager handles all that at once.

  • @KoboldCoterie@pawb.social
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    56 months ago

    Some US states that keep enacting highly unpopular anti-trans, anti-woke, sexist, racist legislation are doing it in an effort to get left-aligned people to move away and not consider going there, with the goal of skewing elections in their favor.

    • @Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works
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      16 months ago

      How is this a conspiracy, the whole red neck stereotype of “We don’t like your kind around here” shows how this has been part of common knowledge for a long time.

      I’m not saying it’s obviously true, I’m saying I thought this was a popular belief.

      • @31337@sh.itjust.works
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        16 months ago

        Most politicians seem like grifters and change positions to whatever is popular with their base or donors though. So, it does seem like this is a part of some grand-plan. I don’t think many Republican politicians actually care about women’s sports or who uses which restroom, yet they manufacture outrage and campaign on it. This kind of stuff was on no “normal” person’s mind before media started focusing on it.

  • @throbbing_banjo@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Tinfoil hats on? Alrighty then:

    All these Verizon outages are intentional and part of the plan to invalidate the 2024 election.

    We’ll see it happen again on and around election day, maybe xitter will go down too.

    Whole voting districts in Georgia won’t report in, citing system crashes, security breaches, whatever they feel like making up. Republican Secretaries of State will declare the election compromised before vote counting even starts.

    Obviously there’s also a hurricane and massive flooding, hence the tinfoil hat, but let’s not forget where and when we are in history, and that The Business Plot was a real thing.

  • @Jomega@lemmy.world
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    06 months ago

    You know how some people believe Paul McCartney is dead and was replaced with a body double? I think that happened to Jontron at some point before the incident.

      • @Jomega@lemmy.world
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        16 months ago

        Shortly before the flex tape video, he announced he was going to appear in a debate with another Youtuber named Destiny. In this debate, he claimed that “Rich blacks commit more crimes than even the poorest of whites” (direct quote, I shit you not), and that Donald Trump had never said anything racist. It was completely out of left field and shocked pretty much everyone.

        My theory is kind of a joke, but I seriously have trouble believing that these are the same person. It was so sudden and so random that I want to believe that there is some other explanation as to why it did. Up until this point, Jontron had stayed fairly apolitical. On the very rare occasion he’d share an opinion on Game Grumps, it would be the most milquetoast moderate thing you’ve ever heard. To jump from that to retweeting actual Nazis for praising him for saying what they believe feels completely insane. It’s easier to accept that there is some sort of sussy imposter imitating him than to believe this just happened.

        Turning the serious off for a second, I think that if anyone knows the truth, it would have to be Arin. I don’t think Danny was involved. He might just be blissfully ignorant.