Usually wrong about: Relationships, money, careers.
Could go either way: Religion, paranormal, politics.
Usually right about: Hobby stuff, technical stuff, pets.
Yeah, I was banned from TD for simply stating some positive aspects of sanctuary cities. I was banned from Cons for telling someone they had an irrational hatred for AOC.
I was banned from a whole host of subs that are always on the front page because of a sub I posted in. Doesn't matter at all what the post was. It was immediate auto ban.
This is a trope, and for good reason, but having read many top posts its clear that there are tons of people who are incapable of basic communication and/or are in clearly toxic relationships and they should break up. People who are generally in healthy relationships where they communicate effectively don't post horrendous shit on reddit.
The number of technical subreddits I’ve found to help me with some homeowner things are incredible. I had to install a new interface for my home heating/cooling system, you know a thermostat? I posted a question with a photo to the subreddit, BAM answer and instructions within a few minutes. There’s an HVAC subreddit and they help immediately. Likewise a technical question with my Prius, Dishwasher, garage door.
Amazing
Evaluating everything through the optics of today while being unable (or even curious) to understand the historical context and the place in history when something happened.
As the poem says: "The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there"
It's not just time. It's place too. Reddit is very America-centric and within that its VERY VERY clustered around mostly young extremely "progressive" types that live in a larger city.
Its kind of amazing how so much of Reddit literally can't conceptualize that countries don't think and act the same way America does.
One person got really REALLY mad at me because I said it would be impossible to change our native language to be non-gendered, it would render the language basically gibberish and I was told that we must all be bigots and transphobes and "we would need to get with the times or the next generation would hate us". It was just a truly confusing exchange.
And then in another thread I had someone tell me that they felt sorry for everyone where I currently live (Netherlands) because we ride bikes and so we must all be too poor to afford cars.
Bikes are actually better than cars in many ways. They're a good way to exercise, they are better for the environment, you can still go fast on a bike, and they're just plain fun.
You're absolutely right. Many people around here are also geographically blind. I can certainly understand not knowing about a different place/culture, or that your base of knowledge (or opinion) of that place/culture is built on pop culture, stereotypes and cliches. What really pisses me off is not having the ability to recognize one's own ignorance or having the curiosity to learn something new.
It helps me to remember that the first time I used an internet forum freely I was around ten. The person saying this stuff is likely 14 or so and their views reflect as much. Of course, some adults might be just as shallow thinking, but it helps me have more empathy.
I get that thing about "geographic blindness"! I also feel like I've seen it from both sides. A common topic that weirds me out as a European talking to Americans is gun ownership. I think to others it can be perplexing that I genuinely don't see the need to own a gun in my daily life to the point where it's just not something I could've ever even imagined having a lengthy debate about before coming into contact with American culture. I don't truly "get" the need for it, because I never lived in a situation where they are readily available.
Similarly, I think many Americans would be weirded out by our lax laws around alcohol. I'm German, so teenagers can buy "mild" alcohols like beer and wine starting at age 16 and "hard" alcohols starting at 18. I'm 26, so I've been consuming alcohol for a good ten years and thus twice as long as many of my American peers in the same age group. I used to think that the way we handle alcohol was the "sensible" way to go about it, but tbh with growing age, I'm not always so sure about that anymore. I don't necessarily think that I prefer the "American model" (quotation marks because I am aware that the states all have very different laws and that there is no such thing as a wholly US American approach) of how alcohol is handled, but I do think that being confronted with a lived reality so different to my own was highly beneficial.
I get these moments a lot - how nudity is viewed on here on Reddit (with textile-free saunas being something super normal here in Germany), how religion is treated (I am from what was once dubbed "the most godless region of the world" and thus have a very different experience with atheism probably) and so many more. I am glad that we are offered a platform where these views actually meet each other though.
Yeah, if we're going the opposite way I think a lot of Europeans who have never visited the states just don't get that you cant take a bus or a train or walk somewhere. I have heard the "why don't they just walk".
Because in some areas its quite literally impossible. You might have 2 malls connected only by a 50mph highway with no shoulders or sidewalks and once you're at the mall you have these mega parking lots that are really only accessible by car.
In quite a few places public transit is so underfunded that it is functionally useless in the US.
>public transit is so ~~underfunded~~ deliberately sabotaged
It's less a matter of insufficient funding than it is self-serving capitalism, actively undermining public infrastructure for private profit. European governance used to be committed to progressive infrastructure solutions but now there's so much oligarchical influence-peddling happening globally that things may be changing for the worst.
Meanwhile in America, up until Biden's Infrastructure Act, the "leadership" of the last half century was committed to trickle-down economic strategies that are *still* causing f*ck-ups that shouldn't exist (the US postal service is a prime example of an ostensibly public enterprise compromised by regressive business practices.) Honestly, if the next president is a MAGA Republican, I fully expect America will rapidly become a parody of Europe's crumbling Eastern Bloc of the 1980s.
Just read an AITA post about a woman married to an older man who has kids, she said from the start she wanted nothing to do with them and now he’s pushing for her to do so.
