From all my internet lurking I discovered that America is a country almost beyond redemption, or at least some states.
I always wonder if it is really that bad or am I just hearing the usual ‘my country bad’ talk like anyone does but the news point to the first one basically every time. I can only assume it is mostly true and sympathise.
As someone who lives in middle eu capital city and has proverbial 4 houses it is all quite mind blowing. I feel like I live in completely different reality and I am grateful for it every day.
It’s however very painful to hear all you just plain suffering. Maybe that’s why my mind goes ‘it’s probably exaggerated’ it can’t be that bad can it be?
It’s a strange contrast living in the US sometimes. My personal life is pleasant and I work to keep it that way. I like where I work and I see multiple good doctors on a regular basis. But I’ve had plenty of my own troubles over the past 5 years too.
…but I also have eyes. I see the same crazy shit you do, and furthermore I have enough personal acquaintances to know that the crazies we both read about are fully serious and indoctrinated.
So, I wouldn’t say that the suffering is exaggerated, just that it isn’t ubiquitous. It’s a big place. Millions are doing OK while millions of others are getting beat down by life.
A big caveat to this is that of the millions who feel they’re doing “OK,” millions of them are one missed paycheck away from homelessness. Only ~40% of Americans can cover a $1000 emergency, for example.
Yeah, a lot of people are misled or just used to the shittiness. And as I’m sure we’re all aware, a big chunk of the population has been continued to think that the people taking advantage of them are some kind of heroes worthy of worship.
“If it bleeds, it leads”. Yes, we have some things that are just not right, and sometimes horrible tragedies, more often than a modern country should. But if we keep talking about it, it may seem even worse than it is. Like you, most of us haven’t been impacted by school shootings, but yeah
I used to think a major global catastrophe will fix the system, like world war, or a hostile alien invasion. Then covid happened and we’re back to square one in the aftermath, if not worse. I realised there’s no fixing it. In my opinion, it’s not that we aren’t there yet, it’s that we will never be ‘there’. Having said that, when I say never I speak about our lives or that of our grandchildren, perhaps a few more generations. If humanity survives a few more centuries after that, if not millenia, who knows what could happen.
So honest question. Do you know anyone who’s been threatened with gun violence? Because as an American my initial response was that it isn’t that bad, but then i thought about the fact that if you answer no to that that would probably be weird to me. Sure I’m rarely in such a position, but from time to time yeah I have to watch myself because I know crazy people who have guns or I know I’m pissing off an armed and violent person by doing something like helping their dv victim escape. The idea that guns wouldn’t be involved in such situations is more foreign to me than initially expected.
So honest question. Do you know anyone who’s been threatened with gun violence? Because as an American my initial response was that it isn’t that bad
I mean, I’m only in my 30’s and I know four people who have been shot. Two were robberies, one was a seemingly random act of violence, and the fourth was due to a domestic dispute. Three are still alive, but that fourth died in his girlfriend’s arms before paramedics arrived. It happened a decade ago, and she still has night terrors from it. And this is in a nice suburb, not someplace full of gangs.
I never worried about anyone having a gun in my life at least not realistically so. I mean I live in pretty safe place. All the bad ppl left 15 years ago for the USA, Britain and so. We are the nation of religious, sometimes toxic hobbits. Worst is social ostracism as that can be really bad in the smaller places if you didn’t vote same as others or you dated same gender. Or didn’t go to the church…
I wish everyone could be a nation of hobbits, that’s like ideal in my eyes
Point is when I hear about knife fights in UK I am like wow brrrr.
Biggest bad news lately in my capital was that some poor woman got sexually assaulted and died a month or three ago while returning from some party at 5 AM sunday which was very shocking. It really was the most disturbing thing.
Everyone is very anti immigrant here though. Even the pro Democratic/leftish Party just legalized shooting at the border to immigrants (in case of aggression). Kinda crazy. I think at this point they simply wouldn’t get elected at all if they were pro immigration. One single, very left party pro immigration has 6% of votes.
It seems that this change in narrative of the pro eu pro democrats helped them win over alt rights but like ya know it’s all super complicated morally.
I guess almost 100% of people don’t want (Arabic) immigrants and it is long sailed ship.
I am very conflicted about all it internally. I am not blind what happens when you let culturally and socially distant immigrants en masse but I don’t want those people to suffer either. I don’t blame them for trying to get where is much better place to live but I also don’t want to sacrifice myself for it…
It’s super huge problem and we all gonna have some blood on our hands I reckon if we don’t already have…
Also I remember there being lots of drunk homeless people once long ago but I haven’t seen one in such miserable state at least in a long while. Just realised it now. Long ago I was semi afraid to go to the liquor store because of all the types consuming high powered drinks. Harmless still but it definitely changed. For whatever reason. I hope it is for the good reasons and not the bad ones.
