WideningGyro [any]

That book made a lot of things click about modern liberalism, for sure. Losurdo doesn’t miss.

The ones in my family (Scandinavia) are, yes. It’s all surface-level “at least she’s not an old white man” vibes. My experience is that our society is so Trump-brained, that most people would welcome literally anyone else.

EDIT: When I say “excited”, I do mean relative to their lack of enthusiasm for Biden (although they were still certain he was way better than Trump, of course). It’s worth remembering that a lot of people to the immediate left of centre here celebrated Obama as if it was some massive victory for them in 2008 (myself included, but I was just a dumbass kid).

Unfortunately, for the average left-leaning lib/succdem, symbolic victories and vibes are all politics consists of. I recently made the mistake of airing some doomerism about the state of EU politics to my overwhelmingly succdem family, essentially just saying that I believe fascism will continue to gather support in Europe as long as the “left” continues its strategy of moving right to counter the right, after which (surprise) the right says “thanks” and moves further right.

This was met with a) astonishment at where I got these “conspiracy theories” from, b) concern trolling (“are you doing all right? I get worried about you when you say these things”) and c) vibes (“I have to believe things are getting better!”).

All participants in this conversation are people I would call above-average in terms of political literacy among libs/succdems. And even they are just completely checked-out. They are also all quite excited for Kamala Harris

Where I’m from in Europe I think most people sort of think of it as just basic common courtesy, especially for older/disabled/people carrying stuff. At least, that’s what’s taught, but I wouldn’t speculate on how often it actually happens here vs. the US. I did also once have a colleague from the US who was extremely (almost performatively, I would say) friendly about those kinds of small, polite gestures. So what do I know.

Thanks a lot, really hope you find something else (or a different way to do it that is less crushing). I don’t know anything about your background, location, safety net etc. so it would be irresponsible/unserious to say “just quit”, but all I can say is that it felt really good to walk out, even knowing I was walking into some uncertainty (had no idea what I wanted to do instead at the time). Felt like something got lifted off my shoulders.

Wait, you can like “hold” a door open? What, with your hand? I’m European and I’ve literally never heard about that. I thought slamming doors straight in other people’s faces was a universal thing. Learn a new thing every day.

I kid, of course. But for real, what makes you think of door-holding as a uniquely American thing?

I wasn’t in quite the same field, but I dealt with a lot of the same shit you’re describing. I quit last year and are trying to get a childcare degree (pedagogy it’s called here, not sure if that translates). Thinking it will be a line of work where I get out, do something relatively meaningful for someone else, even if it is hopelessly undervalued and paid here. But with social anxiety, I don’t know if that’s an option, depends how you feel around kids, I guess.

Team Seen Been or team Shawn Bawn? That is the real “if a giraffe could wear a tie…” question

Fair point

Isn’t aggression a hallmark symptom of dementia? I seem to recall everyone being super happy and relieved that my grandma was only forgetting our names, but generally being chill and cheerful in spite of it all.

they do X and Y

Goes to any forum for landlords: “How can I avoid doing X and Y for my tenants?” “Is there any way I can force my tenants to do X and Y or pay for them?”

Ah, I see. Thanks!

I’m a bit OOTL on the Winnie the Pooh thing. I always just assumed it was just a bunch of redditors making a racist effigy out of a fake news story, but googling it does give a bunch of (western) news outles, wikipedia pages etc. saying the character was censored/banned. Can someone pill me on this/direct me to a less brainwormed place than wikipedia for learning more?

Even my lib dad could see this bullshit for what it was. It’s a super transparent attempt to manufacture crisis support.

Maybe this is a stupid question, but does Obama have a lot of sway still? Is there good reason to think that his support is a strong indicator that Biden won’t get canned?

Whatever site that is really knows their audience. Not only is Yasuke, famously a real human being who actually lived and was black, “originally depicted as a black man”, the mod also apparently turns him into an “authentic Japanese character”. Which is apparently a more fitting description for whatever generic Japanese dude the modders think up than an actual historical figure. Christ.

Makes me so fucking dejected. Not even just for myself, but I have wonderful nieces and nephews and they don’t deserve this shit

So public support for Palestine is just straight up outlawed then? Wonder if they’re already handing out fines to people wearing keffiyeh yet?

My story is implausible because elderly people can’t hear? That’s certainly a take, given how the “angry old lady downstairs knocking on the roof with a broom” is a super common trope. This woman was in her 60s, they can generally hear just fine lol. If you literally believe people would never complain unless there was genuinely something to complain about, then you have been extremely privileged in your selection of neighbors. There are tons of unreasonable and shitty people out there. There are also people who have aforementioned hypersensitivity or other mental issues. These things cause people to disagree on what characterizes a normal level of noise. Negotiating this shit is part of what it means to live in close proximity to each other, and it’s way harder in an atomized society where most people in the city don’t know their neighbors.

I saw the letters she would dump in their mailbox, and they didn’t look like the work of a healthy individual. I also happen to know that my sister and her husband was (and still are) very chill people who don’t party, listen to loud music or have screaming matches which also wasn’t what she complained about - it was literally things like “talking loudly” and “moving furniture” (half the time the complaints and “logs” were dated to times when they were both in bed). They noped the fuck out of there because there was no reasoning with this person, and they wanted to start a family. I can only imagine what would have happened if there was an infant in the mix too. Which is, incidentally, another source of noise that you sometimes have to put up with when you live in an apartment (my own downstairs neighbor had a baby with colic. It sucked, but that’s life).

Like, I get that nothing is ever true on the internet etc. but for real, what the hell is implausible about this story?