Growing up in this landmass was incredibly and painfully confusing. I was surrounded by people that told me my life was "better than everyone else", and if I ever dared to ask about what "over there" was like, I was mocked, ridiculed, isolated away in everywhere but small circles of post-teenage educated people.
I've only managed to fly outside these states once in my life, and I want to do it again and for the rest of it. The culture I was born into was and is rotting from a group of humans that are too internally frightened and humiliated by their lack of knowledge and feeling like they are owed things. I don't want to live here, and I have been trying to find a place that would accept my mentality as a citizen of a small blue planet even though I come from here... but I always worry I am guilty by association :(
The culture you were born into may very well be rotten, but don’t make the mistake of thinking that it’s the culture of “this landmass”. The USA is enormous, and contains a huge number of cultures and subcultures. I grew up here, too, and experienced nothing like what you describe.
Live the rest of your life abroad if you’d like, but don’t do so believing that everyone in the USA is from the same culture.
Meh, I’d agree with the OP. American culture has rotted significantly, especially over the past 10 years. The micro cultures within the US are great, though, for the most part. Many cities, states, and regions with a lot to be proud of. But what “America” represents right now, culturally, is deeply antisocial and can’t be sustainable: it’s self-destructive.
As a foreigner, some parts of it are nice. People seem mostly friendly, but not truly "open" compared to Latin America. People back home can be really kind, or really rude with little in-between.
Infrastructure is much better than over here, which still looks like Shanghai in the 1980s.
Food though is questionable, there isn't any real "bread" section besides those cut up in loaves. We're not even European, nor do we eat that much bread (in the Andes region) compared to rice, potatoes, or even quinoa, but even we have fresh bread aisles too.
Burgers are nice, even if the cheese or rootbeer tastes off.
The stereotype that it's easier to talk to people, or find an SO elsewhere is very true, going back to how Americans rarely feel "open".
the first comment says "no tolerance for anyone that doesn’t think, act, look, and live exactly like he does" which is quite funny when you think about the fact that if you disagree with any of aspect of the insanely pervasive liberal ideology, you are immediately ostracized based on the fact that you do not you don't "think, act, look, and live exactly like" and get inundated with a plethora of dumb shit using "phobic" and "ist" as a suffix
And if one dares to mention that this kind of dogmatism is pervasive across the political spectrum, and so that that first comment is quite literally correct then despite its irony, then that's a "both sides" thing, and therefore just cope.
It's entertaining sometimes, but man, is it ever depressing too. Good thing the speech is free though... (not that e.g. curtailing dogmatic speech wouldn't be just a treating of symptoms)
Your whole argument collapses when you notice the far right hates people for what they are and cant change, such as their sex or race, and the far left hates people for what they choose to be, such as racist, egoistical, violent...
"Hating women" and "hating people who hate women" are the same "hate" only if you are a shallow thinker who stays at the surface of things and takes words at their face value.
I'm not conflating the underlying types of hate, what I'm saying is that both of these far-off crowds are genuinely insufferable, damaging to public discourse, and that their justification for being insufferable only goes so far.
You may find their justification to wash one of these sides, but that doesn't collapse jack about my "argument", we just disagree then. Sorry to hear this makes me a shallow thinker in your opinion, unfortunately, gonna have to disagree about that one too.
I did not put forward any arguments by the way, I stated my opinion and an anecdote.
I really don't understand people who put being polite and cordial before everything. And honestly, it reeks of "I am not directly affected by it, therefore I don't want to engage with it". "Why can't we be nice with people who call liberal women pestilence that will end civilization?" Clearly you're not a women in the military whose career (or basic safety from sexual assault) may be affected by these guys. But let's not be "insufferable" here, right?
Good for you if you suffered sexual assaults and still want to have a cordial conversation with those being fine with it. Very high levels of quasi-christic compassion and forgiveness. I can only admire that.
Do you really need to call those who don't "insufferable" though ?
