this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2025
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Pleasant Politics

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 hours ago (4 children)

Where in the ever loving fuck is corn $7/lb? A 7/11 in Alaska supplied exclusively by dog sled?

I get this sentiment here but the way these posts are filled with straight up lies makes it feel like agitprop.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 39 minutes ago

They miquoted the TikTok, it's prices per kg

[–] Freefall 7 points 1 hour ago

Also how much are Chinese getting paid comparatively. I'd rather see what % of each sides income goes to various things. If $1 is 50% of your income and $7 is 5% of the US side's... Like I can move to a nice place in Mexico and live like Elon or Bezos does here....doesn't mean Mexico has its shit together and a higher quality of life.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 hour ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Agitprop? On ~~my~~ our Lemmy?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 minutes ago

Ty for fixing it I almost had to report that guy for antisocial behavior

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (1 children)

As a Brit its hard to tell sometimes when posts are just Americans complaining or if they really are being screwed over. We don't really grow corn like America does, for bulk cheap veg I guess we have potatoes. Spent £0.68/KG on them when I walked to Aldi the other day. Our minimum wage is £11.44/hour and rising to £12.21 in April.

[–] Whats_your_reasoning 2 points 35 minutes ago* (last edited 30 minutes ago) (1 children)

The federal minimum wage in the United States is $7.25 per hour. That's equivalent to about £5.95 . For reference.

Most states have their own minimum wage, which complicates things. My home state, for example, just increased its minimum wage to $15.49 . That's about £12.72, so close to par with what yours will soon be.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 minute ago

Don't forget that employers can pay disabled employees less than that $7.25 that was established in 2009.

[–] MooseTheDog 13 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

I don't care what your ideology is, or which side of the isle you're on. This is a good thing. What may come of it, is yet to be seen. I'm convinced however, this will make us stronger as a species in a death struggle against capitalism.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil 7 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Do I find the flood of users from TikTok to Rednote extremely funny? Yes, absolutely.

Do I think its indicative of an ideological sea change in a country that's gradually closing the door on any kind of subversive or radical sentiment? Not particularly, no.

People who just want to watch TikTok dances and re-cut Family Guy shorts aren't going to win a death struggle against the owners of the biggest treat machines. Rats fleeing a sinking ship are not agents of revolutionary change.

[–] MooseTheDog 2 points 2 hours ago

False dichotomy but I could see it either way

[–] [email protected] 19 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

The corn thing is absolute bullshit. The ambulance thing is dead on. I got my ambulance bill today from the city Fire Dept. And it is $3,900 to go 4 miles, no lights, sirens, or drugs administered in the vehicle. Just a ride.

[–] BatrickPateman 8 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Insane to me as a European.

I had a surgery on my nose done, to improve breathing at night. Was fully covered by my health insurance no questions asked, and according to their statement less than 2000€ incl a night in hospital. Only thing I had to pay was like 10€ or so to the hospital.

Can't imagine what that would have cost in the US of A. I'd probably still be struggling with breathing.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

So I can't say what your cost would have been but can tell you mine for a minor stroke.

3 days in ICU, Clot Buster drug, CT Scan, MRI Scan, ECG, Heart Ultrasound, 3 Blood Screenings, and a slew of other drugs, tests, and treatments.

Total: $236,678.49 Including the Ride to the Hospital. I didn't have insurance at the time as I was out of work and my wife was moving to a new position so I'm on the hook for 100% of that.

[–] BatrickPateman 4 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Holy shit. We have everyone pay ~15% of their wages to health insurance which sure sucks for some if they don't need anything paid (e.g. me, since I was always healthy). But than again that bill would not be such an issue around here.

Damn, you people need more Luigi's.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Yeah, we are long past time for something like that. My philosophy for years now has been that it's time to introduce some politician and billionaires to some classic French technology.

[–] BatrickPateman 3 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Agreed. History is really important and should be taught in more detail.

[–] Whats_your_reasoning 1 points 12 minutes ago* (last edited 12 minutes ago)

Absolutely agreed.

My elementary school taught early U.S. history (colonial era, Pilgrims.) Middle school taught ancient history (the Fertile Crescent, ancient Egypt, etc.)

My high school taught one (1) year of world history.

Then two more years of U.S. history.

Because, you know, 'Murican priorities.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 hours ago

Depending on how much of the firewall that Beijing wants to maintain i think it'll bifurcate into an a Chinese and an international app

[–] MooseTheDog 5 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Corn is 64c a can here in White Flight Missouri

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago (2 children)

There's a lot of water in canned corn though. Probably easier to compare with frozen.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

About $1.20/lb at both stores near me.

Edit - fresh corn on the cob is $0.70 per ear near me. In January.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

$8.40 a dozen, which is only slightly more than what local farmers are now charging here in the Midwest in the summer when it is in season. That's nuts. I can't imagine it's very good at this time of year though.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago

I am sure it is frozen and thawed. Seems strange to grow corn in a greenhouse.

