I'm almost never in Sift Talk, but I noticed this too. Used to be that to make the top 15 a video would have to get well over the 10-vote generic "sifted" status, but recently I've seen several occasions when there aren't enough videos with 10+ votes to even fill out the top 15 completely.

I'm not an extremely long-time sifter, I've had an account here for 8 years and lurked for probably a couple before that. But in general, the main reasons that I actually joined the community here when I rarely do anything more than lurk (no facebook / reddit / whatever for me) still apply:

Standard YouTube isn't a community, it is a toxic wasteland. Trolls are the rule, not the exception. By far.

On the Sift, I rarely participate by actually posting videos, but the comments sections on videos here are a massive breath of fresh air compared to other sites (particularly YouTube). That's what drew me here and has kept me here.


That being said, I think we've been losing some of the openness to different opinions that has been a real strength of the sift community. With such a divisive US President, I'm sure some of that is inevitable. But, while we've always been better about that than elsewhere on the internet, I think we're losing some of that advantage.

I think the sift leans left -- not extreme, but noticeably. I used to lean moderately right, although generally more in the middle on social issues. My time on the sift (and also NOT living in the US) has pushed me more to the left, again particularly on social issues, but even on the meat-and-potatoes stuff that I think actually belongs in the realm of government. I'm still to the right of sift average, but closer than I was. Credit for that shift in my viewpoints is definitely in part due to the sane, open-minded, and accommodating debates in comments here.

I recognize that it is hard to be accommodating to some of the sifters that are further to the right than I ever was. A certain basketball coach comes to mind. But even when viewpoints from sources like that veer into territory that we find intolerable, I think we here at the sift used to be better about rationally but firmly voicing disagreement without sort of ... picking a fight. If that makes sense.

Just speaking for myself, I think I've probably been upvoting videos less because a higher percentage of what is being sifted is political, and I get fatigued with the volume of that. That's very much tied in to the current situation and media environment, so there isn't necessarily anything to be done about it, but I'd wager that is partially responsible for the lower traffic beyond just myself.

Why doesn't he just call a lawyer?

Over four minutes long, and the answer is easy peasy.

And I agree with Dag. He is a human being.

He is also a human being with zero self-reflection skills. He feels empowered and powerful when he can scare others, but is terrified when the guns might be trained on him.

Zero self reflection. Zero understanding of cause and effect.

And a textbook example of Toxic Masculinity.

There are other ways of engaging the world. Get some therapy, dude.

Can't argue that. I've been in California so long that the idea of smoking inside a business didn't even occur to me. The 'in private homes with children and apartments or townhouses' part I find draconian and unenforceable...and we have them here.
On a side note, I also find it distasteful that cigars get lumped in with cigarettes. As far as I know, there have been few if any studies on second hand cigar smoke, which has none of the toxic additives most cigarettes have so produce a different smoke. I'm not saying it's good for you, just that it hasn't been proven to be the same kind of toxicity....yet they are now taxed the same here, doubling the price overnight. (If you can't tell, I'm bitter, I can't afford them now)

True, cars have far more utility (except to tobacco farmers) but are also far more damaging in many ways. It's not meant to be a logical argument, it's more about getting people to see that they also pollute the air (a normal complaint I hear about smokers) in a directly more deadly and indirectly disastrous way, and I hope they will consider that before angrily deriding someone for a cigarette. It's a disguised 'people in glass houses' argument.

Sadly, yes, smoking is an easy target today....alcohol could be tomorrow, or marijuana again (just became legal here)....I don't like our governments going after the easy targets heavy handedly just because they can. It's too easy to portray something or someone as an easy target and go after it solely because a small persuasive group finds it distasteful.

To play devils advocate, there are a few positive sides to smoking...smoking tastes good (to smokers), it acts as a stimulant/depressant and appetite suppressor, it supports an industry of farmers and for cigars, hand rollers, and it helps thin out the herd. ;-)

I live in NZ. There's very much a "she'll be right" attitude to H&S here. And in some ways, it's great. It's easier to set up sports clubs, if you want to go in the wilderness, you're pretty much on your own, etc.

But the flip side is the fact that we have a terrible rate of injuries and actual deaths in industry, especially in agriculture and forestry.

And quite honestly, I think this "H&S gone mad" attitude is actually promoted by companies who don't want to pay to keep their employees safe. And that's not hyperbole, there is literally an ongoing investigation into a company that skimped on safety resulting in the deaths of 29 miners.

I agree it can be taken too far, and maybe the UK really is insane, but in my experience, it's one of those things that people whine about when they don't understand the reasons behind it.

PC, we'll agree to disagree.