And what conversation do you expect to have when those who feel fine putting down women are promoted to positions of power and laws and rules are currently being changed to the latter's detriment? "Hey, I want to talk, please answer."
Reading how you write, it seems all so intellectual, "open for debate", for discussion. What you seem to miss is that the debate already happened during the last decades (with an "s"), and that one side has realized they lost that rational debate, and refuses to engage anymore. Global warming was only the template (or maybe creationism was), and now there is no debate to be had with regards to trans rights, women's rights, minorities rights, or even if election results have to be respected. The far right found the way out of "losing the argument": they don't even engage.
Just see yesterday senator (senator!) Schmitt falsely accusing Jack Smith of perjuring himself and conspiring with Fani Willis, and calling him a "dipshit". Just one basic problem: Schmitt mixed up the Atlanta Hawks with the Iowa Hawkeyes. How did Schmitt react to being corrected on the spot by Klobuchar? Debate and discussion? Nope. Did he correct himself afterwards? Nope, he went to the Charlie Kirk show and doubled down on that basic mistake - turning it willfully into a bare-faced lie. Did Fox news mention any of this? Nope. There is no debate.
(And Schmitt is not only a senator but first in line to become VP for Vance's presidential ambitions. He is not a third-rate nobody I am picking on to unduly slime the right in general: he is a major political representative.)
Meanwhile you have little to offer than getting punched repeatedly in the face by people who will double down when you do not fight back. You are, in my opinion, "fighting the last war".
It may seem very pessimistic and it is. The USA was on the way to a(n un)civil war. The only thing that is saving you currently is the haplessness of Trump, causing pain to everyone equally due to his economic and military ineptness, turning everyone against him. But without that shared pain, half of US voters (amplified by a voting system biased toward conservatives) would have been fine with all the subjugation of women and non-white people, and they are not interested in any good faith "discussion" on those topics.
well clearly your hate is morally superior and thus you're justified in your hate opposed to another because you're a brilliant thinker, right?
regardless you saying that those who are far right hate people for something they can't change is just as funny as that first comment in the article, because for example, phrases like 'assigned male at birth' which is literally someone born as male then cosplaying a female. how is that someone who is "what they are and cant change"? i can personally find that to be revolting but it doesn't change reality.
here is a good way for your big brain to understand it, say a far left person wearing a bunch of pride badges gets attacked in public for no apparent reason, you will still see a far right person assist in defending the individual they fundamentally disagree. now reverse the roles and say a far right person wearing a MAGA hat gets attacked in public for no apparent reason, and you will see the far left person assist in the attack.
i might not agree with what you say but i will defend your right to say it, but the same sentiment seems to be lost on the opposite side of the political isle, they would instead celebrate and advocate violence against the other side "for what they choose to be"
Yes. They are saying that hating people for what they choose to be is better than hating people for what they are. Your point being?
Being trans is what you are, it has never been an open choice like how I can choose to associate with a different political party. If people could freely choose what gender they felt like without any mental distress or anguish involved, nearly no one would be trans because it is a massively repressed and limiting position in society, where a good chunk of the world population displays the emotional stability of a rabid bulldog when thinking about them. I could feel your fists clench through the text, especially when you think about only MtFs - a sign of very rational and stable views about gender roles.
Your example is just "let me tell you how good I imagine my side is, and how bad I imagine your side is. Not feeling so smart now huh?". Most far-rightists have no qualms about suppressing the other side if you look at how their societies act, from hyper-religious dictatorships to corrupt populist democracies. It's the right that's the most easily united under hatred, while the left is infamous for infighting and constant drama. They do not care.
>well clearly your hate is morally superior and thus you're justified in your hate opposed to another
Uh, yes? And you prove my point? Because when you give this scenario:
>say a far left person wearing a bunch of pride badges gets attacked in public for no apparent reason, you will still see a far right person assist in defending the individual they fundamentally disagree
Then the far-right person will earn my respect, not my hate, because it defended the basic dignity of someone attacked for what they are. We could even start a conversation on why they helped someone they think is a "pervert abomination" that "destroys civilization". See, I don't hate the far-right guy for things he can't change about himself, but for his beliefs and hurtful actions at this point in time. The second he stops being hurtful, I have no reason to hate him anymore.
