How Flint is doing is irrelevant to what I said, the same as me picking on a polluted city in Canada doesn't change the fact that Canada generally has safe drinking water.

The comment I responded to made it sound like US tap water is mostly not safe to drink. That's demonstrably untrue. I'm not defending the horrors of industrial capitalism or condoning environmental destruction, I'm merely pointing out that the US does in fact have standards, regulation, and enforcement for drinking water quality. This does not mean it's perfect, but it does mean that in general you can drink the water out of the tap, like I do every day.

I hate that we live in a world where only extreme viewpoints are allowed. Either the USA is the greatest country in the world or it's a complete shithole, anything else is just shouted down. I still make the stupid mistake of caring about what's real rather than what makes a good soundbite on social media.

"Drinking water quality in the United States is generally safe. In 2016, over 90 percent of the nation's community water systems were in compliance with all published U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) standards. Over 286 million Americans get their tap water from a community water system. Eight percent of the community water systems—large municipal water systems—provide water to 82 percent of the US population."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drinking_water_quality_in_the_United_States

I don’t know where you got that idea, but public tap water is federally regulated in the US (at least for now). Bottled water is popular because of marketing, not because tap water is unsafe.

Admitting you were wrong/made a mistake/can’t do something.

Related: changing your mind. The one thing that can still destroy any politician is the dreaded “flip-flop”. Yet the thing we most need them to do is to revise their position in the face of new information.

I think most of the problems in the world come down to some sort of bullshit posturing that (especially male) humans seem to be compelled to engage in.

A return is what you file. The money you get back for overpayment is a refund.

Sorry, pet peeve of mine that comes up every tax season.

Spindrift ruined it for me.

For me, this is a feature. The last thing I want is celebrities and news outlets clogging up my feed of nice people’s sandwiches and cat pictures.

There are plenty of home gamer quats too (just look for active ingredient: yadda yadda ammonium chloride) My favorite is Formula 409. I buy the industrial refills and just top up the sprayers.

One thing if you’re actually trying to sanitize: they have a contact time. You need to let the surface stay wet for a minute, or 10 if you’re trying to kill the andromeda strain.

Leaded gasoline.

Not the question you asked, I know, but I have been buying my tea from uptontea.com since before they had a web site and you had to call in from a printed catalog. Loose leaf tea is economical and gives you a wide variety of choices. I’m drinking my go-to Kensington Breakfast Blend right now.

This post is basically what the Lemmy community has become, in a nutshell. I thought there would be a mass exodus from Reddit but it seems like the only people who came here and stayed are far out on the fringe. Between this kind of stuff and “I refuse to own a car because the infotainment system is not open source!”, I find myself more and more gravitating back to Reddit for some normality.. which is a hell of a thing to say.

Not at all. This is not a moral judgement about anyone else. Just answering the question.

I guess I've reached a point in my life where I can easily afford to buy something if I want it, especially in the price range of a video game or book. I used to do all that stuff, not to get back at the man, but because it was the only option that was accessible. Eventually the hassle factor of piracy kept going up while just paying for it became an accessible choice.

Nah, you're good.