Hans-Christoph Steiner @eighthave@librem.one

I should also add that food factories are not necessarily high impact on the environment, if utilized correctly. If an organic food factory replaced a much larger piece of farmland, and that land was returned to an entirely natural state, that will be beneficial. Instead, it is almost always used to grow off-season foods, like strawberries in Spring and Fall. That means it is just increasing negative impacts on the ecosystem.

@popolon if you read German, this article talks about the Bad Blumau project, which is both organic and with pesticides. https://kurier.at/genuss/erste-paradeiser-aus-thermal-glashaus-in-bad-blumau-geerntet/308.359.018

Of course, food factories are not only for organic food. There are plenty of food factories that grow produce with lots of pesticides. My point was that what regulators consider "organic" ("bio" in German) is often far from most people's conception of what organic means. Organic labeling is important, but it is not enough.

After ~15 years of organizing video conferences in many contexts, I've noticed that each platform represents a specific culture. The culture is defined by how the software expects people to interact, how the various powers are granted, and how the moderation capabilities are managed. #Zoom #Webex are a corporate meeting, #Jitsi is an informal meeting space, #Skype is 1990s IM merged with desk phones, #Signal is SMS/mobile calls, #WhatsApp is 1990s IM merged with SMS/mobile calls.

For example, here is the #BadBlumau food factory that capitalizes on #Hundertwasser's image of living with nature

I always had this picture of a beautiful natural setting when I thought of #organic farming. That's how it is so often portrayed. The reality in the #EU is that #organic produce comes from food factories that have the same impact on the ecosystem as any other massive factory. The whole area is paved and roofed, the soil, insect, and bird life is wiped out, and the crops are grown in highly controlled, factory conditions. Watch the industry video to see the whole picture https://vimeo.com/183478317

@nat I applaud your effort to create a non-addictive fediverse app! I also think the anti-design term is problematic. User-centered design should be focused on what the user wants out of the tool. Few users want to become addicts, so the existing tools of user-centered design apply to making non-addictive software. The root of the problem comes from #SurveillanceCapitalism, where the customer pays for the user's attention, so the companies must keep users "engaged". This is unethical design.

#wood can be a #sustainable building material and #energy source, but only if managed correctly and #EU policy currently does not reflect that well. European old growth forests are rapidly disappearing and when replaced, are turn into tree farm monocultures https://www.theguardian.com/environment/gallery/2021/apr/16/forests-felling-swedens-ancient-trees-biodiversity-sami-environment

The real sustainable practices, which were used for centuries, are still known but barely practiced https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2020/09/how-to-make-biomass-energy-sustainable-again.html

@amolith you forgot the third option, which is likely the majority: either

In purely military terms, the attacks of 9/11 have proven to be one of the strongest examples of asymmetrical warfare: Al Qaeda spent some 10s of millions to do $2 trillion in damage, and triggered NATO to spend trillions on wars that ended up killing more of their own people than the original 9/11 attacks did. Or to put it bluntly: the people of NATO got played
http://www.iags.org/costof911.html

#Afghanistan once again proves to be the graveyard of empires. Fading empires have been fighting a totally counterproductive war there for 20 years. Even worse, the war cost 50% of Afghanistan's GDP. Money well spent? #NATO could've just made direct payments to Afghanis. Who would still support extremist militias if NATO had given the entire country a 50% raise for the 20 years. The stupidity of that war is unfathomable, it shows how broken the status quo politics are https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/apr/16/20-years-western-intervention-afghanistan-terror

@cketti I bike by the Vienna one weekly, and it makes me thankful, even though it is complicated. The Soviets were pretty rough as occupiers, my family feared the Soviet soldiers, and they were Social Democrats!

NYT "Europe's Vaccination Problem" did not represent the story well, some valuable discussion, but rushed to binary good/bad judgments, like it was bad that the #EU did not put export controls on domestic manufacturers. That's not bad, it's responsible and ethical! Sure US/UK got short term benefits even they will have contact with the rest of the world again, regardless of what Trumpists want. EU Deal probably sped vaccine delivery for most EU countries, e.g. small ones https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/12/podcasts/the-daily/covid-vaccines-europe.html

@cketti that might be a little different since the DDR was quasi-Soviet, or at least strongly aligned. Austria got forced neutrality rather than East or West alignment

@cketti ah yes, not surprising there is one in Berlin. so the capitals that were occupied by the four allies got them, I guess.

Does anyone know of any monuments to foreign armies that occupied the place where the monument is? I've always been fascinated by the giant #monument to the Soviet Army that is in central Vienna, and I'm curious whether anywhere else has something like that.