Whereas for the guys who hate women/black people/brown people/Jews etc..., you can't do anything to change for the better, except cease to exist, either by physically dying, or socially dying aka. becoming subhuman/noncitizen.
i am not personally affected in any capacity by trans gender individuals, nor do i hate them, i just find those people to be rather strange and don't want their public displays of indecency to be witnessed by children.
if I saw a trans gender person being attacked by someone wearing a MAGA hat, i will aggress upon the attacker in defence of them, regardless of if that attacker shares some of my own beliefs, he clearly doesn't share my belief in a civil society. i extend that same sentiment of protection to any person regardless of who they might be.
if someone hates a person for being women/black people/brown people/Jews etc then they are just fucked in the head and heart.
i think you might be confusing my disgust with their personal choices for hate, but say a bill was proposed that would directly and harmfully impact the life of someone i disagree with, i would vote against that. i don't want people having a hard life. now say a bill was proposed to grant additional rights to the trans gender individuals which begins to erode rights and spaces specifically designated for the female sex, then those trans genders are not seeking equality and that too, i would vote against. clearly compassion is viewed differently by both sides too, since you believe it to be compassionate to tell a trans gender women that he is a women. i believe it to be compassionate to tell trans gender women that he is a man. no other self generated belief someone has about themself are affirmed except for gender...
definitely is the case that that dogmatism does exist across the political spectrum, it just appears more frequently from one side as opposed to the other.
like i stated in a different reply: "i might fundamentally disagree with what you say but i will defend your right to say it" which seems to only be echoed by one side
Say it. Say you want women to be enslaved housewives again. This is all you males want. The male mind virus is what's destroying this world yet you can't see it.
The male mind is impossible to comprehend. Half of a species no more evolved than its ancestors, still guided uniquely and exclusively by its dick. I am so sick of males.
You can be a good human despite that. I have one too, doesn't mean I'm happy about it. I purposefully avoid using it to reduce the amount of harm I inflict on the world by existing. It is difficult, to be sure, because humans are wired to be selfish and shortsighted.
It is not, because it comes from different impulses. Males (cis males if we're being specific) chudpost because they (we) are entitled babies who are not used to any sort of pushback and therefore any attempt at even the most timid of equality feels like an attack on the foundations of masculinity. The world is made for males, and we are rewarded for doing even less than the bare minimum.
So yeah, it is not equivalent, even if it superficially seems that way.
I believe you are observing Popper's Paradox of Tolerance. It is indeed the correct course of action to not tolerate those who do not tolerate people who don't "think, act, look, and live exactly like" them. The first group that does not tolerate others immediately justifies intolerance against them.
This is why some get labeled extremists. Just today here in Sweden a guy got sentenced to one year in prison for an attack during a political rally, where he hit someone over the head with a bottle and attacked a child. During a previous rally he stabbed someone with a knife.
Tolerance is a social contract. If you become intolerant in ways your group does not like, said contract is nullified in your specific case. Which means that when you display intolerance, you will no longer be tolerated.
This is the basic mechanism of social pressure. As social creatures, this is a part of us.
From my perspective, the active problem is that there are no longer any reasonable groups: membership in one means expulsion from the other. This not how progress is made or how compromise is reached. This is how wars begin.
Women have been dehumanized for millennia, though.
This kind of misogyny would have been used as a joke in All in the Family 50 years ago, and the premise that "liberal women" were a threat to society is as old as feminism, if not as old as civilization itself. You could probably find some variant of "women these days" carved in cuneiform onto a clay tablet.
That's sad but true. However, it's been a few administrations (too few) since we had people willing to actually commit atrocities within domestic borders. It's arguably been even fewer administrations since the US was committing atrocities overseas.
