RunawayFixer

I had a similar experience. The first 2 years where chemistry was a subject, there was always a giant Mendeleev table against a side wall. And in later years it was mostly bring your own, but if you forget, then we'll give you a copy.

Iirc, they knew that it was stupid, their publisher forced it on them. They weren't happy about it either.

That's scorn + derision.

The argument was never about the lady, the lady her plight is a story telling device to make this abstract problem more relatable, to make the story more compelling and to get empathy + sympathy from the audience. The same way I tried to use my grandmother's experience as a story telling device to make you more empathic with people who are differently able than you. These kinds of people exist in every country, you may even know some without knowing it because it's not exactly written on our faces what our cognitive capabilities are. They deserve our sympathy and help if they want it, but to be scornful towards them is bad imo. I really don't like victim blaming.

What I'm trying to say is: Keep an open mind, don't let your prejudices determine your opinions about people, grow some empathy and try to be sympathetic with people's situations. Scorn is never the right answer.

Yeah, there's that scorn again that I was talking about. Your derision and scorn towards those that are less able than you demonstrate a lack of empathy and an absence of sympathy. Your "lots of data" is just your prejudices, you're making sweeping generalizations, not based on knowledge or understanding, but largely based on your preconceived ignorant opinions.

That lady isn't perfect, but as we can see, neither are you. Nor am I obviously. Cut people some slack, grow some empathy.

What this data also tells you is there is not a single country where 100% of people know how to cook, there will be people like that lady in every country. Some countries will have more as a percentage of the population, others less. Even Poland will have some. Those people deserve empathy, not scorn.

What this data also shows is that going out to eat is unlikely to be the reason for not being able to cook. People in western Europe and especially Spain/Portugal/Italy go out to eat very regularly, often daily, yet these countries rank higher on the cooking map than eastern Europe where people eat out less. That part of your reasoning, is again based on prejudice.

Prejudice, lack of empathy, scorn, I realize that these are negative terms and that you will find them offensive when applied to you, but ... they are the correct terms. Your reasoning is based on prejudice. Your attitude towards that woman was scornful. You show a lack of empathy with people who are not like you.

That lady is 1 person, there's no indication that she's representative of the USA population as a whole. To see 1 person and then assume that everyone else in her country must be like her, is a very stupid generalization. Your opinion is based on prejudice, not reason. So far you've shown a tendency for victim blaming, a lack of empathy towards individuals that are left behind & prejudice towards all US Americans. Should I assume from that that all Poles lack empathy, and are full of prejudices about other people? Of course not, because you're only 1 person and therefore too small a sample size to make a sweeping generalization like that.

I'm not from the USA, neither was my grandmother. Irregardless of that, even if we were from the USA, my grandmother would have left school decades before the USA education system fell behind that of other Western nations.

My grandmother also read books and a non stupid daily news paper, but she still couldn't do basic arithmetics. It wasn't about intellect, sometimes it's opportunity and exposure, or maybe the unique wrinkles in our brain. There's all sorts of people, not everyone is able to do the same things, so grow some empathy.

My grandmother was a great cook and also liked to cook, but she still needed my grandfather to do the very basic math to convert the recipe ratios in function of the amount of guests. She wasn't stupid, she just left school at 13yo to help in the house and the only math that she did after that was counting.

All that to say: It's not because it's easy for you, that it's easy for everyone.

I found an estimate of annual expenditures of 3.25 billion, without content payouts, but with engineering/legal/moderation costs. As 2024 revenue I found back 36 billion from advertising & 14.5 billion from subscriptions. Forbes had an article where Google claimed to have paid out $70bn in 2021-2023 to content creators, this number probably includes subscriptions. In those 3 years youtube had an ad revenue of 89.5 billion, but I have no number for subscriptions. These are all very opaque numbers. Based on these opaque numbers, I'd guesstimate youtube's profit margin at 42%, which I find excessive.

$36bn ad revenue + $14.5bn subscriptions: https://www.businessofapps.com/data/youtube-statistics/

$3.25bn annual expenditures: https://www.clrn.org/how-much-does-youtube-cost-to-run/

$70bn payed out to creators from 2021 to 2023: https://www.forbes.com.au/news/innovation/youtube-70-billion-creator-payments/

Edit, how I got to my guesstimate of 42%:
36bn ad revenue in 2024. An average of 30bn ad revenue in the 3 years prior. Estimation for the subscription income in those 3 years: 30/36 x 14.5 x 3=36 billion. 73bn expenditures & 126bn income = 53bn profit. 53/126 = 42%.

This is another sign of how youtube's story of "we've never made a profit" is bogus. More and more organisations are advertising on youtube, youtube is pushing the limits on the amount of advertising that viewers can stand & at the same time they've started paying creators less.

It looks like they've really started abusing their market position in the last few years: more income and less expenditure. And it's probably no coincidence that there are no financial figures for youtube alone.

When looking up "Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib" and baby formula, it turns out that this story is so far mostly being reported on by Israeli news outlets, 2 news outlet with reputations for making up stuff (NY Post and The Telegraph) and a few small news outlets that I don't recognize (which includes The Australian that op used as source). My impression at this point is that it's probably fake news.

Searching further, it turns out that Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib isn't in Gaza, he lives in the USA and this "news" was released on X and first picked up by the NY Post. https://themedialine.org/headlines/us-based-palestinian-peace-activist-claims-hamas-hid-baby-formula-to-accuse-israel-of-starvation/ At this point I'm convinced that it's fake news.

Tldr: Palestinian living in the USA has a video of some Mediterranean looking people doing mundane actions in a warehouse that may or may not be in Gaza, and then the person living in the USA made up a narrative in an online post that fits with his pre existing bias.

The late medieval Burgundians will have been the first to call it the low countries (les pays-bas). They acquired these territories (various duchies and counties in Belgium + Netherlands + bits around it) over time, not as one piece of land. All those different territories had different laws and traditions, different crown laws (HRE or kingdom of France), different local charters, ... It wasn't one country, so plural makes sense.