331–340 of 420 posts
> different culture Different culture, when used to subdue and forbid what others do, stops being a goal of a xenophilic society and starts being a nuisance to personal liberty. I am a xenophilic person, and I am absolutely disgusted by things such as this.
https://gctpnews.org/qatar-2022-world-cup-death-toll/ "The name of the current [migrant worker employment] system is kafala, a system forcing all migrants to be sponsored and subsequently tied to an employer. The kafala system has been frequently described as modern day slavery due to its exploitative nature. This employer controls housing, wages, travel, and the well being of each employee." "[...] an estimated 4,00…
Google tells me that the population of Qatar is 2.881 million. If 90% of that is foreign workers, that's 2.593 million foreign workers.
The timespan for those 4000 deaths in your link is not given. I'd guess it is over several years since the construction projects for the World Cup are taking place over several years, but let's put them all in one year just to make sure we aren't giving Qatar the benefit of the doubt. I'm also going to assume that most of the workers are young but not children.
4000 deaths among 2.593 million people in a year is a death rate of 154 per 100k per year.
For comparison, the death rates in the US [1] for males ages 15-24 is 100 per 100k per year, and for ages 25-34 it is 177 per 100k per year.
Without more to go on, it looks like the 4000 deaths might just be about the normal number of deaths one would expect in a group that large.
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/241572/death-rate-by-age...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"similar effect"s are not relevant here. H1B are free to go back to their home country at will.
That assumes a lot of things that aren't true of the H1B holders I've met through work.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most countries on earth simply cease to function as they are doing now with alternative eco-friendly energy sources. Applying alternative energy sources where it doesn't make sense to do so ends up throwing billions of dollars on having solar panels where they can never generate the energy they theoretically could (Germany, I'm looking at you)
I do not know, whether this is true, but: When I was in school, we learned in geography class, that one could power the whole EU, if we occupied some area of the Sahara desert with solar panels, at least when looking at raw energy output, disregarding day night differences and possibly hot and cold environment that a desert is. I guess humanity is still not ready for such projects of enormous cooperation between coun…
I sometimes hear that too. The YouTube channel "Real Engineering" did a video about the idea: [1] The TLDR is: the Sahara definitely gets enough sun, but transmitting the power into Europe would be hard.
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The gulf states are modern-day slave societies.
As are the "Western" states; we just mostly keep our slaves in Asia, America, and South America, for efficiency.
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Taking another example - I HIGHLY doubt every single BLM kneeling player actually agrees with it. But they do it because their priority is playing football, and it's better to stay silent and focus on the football. Which I think is actually fair enough. You might actually destroyed your entire career in this case by taking a principled stand, and you are being forced to participate in something against your will. In…
Well, to draw examples from the US, Curt Flood tossed his baseball career to break the reserve clause. Cassius Clay/Muhammad Ali lost years of work due to Vietnam. Colin Kaepernick tossed his football career to showcase racism. I'm sure there's non-US examples but those are what came to mind. I don't mind people "going along to get along", but I respect those who put themselves at risk if they're talking RL issues. B…
I think Colin Kapernick is not as good, he wasn't a good player, and in the current environment what he did was guaranteed to be embraced by the cultural leadership of the english speaking world, he was basically held up as a hero, and got his own TV show.
If a premier league player refused to kneel for BLM, he would be banished from football and public life forever, for being an evil racist. And would probably have a hard time finding any work for a long time.
https://gctpnews.org/qatar-2022-world-cup-death-toll/ "The name of the current [migrant worker employment] system is kafala, a system forcing all migrants to be sponsored and subsequently tied to an employer. The kafala system has been frequently described as modern day slavery due to its exploitative nature. This employer controls housing, wages, travel, and the well being of each employee." "[...] an estimated 4,00…
> The name of the current [migrant worker employment] system is kafala, a system forcing all migrants to be sponsored and subsequently tied to an employer. Isn’t that exactly like how the L1/H1B system in US work? Employer sponsoring and being tied to the employer till the lottery?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"similar effect"s are not relevant here. H1B are free to go back to their home country at will.
That assumes a lot of things that aren't true of the H1B holders I've met through work.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We do, effectively. North America produces enough petroleum today to meet its own needs[1]. But the rest of the world doesn't, middle east oil is cheap relative to offshore or (especially) fracked petroleum, and at the end of the day fuels are a fungible commodity and our local prices reflect demand in the rest of the world. The bit about "dependence on foreign oil" you're hearing is largely spin. Supply is not the p…
I'm of the impression that we can't use our own oil because our refineries largely aren't equipped to process it (different kinds of oil require different kinds of refineries, which is to say oil sort of isn't fungible), but rather our refineries are equipped to process foreign oil. So we can pump to our heart's content, but without the refineries we aren't able to use that oil.
Everything is about cost. Back in the 90's, we couldn't get to our fracked oil because our existing equipment wasn't able to extract it. Then prices spiked and it made sense to build/invent new equipment. Refineries are changing too, to accommodate the state of the market they serve.
The bottom line is that "we" (in the sense the upthread poster meant) have plenty of oil. We pump plenty of oil. People saying we need to pump more oil are ultimately just reflecting the desires of companies who want to pump (and sell!) more oil and not the putative nativist needs of "our" oil consumers.
The bottom line is that no matter what the US does, oil prices are on a steady, inexorable rise[1] as the world exhausts its cheap supplies and needs to transition to difficult sources (again, fracking is the poster child here). Everything else is just crony politics.
[1] Though at this very moment they're experiencing an external shock due mostly to the war in Ukraine.
> different culture Different culture, when used to subdue and forbid what others do, stops being a goal of a xenophilic society and starts being a nuisance to personal liberty. I am a xenophilic person, and I am absolutely disgusted by things such as this.
Certainly you would agree there are bounds to personal liberty.
You can throw your punch anywhere, as long as my nose is not in there. (Take this sentence literally)
Please do not get into the metaphysical debate of what harm will mean broadly. Not in the mood.
Adult people having a fun night in a hotel room is not harming anyone.