Besides Quakerism as the other poster mentions, Bahai'ism in the West seems mostly driven by women and over the twentieth century and beyond has intersected with a number of quirky alternative subcultures.
Indeed they were conquered and eliminated by other, lesser religions who chose to engage in war, even though that goes against their religious beliefs.
It's almost like religion is just a tool for the power hungry to abuse the rest of us. Being an actual believer? C'mon man, that isn't for Us, the prospective potential rulers of the world. Thats for them, the poors, the dumb.
I mean, researchers believe that Ashoka did feel remorse for what he did, and even prostrated himself in his commissions, which most Classical era leaders did not do.
Maybe Pagan and Axial beliefs have a reason to be, perhaps both as hierarchical tools, but also having hidden meaning, or even a way to repent and change.
That's a valid point of view, but also very postmodern and ahistorical. It doesn't represent how religions were actually intended to be viewed or practiced.
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[ 2.4 ms ] story [ 60.6 ms ] threadI've only managed to fly outside these states once in my life, and I want to do it again and for the rest of it. The culture I was born into was and is rotting from a group of humans that are too internally frightened and humiliated by their lack of knowledge and feeling like they are owed things. I don't want to live here, and I have been trying to find a place that would accept my mentality as a citizen of a small blue planet even though I come from here... but I always worry I am guilty by association :(
Live the rest of your life abroad if you’d like, but don’t do so believing that everyone in the USA is from the same culture.
Infrastructure is much better than over here, which still looks like Shanghai in the 1980s.
Food though is questionable, there isn't any real "bread" section besides those cut up in loaves. We're not even European, nor do we eat that much bread (in the Andes region) compared to rice, potatoes, or even quinoa, but even we have fresh bread aisles too.
Burgers are nice, even if the cheese or rootbeer tastes off.
The stereotype that it's easier to talk to people, or find an SO elsewhere is very true, going back to how Americans rarely feel "open".
It's entertaining sometimes, but man, is it ever depressing too. Good thing the speech is free though... (not that e.g. curtailing dogmatic speech wouldn't be just a treating of symptoms)
"Hating women" and "hating people who hate women" are the same "hate" only if you are a shallow thinker who stays at the surface of things and takes words at their face value.
You may find their justification to wash one of these sides, but that doesn't collapse jack about my "argument", we just disagree then. Sorry to hear this makes me a shallow thinker in your opinion, unfortunately, gonna have to disagree about that one too.
I did not put forward any arguments by the way, I stated my opinion and an anecdote.
Do you really need to call those who don't "insufferable" though ?
And what conversation do you expect to have when those who feel fine putting down women are promoted to positions of power and laws and rules are currently being changed to the latter's detriment? "Hey, I want to talk, please answer."
Reading how you write, it seems all so intellectual, "open for debate", for discussion. What you seem to miss is that the debate already happened during the last decades (with an "s"), and that one side has realized they lost that rational debate, and refuses to engage anymore. Global warming was only the template (or maybe creationism was), and now there is no debate to be had with regards to trans rights, women's rights, minorities rights, or even if election results have to be respected. The far right found the way out of "losing the argument": they don't even engage.
Just see yesterday senator (senator!) Schmitt falsely accusing Jack Smith of perjuring himself and conspiring with Fani Willis, and calling him a "dipshit". Just one basic problem: Schmitt mixed up the Atlanta Hawks with the Iowa Hawkeyes. How did Schmitt react to being corrected on the spot by Klobuchar? Debate and discussion? Nope. Did he correct himself afterwards? Nope, he went to the Charlie Kirk show and doubled down on that basic mistake - turning it willfully into a bare-faced lie. Did Fox news mention any of this? Nope. There is no debate.
(And Schmitt is not only a senator but first in line to become VP for Vance's presidential ambitions. He is not a third-rate nobody I am picking on to unduly slime the right in general: he is a major political representative.)
