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   Reality the Blood Wraith 🌹💙🩸🗡 (thebloodwraith@shota.house)'s status on Friday, 24-Jan-2025 03:41:58 JST Reality the Blood Wraith 🌹💙🩸🗡

   I have an idea:
   
   What if we made it cheaper and easier to do things the ethical way? Businesses would switch on their own because they care about profits, not whether their stuff is made with child labor, underpaid workers, or by dumping toxins everywhere. If unethical options became the expensive, crappy ones, and the ethical stuff was better and more affordable, change would happen fast.
   
   This has to be something everyone can afford, even people barely scraping by. We don’t need the government stepping in—because that usually just makes things worse—we need solutions that actually work for regular people.
   
   Instead of shaming folks for buying or watching the "wrong" thing (which honestly just annoys people and doesn’t help), we could share better alternatives in a positive way:
   "Hey, I found this cheaper, better option to [bad product]! It works way better, costs less, and I’ll never go back. Check out my review here: [insert link]."
   
   Nobody wants to feel like their one purchase/view is killing the planet, especially when it’s really the big corporations causing the damage. If we make it easy to switch to stuff that’s not trash, people will actually do it.
   
   #realitygetspolitical

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     Disa (justdisa@shota.house)'s status on Friday, 24-Jan-2025 03:41:50 JST Disa

     in reply to

     @TheBloodWraith I think something a list site that showed alternative products would be good. The crypto community has a few of these. The ones that come to mind are Monerica and KYCnotme which list services that accept Monero and don't require KYC (identity verification). I look at these services constantly for new additions and have found services to use from sites like these multiple times. I obviously use these because I use Monero as my preferred crypto, but there are others for crypto in general and other crypto specific ones.
     
     I think people are willing to try alternatives if they have an easy way to find them, since that's often the hardest part.

     Jeff "never puts away anything, especially oven mitts" Cliff, Bringer of Nightmares 🏴‍☠️🦝🐙 🇱🇧🧯 🇨🇦🐧 likes this.
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     Reality the Blood Wraith 🌹💙🩸🗡 (thebloodwraith@shota.house)'s status on Friday, 24-Jan-2025 03:41:52 JST Reality the Blood Wraith 🌹💙🩸🗡

     in reply to

     • Disa

     @JustDisa That must have been a pain to deal with.
     
     While I'm not encouraging the idea of people not even trying to begin with, a lot of people are so exhausted that they don't have the mental capacity to be able to do more than go to bed after work. That's why i want to find a way that takes the searching and research out of it and just get the products out there.
     
     I think something that could make ethical things more accessible is if we had a way to do like how some fast food and coffee shops do where someone else can pay for other people's orders ahead of time. So if someone wanted to, they could pay ahead of time so other people could get to try that product. This would make people quickly get off the fence about trying the new thing because now it's completely free, eliminating the fear that people in poverty have about losing what little money they have trying something new and finding that they didn't like it.
     
     Capital is an issue, but I bet an effort like this could literally be funded with crowdfunding to get started. Getting a following isn't easy, but the idea does exist. This conversation has been a good one. I'm not just spinning my wheels. I'm getting somewhere. You love to see it.

     Jeff "never puts away anything, especially oven mitts" Cliff, Bringer of Nightmares 🏴‍☠️🦝🐙 🇱🇧🧯 🇨🇦🐧 repeated this.
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     Disa (justdisa@shota.house)'s status on Friday, 24-Jan-2025 03:41:54 JST Disa

     in reply to

     @TheBloodWraith I think one of the best ways to do this is to try and support local businesses. The easiest thing I can think of is things like meat and produce. Most places have local small farms around and there are spots in grocery stores for local products. There are also some stores which are just inherently more ethical than others and will have sections for locally grown/raised foods.
     
     For things like candy, that's harder, but it's still possible. There are a few smaller brands that you can get online or even in some stores that are independently owned and work on a smaller scale. It's just a matter of finding them.
     
