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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: July 16th, 2023

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  • I used to work in chemical exposure insurance and to be honest, it would be very difficult to tell because of the increased risk of cancer from chemicals used in the growing process as it is. Most of the countries that have banana plantations can’t really defend their citizens against huge fruit companies, so if something has been declared illegal in Hawaii, they just use it in their other plantations, and of course the US is dismantling the EPA and NLRB, so soon they might not even be illegal there anymore. Organic fruit is not significantly different, because there are lots of things that are allowed for them that are still carcinogenic to humans in large concentrations.

    I’m really sorry to be a downer, but sometimes the world sucks, and pineapple and banana companies suck even more.




  • I used to work in long-tailed litigated liability insurance claims. Think asbestos, lead paint, toxic exposures, etc. Insurance comes into play for defending companies against lawsuits made by people suffering from those exposures. I rationalized it to myself for a year and a half (if we don’t pay for the company’s defense attorneys, we couldn’t pay the claimants their settlements; we’re just following the contract; at this point, the big players are bankrupt, so the claimants are just going after easy targets; etc.), but it makes the world worse and I eventually quit.

    I looked at other aspects of the industry, but there really wasn’t a role that I could feel totally comfortable with. At best, I felt like I I worked for the organization which gave earth “adequate notice” for the hyperspace bypass in hitchhikers guide.

    I went back to school and now I teach new immigrants the local language. It took a lot of work and I make less money, but holy shit was it worth it.













  • People can be ignorant and even sexist without being manosphere. Neither of those strikes me as super Joe Rogan or Ben Shapiro-ey.

    But yeah, we’re living in two separate worlds, and when a person ignores what half of us experience, it’s no different from a white person saying that black people just need to be polite to the police, the way they are. (As a teenager, I was regrettably that white person. But I’ve grown, and so can others in that situation)





  • Obviously it’s not a romantic thing, but also related to the individual’s level of comfort with seeming insults, this is a recent situation that did not make sense to a coworker of mine.

    My dad just cut his finger off (non dominant pointer, so either #4 or #5 most important, depending on how highly you rate pinkies) the other day after many, many decades of woodworking and general tinkering. He’s otherwise okay, but it hurt like a bitch and it couldn’t be reattached. He’s mostly regretful, with a touch of existential jolting.

    My sisters and I got him a giant foam finger two days after it happened and he laughed his fucking head off. I got a pretty good chuckle on that very day from “hey, 9/10 ain’t bad,” but I’m pretty sure that was mostly the painkillers, because it’s not a good joke.

    My coworker told us under no circumstances to get the foam finger and we should just be nice. I get the sentiment, but that would scare the shit out of my dad. For context, after shaving his wife’s head during the course of her chemo treatments, my dad looked at her in the mirror when she was feeling nearly her lowest and said that he’d always had a crush on uncle Fenster, but he’d never expected to get so lucky. She laughed uproariously.

    I was raised by these people, so that’s the kind of thing that I say. A relationship with someone who was always earnest would not work for either of us.