The obsession with mutilating baby boy’s penises.
As an American I don’t get this either. You want to cut on my child’s penis the day after he’s born?! The fuck? Who says yes to that?
America was founded by shrill religious fetishists…
Imperial unit system.
I am American and hate imperial units especially ounces
Carter was transitioning the US to metric and then Reagan killed it.
I think the USC units are currently defined as fixed multipliers on top of SI units. The USC pound for instance is defined not as “the weight of this reference object” or “the mass associated with these multipliers on top the Planck constant,” but as 1 lb = 0.4536 kg (assuming four digit significance for now)
It’s dumb, but at least not entirely as dumb as having them defined as their own thing.
TBF we use metric wherever it’s needed as in science, engineering and the military. Imperial is more for everyday use and at least some of it, like feet vs meters, is more intuitive than metric since it’s basically the length of a grown man’s foot.
But again, wherever it actually matters, we do use metric.
The way politicians and the political system nakedly serves the needs and interests of corporations and the wealthy, and not the average individual.
The way that the price you’re quoted invariably gets bumped up by various taxes.
The insane system that is tipping, including the fact that a lot of workers are so underpaid that they rely on tips to get by.
The incessant adverts on TV for medical products, particularly prescription drugs.
Agree to all but politicians, in that it isn’t exclusive to the US, but most “naked” as you say
They glorify soldiers way too much and teachers way too little
Between the two there is a big difference:
One is a profession that can be a particularly dangerous way of life. Orders from above put you into place far from support, with limited resources, often in contact with hostiles on a daily basis. You’re often left to fend for yourself with only what you have on you against overwhelming odds. Command structures often pit you against your peers in petty internal politics around rank. The pay isn’t great, and those that stick with it for the long haul to make a lifetime of it often leave scared and mentally injured. It can be a thankless job in putting your life and health on the line to achieve the overall goal.
The other profession usually involves wearing a uniform and enforcing USA’s geopolitical interests in other countries.
Ah, the old
RedditLemmy switcharooHold my bulletprove backpack. I am going in.
U got me in the first half not gonna lie
Your comment made read the other comment.
Worth it.
It was good but I saw it coming right away lol.
As an American, it confuses me as well
Soldiers and patriotism…
id argue that that’s not true but my roommate and his friend made me watch 30+ minutes of commentated (by my friends) WW2 footage. i had to be like “hey man with all due respect i get the appeal I think but im not really interested in the glorification of something this horrific im sorry.” they were understanding but that level of interest in something so bleek was crazy.
also they were using WW2 japenese slurs and saying id walk up to that if i were there. and im like NO THE FUCK YOU WOULDNT you wouldnt even make it out of the armored car that took you there bud. people are not as badass as they think they are and soldiers arent badass they just want to see their families again we dont have to cheer them on like the opposing side doesnt also just wanna go home to their families.
ugh
they have an insane amount of gun and gun related deaths They don’t have Universal Healthcare they don’t have a federal payed leave law they don’t have a maternal/paternal leave law they don’t have tuition free universities they don’t have decent mass transportation The use of the imperial system
It just doesn’t make sense and baffles my mind for the richest country in the world to treat it’s citizens like this
Restaurant tipping instead of decent wages; somehow the blame is on the “stingy” customer
Tipping
Also, losing their shit over nudity
While having a huge porn industry.
Huh, the US and Japan aren’t so different.
Cheap wooden houses in areas with termites
And no insulation, so you rely on expensive AC
Tipping
Very large cars. You can easily fit 5 people in a small car… lol.
Your voting system. Registering to vote? Wtf is this? Here you get your “ticket” to vote, by mail, automatically after you turn 18, a few weeks before the election date. And you are required by law to get time off, to vote, if youre otherwise unable to make it in time.
Also paying for education… lol. Here its all free. In fact, im getting paid to study. (Not a ton but enough to get by)
Seems like you have a few misconceptions.
My house is definitely not cheaply built. Yes it is wooden. Termites are rarely an issue for homeowners. Different building materials have different pros and cons.
I’ve never seen a house anywhere in the United States with no insulation.
And you pay for education the same way we do. Taxes.
Registering to vote is pretty normal. You might not have to because the government already has records of you and that is the same in America for a lot of people. For immigrants in Europe you still have to register!
If you change municipality or state in Europe you might also have to register again so they have you voting in the right local elections.
Guns. Just restrict them, it’s not that hard
The “winner takes all” political system that ends with two extremist parties and a huge divide between people
Healthcare. Do I need to say anything?
The extreme divide between rich and poor
Police force. They hire lowly educated people, preferably racist, receiving barely any training, and what they do get is mostly nonsense. They then get military equipment, and the entire system is protected by a corrupt union
The amount that news organizations are allowed to lie
Well it is hard from a “cat out of the bag” reason.
