A contraception debate is gripping one of Argentina's most notable luxury neighbourhoods – not for its wealthy residents, but for its original occupants, the capybaras.

In recent years, the lovable rodents have been accused of overrunning the Nordelta, a meticulously landscaped and manicured suburb north of Buenos Aires.

Now, in a bid to quell reproduction – some accounts suggest the number of capybaras has tripled to more than 1,000 in the past three years – the Buenos Aires government has approved wildlife population control plans, involving selective sterilisation and contraceptives.

Marcelo Cantón, a resident and spokesperson for the Nordelta Neighborhood Association, says that while capybaras themselves are not a problem, the "excessive growth" of their populations is, adding that it is causing the creatures to "fight among themselves, fight with dogs in private gardens", leading to traffic accidents.

"Capybaras have more than 500 hectares of lakes and public parks here, with no predators, no hunters to catch them for slaughter," he says. "There are none of the limits to population growth that exist elsewhere."

According to El País, the new plans would see two doses of contraceptives injected into 250 of the rodents, known locally as carpinchos, which authorities hope will stem reproduction for up to a year.

But not all neighbours are in agreement. The Nordelta sits within the Paraná Delta, an environmentally important wetland home to dense flora, an abundance of birds and dozens of species of mammals.

Silvia Soto and a group of neighbours known as "Nordelta Capybaras – We Are Your Voice" say the plans should be halted, dispute that there is an overpopulation problem and criticise property developers for ignoring proposals to create biological corridors and protected areas.

"For years, we have been asking for different, linked green areas that function as natural reserves connected by biological corridors, to protect the capybaras and preserve their survival and coexistence in their own natural space," Soto said, adding that the group's surveys had "not been taken into account".

Environmentalists are also now weighing in and calling on the government to protect the capybaras, which are the world's largest rodent, and the wetlands.

!friendsofaevann

I loved the first two seasons. I think I liked S2 slightly more than S1 but both are good.

!animalposters !cats

https://www.texasobserver.org/ice-prosecutor-dallas-white-supremacist-x-account/

Top Drama

Relative Drama (takes into account the size of the subreddit)

autodrama: returning jobs to dramneurodivergents. Ping HeyMoon if there are any problems or you have a suggestion

You dumb BIPOCs were elected to make eggs cheaper and kick out immigrants, not to open on the most r-slurred fricking week in all of politics.

In his first week, President Trump:

• Renamed the Gulf of Mexico

• Withdrew from WHO for no fricking reason

• Froze medicaid, meals on wheels, student loans and farm subsidies because they're woke

• Prepared to enter a trade war with Europe over fricking Greenland and a trade war against Canada for no reason

All and all, an astonishingly shit first week that is a mind-blowing political failure

POV you're a West Virginian 70 year old Trump voter who didn't want to starve to death

So, a shitty first week. But kek on frens, that's not what it's about, is it? It's about winning. It's about the vibe shift. It's about being able to say r-slur in public, and honestly I feel that. You won. You totally won.

Just not on being unwoke. You dumb fricking r-slurs won on the economy;

Even immigration, Trump's strongest social issue, is a distant 4th to the economy. But all Trump is focused on is doing is scoring pointless cultural victories, like banning s from the military or ending affirmative action in hiring federally.

And this is the bombshell; Americans by and large liked wokeness.

The majority of Americans, with the exception of literal boomers, consider being woke a good thing. You don't like woke. Your friends don't like woke, I don't like woke. But no poll has come out to say outright that the American people by and large have a negative opinion of woke, wokeness or DEI. Yes, even DEI - it's popularity is backsliding, but it still commands a popular majority.

You dumb BIPOCs are fricked come 2026 and 2028.

>he got blocked by Crunchyroll for this
I'm so glad pirate sites consistently get more traffic than Crunchyroll pic.twitter.com/veSi98sP9H

— Chise (@ChiseHatoriBan) February 11, 2025

How did I just get the most golden clip without prompting... pic.twitter.com/K7qO0pmZLt

— DosXXMachina (@DuosEquis) January 30, 2025

Most Based Comments

Basedness: 🔥🔘🔘🔘🔘

True, but not universally across nations and religions as this fricking guy. (146)

What did he do? (50)

Basedness: 🔥🔘🔘🔘🔘

9 million per home! How?In Chile, that is much more prone to earthquakes sometimes x1000 stronger than LA (most seismic country in the planet btw), most modern constructions (including houses) are made from concrete, and they are earthquake proof, and they definitely don't cost anywhere near 9 million (323)

It may just be because of their extreme building regulations permits and purchasing power parity (10)