[–] MooseTheDog 1 points 2 hours ago

Yeah, but that's Corn water. You don't get that with frozen.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 hours ago (3 children)

Corn is absolutely not $7/lb wtf are you even talking about.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 36 minutes ago

The original post they're quoting tplked about kilograms, not pounds

[–] UnderpantsWeevil 2 points 2 hours ago

An ear of corn yields, on average, about 3/4 cup or 2oz of kernels. There's 16 oz in a pound. My grocery store was selling ears of corn for $.67/ea. 16 / 2 * .67 = $5.36/lb. You can get ears of corn pre-shucked and wrapped in plastic for closer to $1/ear, at which point you're looking at an even $8/lb.

$7 is in the ballpark, at the least. The markups on even simply abundant produce like corn is absurd.

[–] bokherif 3 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

Let’s forget corn and look at other groceries. Where I live, half a gallon milk is $5, a loaf of bread is $6.5, potatoes are $3 a pound, dozen eggs are $6 and so on. Grocery prices only rose about 200% in the past 4-5 years. I used to get loads of food for $100, now everytime I do a grocery run I pay at least $70-80.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 hour ago

That is based fully on where you live. I just got home from the grocery store.

1 Gal Whole Milk: $2.69 1 Dozen Large Free Roaming Chicken Eggs: $2.89 2.5 lbs 80/20 Ground Beef: $7.86 5lb bag Russet Potatoes: $2.56 5lb bag Satsumas: $7.85 1 Loaf Whole Grain Bread: $3.12

But at the same time, I did see that a 12 pack of Pepsi was $9, 1/2 gal Tropicana Orange Juice $5.50. I didn't get these things, but they were more then they used to be by a significant margin.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 hours ago

This is selective. A dozen eggs at Aldi near me is $3.50. There is no loaf of bread in the store which is $6.50. According to my grocery log I have kept over the past ten years, process are up about 20% since 2020.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 7 hours ago (2 children)

Sounds like a fun new game, called "Propaganda or not?"

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 hours ago

"Corn is $7/lb in America" is either propaganda or a joke from Arrested Development

[–] UnderpantsWeevil 3 points 2 hours ago

The best kind of propaganda is simply a perspective on the truth.

Back when Drudge Report and Brietbart were a huge hit online, the sites would have subcommunities that were entirely "Black Crime" and "Radical Islamism". They got flooded with videos, screenshots, testimonials, news reports, publicly available statistics - anything to reinforce the base claim that black and Muslim people were inherently dangerous to be around. You'll find lots of communities like that today on Reddit and 4chan and Twitter and in the back corners of your Joe Rogan Fan Community message boards, too.

People who come out of these media ecosystems are primed to be reflexively angry and terrified. They've been filling their brains with data point after data point - plenty of which are technically accurate - cementing the justification for their racist attitudes.

Now you're seeing something of the reverse on sites like Rednote. Endless iterations of data from Americans signaling that we are all miserable and impoverished and horribly abused by state administrators. What's that going to do to the brains of the people who consume it?

[–] BeMoreCareful 17 points 10 hours ago

I'm not sure if it's more of a reaction or something that is around to stay for a bit. It's very much a Chinese app, The majority wasn't in English, but there are plenty of bilinguals. I went ahead and signed up and cruised around for a bit to see what's what.

There are a lot of welcome posts warning that it's ok to criticize the US government, but don't criticize the Chinese government. Which is interesting, but I doubt toktokers/Americans care about criticizing the Chinese government. There are some jokes about Taiwan that may bother some, and LGBTQ+ content and religion are basically no-gos. It does make you realize that there's not really a replacement for TikTok, you've got your further right spaces and your corporate friendly places, but a chunk of the free assembly Internet was just killed by the government.

It seems like it's kind of a Lady tips and tricks focused Instagram/Facebook/family-friendly from 1000 years ago type of thing, minus the advertising and thirst traps.

I think it absolutely won't fulfill the slightly subversive and free range aspects of the TikTok hole, but it seems like both the rednote and tiktok crowd are having some fun with interacting. The language barrier will probably be too great to last past the initial bubble of excitement.

From an outsider: the lack of ads/promotional material/sponsored content/internalized marketing is the most striking difference to me. It's super possible to underestimate how culturally ingrained and normalized that stuff is. The big caveat to that is: I don't speak Mandarin, so who knows what it's really like.

I'd honestly say: download and cruise around, it's pretty interesting tbh. It's a bit more wholesome, I guess because of socialism/the social focused culture (as opposed to US individualism/capitalist paradigm).

It's kind of a gas, and may be a neat opportunity to take a peak at a side of the world you don't get to see much. Who knows how long it'll last. Plus, get a chance to troll the US media/government.

[–] [email protected] 41 points 13 hours ago (11 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 hours ago

pretty sure thats so you can answer phone calls while the app is open

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

From what I understand TikTok is used as the main example, but RedNote would get banned as well.

[–] ScoopMcPoops 9 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Literally anyone America can consider an adversary can be banned. I sure love my free market!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 hours ago

But in this case it would be automatic because it's from China. I might be mistaken though.

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