To be clear I agree, there’s way to many guns around and the best time to plant a tree is before today, but today is better than tomorrow. So let’s start.
But there’s millions of absolutely unknown guns here and banning them would create a black market with no end in sight
I didn’t say ban them, I said restrict them. Heavily. Tax them. Increase bullet prices. Kinda like that black comedian, forgot his name, said: make every bullet 5000 dollars. Im gonna save up, I’m going to get an extra job, imma get me a bank loan, and then you’re a dead man!
It was funny, but I think there is a realistic point to it. Make it all most expensive and people will use it less, have it least, cause less casualties
Also to be honest I’m not sure I’m cool with the “rich white people that are friends with some congressman are the only ones who deserve the right to protect themselves” attitude most of the anti gun crowd seems to default to. Sure, they tell you that isn’t what they want and frankly I believe them, but they still advocate for policies that will in effect criminalize gun ownership for especially the poor and disenfranchised, and also the vanishing “middle class.” Especially considering our tendancy to enforce things like this in overpoliced marginalized neighborhoods, you think they’re rolling into gated communities talking about some guns? Nope, they’ll be just fine, after all, they “need it to protect their lives from those who seek their property,” you are “too poor to have to worry about that, just die.”
Most people aren’t hugely divided on guns. Like you said, you’re seeing the two extremes of the parties, not the will of the people. Browsing Lemmy would convince you that everyone except for the big bad GOP wants guns banned, and that’s simply not true. Most people want responsible gun limitations, not total gun bans.
Problem though is, define “responsible gun limitations.”
That could mean anything from “just ending private sale” to “full on confiscation of millions of firearms from millions of people, that have the usual laundry list of california un-approved accessories for no reason” depending on who you’re talking to.
Most of the laws proposed in the last 20yr are either entirely innefective or too effective and could easily be abused to deny people their rights (those people are usually the marginalized or disenfranchised, not rich white men, of course).
Sticker price isn’t the price you pay at the till. Why? Why do you do that.
Massive gaps between the walls and doors of public lavatory cubicles. This is not some mystical, advanced technology. Get it together.
We do that because our country is founded on the “right” for moneymakers to put as much onto the customer as they can get away with. Hence things like tipping culture.
I’ve seen this conversation many times on Reddit, and from what people say I assume there is a regional thing going on on. I’m from a part of the US where toilet stalls do not have massive gaps. There is a big gap at the bottom but too low for anyone to be seeing under unless they are crawling on the floor. Gaps along the sides are quite narrow. 1 cm at most, and nothing anyone is going to be seeing you through unless they are some kind of freak putting their eye right up to it. These stalls are prefab panels you can easily put into a room. The gaps mean ventilation for the room takes care the stalls too.
I assume stalls started this way and became normalized, and in some parts of the country they’ve gotten sloppier, and sloppier, and normalized these huge gaps I hear people describe but never see.
This might be my bias, but I assume these are the places where everything is a suburban stripmall wasteland, where there are no sidewalks, and where it seems to me the whole environment is increasingly dehumanized.
Thank you for your comment. I can’t speak for the entire world, but in the UK a 1 cm" gap in the door of a public toilet would be massive and unacceptable. It’s not enough that someone can only see into a stall through a gap in the door if they are “right up to it”; they should not be able to see in at all. Public toilets in other countries have doors with gaps you can’t leer through at all.
Re. the “gaps meaning ventilation”, surely the “big gap at the bottom” and the fact that the whole top is open will be contributing more to ventilation?
You say you think this might be a regional thing in the US. Okay, could be. I have personally encountered this issue in Washington, California, North Carolina, DC, Massachusetts, Georgia, Texas, Oregon, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Maryland.
I can understand that to someone not used to this, any gap at all might be troubling and one might tend to exaggerate it as “massive”.
However note that these walls are fairly thick which narrows any visibility angles considerably. So to really see someone through the gap you would have to be at exactly the right angle and looking straight at them. Sitting on the toilet in one of these you can see some really narrow strip of the sinks area which also reflects the areas in which someone would have to be and looking straight at you to see you. People at the sink area have their back to you. People walking past them to another stall, are not looking to the side.
I’m not trying to convince you that they are ideal, or that your should like them, just that when the gaps are pretty narrow it is not as big a deal as you might think to get used to.
Again this is assuming these gaps are pretty narrow. I get the impression from what some Americans have said in other discussion that in some places they are quite a bit wider than I am used to, and what I said above may no longer apply.
Oh, I absolutely believe that people in America can accept it’s “not as big a deal as you might think”.
This is a thread about things about America that make no sense. So: I don’t understand why America, seemingly uniquely, accepts this as “not a big deal”.