Basedness: 🔥🔘🔘🔘🔘

/u/inspectcloser Building inspector here. A lot of these comments are dumb stating that concrete and steel can't hold up to an earthquake yet look at all the high rise buildings in LA and earthquake prone regions.The video makes a good point that the US society largely conforms to building HOUSES with wood.Luckily steel framed houses are a thing and would likely be seen in place of wood framed houses in these regions prone to fire. Pair that with fiber cement board siding and you have yourself a home that looks like any other but is much more fire resistive.Engineering has come a long way (1116)

What's the cost difference vs stick built? (18)

Angriest Comments

Angriness: 😡😡😡😡😡

Path dependence is certainly a factor - but it's hardly dominant, or even the biggest one for most areas. More importantly though: for a fire that severe, there is a fairly good chance the concrete building will need to be demolished anyway. Concrete won't burn, but it can be damaged by fires in other ways: expansion, corrosion, spalling, cracking, etc. This is also a major factor in other regions in the US with different disaster risks. If the expected damage from the disaster is high enough that you expect to demo/rebuild either way, the cheaper construction wins out. This holds for major flood risks and for things like tornadoes. It doesn't hold for hurricanes because there is a safety component - concrete block homes have sufficient wind resistance to allow shelter during hurricanes, which is why they are a thing in Florida (even though the flood damage often means they have to be demolished anyways). That said: for fire in a particular there is a level of "herd immunity"... (1)

Angriness: 😡😡😡😡😡

This is a legitimate request for insight. I'm constantly worried about how much BS is floating around and how susceptible I, personally, may be to it. Even if someone is worldly, intelligent, educated, canny, or whatever, the sheer volume of misinformation means you're bound to fall for a lie eventually, right?And I can't make any special claim to bring any of those things. So: this video seemed plausible to me. I could buy it and fold it in to the body of things I "know". What about it is wrong? My biggest issue is it doesn't make any radical or harsh claims or judgements and it tells me something o already expect to hear (people are fricking up because they won't change) it's a really easy to accept it and let it add to my "knowledge". What's the catch? What is it making up? (1)

It's treating these recent wildfires like it's a major threat to all housing the US. Non-Americans do this every time there's a natural disaster that destroys homes in the US.The thing is, this wildfire destroyed a few thousand homes when there are 81 million homes in the US. Not only that, it was a fairly unprecedented wildfire that burned into an urban area because of the confluence of some pretty uncommon variables. That makes it big news for obvious reasons, but that doesn't mean that there's something wrong with Americans building wood houses. The reality is the vast, vast majority of wood houses in the US won't be destroyed by a natural disaster. They'll just be victims of time and progress, likely tore down to make way for a new house more in-line with the prevailing style of the time. So, the video is basically alarmist. It's like someone claiming that Germans are stupid for not building vehicles out of 1/2 plate steel because a few people die in wrecks every year and that o... (3)

Angriness: 😡😡😡😡😡

Concrete does not do well in an earthquake. A poorly designed concrete house will still burn. It is possible to design so that the house is earthquake and fire resistant. The USA found this out the hard way. Look up pictures of cities that were destroyed by earthquakes. In most of the world wood and brick are not cheaper.Wood does not do well in fires. A poorly designed house will still collapse in an earth quake. It is possible to build fire and earthquake resistant houses. In most of the world it is not significantly cheaper than concrete. So choose your poison. LA burned for many reasons. Mainly Government stopped measures to prevent fires. Like water management, firebreaks, defunding the fire brigades, stopping power suppliers from putting in fire prevention. Building codes obviously were inadequate. Forestry /grasslands management is appalling. Personally with current State Government, bureaucratic and community attitudes, I just wouldn't live there. Too dangerous. Looks like m... (0)

Biggest Lolcow: /u/Alarming_Local_315

Score: 🐮🐮🐮🔘🔘

Number of comments: 5

Average angriness: 🔘🔘🔘🔘🔘

Maximum angriness: 😡😡😡😡🔘

Minimum angriness: 🔘🔘🔘🔘🔘

NEW: Subscribe to /h/miners to see untapped drama veins, ripe for mining!

autodrama: automating away the jobs of dramneurodivergents. Ping HeyMoon if there are any problems or you have a suggestion

There was 0 care when Elon gave his three word reply to a tweet about redditors wanting to kill him and his zoomer concubines :soysnooseethetalkingtyping: and the sub just went down at a snap of the finger.

We all know it's because of them needing to janny it up so he can't find anything more, but does he even have any power to potentially bring the entire site down?

He always replies to longposts about shit nobody cares about so could it be possible to compile a large list of Reddit wrongs , threadify them for twitter , then send it straight to him and see where this goes?

Worst part is r-slurred eastern Europeans saying the game is broken when they can literally just turn rollback off.

The "news" article even quotes the intent and then goes on to entirely ignore it

Naturally chuds

This bill is about sperm and regulating it, which is creepy, weird, and all sorts of 'WTF.'

Like chuds obsession with babies.

