A controversial proposal from U.S Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to let bird flu naturally spread through poultry farms is raising alarms among scientists – who say the move could be inhumane and dangerous.

  • Cid Vicious@sh.itjust.works
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    2 days ago

    Let’s not use the word “controversial” when “nobody with any qualifications would ever fucking agree with this” is more accurate. Controversial suggests a lack of consensus.

  • NutWrench@lemmy.ml
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    2 days ago

    The Secretary of HEALTH recommends letting a pandemic spread. Think about that for a second.

  • DicJacobus@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Who would have known. The russian mafia puppet government that’s doing it’s best impression of the New world order stereotype… is suggesting a population cull

  • MTK@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Inhumane is ironic considering that the mere existence of poultry farms is inhumane. But yeah, it would be stupid, cruel and it will raise the chance of mutations that spread to other species including us.

    • jaemo@sh.itjust.works
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      2 days ago

      I think they really mean it would be inhumane if you consider the problem vis-a-vis the yardstick most Americant capitalists measure their “humanity” by, ie: less dollary-doos for them.

  • NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    I love how the U.S. spent like 90 years building up soft power around the world and we are giving it all up in like a 3 month span.

    Every person in charge of an agency, is literally not qualified to run a grocery store let alone the agencies they run.

    Its alll about loyalty now, and its going to send the U.S. back into the dark age.

    • Match!!@pawb.social
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      3 days ago

      Hitler came to power because the treaty of Versailles devastated and humiliated germany. what the fuck are historians going to point at in the US that lead to the rise in fascism? fucking gamergate? The self-inflicted 2008 crisis?

      • stoy@lemmy.zip
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        3 days ago

        What historians will point to in my opinion are two key point in modern American history that unleashed the decent into madness.

        1. Raegan, his financial policies laid the groundwork for the modern ultra wealthy tech bros.
        2. 9/11, 9/11 turned patriotism into a national psychotic duty.

        After 9/11 you could slap a US flag on basically anything, shout patriotism and make a shit load of money while being thanked for it.

        Then it just rolled on.

        • dhork@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          Don’t forget the importance of the Citizens United ruling, which gave the green light to funnel unlimited amounts of corporate money into campaigns, reaching a crescendo in this past election when the world’s richest man bought himself a President.

        • Rhaedas@fedia.io
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          3 days ago

          Reagan was in place thanks to the Southern Strategy begun a decade or so earlier to ensure a voting percentage for the GOP and religious right no matter what. There are unfortunately many other “turning points” throughout US history where we could have gone a different route but chose this one, usually because “it’s always been this way” mentality.

      • IonAddis@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        what the fuck are historians going to point at in the US that lead to the rise in fascism? fucking gamergate? The self-inflicted 2008 crisis?

        Losing the Cold War. America wasn’t beaten militarily, but brought down via foreign propaganda. (It also hit the UK, with Brexit, and other countries with similar harmful things going on domestically to them.)

        Livejournal was one of the earliest “modern” social media sites (for those who didn’t experience it, it was like a longer-form tumblr–longer text posts, fewer images), and it was sold to a company in Russia in the early 00s. I remember scratching my head as a 20-something about why the servers kept going down, then I learned that intellectuals in Russia had taken it up as THEIR social media and due to politics “on the Russian” side it was getting DDoS’d.

        I was still too young to connect the dots then, or understand what all that really meant (hindsight is always much better, isn’t it?) but basically they perfected control via social media first on their own people, probably trawled through all the content of the original LiveJournal users posting in English, then perfected using what they learned there on later social media sites.

        And because Americans A) thought the Cold War was over, and B) have a bit of a head-scratcher conundrum when it comes to free speech because it’s valued so highly and nobody likes censorshiop, nobody did anything or even realized anything was happening until the harm was already done.

        Personally, again with hindsight, I think company-designed social media algorithms that just suggest content to you as “trending” or whatever should be illegal (and block buttons should be mandatory). Users should have to be forced to follow, one by one, the content they want to subscribe to.

        Having “trending” algorithms that have no transparency in what they show or boost allows malignant actors to game the algorithm.

        If you force people to follow others based on word of mouth or reblogs from their actual friends, and give people a way to solidly block someone that’s easy to find and instant to use, it will cut a lot of the bullshit down. People will be somewhat less inclined to fall down wells of stupidity. It won’t completely stop it, but people are lazy and if you don’t dangle shit in front of their nose many will go off and do something else instead of putting in the effort to find something horrible.

        • rebelsimile@sh.itjust.works
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          3 days ago

          This is solid analysis. Aside from your proposal about banning opaque algorithms, we also don’t really appreciate how powerful it is for any one human to be able to talk to millions of other humans at the same time is (as social creatures). It pathetically shrinks our world view so that it feels like we’re constantly talking about the same 10 people, when there’s so much more of your life that involves the people you work with, the people in your community, your local politics (like who’s deciding the new garbage truck schedule type stuff) that is completely absent from our online discourse.

          I’d also say that the marketing and advertising industry has accelerated misinformation, distrust and overconsumption. I see about as few ads as I can figure out how (I know this because whenever I look at someone else’s experience of the same apps and services I use I can’t believe what I’m seeing), and yet I still manage to buy things, hear about things I’m interested in, and research and find out about new products. I spend money in the economy. We literally do not need this industry.