Smoking: again smoke if you want to, but just not around me. Why should I have to put up with smoke when I'm having a meal? More importantly, why should the staff who have to work there, have to put up with a toxic environment?

As for the competition argument, it doesn't really hold water. A few pubs in Ireland preempted the smoking ban, and they went out of business, because there's almost always one person in a group that smokes. Having it as a law makes a level playing field.

I've been in three countries now when smoking was banned in pubs. Every time, the hospitality industry said it would be the death of them. 10 years later, no one gives a damn. People still go to pubs and a lot less people smoke. It worked.

No, that's human patience. Chances are that the detainee is an alcoholic, which is a medical condition, not a moral failing.

That these Norwegian cops didn't beat him indicates a common sense approach to the situation. That American cops almost certainly would have battered this defenseless man is an indicator of a toxic culture that seems to be worsening.

@Jinx @eric3579

According to the internet, which is never wrong, the animal/insect toxin that kills the most humans per year is the venom of the saw-scaled viper.

The microbial toxin that kills the most people per year, and that would appear to dwarf the death rate of any animal or insect, is Staphylococcus aureus toxin. The effects of it's multiple exotoxins create multiple conditions ranging from pimples all the way up to sepsis and toxic shock syndrome.

As an example, deaths related to Staphylococcus aureus are estimated to clock in at 50K per year in the USA alone.

They didn't include glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup. Based on it's LD50 of 5600mg per kg of body mass it comes in on a par with pure alcohol at about 400g for a 70kg person or about 30 times less toxic than caffeine.

The deeply conservative (!) "Die Welt" in Germany has two pieces by Sy Hersh, completely debunking the supposed chemical attack by the Syrians at Khan Sheikhoun. It also paints a highly disturbing picture of the decision-making process in both the White House and the Pentagon.

The first one is a rather short conversation that includes all the goodies: the chemical attack in Syria was, once again, not a chemical attack by Syrian forces -- they hit a stash, just like both the Syrians and the Russians claimed at the time.

The piece also details that US forces are keenly aware that it was not a chemical attack, that the response (Tomahawk strike on Syrian airfield) was equally ridiculous and dangerous, and that the bellicose stance of the US vis-a-vis Russia is complete lunacy.

The longer piece by Hersh himself and displays in great details the disconnect between Trump and his military advisers, as well as between the upper echelons of the military and the troops in the region.

Just a snippet about the strike itself:

A Bomb Damage Assessment (BDA) by the U.S. military later determined that the heat and force of the 500-pound Syrian bomb triggered a series of secondary explosions that could have generated a huge toxic cloud that began to spread over the town, formed by the release of the fertilizers, disinfectants and other goods stored in the basement, its effect magnified by the dense morning air, which trapped the fumes close to the ground.

And the media went along for the ride, for the umpteenth time. Remember Brian Williams fawning about the beauty of the weapons?

At some point, this volatile mixture of warmongering and McCarthyism is going to start WW3, and they'll blame it on the Russians.

I think this quote illustrates the issue quite nicely:
“Did the Syrians plan the attack on Khan Sheikhoun? Absolutely. Do we have intercepts to prove it? Absolutely. Did they plan to use sarin? No. But the president did not say: ‘We have a problem and let’s look into it.’ He wanted to bomb the shit out of Syria.”

Uh... no... "Blood Alcohol Content" levels don't work that way...

He blew a B.A.C. of 0.28%, not 28%. Around a quarter of one percent of his blood was alcohol. Alcohol is THAT toxic to you, that less than half a percent can kill you.

28% is like, embalming fluid kinda shit...

His .28 is like, 2 dozen american beer or a Canadian six-pack.

I also figure he probably downed a flask to get rid of the evidence before being pulled over and that probably dropped him from "merely shitfaced" to "mortally endangered" by the time they tested him.

So this is relevant because of a recent surge in support for "radical left" (i.e. democratic socialist, centre-left) Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn who has had a huge surge in popularity in recent weeks in a general election campaign he was expected to catastrophically lose by all mainstream sources.

Since winning two Labour party leadership elections in 2015, voted in by historic margins by ordinary members having their say for the first time, he has faced hostile criticism from all mainstream media sources and most politicians including his own party.

The grass roots, which helped drive his earlier victories, appears to be doing the same thing for him in this general election campaign. The grass roots involvement has included youth musicians, artists and activists coming together from multiple campaigns (Save The NHS, WASPI, most unions, including teachers, fire, police and transport, and far too many other interest groups to mention, including multiple disability campaigners). As well as individuals, parents, elderly, and Momentum - a group formed in the afterglow of his leadership win.

