This shit is just spam at this point

It’s fucked up that I read a comment the other day making the argument that this would not be painless if he were able to fight it. And that comment got downvoted to shit. And here we are.

he was a competitive ballroom dancer

That’s a new one.

Wasn’t Israel literally demolishing the homes of innocent Palestinian families, causing small children to become homeless overnight? Terrorist groups usually form in response to something. Like, I don’t know, an apartheid state killing them if they don’t leave their homes

And headlights that blind everyone around you

I think it’s part of the way we are socialized into a society based on economic competition. So it seems normal to us, but it’s just another way of saying “it’s not perfect, but it’s the best/only system we have!” as conservatives are so fond of saying. I don’t think it’s hardwired at all, but we’re intentionally taught that it is.

I took an anthropology class once and learned that there’s archeological evidence of early tribes taking care of disabled elderly (for the time) people. It would have taken a lot more energy to take care of a disabled person in a hunter gatherer society than it would now. I feel like a capitalist would have just left them to die in a cave because that’s what Ayn Rand would have done.

There’s a lot of Americans who aren’t having a great time here. I don’t think negative commentary about the US is one hundred percent Europeans’ fault. Nor is it just that we’re “vocal” about things, which is really a positive since it’s the only way to create change anyway.

For example. I just saw a local news story that cops in a major SoCal city are arresting/citing/fining people for just…being homeless. They want them to go to shelters, but they admittedly don’t create enough shelter space. So it just becomes illegal for certain people to exist. The city gets pissy and aggressive about homelessness being a problem, when they’re the ones who created it and are the ones who refuse to fix it. Sure, give a homeless person a record so that it’s even harder for them to get jobs and approved for an apartment, and then fine them knowing they can’t pay it, resulting in doubling late fees that put them in debt. Sounds they really care about fixing the issue, great fucking job. But think about that - it’s against the law, it’s a crime, to not have a mortgage or rent payment. I’ve been hassled by cops for sitting in my own car in a grocery store parking lot. There is no public space. You have to buy something to be allowed to exist outside of a park, and in coastal places like SoCal, you have to pay to be in those too. And yes this was in one city, but it’s applicable to almost every major city in the US, even if there’s some variations in local laws. It’s just an example of how disposable human beings are here. The minute we don’t have labor to sell, the minute we stop consuming, we’re thrown the fuck away. And that’s not just an economic issue, it’s a cultural issue as well.

The immigrants who come here stick around and spend 15 years to become citizens, if it was that bad, they’d turn around and go home.

I think many of “the immigrants” actually do.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protestant_Ethic_and_the_Spirit_of_Capitalism

If you look at the state driver’s manuals from the dmv it actually says exactly that. It’s already considered a privilege. Otherwise you wouldn’t have to test into it and pay annually to keep your car on the road.

Generally not a lot of traffic in parking lots.

If you find reversing in to a space hard then maybe you shouldn’t be driving a giant metal death machine.

Or, if you find backing out of a parking space without hitting pedestrians to be hard, etc.

What a weird thing to be high and mighty about

Rehab costs about $30k for 28 days. As if the hundreds of thousands of deaths and overdoses per year weren’t enough. Suboxone is $700+ per month just for the pills, not including seeing the doctor monthly and random drug tests. Methadone’s not cheap either. Then there’s secondary health issues like sepsis, MRSA, HIV, hepatitis, heart problems, pregnancy issues, withdrawal, DUI injuries/deaths etc.

The list goes on and on and on and on. I wouldn’t be surprised if a trillion barely covered it.

She probably has her credit card info on Amazon and the seller got it and has been automatically charging her. It’s harder and takes longer to get charges reversed than to just not respond to a bill in the mail

This isn’t a problem in my country.

Along the same lines are the “Americans forget that other countries exist” comments.

Does American culture have a problem with ethnocentrism? Generally yes. Is reddit an American website where the vast majority of users, comments, posts, and topics are American? Also yes. When I’d see one of the “you’re an arrogant asshole for assuming this post is about the US” comments, I just assumed it’s someone being pedantic and contrarian for the sake of it. It just ruins what is sometimes a valid point.

Really confused by these “no one ever said redditors are creative” comments. No one ever said that no one ever said that.

Don’t overthink it.

The worst was the people who insisted it wasn’t funny enough. I thought it was pretty funny, but was that really the point?

This is why sociology is so important and needs to be recognized as an integral part of education and how we understand the world. It goes without saying that we live in an excessively individualistic culture, and that causes us to be in denial about how much these larger social factors affect us. We are all trained to see ourselves as singular instead of part of communities, populations, groups, and to see institutions as singular entities instead of parts of larger structures that make up a greater, overarching system that’s connected to and that perpetuates the issues we face as individuals.

Unfortunately sociology is pretty much the definition of what conservatives are fighting against in education and the “culture wars”: Understanding the experiences of oppressed groups and finding solutions to probems on a social level. So of course it’s not well respected or well known. I have to explain my major every time I bring it up and someone assumes I’m a social worker. The more we understand how our society works, the better equipped we will be to change it.

Thank you, I’m so sick of hearing it. It’s just another cop out from climate change deniers.