Overall I think we are moving into interesting direction though slowly and a bit bloody at times considering the borders. they are only going to get worse and most have uncanny ability to forget about such things immediately when they accidentally hear about them. We all prefer to pretend it’s all cool and distant or whatever. I myself prefer not to dig into the horrors that must happen there uh
Yes I do. In fact the couple was held at gunpoint by 2 men who robbed them, and then felt up his wife in front of hime with gun barrels in their faces.
I’m in Canada and don’t know anyone I can say for sure has been affected by gun violence or threats of it. I’ve personally been in a situation where I was trying to make small talk with a wannabe gangster and apparently asking about jobs can be dangerous I guess when they make money from mostly illegal shit and he threatened me until my friend came over and convinced him I’m not an under cover cop. But even that threat was a, “what if I had a piece” rather than “I’m going to shoot you”.
I only ever saw or shot bb guns until in my 30s when I did some target shooting in my friend’s back yard. He kept his guns all locked up when he wasn’t using them, ammo locked separately. Partially for the obvious safety reasons (even though he lived alone), partially because a part of the license is that police are allowed to come and inspect how you are storing your guns. I don’t know how often this is used in practice (don’t think my friend ever had it happen), but it’s a sign that the legal state of guns is very different across the border.
I can’t even think of any robberies using violence or threats of violence I have first hand or second hand knowledge of. Theft, yes, but like the “car was left unlocked and someone noticed” or “someone picked an easy to pick lock”. That last one happened to me, I figured out who it was and just told him to stop coming around and I’d leave it alone and I never saw the guy again. It might have been a bit dangerous if I wanted satisfaction from the situation, but I think there might have been an equal chance he would have just accepted the L and paid be back for the weed he stole.
Pistols require a seperate license that is much harder to get. For rifles and shotguns, you can get a license as a hunter, recreational shooter, or collector (amateur is fine but you do need to get your hunter license first before you can use it to justify a gun license). There was a gun registry but the conservatives scrapped that the last time they were in power.
For pistols, they are limited to certain professions such as police officer, military (I assume), or professional hunter/trappers who work in bear territory and aren’t necessarily carrying a rifle or shotgun ready to go if suddenly confronted by a bear. I believe there’s certain self-defense scenarios that allow them (like a proven threat that is difficult to neutralize, like with connections to organised crime).
It’s gotta be extreme because carrying anything for self-defense is generally illegal. Like if you have a pocket knife you use to open packages, that’s ok, but if you carry that same knife for self-defense purposes, it’s an illegal weapon. Some knives like switchblades or butterfly knives that can be deployed with one hand are always illegal.
I think this is a bit much, because knives that don’t fold are ok and IMO the question should be more about what scenarios one thinks it is ok to defend themselves with a weapon than having had that consideration at all. That said, the situations where someone might think a weapon is called for but isn’t are probably more common that situations where one is necessary to defend oneself. But I digress.
The pretty much ban on pistols I think is what makes the difference. In some states, the risky part of carrying a pistol is about if you use it or if you specifically shouldn’t have one (felony or something). In Canada, just carrying it runs the risk of losing it and catching charges, which means that situations where someone would use a hidden pistol in the moment are more likely to have a cool down period while they go get their gun and might realize that it’s not worth it or might not be able to find their victim again afterwards.
There is some gang activity but I think even that is way more chill here and any violence is probably more related to score settling than turf control. I get the impression that the cops are more chill about non-violent stuff here, so that could play into the equation in that the risk differential is higher if violence is involved. Or I could be wrong about that because I’m not a minority (but I suspect it’s because police violence is investigated (and not just by themselves) and dealt with more consistently here, and the lower likelihood of getting randomly shot probably allows them to be more at ease).
For some it’s an nightmare for some it’s just Tuesday.
For the Tuesday folk that doesn’t mean they should sit idly and let it happen or even actively encourage it, but that appears to be what they think they’re entitled to.
It is 8/10 where I live
Public transport, edu, health, weather a bit too hot in summer because of city lacking green area but I have this small property 30 km away from city with just pure green everywhere and I smoke joints there and paint in summer.
My flat is barely liveable in summer without AC as it is on the attic.
