Politics in Media - The Good, the Bad, and the Preachy

It sounds like you resent warning labels because you think they treat you as if you were an idiot or something.

Also, you're mixing your poisons up. You wouldn't get a dessicated lung from drinking. You'd get a messed up liver.

Edited by M84 on Apr 14th 2019 at 9:59:37 PM

Well fair is fair, what someone may find a really useful tip to be warned about is blatantly obvious to others. A lot also depends on the way the warning is worded.

Let’s not forget the caution hot thing was the result of a famous lawsuit against Mc Donald’s which became the subject of mockery despite the woman in question getting THIRD DEGREE BURNS and only wanting to prevent the accident from happening to anyone else. So when you think “people are idiots” just remember, sometimes the warnings are just a way to weasel out of actually making things safer.

Absolutely, putting labels on is no way out of actually fixing the safety hazard if fixing in possible.

@Robretch: "Warning labels don't protect the stupid, nor the ignorant, they protect the corporation from liability."

They do both. A warning label is "proof of natural selection". If I make a cleaning agent and I slap a label on it saying "don't drink it", then anyone who can read yet drinks it anyways is a certifiable moron, and that just can't be helped.

Seriously, the real surprise is that these companies haven’t got in trouble for people getting severe burns by drinking the coffee.

Edited by Novis on Apr 14th 2019 at 12:24:12 PM

Liebeck v. McDonalds.

Though she didn’t end up being awarded too much in the end.

Edited by archonspeaks on Apr 14th 2019 at 11:28:07 AM

IIRC the woman who sued them actually did get more money than they initially asked for.

Though it is an extremely bizarre case of people, for once, siding with a megacorp over "the little guy".

Edited by Protagonist506 on Apr 14th 2019 at 11:28:50 AM

She got less. She was supposed to get $2.86 million, she only ended up getting $640,000. I think it ended up being even less than that in the end since they ended up settling out of court, though she did get her medical treatment paid for.

Edited by archonspeaks on Apr 14th 2019 at 11:31:31 AM

Coffee should not be served at boiling temperatures. That is both irresponsible and classless. Corps like Mc Donalds do it so you can't actually taste the coffee and realise it's terrible.

And since people don't really expect coffee to be served at that kinda temperature (because it shouldn't be), a cautionary warning is actually proper.

Though this reminds me that there was a recent story about a link between hot drinks and cancer. The linked page dropped coffee from the list of carcinogens due to being normally lower than 149 degrees F, but I doubt that the specific boiling hot cup was that low.

Youtube channel host Nerd Sync discusses the message the Captain Marvel movie makes with it's changes to the alien race the Skrulls. He discusses how the Red scare influenced the original Skrulls from the comics while also mocking the "comics are apolitical" stance.

Edited by windleopard on Apr 14th 2019 at 12:38:11 PM

The whole mess pretty much ruined what was left of her life even though she won the case. She died at age 91, a little over ten years after she was burned. The lasting damage from the injuries plus the stress of the court case took its toll on her — she had to use the settlement money to hire a permanent live-in assistant during her last years in life.

Another element of the case is it's fundamental banality. The reason that the coffee was boiling hot? Because the employees at Mcdonalds were selling it at boiling temperatures to disguise the fact it was stale. They hated refilling the pot every morning and people drinking super-hot coffee were less likely to notice its taste. Mcdonalds solved the issue by simply ordering its employees to brew a fresh pot every day.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Apr 14th 2019 at 1:40:54 AM

During the Kree and Skrull War comic, "Operation: Galactic Storm" we had the Skrulls revealed to be a peaceful trading race that met with the primitive Kree. The Skrulls announced a contest between the Kree and a race of peaceful plant aliens. The Kree lost the contest but then slaughtered the plant aliens. Because Kree are assholes. When the Skrulls object, the Kree murder the Skrulls and steal their technology like in that one Enterprise Mirror episode. This triggered a thousands year long war. So the Skrulls being the ugly but sympathetic ones have always been the case.

I hate this class of conflicts, you know?

Summarizating a agressor nation to "they're assholes" in a personal way feels...wrong.

Don't get me wrong, invaders are assholes, but their collective thought process for a inicial invasion usually involves more than just Evil Is Petty.

I have annoyances with Forever War in general too, but I've grown to just accept it as part of the settings.

Edited by KazuyaProta on Apr 14th 2019 at 7:01:21 AM

By Guardians 1 Ronan's belligerence was fringe.

The Skrulls were never really all that peaceful. In the comics, the present day Skrulls are the descendants of the Deviant branch of Skrulls. The Deviants were the victors in a genocidal war between them, the "baseline" Skrulls, and the Eternal Skrulls. Turns out shapeshifting is kind of a massive advantage in a war (the other branches couldn't shapeshift).

That genocidal war apparently exhausted the Skrulls' appetite for war for a while, which likely led to them deciding to employ mercantilism and free trade to expand their territory instead of warfare. But then that mess on Hala occurred.

The twisted thing about that contest was that the Skrulls never even got the chance to judge the outcome fairly. The Kree were just so insecure and jealous of the Cotati's park that they decided they'd rather commit genocide than wait for their "inevitable" loss.

Edited by M84 on Apr 15th 2019 at 1:42:06 AM

I've wondered. Besides cases as Nazi Germany, The URSS and the CSA, which are the nations that are more used as the base for bad guys in fiction.

Nazis by far.

But it should be noted the Skrulls (despite being a monarchy) have long been associated with Dirty Communists and the Kree (despite being Imperial) have long been associated with A Nazi by Any Other Name.

So it's a good thing that they hate each other in fiction.

Typically colonial powers, especially Spain. Also, the Catholic church.

Edited by gropcbf on Apr 15th 2019 at 5:17:05 PM

I've never see Spain based villains, any example? I'm legit interested.

I mean, Spain is a weird case that gets both whitewashed and demonized at once, which makes discussing it really hard.

Zorro is the only prominent example coming to mind.

Apparently the Valuan Empire in Skies of Arcadia is based off of Spain, so maybe that counts?

Kaiketsu Zorro is of course the definitive version. Antonio Banderas did a valiant effort, but the sequel was...

Edited by Oruka on Apr 15th 2019 at 8:47:53 AM