     I had a situation happen about a month or 2 ago, where I needed a new harness for my cat, we like taking him outside so he can sniff around and roll in the dirt, he loves it. But his old harness didn't fit him anymore. We had tried alternative harnesses before but nothing worked. All of them were essentially the same Chinese trash resold and rebranded. They were either too tight despite saying they'd fit or were unsafe. Well, I found 1 company that looked different from the 3 repeated designs that absolutely filled the pages. It was a "Made in USA" product which had a bunch of buzzwords on it, which like yeah they gotta do that for marketing. Anyway I was close to giving up but figured i'd try it out. It wa smore expensive than other harnesses, but I got it....and it actually fit and was easy to get on and get off. Which you'll know is crucial if you've ever tried putting a cat in anything.
     
     But it existed and it was better, it just took some looking.

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     Reality the Blood Wraith 🌹💙🩸🗡 (thebloodwraith@shota.house)'s status on Friday, 24-Jan-2025 03:41:55 JST Reality the Blood Wraith 🌹💙🩸🗡

     in reply to

     • Disa

     @JustDisa The radicalization part is exactly what I'm thinking. it's the same for all things. i don't know what it is, but telling a human not to do something often makes them want to do it more, to the point of fixation.
     
     For instance, I didn't really like lolisho until enough people made an issue of it. At first it was pure spite, but now it's unironic enjoyment.
     
     I'm not sure how we could find a way to make something be cheaper, ethical, and higher quality. Some off brand things are so awful that i could never recommend them to anyone because the off brand tastes so bad or "functions" so poorly, that it just makes all off brand things look like an awful idea.
     
     Some people might at least try to go for cheaper/more ethical, but don't realize that the off brand product they're buying is literally owned by the same guy they're trying to avoid. In terms of keeping things ethical, we're having serious monopoly issues in America. When i was in retail, I learned that the candy companies that were "competing" that we would promote at the cash register were literally the same guy wearing different hats. They break off into differet companies so they don't get in trouble for having a monopoly, but they still own everything. And almost every company is tied to one major evil. That's how it always goes. I found this out while briefly trying to figure out how I could avoid giving Nestle money and realized that they are tied to way too many. If a person doesn't care about other human beings, that's how you get rich. If I had even 1% less morals, I would probably be doing quite well right now.
     
     It'd be rough, but the only way would literally be to buy starter materials, and then be able to produce more materials from the starter materials we were given. We'd be making initial investments in places that are evil to start, but could go from there and create things that are good, and try to pay the unfortunate back later to make up for that initial investment. They are deeply wealthy to the point that they can easily buy and sell countries. Their wealth is the kind that can command standing armies. Control entire sectors of government. Almost anyone can be bought. Every human has a price.
     
     Ethics aren't the first thing that comes to people's minds when they buy. They're an exhausted person coming home from work that just wants to eat and not feel like a criminal for trying to live. We're all too tired to go on an endless search to try and figure out whether a purchase is ethical or not. We're going for quality, price, and effectiveness. But if we find a way to make ethical things easy to obtain whether someone researches them, sees them in an ad, or just starts on accident, then we can get rid of the barrier to entry, which changes everything. The only issue I can foresee is if the on brand companies started deeply lowering their prices in the way that walmart competes with local grocery stores. But this assumes that they're smart enough to take that loss for 10+ years straight trying to compete with the new game in town. They haven't seemed smart for awhile. They're so out of touch with reality with the financial decisions they've been making, doing stuff like replacing workers with robots that can barely do a real person's job before the robots are even ready. With some decisions they're all making in every area of product, it's as if they're allergic to money.
     
     There could also be the idea that they instead take the slander approach, or the Luigi approach trying to make the competition stop existing. If they're especially stupid, they'd be that bold while trying to make it go away, but as I said, they have shown to have lights on upstairs, but nobody seems to be home.

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     Disa (justdisa@shota.house)'s status on Friday, 24-Jan-2025 03:41:56 JST Disa

     in reply to

     @TheBloodWraith This is an interesting idea, I don't know about finding things that meet all the qualities of Cheaper, More Ethical and better. But, if say we found something that met 2 of those requirements, I'd say that'd be worth recommending.
     
     I often buy things which are slightly pricier than the more popular alternatives, but are more ethical and better.
     
     I 100% agree that people hate being told what they do/see/say is flat out wrong. At best, it annoys people, like you said, but at worst it can cause the opposite effect and actually radicalize people under certain circumstances. It can also make them deaf to hearing critiques of potentially worse things that they otherwise might've listened to or heard you out on.
     