People are peaceful mostly they just value not drawing attention to themselves and generally you can go alone at night with no problems. Only slightly worse as woman. Probably 50/50 if visibly trans - not sure but I’d wager it would be suprisingly rare considering how religious some ppl are. They will just tell you to fear Jesus or smh or maybe laugh or comment but most likely won’t do anything. Still if there is anyone that should be cautious it’s visibly trans ppl at night but then at night it’s harder to clock a trans woman so that’s that. I guess if you dressed like drag queen and went to the darkest places at night there would be 50/50 chance of some unpleasant or maybe dangerous situation but those bad places aren’t as many here as there were in the past.
Nearest bad place near me got renovated and while we were drinking there extensively late at night in the past, we got tickets for our shitty ways. Most dangerous places seemingly disappeared as the drinkers disappeared and places got revamped.
I guess now that I am on the other end of the stick that’s just pure win instead of „god there’s no more place to drink and make chaos in this neighbourhood, the end is near”
From social media one sees the USA as a terrible, terrible place. I once even wanted to visit but after all I have read I no longer harboured that idea.
Also I hate guns nowadays even though I liked them once but like I really hate that kind of culture
I live in Arizona, one of the more trigger-happy states (we allow concealed carry without a permit) but I haven’t been personally affected by any gun violence in 20 years. There was a shooting on the edge of my neighborhood a few weeks ago, but I didn’t hear about it until days later, just happened to see a news story. It was some sort of party situation, the people knew each other, not random.
From social media one sees the USA as a terrible, terrible place.
I’mma be honest with you, that’s by design. The people posting/news/politicians want to make it seem more dangerous than it actually is because fear gets clicks and votes, which translates to ad revenue and “totally not bribes” excuse me, “lobbying.”
In reality crime was on a steady decline from 1993-2016, had a slight uptick from 2016-~2022ish, coinciding with the pandemic and political unrest, and now it’s back on the downswing. In that time, it never rose above pre-1993 levels. It’s not as bad as the powers that be would have us (and by extension you and the rest of the world) believe.
From all my internet lurking I discovered that America is a country almost beyond redemption, or at least some states.
I always wonder if it is really that bad or am I just hearing the usual ‘my country bad’ talk like anyone does but the news point to the first one basically every time. I can only assume it is mostly true and sympathise.
As someone who lives in middle eu capital city and has proverbial 4 houses it is all quite mind blowing. I feel like I live in completely different reality and I am grateful for it every day.
It’s however very painful to hear all you just plain suffering. Maybe that’s why my mind goes ‘it’s probably exaggerated’ it can’t be that bad can it be?
It’s a strange contrast living in the US sometimes. My personal life is pleasant and I work to keep it that way. I like where I work and I see multiple good doctors on a regular basis. But I’ve had plenty of my own troubles over the past 5 years too.
…but I also have eyes. I see the same crazy shit you do, and furthermore I have enough personal acquaintances to know that the crazies we both read about are fully serious and indoctrinated.
So, I wouldn’t say that the suffering is exaggerated, just that it isn’t ubiquitous. It’s a big place. Millions are doing OK while millions of others are getting beat down by life.
A big caveat to this is that of the millions who feel they’re doing “OK,” millions of them are one missed paycheck away from homelessness. Only ~40% of Americans can cover a $1000 emergency, for example.
Yeah, a lot of people are misled or just used to the shittiness. And as I’m sure we’re all aware, a big chunk of the population has been continued to think that the people taking advantage of them are some kind of heroes worthy of worship.
In some states, it really is that bad.
And every insane and cruel story you hear about our heathcare system is true too.
I’ve started calling it a wealthcare system.
Accurate assessment
car wealthcare system
“If it bleeds, it leads”. Yes, we have some things that are just not right, and sometimes horrible tragedies, more often than a modern country should. But if we keep talking about it, it may seem even worse than it is. Like you, most of us haven’t been impacted by school shootings, but yeah
The US is the size of Europe. And good stuff doesn’t hit the news very often.
There are clearly bad things that need fixing, but the badness varies from state to state and you’re probably getting a distorted picture regardless.
If America is a sum of its states, they are beyond redemption.
If the world is a sum of its countries, we are all beyond redemption.
Imho the whole system is broken and until everyone (worldwide) starts aligning then the world is lost. We aren’t there yet.
I used to think a major global catastrophe will fix the system, like world war, or a hostile alien invasion. Then covid happened and we’re back to square one in the aftermath, if not worse. I realised there’s no fixing it. In my opinion, it’s not that we aren’t there yet, it’s that we will never be ‘there’. Having said that, when I say never I speak about our lives or that of our grandchildren, perhaps a few more generations. If humanity survives a few more centuries after that, if not millenia, who knows what could happen.