          • AoxoMoxoA@lemmy.world
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            3 days ago

            I have also seen friends " youtube feeds" and they are full of videos that I have seen for years and recognized as absolute garbage instantly and never watched, loaded with advertising in the form of “shorts” or a 15 minute commercial for electric scooters (most likely made by amazon, id be curious to know who funds these so called “content creators”) cloaked as a “review of the top 10 best e scooters of 2025” … And rage bait bull shit.

            I have tried to explain to these same people how advertising works and that they may be falling victim to the scam.

            They immediately get very defensive (I may be a little abrasive in my approach but I should be grabbing their shoulders and shaking the shit out of them while backhanding them across the face.) and they say something like " well you watch youtube videos blah blah". I explain that while I do watch them I am searching for the video and rarely watch anything that I am not actively searching for to gain knowledge about a project in the real world ; that I am hip to how these apps are designed to keep suckers engaged and even change the way a person thinks.

            I remember as a kid being fascinated by some advertising, the color schemes , music etc and realizing how powerful they were. That stupid double mint gum commercial is to this day seared into my brain , it will probably blip across the screen when my power gets pulled.

            Advertising is a game of minute, magical calcuculations that when done right are imperceptible and like 3 card Monty or the shell game are very good at separating a dummy from their bread.

            An overwhelming portion of the public are just receivers awaiting their next mission and they do not want to know any better and get angry when you point it out. Thinking or having curiosity about anything is just not their bag anymore. Advertising is truly evil because if it did not exist the natural tendency wouldn’t be blind consumption.

            • YarHarSuperstar@lemmy.world
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              1 day ago

              Man this hits home. I’m so sad that I feel like I get treated like a crazy person for actually talking intentionally I.e. for talking about things that are important to me and what I think is important to who I’m talking to, for choosing my words intentionally and not playing games and picking up or putting out coded implications in my speech, and not wasting time having lengthy conversations to nobodies benefits or worse, that are just causing harm. Setting boundaries has been an important part of surviving while staying as consistent with my values and beliefs as possible, but it gets so lonely and difficult and exhausting, I’m constantly on. If you look through my comment history you’ll see what I mean, I’m frequently leaving long replies requesting to connect with folks who seem to share interests or sometimes just I’m just making what I feel is an important point, and it seems like hardly anyone engages what I’m saying in good faith and actually hears me, and nobody at all actually reaches out

      • NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        A multitude of issues have contributed to this, the creation of fox News, allowing our entire manufacturing sector to leave the country, and then ignoring the poorest and most vulnerable people’s issues, misinformation, social media, state actor disinformation campaigns, and probably a bunch of stuff I haven’t mentioned. Pick your favorite.

      • shalafi@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        I can at least tell you why people vote Trump. All right here:

        How Half Of America Lost Its F**king Mind

        Posted that many, many times, but it’s important enough to post forever. As true now as it was in 2016.

        I’ve been on both sides of what the author is talking about, seen and experienced everything he touches on. Give it a read, it’s important.

        • superglue@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          I think that this was maybe true the first time around in 2016. Trump was a brick through the window. But the 2024 election made no sense. Trumps campaign was based on hate, revenge, facisim and economic destruction. None of those values are supposed to align with your average rural republican. I also grew up around them and was raised to be a rural republican. Trumps stands for virtually none of their values. Those people changed their values this time around, including more own parents.

    • grue@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Every person in charge of an agency was literally selected for the express purpose of destroying that agency. It’s not incompetence, and it’s not an accident. It is deliberate sabotage and treason.

    • oxysis@lemm.ee
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      3 days ago

      We were already a 3rd world country in comparison to most of our allies. Now we are speedrunning becoming a 7th world country

      • NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        That’s dumb, leave the U.S. sometime. Despite the problems in the U.S., we are still one of the richest countries on the planet. I went to a plant in Mexico for work a few years ago, and there were people living in sheds with no running water, entire neighborhoods of that. Outside of homeless people, even our poorest people have it better than a lot of other countries.

        • gonzo-rand19@moist.catsweat.com
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          The US has almost 775,000 homeless people according to January 2024 data, which are more than likely underestimating the full scale of the issue. I doubt those people have the privilege of sheds. Doesn’t that make the US worse?

          “Outside of homeless people” is such crazy goalpost-moving rhetoric when the conversation is about people in extreme poverty.

  • ᕙ(⇀‸↼‶)ᕗ@lemm.ee
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    2 days ago

    stand with rfk. americans voted trump twice into office and shows now sign of stopping their brain rott. bird flu is best that can happen. last time the facist leader was in office we had corona globally - lets just hope for a very localised (to the USA) bird flu outbreak to help the imbeciles remember 2020.

  • limelight79@lemm.ee
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    3 days ago

    If bird flu is such a minor issue, I say we inject it into Donald Trump, JD Vance, RFK Jr., and Elon Musk. Demonstrate how safe it is. Do it. Come on. DO IT YOU WUSSES.

    • Ledericas@lemm.ee
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      2 days ago

      why inject, since you can spread bird flu by coughing in the same room as them. Trump also is a well known germaphobe too, considered trump and his dad both bullied thier brother into suicide and alcoholism.

  • eddanja@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    That’s not RFK Jr. talking. He died long ago. His body is being controlled by the worms.

  • canajac@lemmy.ca
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    3 days ago

    What a fucking disgrace he is to the Kennedy legacy. I hope he gets swallowed by a whale or gets eaten by a bear or a worm eating his brain.

  • ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    I remember when people laughed at the concept of the immune system being like a muscle, that needs frequent excercise, and with same excercise it could be built back.

    Good times.

    Nowadays I wonder when will people shoot each other with increasingly higher caliber bullets to build up immunity to bullets.