9 11 is canon in mlp

— domomajig (@stonydomo) January 28, 2025

Africa isn't exactly known as an intellectual hub, though the continent has produced several successful academics. For anyone interested in receiving the best education possible on the continent, South Africa is the ideal destination. This has been both positive and negative. On the plus side, immigration into the country for academic purposes has allowed the country to attract some of the best talent on the continent. On the downside, it makes entry into university tougher, as it means you're competing with the entire continent for limited spots.

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/student/best-universities/best-universities-africa

When looking at the best universities on the continent, you'll notice that it is dominated by South African universities, with the University of Cape Town consistently taking the top spot. Over the course of my academic career, I've interacted with a few of the top universities and I'd like to share the most entertaining controversies that have emerged from them.

Some of you don't like suspense, so I'll list the three universities I'll be discussing before I begin. I hope you enjoy the read.

3. Rhodes University - #RUReferencelist

2. Stellenbosch University - Pissgate

1. University of Cape Town - Decolonsation

With each university, I'll be asking you a key question. I'm writing this after taking some promethazine pills so I'm feeling warmly sedated. Consequently, this is the theme song for the longpost:

Rhodes University - #RUReferencelist

As I've mentioned in passing a few times on the site, I attended Rhodes University for most of my academic life. I was attracted to the university because it's located in a small town and it has a reputation for being a liberal university with a notorious party scene.

You'll notice that Rhodes University isn't on the list of top African universities, and there's a reason for that - Rhodes does not partake in any ranking system. The university is quite smug about it, and it claims that it has influenced other universities from around the world to do the same.

https://www.ru.ac.za/latestnews/adecadelaterrhodesuniversitysayswetoldyousoonrankingsobsession.html

In reality, from going to a few universities in SA and spending plenty of time at Rhodes, it's pretty obvious that current year Rhodes is easily trounced by most other universities. The school and the town it's in have been on a steep decline in the last few years and it shows no signs of slowing.

But I'm not here to rag on Rhodes. I'm here to discuss #rureferencelist. I've mentioned this movement in passing in other longposts, but I'll outline it again. As you know, South Africa has a r*pe epidemic, and academic settings aren't immune to this plague. During the 2010s, many female students at Rhodes complained about being r*ped by men, and the university not doing anything about it. I don't doubt that this is the case, as there were a few times dudes in my residence would tell me about their sexual escapades and sometimes, what they described was r*pe. In my opinion, a lot of men commit r*pe without knowing it. Some of it is a product of just being ignorant about consent and boundaries. S*x is a social act, and the skills to partake in the activity in a harmonious way with others requires learning and experience.

In 2016, the women of Rhodes decided they had had enough. Anonymously, a post was made on the popular Facebook group RU Queer Confessions, Questions and Crushes. The post featured a list of about a dozen male students accusing them of r*pe and domestic violence. Women then gathered in a humungous mob and went to various male residencess to find those accussed of r*pe. On that night, I was in my residence room (it was a single room I had to myself) and I was hitting my bong. This was when marijuana was still illegal (it was decriminalised in 2018), so I had to be careful about it. Imagine my shock when stoned me suddenly heard loud banging on the residence building's front door and I peered out the window to find an angry mob of women. For some reason, the weed had me paranoid and I thought they were coming to get me for smoking weed! Fortunately, I wasn't their target, but there were 3 men in my residence who were.

They managed to kidnap some of the men on the list and I'm not quite sure what they did to them, but I'm sure it was unpleasant. The university condemned the protestors, claiming that it was wrong to publish the reference list and accuse men of r*pe publicly when they hadn't been tried legally. The women did not like that, and they continued to protest. On one day they took their shirts off. I'm not sure what the logic for the shirtlessness was. Sorry I can't provide more clearer pictures. I used to have them all on an SSD but I lost it and the images seem to have been pretty much scrubbed off the internet.

The #rureferencelist received international attention, but the university which, as I've said, has a liberal persona, surprisingly stook to its unpopular decision to condemn the protests and the reference list. An interdict was obtained to put a stop to the protest which, of course, meant the use of police force. Following this, the university took disciplinary action against the girls, resulting in many of them leaving the university.

One of the people who was punished was Yolanda Dyantyi, who was found guilty of kidnapping, insubordination, and defamation. She was excluded from the university, which is a big deal because that goes on the record, making it next to impossible to find enrolment in a different university. When this happened she went on social media to complain and claim victimhood. I googled her to see what she's up to these days, and holy heck she's STILL going on about it, like literally hours ago.

https://x.com/YoliShade

Big Question: How do you interpret the shirtless protesting?

Stellenbosch University - Pissgate

So I'm currently studying at Stellenbosch University where I'm completing my PhD. I'm enjoying the university and I think it has very, very competent educators and the academia standards are much higher than at Rhodes.