So honest question. Do you know anyone who’s been threatened with gun violence? Because as an American my initial response was that it isn’t that bad, but then i thought about the fact that if you answer no to that that would probably be weird to me. Sure I’m rarely in such a position, but from time to time yeah I have to watch myself because I know crazy people who have guns or I know I’m pissing off an armed and violent person by doing something like helping their dv victim escape. The idea that guns wouldn’t be involved in such situations is more foreign to me than initially expected.
I mean, I’m only in my 30’s and I know four people who have been shot. Two were robberies, one was a seemingly random act of violence, and the fourth was due to a domestic dispute. Three are still alive, but that fourth died in his girlfriend’s arms before paramedics arrived. It happened a decade ago, and she still has night terrors from it. And this is in a nice suburb, not someplace full of gangs.
I never worried about anyone having a gun in my life at least not realistically so. I mean I live in pretty safe place. All the bad ppl left 15 years ago for the USA, Britain and so. We are the nation of religious, sometimes toxic hobbits. Worst is social ostracism as that can be really bad in the smaller places if you didn’t vote same as others or you dated same gender. Or didn’t go to the church…
I wish everyone could be a nation of hobbits, that’s like ideal in my eyes
Point is when I hear about knife fights in UK I am like wow brrrr.
Biggest bad news lately in my capital was that some poor woman got sexually assaulted and died a month or three ago while returning from some party at 5 AM sunday which was very shocking. It really was the most disturbing thing.
Everyone is very anti immigrant here though. Even the pro Democratic/leftish Party just legalized shooting at the border to immigrants (in case of aggression). Kinda crazy. I think at this point they simply wouldn’t get elected at all if they were pro immigration. One single, very left party pro immigration has 6% of votes.
It seems that this change in narrative of the pro eu pro democrats helped them win over alt rights but like ya know it’s all super complicated morally. I guess almost 100% of people don’t want (Arabic) immigrants and it is long sailed ship.
I am very conflicted about all it internally. I am not blind what happens when you let culturally and socially distant immigrants en masse but I don’t want those people to suffer either. I don’t blame them for trying to get where is much better place to live but I also don’t want to sacrifice myself for it…
It’s super huge problem and we all gonna have some blood on our hands I reckon if we don’t already have…
Also I remember there being lots of drunk homeless people once long ago but I haven’t seen one in such miserable state at least in a long while. Just realised it now. Long ago I was semi afraid to go to the liquor store because of all the types consuming high powered drinks. Harmless still but it definitely changed. For whatever reason. I hope it is for the good reasons and not the bad ones.
Overall I think we are moving into interesting direction though slowly and a bit bloody at times considering the borders. they are only going to get worse and most have uncanny ability to forget about such things immediately when they accidentally hear about them. We all prefer to pretend it’s all cool and distant or whatever. I myself prefer not to dig into the horrors that must happen there uh
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Well yes. I was asking the Europeans. As an American gunshots are a part of life
Yes I do. In fact the couple was held at gunpoint by 2 men who robbed them, and then felt up his wife in front of hime with gun barrels in their faces.
Cowards who hide behind a gun
new word https://urbandictionary.store/products/mug?defid=10607743
I’m in Canada and don’t know anyone I can say for sure has been affected by gun violence or threats of it. I’ve personally been in a situation where I was trying to make small talk with a wannabe gangster and apparently asking about jobs can be dangerous I guess when they make money from mostly illegal shit and he threatened me until my friend came over and convinced him I’m not an under cover cop. But even that threat was a, “what if I had a piece” rather than “I’m going to shoot you”.
I only ever saw or shot bb guns until in my 30s when I did some target shooting in my friend’s back yard. He kept his guns all locked up when he wasn’t using them, ammo locked separately. Partially for the obvious safety reasons (even though he lived alone), partially because a part of the license is that police are allowed to come and inspect how you are storing your guns. I don’t know how often this is used in practice (don’t think my friend ever had it happen), but it’s a sign that the legal state of guns is very different across the border.
I can’t even think of any robberies using violence or threats of violence I have first hand or second hand knowledge of. Theft, yes, but like the “car was left unlocked and someone noticed” or “someone picked an easy to pick lock”. That last one happened to me, I figured out who it was and just told him to stop coming around and I’d leave it alone and I never saw the guy again. It might have been a bit dangerous if I wanted satisfaction from the situation, but I think there might have been an equal chance he would have just accepted the L and paid be back for the weed he stole.