On the other hand, Theresa May's and the Tory party's campaign has gone from disaster to disaster. After claiming to be the party of economic security, they released an entirely uncosted manifesto (Labour's was fully costed, other party's included some costings). After trying to make it a match of personalities, she has gone from robotic gaffe to robotic gaffe, dodging questions whilst Corbyn's easy charm and honesty has gone quite a way to show those weaknesses up. She has claimed to be stable and strong, and the best hand to negotiate Brexit, but performed u-turn after u-turn and is now avoiding all but mandatory press contact because her and her brand have become toxic, thanks to things like the "Dementia Tax" and a promise to vote again on allowing barbaric fox hunting. She has been caught out, and regardless of the results of the general election, Theresa May is finished as Conservative leader. Potentially, the back of austerity has been broken and exposed. A movement has been started and even if the Tory's win, watch out for a mass people power'd intervention over their heinous plans.

God i could go on, this has been amazing to watch. Obviously i'm biased towards Labour, and whilst a centre-right opponent might describe things differently, the facts are the same.

Significant things are happening in the UK right now, not wholly dissimilar from the rise of Sanders, only this time it's for the actual prime minister position - Corbyn managed to outmaneuver the corruption of his party. If the election was 2 weeks longer i would predict a huge Labour landslide. After being so ridiculed by a hostile media for so long, election bias rules have forced the press into giving Corbyn a fair hearing and the more people see, the more they appear to like. The question is, have people already cast their vote by post? Will people turn up and vote? A big turnout is expected to favour Labour. A strong youth turnout will be hugely beneficial to Labour.

Granted, the earth will be fine....but people and other higher life forms probably won't.
Population thinning will come too late, because these effects of overpopulation will last far longer than one generation....unless you mean it will thin out to zero and self correct, which is likely.

What you don't seem to get is that when the ocean acidifies enough, the dead sea life sinks and bacteria causes massive levels of hydrogen sulfide which can then come out of solution and cover land in toxic gas clouds, leading to another "slime world" of slimes and bacteria like happened after the end-Permian extinction.
I wouldn't characterize that as "all is well" myself.

When I was yea high 'til I was three
I suffered from petit mal epilepsy
Any excitement gave me a fit
But there were drugs to cure me of it

Weird diseases
I get weird diseases
Whenever Krishna sneezes
I get weird diseases

So at the least sign of emotion
I got a tranquilizing potion
Thus from the time I was a young boy
I could feel neither anger nor joy

Weird diseases
Random weird diseases
Once from eating recalled cheeses
I got weird diseases

Nearly fatal renal cysts
Maybe Asperger's if that exists
Pityriasis rosea
Two separate times giardia

Weird diseases
I get weird diseases
Wafting on the toxic breezes
I get weird diseases

Debilitating spider bites
Hiccups for three days and nights
A thousand earaches, one deformed eardrum
Hyperacusis, what's that from?

It's from weird diseases
I get weird diseases
Whenever baby Jesus pleases
He gives me weird diseases

Chronic fatigue
COPD
Petit mal epilepsy
Two big holes inside my brain
Migraine aura sans migraine

Weird diseases
I get weird diseases
Weird diseases
I get weird diseases

I guess I'm lucky enough to live in a country where less than one-fifth of the electricity is generated by coal. So I don't much think of coal vs. nuclear in terms of the cancer risks as such. I'll never be close enough to the fuel of a nuclear reactor. And I'll likely be exposed to more toxicity from traffic than coal plants.

Also, our CANDU reactors can be powered by decommissioned bombs.

"CANDU reactors are unique in that they use natural, unenriched uranium as a fuel; with some modification, they can also use enriched uranium, mixed fuels, and even thorium. Thus, CANDU reactors are ideally suited for using material from decommissioned nuclear weapons as fuel, helping to reduce global arsenals."

https://cna.ca/technology/energy/candu-technology/

There is still spent fuel to be managed, which isn't trivial, but I'm okay with at taking a few bombs out of circulation in the mean time.

One of the things that makes me anti-nuclear is the radioactive and toxic waste. Weaponization, accidents and disasters all have a chance to happen, but are hypothetical. However, nuclear waste is created when things are running perfectly as planned, it's part of the plan.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-wastes/radioactive-waste-management.aspx
"Direct disposal (after storage) to a geological repository. The material has very long-lived radioactivity, and will take about 300,000 years to reach the same level as the original ore.
Aqueous reprocessing to remove only uranium and plutonium. The material then only takes about 9000 years to reach the same level of radioactivity as the original ore."

I love how they say "only about 9000 years" like it's not a big deal hahah

Renewable green energy all the way :-)

I've yet to see any credible sources that it WASN'T a chemical attack.

Meanwhile, organisations like Amnesty and the WHO seem reasonably convinced it was a chemical attack, unless you think they're shills too.