Meanwhile you have little to offer than getting punched repeatedly in the face by people who will double down when you do not fight back. You are, in my opinion, "fighting the last war".
It may seem very pessimistic and it is. The USA was on the way to a(n un)civil war. The only thing that is saving you currently is the haplessness of Trump, causing pain to everyone equally due to his economic and military ineptness, turning everyone against him. But without that shared pain, half of US voters (amplified by a voting system biased toward conservatives) would have been fine with all the subjugation of women and non-white people, and they are not interested in any good faith "discussion" on those topics.
Being trans is what you are, it has never been an open choice like how I can choose to associate with a different political party. If people could freely choose what gender they felt like without any mental distress or anguish involved, nearly no one would be trans because it is a massively repressed and limiting position in society, where a good chunk of the world population displays the emotional stability of a rabid bulldog when thinking about them. I could feel your fists clench through the text, especially when you think about only MtFs - a sign of very rational and stable views about gender roles.
Your example is just "let me tell you how good I imagine my side is, and how bad I imagine your side is. Not feeling so smart now huh?". Most far-rightists have no qualms about suppressing the other side if you look at how their societies act, from hyper-religious dictatorships to corrupt populist democracies. It's the right that's the most easily united under hatred, while the left is infamous for infighting and constant drama. They do not care.
Come on, stop playing around. I know your kind. I know what you want to do. You want to shed others' blood for the savage crime of being themselves.
Everyone can see the truth, so you might as well come ahead and say what you mean. I hate this coyness. You're not smooth. You're not slick.
Uh, yes? And you prove my point? Because when you give this scenario:
>say a far left person wearing a bunch of pride badges gets attacked in public for no apparent reason, you will still see a far right person assist in defending the individual they fundamentally disagree
Then the far-right person will earn my respect, not my hate, because it defended the basic dignity of someone attacked for what they are. We could even start a conversation on why they helped someone they think is a "pervert abomination" that "destroys civilization". See, I don't hate the far-right guy for things he can't change about himself, but for his beliefs and hurtful actions at this point in time. The second he stops being hurtful, I have no reason to hate him anymore.
Whereas for the guys who hate women/black people/brown people/Jews etc..., you can't do anything to change for the better, except cease to exist, either by physically dying, or socially dying aka. becoming subhuman/noncitizen.
https://pen.org/banned-words-list/
https://www.foxnews.com/media/trump-announces-white-house-ba...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reprisals_against_commentators...
The male mind is impossible to comprehend. Half of a species no more evolved than its ancestors, still guided uniquely and exclusively by its dick. I am so sick of males.
So yeah, it is not equivalent, even if it superficially seems that way.
I would say yes. Haven't we seen journalists being harassed for asking pointed questions, when this kind of harassment results in death threats?
Those people we send to jail.
This is the basic mechanism of social pressure. As social creatures, this is a part of us.
From my perspective, the active problem is that there are no longer any reasonable groups: membership in one means expulsion from the other. This not how progress is made or how compromise is reached. This is how wars begin.
Just my 2 cents. To quote a great singer:
"We’re sick and tired of your ism schism game"
This kind of misogyny would have been used as a joke in All in the Family 50 years ago, and the premise that "liberal women" were a threat to society is as old as feminism, if not as old as civilization itself. You could probably find some variant of "women these days" carved in cuneiform onto a clay tablet.
Its always about following rules- which conveniently were made up by other people centuries in the past. People with penises.
It's almost like religion is just a tool for the power hungry to abuse the rest of us. Being an actual believer? C'mon man, that isn't for Us, the prospective potential rulers of the world. Thats for them, the poors, the dumb.
/s when and where you need it.
Maybe Pagan and Axial beliefs have a reason to be, perhaps both as hierarchical tools, but also having hidden meaning, or even a way to repent and change.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikhism#Justice_and_equality
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
It is what Rogan listeners voted for, putting the Chad back in Americhad.