• 0 Posts
  • 41 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
cake
Cake day: June 20th, 2023

help-circle


  • The title is, unsurprisingly, heavily exaggerated. The study does not claim there are “billions more people”. They studied 307 different dam construction projects around the word, and found the actual number of affected people in those rural areas was like 40-80% higher than estimated.

    Their conclusion is that it’s likely the population of the world is quite underestimated, but they don’t want to guess by how much, that’s all cooked up by the “journalist”.


  • Finn here. The common answer is that all sad people kill themselves here. The suicide rate is surprisingly high.

    For a more serious answer, you have to look at what the survey actually measures. There are 3 big factors in this survey.

    1. Social support, the people believe they will get help if they need. While healthcare system receives lots of criticism due to constant budget cuts, it’s still fast and cheap enough for those who really need it. Economic security is possibly the best in the world, where you receive decent support if you’re poor enough and a small apartment if you’re homeless, without any preconditions.

    2. Freedom, the people feel like they’re free to do what they want with their lives. There are both laws that protect you from things like trespassing, meaning you can walk anywhere you want in rural areas, while the police are really lenient in urban areas and don’t really care what you do as long as you don’t disturb others. Also in general, people don’t want to bother others as much as I’ve seen in other countries.

    3. Perceptions of corruption, the people believe in the government and media. We enjoy a strong democratic system that, although not perfect, is among the best in the world. The political climate is also rather mild, with the largest party in every election being centre-left, centre or centre-right. Although the right-wing has recently been on the rise, it seems like that trend is starting to turn. As for media, the state sponsored YLE is about as unbiased as media can be, although their coverage of global events can be somewhat lackluster. Also, despite being state sponsored, they operate completely independently.




  • In order for negotiations to conclude, both sides have to agree. The US isn’t one of those sides. In 2022 there were a lot of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, but they were so far from agreeing that they realized there’s no use in negotiating for a long time.

    There’s nothing Biden could have done, apart from sending even more aid, to help the situation. And now with Trump chatting with Putin, there’s hardly any difference. No deal will be reached without Ukraine agreeing, which they’re clearly not.

    The only result from this will likely be that the US completely stops all support, forcing the EU to send even more aid, and the war will drag on a lot longer, probably years.






  • TaTTe@lemmy.worldto196@lemmy.blahaj.zoneArteries rule
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    27
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    6 months ago

    “Your body - your choice” refers to the basic human right that you’re your own master and no one else can own/control you.

    It’s especially used in the discussion about whether abortion should be legal or not, where it refers to the fact that the fetus in a pregnant person is indeed part of that person, and they are allowed to do what they want with their own body (e.g. abortion).

    The post mentions the opposite, “your body, our choice” which refers to the anti-abortion movement where people, often due to religious reasons, think they should have control over a pregnant person’s body, rather than the pregnant person themself.



  • TaTTe@lemmy.worldtoMicroblog Memes@lemmy.worldDuality
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    9 months ago

    I was actually surprised when I was in the UK last year and people were standing on the right in the escalators. But they walked on the left in crowded places. I was expecting all pedestrian traffic to be left-sided, but it was more mixed, like their measurement systems…