In truth, these two universities are pretty much the complete opposite of each other. While Rhodes has a liberal persona, Stellenbosch takes a more conservative approach. This is in part due to the fact that it has lectures in both English and Afrikaans. This has made it quite the popular school among Afrikaaners, which is a conservative segment of the population. The school also has a reputation for being racist. When I was a wee young high school student choosing what university I wanted to go to (this would have been in 2012), I didn't even consider Stellenbosch because of its reputation.

I'm studying remotely, so I've never spent significant time physically at the university. Consequently, I can't say whether the claims are true or not. However, I haven't experienced anything remotely approaching racism in my interactions with the university. If anything, they seem to take the "colour-blind" approach instead of focusing on identity politics. This is quite different to Rhodes where identity politics is the be-all end-all.

One event that stirred up discussions about racism at Stellenbosch in recent years is #pissgate. This story involves two main characters: Babalo Ndwayana (a BIPOC) and Theuns du Toit (a mayo, I'm guessing Boer considering that last name). After a night of heavy drinking, Theuns returns to the residence and enters the room of Babalo where he proceeds to urinate over his laptop and study material. Babalo records the incident on his phone, and on the video, you can tell Theuns is quite wasted.

The video was distributed, resulting in widespread condemnation and protests. I mentioned race previously because this was interpreted as a racist incident. Theuns was expelled from the university, and Babalo pressed charges against him. Don't take this mean that Babalo was out for blood, as he was actually quite sympathetic towards Theuns.

>In an interview with News24 on 17 May, Ndwanyana said: "I would forgive him, because he is, like, also traumatised enough now …. My father said I must make criminal charges but I said to him it is already enough now. We must also think he is someone's child." 

On Reddit, you can see the heavy debates on Reddit over whether the incident was racist.

Big Question: is Theuns a racist?

University of Cape Town - Decolonsation

Technically, I did attend UCT but it was not for a degree. I just did a short course and obtained a qualification in copywriting. I do wish I had attended UCT instead of Rhodes. I have a cousin who went there and it's clear that she benefitted greatly from going to such a prestigious university. It's bullshit that 17yos have to make big decisions like picking a university when they're so young. I didn't consider shit about rankings, just "muh artsy school good!". Seventeen-year-old me was dumb. That promethazine got me drowsy as heck now, but we're going to fight through until the end. We're almost at the finish line.

A topic that has frequently arisen in recent years in the South African academic scene is the concept of decolonisation. The argument is that we have an education system shaped by the West and its worldview and ideals, to the exclusion of indigenous knowledge. This is a product of colonialism. Hence, to truly be a decolonised State, one must restructure the education system and implement one that better suits the needs of all identities, especially those BIPOCs.

Personal thoughts? Well, they're not wrong in their assessment. However, this becomes problematic once you take it to the STEM side of things. How does one decolonise mathematics or physics? Well, some have tried, as you'll soon learn.

In 2016, a discussion panel on decolonisation was held among students. In the video, we see a woman passionately talking about how necessary it is to decolonise the school. She argues that to do this, we need to completely do away with science and start from scratch. She states that among those who practice witchcraft in Black culture, they believe it is possible to send lightning to strike someone. How could science possibly explain this?! It can't and that is because science doesn't take into account Black perspectives. Not everyone in the room agreed with her, with one man stating "it's not true!". The boy was scolded by the leader of the panel and she made him apologise. I beg of you, please watch the video. It's got absolute bangers in there.

The video clip went viral, leading to many laughing and making especially fun of the idea of abolishing it. Of course went viral on Reddit and it was used as proof that woke nonsense had infiltrated everything (I don't remember whether "woke" was the word used in 2016). It got so big that even Thunderf00t dived in!

Big Question: Is science denialism for brainlets, midwits, or geniuses?

Conclusion

Darn, a BIPOC about to dose off. I'm outchea nodding like a mfer, fr fr. I can't think of much to close off. Thanks to whoever recommended that I play The Stanley Principle. It's a great game, so unique, and I'm thoroughly enjoying. I'm going to wait before I dive into The Beginner's Guide because I want to do it while on LSD, which I'll do at the end of January 2025.

Tune in next time when I attempt to define postmodernism.

Woke up at 3 am, drove two hours and then walked three miles there and back to see this little neighbor say six more weeks of winter.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_dysmorphic_disorder

!marseyfans

@Hattie dozens of times an hour, til this week

@Hattie today

Context: jeet threatened to baitop /r/fednews, seethe central

Muh cancer they might fire me m-muh pension park rangers are vital to dark maga

range in heck commie

!metashit !nooticers

https://rdrama.net/post/336707/pizzashill-3-minutes-after-getting-dumped/7689385#context

Here we spot wild Bardfinn Bluesky activities.

Be valid and ping ! bardfinn for something worthwhile or create a new thread.