It’s weird. Land of the free, home of the public toilets strangers can see inside. So odd.
The US doesn’t have a VAT, but a sales tax on final sale of a good. Not only that, but states, counties, and cities can issue their own sales tax on sales within their borders. There are also cases where sales tax isn’t charged at the register. In the end, it is easier for companies to just charge the tax at the end, so they do.
That is a nonsensical excuse. If they can calculate the price at the checkout then they can calculate it when they are putting up the price tags.
There are these mystical things called computers, that are very good at computing things. So when printing the price you can automatically compute it into the labels.
Nowadays, yes. However, that wasn’t always the case. People got used to tax not being included and there has never been a big push to change that.
So instead of calculating the price once and putting it on the sign, they calculate it every time a customer shows up at the register. Sure sounds way easier.
Or they print out consistent signs across a region, advertise to it, and take care of the sales tax to handle it.
Again, they calculated the price at the checkout, so they could also have done it for the price tag. It is not a valid excuse in the slightest. Its only purpose is to obfuscate the actual price of an item and confuse the customer about the actual price of an item.
And what is I’m tax exempt? Now the price isn’t right for me…
A “politics” channel on a site called Lemmy.World that is specifically only for US politics, because America is the world.
Where do they play the only sport that calls their competition the World Series yet only 1 county is participating?
(Okay, technically 2, but come on.)
Vote for people who actively oppose universal healthcare, mandatory PTO policies, universal family leave policies, universal college-level education, etc.
Then words are communism and we don’t take kindly to pinko commies round here.
Tipping and calculating your own taxes
Yeah but neither of those are by choice, they kind of got forced on us through tradition and regulatory capture.
What’s up with that “bus shaming”? It would never occur to me to judge people based on whether they use public transport VS own a car!
I live in a major city with one of the best transit systems in the country so we don’t really have that here, but it’s that it’s a class thing mainly.
Also since so much of the country is flat out inaccessible without a car that going without one can be very isolating.
The whole Guns thing
Keeping your gun accessible when driving your car. Needing or wanting to open carry when you go shopping. Needing to pose with your family all holding powerful guns for a Christmas photo. I don’t get it.
A modern analog I like is to high grade digital encryption.
Terrorists and criminals use it, and governments want to ban it. But that doesn’t actually mean it should be banned, or that people who oppose a ban are terrorists or criminals.
Totally, except regulating encryption makes much more sense because of al those encryption-violence deaths that happen daily in the US. All those kids with easy access to encryption going to school and encrypting their classmates, the policemen not intervening because they are afraid to get encrypted by the kids armed with military grade AES-512 routines.
It is a modern analog, but with its limits - all this stuff doesn’t happen in countries where encryption is much more regulated and you can’t buy encryption routines in malls.
Your comment comes off as shallow and dismissive. I’d be happy to discuss this further, but not under those conditions.
Yeah, but it’s way harder to kill someone accidentally (or in a fit of rage) with high grade digital encryption than with a firearm.
Guns are the only reliable way to deal with tyrants. And while its not everytime, look at what happens to disarmed populations usually.
Also gun control started as and still is racist.
You had a tyrant that tried to overthrow a legitimate election through violence.
Where were all gun nuts then? Those who weren’t attempting said coup, that is. Doesn’t sound reliable to me.
As for what happens to disarmed populations, most of Europe has gun control laws that would make any American have a heart attack, and yet here we are, no dictators to be seen up to GMT+3. Do say, what is it that happens to disarmed populations? What is happening to us that I somehow didn’t notice?
And gun control being racist… I’m sorry, what? This right here, this is the thing I’ll never understand about Americans. Everything is racist. You can’t talk about anything, somebody will play the “racist” card before you can get any deeper than slogans. Absolutely every single thing turns out to be a race issue. Sure, you guys had very big issues with racism until very recently (learning about sundown towns for me was a huge WTF moment) and it’s very hard to deal with a past so ugly - but still, maybe not everything is about race.
In America, gun control started as a way to disarm black people. Worked out well when the Klan wanted to lynch someone. Thats what was racist about it.
Sounds like the usual American retcon… you have a race obsession now so everything all the time was about race. A bit like Marx, who was obsessed with class struggle so literally every single event in history was actually a class struggle.
Also if you search online you’ll find plenty of articles they say they gun control is perceived as a racial issue, because gun control damages the rights of whites - with similarly flimsy arguments and mental gymnastics.
It’s almost as if it’s all bullshit.
How many tyrants have we dethroned?
Next, how many people have died by guns otherwise?
King George is the funny answer.
The Taliban insurgency is a much more recent one.
The viet cong fought the USA and won.
The IRA fought well.
I can keep going, but its easier to just link a wiki page. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_revolutions_and_rebellions
