When the rest of the world hates you for shit a minority of your country did, but succumb to generalized thinking and blame all Americans (looking at you, Europe), a guilt complex can be internalized.
Russia has already ground through much of its resources in Ukraine and it’s not making meaningful advances. It doesn’t have the resources to attack other nations on top of that.
And European countries could easily cripple the Russian war machine with precision strikes, hit major resource production centers, infrastructure, etc.
But more to the point, once it’s Russia vs. Europe, Russian support for Putin’s war (because it ishis war) will evaporate near-instantly, and he will be killed. Europe doesn’t have to decapitate Russia; the Russians will do that.
LOL, Putin’s war in Ukraine has demonstrated quite clearly the value of the Russian military. There’s a reason he’s terrified of NATO. Ukraine has held off Russia’s “superior” might with civilian-grade drones. Any actual military response from NATO would crush Russia like a brick through wet tissue paper.
Does Russia? Even Putin knows that if he presses the big red button, it’s open season on him—not just a potential nuclear response from the outside but a nice, quiet defenestration from within. I think Russia will stick to conventional warfare as long as possible.
I agree, but only about the star of Earth in that series. The Epstein drive, protomolecule, even the colonization of Mars are all not guaranteed futures in my view. But if we keep going to way we are, yeah, I can see a 50+% unemployment rate and lots of brutalist architecture.
Seriously. If all of Western Europe ganged up on Russia, it would fold instantaneously. Bullies isolate their victims. Don’t let them do that and they show their true colors.
No, that sounds pretty on-point to me. The only additional thing I’d mention is that when you’re working, you’re paying into social security through your taxes, which—if you do it for long enough—sets you up much better for retirement than you will be if you’re still reliant on disability when you’re 65. So, that’s an additional incentive to work, which I tell my clients all the time, but for most of us, planning that far into the future is actually kind of difficult.
Skyrim. Load up some new mods, play a completely different character. The magic of Bethesda’s old games is that they leave the player free to imagine what they are. The upside of having the PC have no personality is that you get to project whatever personality you like onto them. Don’t initiate the main quest, don’t bother with dragons, play pretty much the entire game as if it is your own sandbox. It’s grand.
Socialism’s critics believe that people who receive government aid become reliant on it and cease making an effort to become self-sufficient.
As someone who works in community mental health, I sadly have to admit that those criticisms aren’t entirely false. Ironically, I think the fact that the government organizations that implement these social safety nets being underfunded contributes to the problem. Because it takes so long to obtain benefits like disability (SSD/I in America), people don’t want to risk getting a job, potentially losing it, and having to go through the long, arduous disability application process again. So they just learn to be content living on disability pay and food stamps.
But that’s disability. I don’t think the same applies to just public assistance (which you can’t live off of) and SNAP.
Anyway, despite there being a kernel of truth in said criticisms, they’re largely off-base. I think a lot of the critics also confuse socialism with communism, and don’t realize that all most socialists desire is a system like European countries have, which is proven to work and not threaten capitalism. Then there are the really sick fucks who believe in social Darwinism and genuinely think poor people deserve to be so, and that it would be just for them to die off. But thankfully, those are in the extreme minority.
Are you saying the second post is this one? Because that one was posted on the shitposting forum too, and it kinda just seems like a joke to me. Not a very good one, admittedly, but I don’t really see a pattern in the rest of their posting history either.
I also live in a very tourist-y area, but in the States, and without question the worst tourists are other Americans. I think when you're visiting another country, there's a certain amount of humility and respect that kicks in, because you know you're not on your own turf. When you're just visiting another part of your own country, that pressure doesn't kick in and it can leave you behaving like a bit of an entitled ass.
Back in my 20’s I was backpacking through Europe and had heard that Parisians were generally friendly to American tourists, but the one thing I was told was to start every conversation at least attempting to speak French. I did so, and everyone I spoke to either started speaking English or politely referred me to someone who did. There was only one incident I had there. I was ordering dinner in a restaurant and I asked the waiter what wine he recommended with the meal I’d ordered. This is a fairly common thing to do in America, but this poor waiter looked at me like I had just transformed into a 4th-dimensional kaleidoscopic entity before his very eyes. I mean, he totally froze, eyes wide, jaw slack. I immediately felt so bad that I just ordered the first red wine I saw on the list and the relief on his face was palpable, but he still looked shaken.
I think French people are just so familiar with wine that they can’t comprehend people who aren’t. If you ever visit France, do some basic research just so you don’t freak them out.
That’s not a counter argument. “They” don’t call China a communist state; China does. Nowhere does the United States call itself a straight democracy. It refers to itself as a republic.
When the rest of the world hates you for shit a minority of your country did, but succumb to generalized thinking and blame all Americans (looking at you, Europe), a guilt complex can be internalized.