• RyanGosling [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      11 months ago

      I once saw a post making fun of another post lamenting about how workers are forced to stand for no reason instead of being allowed to sit.

      The top comment was “capitalism allows you invent a chair if you wanted to sit.”

      • bdonvr@thelemmy.club
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        11 months ago

        Tangentially related to this thread sorta, lived in San Antonio. There’s a major bus station by one of the largest malls. Right next to it. But there’s two sets of fences between the station and the mall and nothing between, DMZ style.

        The red is the best walking path.

        Can’t have poors in the mall

      • pixelghost [any]@hexbear.net
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        11 months ago

        I got in trouble at a job once for giving someone a cup of water when they asked. Boss told me I should charge a whole dollar for it, because of the cup (I said “sure” and kept giving it away anyway). Policy in most places seems to be to not engage with someone unless they intend to spend money.

        Normal and functional country.

    • DragonBallZinn [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      11 months ago

      Hey now, don’t say that! Seeing that the guy is British, he most likely wants to expand his world…by having his country copy America!

      (Unironically, watching Britain’s Americanization has been horrifying.)

      • SkingradGuard [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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        11 months ago

        watching Britain’s Americanization has been horrifying

        and funny, because you get a lot of American-isms introduced into the language because of TV/internet. It’s also occurring all over the Angloid countries, especially countries like Australia and NZ. I guess the main downside is the awful politics has become more awful because they’ve imported the “culture war” nonsense.

      • Barabas [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        11 months ago

        Privatisation of water treatment has done wonders to help England on the way to not having clean drinking water. The old infrastructure they’ve been coasting on is starting to fall apart now. Love all that raw sewage straight into water systems.

        But at least some people made money, and isn’t that what it is all about after all?

        • drhead [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          11 months ago

          But His Majesty’s government graciously allows you to take 20 cubic meters of filthy river water per day! How could you possibly need more? /s

          (this is apparently what “abstraction allowance” is)

  • Stephen304@lemmy.ml
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    11 months ago

    I’m 99% sure that account is a troll. They previously argued with me that an Asus router can do everything a business grade firewall like opnsense could do, then proceeded to stick their head in the sand and provide no counter when I pointed out several limitations of consumer router hardware and features that even replacing stock firmware won’t get you. Their trolling becomes super obvious really quickly.

  • Luminocta @lemm.ee
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    11 months ago

    Yes water is a basic human need. So it’s most important. However, real free cannot exist. In the Netherlands, a country that is quite social, water is not free. We have some of the purest tapwater the world knows. People work for that, big systems have to purify that water and in turn need to be maintained. It’s expensive. I don’t mind paying for water if it gets me the best quality water in the world, from my tap. It’s not expensive, in fact it’s cheap. If this becomes free to me, I think that quality wil suffer.

    Then again. I live in a country that values human life and doesn’t slave away for capitalism completely.

    • Tankiedesantski [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      11 months ago

      Except everything you’ve said is true of public roads and those are somehow free. Literally nobody is talking about this straw man of “true free”. Nobody thinks that potable water can be created, regulated, and distributed without the labor of many people. However the example of public roads, public schools, etc, show us that it is actually very much possible for essential services to be funded out of general taxes and be free and openly accessible.

      Moreover, water access activism isn’t necessarily even about drinking water in many places because agricultural water sources are being tapped unsustainably and distributed unfairly. Especially for indigenous peoples who rely on already precarious water sources to make their remaining land habitable, this has never been an issue that can be solved by going to the mall to fill up your drink bottle.

    • 420stalin69@hexbear.net
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      11 months ago

      It’s not “waaah why is it not literally free” and it’s weird that chuds on the internet interpret it that way.

      The complaint is not that it isn’t literally free. The complaint is that their water system was destroyed.

      “Water is a human right” isn’t about a few cents for tap water. It’s a demand for water systems to be protected and not exploited with disregard for the impact of that exploitation.