Pistols require a seperate license that is much harder to get. For rifles and shotguns, you can get a license as a hunter, recreational shooter, or collector (amateur is fine but you do need to get your hunter license first before you can use it to justify a gun license). There was a gun registry but the conservatives scrapped that the last time they were in power.
For pistols, they are limited to certain professions such as police officer, military (I assume), or professional hunter/trappers who work in bear territory and aren’t necessarily carrying a rifle or shotgun ready to go if suddenly confronted by a bear. I believe there’s certain self-defense scenarios that allow them (like a proven threat that is difficult to neutralize, like with connections to organised crime).
It’s gotta be extreme because carrying anything for self-defense is generally illegal. Like if you have a pocket knife you use to open packages, that’s ok, but if you carry that same knife for self-defense purposes, it’s an illegal weapon. Some knives like switchblades or butterfly knives that can be deployed with one hand are always illegal.
I think this is a bit much, because knives that don’t fold are ok and IMO the question should be more about what scenarios one thinks it is ok to defend themselves with a weapon than having had that consideration at all. That said, the situations where someone might think a weapon is called for but isn’t are probably more common that situations where one is necessary to defend oneself. But I digress.
The pretty much ban on pistols I think is what makes the difference. In some states, the risky part of carrying a pistol is about if you use it or if you specifically shouldn’t have one (felony or something). In Canada, just carrying it runs the risk of losing it and catching charges, which means that situations where someone would use a hidden pistol in the moment are more likely to have a cool down period while they go get their gun and might realize that it’s not worth it or might not be able to find their victim again afterwards.
There is some gang activity but I think even that is way more chill here and any violence is probably more related to score settling than turf control. I get the impression that the cops are more chill about non-violent stuff here, so that could play into the equation in that the risk differential is higher if violence is involved. Or I could be wrong about that because I’m not a minority (but I suspect it’s because police violence is investigated (and not just by themselves) and dealt with more consistently here, and the lower likelihood of getting randomly shot probably allows them to be more at ease).
For some it’s an nightmare for some it’s just Tuesday.
For the Tuesday folk that doesn’t mean they should sit idly and let it happen or even actively encourage it, but that appears to be what they think they’re entitled to.
I’m curious how perfect the country you live in is.
It is 8/10 where I live Public transport, edu, health, weather a bit too hot in summer because of city lacking green area but I have this small property 30 km away from city with just pure green everywhere and I smoke joints there and paint in summer.
My flat is barely liveable in summer without AC as it is on the attic.
People are peaceful mostly they just value not drawing attention to themselves and generally you can go alone at night with no problems. Only slightly worse as woman. Probably 50/50 if visibly trans - not sure but I’d wager it would be suprisingly rare considering how religious some ppl are. They will just tell you to fear Jesus or smh or maybe laugh or comment but most likely won’t do anything. Still if there is anyone that should be cautious it’s visibly trans ppl at night but then at night it’s harder to clock a trans woman so that’s that. I guess if you dressed like drag queen and went to the darkest places at night there would be 50/50 chance of some unpleasant or maybe dangerous situation but those bad places aren’t as many here as there were in the past.
Nearest bad place near me got renovated and while we were drinking there extensively late at night in the past, we got tickets for our shitty ways. Most dangerous places seemingly disappeared as the drinkers disappeared and places got revamped.
I guess now that I am on the other end of the stick that’s just pure win instead of „god there’s no more place to drink and make chaos in this neighbourhood, the end is near”
Ok cool. You just described a vast amount of places in the US.
Yay so that’s cool, not all that bad huh?
From social media one sees the USA as a terrible, terrible place. I once even wanted to visit but after all I have read I no longer harboured that idea.
Also I hate guns nowadays even though I liked them once but like I really hate that kind of culture
I live in Arizona, one of the more trigger-happy states (we allow concealed carry without a permit) but I haven’t been personally affected by any gun violence in 20 years. There was a shooting on the edge of my neighborhood a few weeks ago, but I didn’t hear about it until days later, just happened to see a news story. It was some sort of party situation, the people knew each other, not random.
I’mma be honest with you, that’s by design. The people posting/news/politicians want to make it seem more dangerous than it actually is because fear gets clicks and votes, which translates to ad revenue and
“totally not bribes”excuse me, “lobbying.”In reality crime was on a steady decline from 1993-2016, had a slight uptick from 2016-~2022ish, coinciding with the pandemic and political unrest, and now it’s back on the downswing. In that time, it never rose above pre-1993 levels. It’s not as bad as the powers that be would have us (and by extension you and the rest of the world) believe.