     For example, people being told not to use things like plastic straws or being demonized for little things like that as if they are literally swimming out to the oceans and stuffing the straws in the turtle's noses/throats themselves. As if they're just as bad, if not worse as the companies who dump literal tons of garbage into our oceans/atmosphere without so much as a slap on the wrist. That's something I think is stupid to complain to people about.
     
     Now what we really need is an actual decent alternative to plastic straws. I have tried metal, silicone, paper and even bamboo straws. Paper actually disintegrates inside your drink, metal is cold, uncomfortable and, if you're not paying attention, will hurt your teeth/gums and silicone feels awkward in your mouth and will collect so much dust I'm convinced it generates its own. Bamboo seemed the closest to plastic straws, but the ones I tried were too fat and short for my reusable tumbler. So, I wasn't really able to give Bamboo a fair shot.
     
     But if there was an actual alternative that was more ethical and better or even reusable and thus cheaper. I'd snatch those up in a heartbeat because I find having to rebuy plastic straws to be inconvenient. But they're just the only thing that works for me.
     
     I see a lot more people using reusable bags now, for example. I think that's because they are now super easy to get (they're in like every grocery store) and they are often better (more sturdy, hold more). So, people are buying them. Sometimes people forget to bring them and thus need to use a plastic bag, but that's okay because all those times when they remembered they were helping out a little.
     
     
     We should stop trying to expect everyone to be perfect at absolutely everything. People make mistakes, people have weaknesses and people sometimes just prefer something that is frankly not good for them or the environment and I think that's okay. For some people, there's no changing their mind, however for those who would have listened, we need to meet them with compassion and understanding as humans, not as “an enemy” of “us” or “the planet”. We need to hear them out on why they enjoy what they enjoy, and see if there's a way we can help them that also just so happens to help in other ways.

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     Disa (justdisa@shota.house)'s status on Friday, 24-Jan-2025 06:17:40 JST Disa

     in reply to

     @TheBloodWraith KYC is a requirement in some countries. The individuals operating these services do not operate in those countries or operate them anonymously and don't collect personal information.
     
     KYC is often a requirement simply to do business with cryptocurrency. Though, there are many countries where KYC requirements for crypto are much looser or non existent. That's usually where these services operate.

     Jeff "never puts away anything, especially oven mitts" Cliff, Bringer of Nightmares 🏴‍☠️🦝🐙 🇱🇧🧯 🇨🇦🐧 likes this.
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     Reality the Blood Wraith 🌹💙🩸🗡 (thebloodwraith@shota.house)'s status on Friday, 24-Jan-2025 06:17:41 JST Reality the Blood Wraith 🌹💙🩸🗡

     in reply to

     • Disa

     @JustDisa I thought KYC was a legal requirement? That sort of thign only starts happening when certain products are bought in bulk or in too close succession in areas that tend to have issues with scams, fraud, and money laundering (such as buying large amounts of gift cards).

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     Jeff "never puts away anything, especially oven mitts" Cliff, Bringer of Nightmares 🏴‍☠️🦝🐙 🇱🇧🧯 🇨🇦🐧 (jeffcliff@shitposter.world)'s status on Friday, 24-Jan-2025 06:18:37 JST Jeff "never puts away anything, especially oven mitts" Cliff, Bringer of Nightmares 🏴‍☠️🦝🐙 🇱🇧🧯 🇨🇦🐧

     in reply to

     • Disa
     @JustDisa @TheBloodWraith
     > KYC is often a requirement simply to do business with cryptocurrency
     
     uh no it isn't
     
     any cryptocurrency that requires you to kill your customer is a dumb idea and shouldn't be used by anyone
     
     it's *predatory businesses* and nations that require their businesses to be predatory that have KYC cryptocurrency makes it possible to live *without* putting your customers in harms way
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     Jeff "never puts away anything, especially oven mitts" Cliff, Bringer of Nightmares 🏴‍☠️🦝🐙 🇱🇧🧯 🇨🇦🐧 (jeffcliff@shitposter.world)'s status on Friday, 24-Jan-2025 06:19:27 JST Jeff "never puts away anything, especially oven mitts" Cliff, Bringer of Nightmares 🏴‍☠️🦝🐙 🇱🇧🧯 🇨🇦🐧

     in reply to

     • Disa
     @TheBloodWraith @JustDisa in some regions, which do not value privacy