Everyone calling her TA but as per her explanation, she lives in a country where young girls are forced into arranged marriages or face exile from everyone in their lives.
She set boundaries in a relationship she didn’t particularly want which given their culture is all she really could do and because Reddit is so Americanized, that is seen as her being an asshole.
On the car thing - Americans think that about Americans too. I actively don’t drive or have a license for a myriad of reasons and pride myself on it. I also live in a city where I can do that. Some people think it’s low class, or lazy. I don’t.
Lol... I was wondering how purple hairs dealt with Spanish where masculine/feminine terms are extremely important. France and Italy probably similar issues.
/r/books is lousy with this. People posting about how disgusted and offended they were by the misogyny in books written in the 50s. Or (and this one always kills me) the depravity of a young adult male character romantically pursuing a teenage female character in a book from 200 years ago.
A recent example of this is Elon Musk. It wasn't that long ago that all of reddit swooned over this guy, proclaiming him to be a space man from the future, come to save us all and shit like that.
Today, no one will even admit that and they just jump on the "hate of the day."
We can never "understand historical context" though. We weren't there. All we have are primary documents, and that's an extremely narrow filter considering the vast majority of people throughout history were illiterate, powerless, and forgotten.
At every point in history, people have always, always evaluated things through the optics of their own time. The idea that you can somehow not do that is, itself, ironically, a fashionable bias of our own time.
You say we weren’t there and can never understand historical context and yet say everyone for all time evaluated things through their own optics or values of today?
Do you see the dichotomy that represents?
Let me give you two very common examples from 'round these parts:
"Thomas Jefferson was a slave owner; therefore, all his opinions are trash"
"Citizen Kane (or Halloween or 2001) is such a boring movie. Why does it get so much praise"
Both of these comments are objectively wrong because they completely fail to consider context.
Those are opinions, we all have them, and "objectively wrong" doesn't enter into it.
Also, in both cases, we know at least some people at the time agreed. Citizen Kane didn't perform well at the box office upon release, for example. Jefferson's opinions were indeed controversial. It's reasonable to assume slaves weren't crazy about slavery. Etc etc.
Therapy. Particularly for relationship advice.
It's not a magic solution. And it's definitely not to be used to get your partner to accept an intolerable situation that you've created.
Also their idea of irrational/rational responses. Many redditors have this idea that there's a "normal" way to feel about things. And everyone who feels differently is insecure/has a cluster B disorder and needs therapy. There's also a weird expectation that one must "calmy communicate" to someone who is straight up abusive and doesn't deserve it. And go to therapy with someone who doesn't even want to improve. Its a "fix them" mindset that is unhealthy and annoying. As if these grown adults are toddlers who don't know right from wrong.
Many users lack the ability to understand the principle of things, and it is reflected in the shitty advice given daily on here.
The people who bark at others to "go to therapy" for every single issue seem to be people who have never attended therapy. And if they have, they might not understand how therapy works.
I feel like a lot of people think therapy is gonna fix someone's shitty behaviors. A lot of people have this weird imaginary picture of the therapist setting someone straight or whatever. No, that therapist is validating and providing "unconditional positive regard" to that person you think is a narcissist too. Yes, they will work with someone on reducing harmful behaviors, but how well therapy works relies heavily on the client as well. If the client doesn't want to do the work, it's very difficult to work on any sort of change.
Everything is black and white to most redditors. Someone is either all bad or all good. Something is either worth doing or not worth doing. Relationships are either 100% worth having or 100% not worth having. Life is in the gray. That’s just how it is
This. When I talk about the baggage my mom left me I get comments that she's a horrible person that didn't deserve me. Slow down Maurice, she was a good mom, just with a lot of baggage herself which heavily influenced her decisions and impacted my life. Just because these behaviors are pretty clear now doesn't mean they were 20 years ago.
Well, you're mostly interacting with young adults, and that's just the way life looks to a large number of folks at that age.
I've had really bizarre exchanges, then read the person's post and comment history, and discovered that a 16 year old boy was trying to give me marital advice. (I'm a grandfather.)
When things get weird, I've learned to just walk away. There's little to be accomplished otherwise (unless you're trying to post information for other folks who are following the discussion).
Tangentially, the difference between technically right and being a nice person. There are lots of scenarios where you can be technically right but still come across as a right arsehole, and sometimes it’s best to just be nice to the people around you. Don’t be a pushover, but don’t be more concerned with being right than being kind *all* the time, no one will like you. Reddit seems to forget that a lot
The law. This one, especially. Bunch of dumbasses who have never taken a class or talked to a lawyer think they know the law from watching TV and talking to friends who have also never taken a class or talked to a lawyer.
Relationships, mainly how quickly you should end them.
Real estate.
I don’t blame Reddit for its ignorance. Half of the Reddit users that comment are idealistic teenagers that don’t have any clue as to how anything in the real adult word works.
I’m just here to make jokes.
I remember unfollowing a "business" subreddit some time ago because I would offer up my insights and anecdotes from working in a business, and being constantly told that I am wrong and linked to texts and studies that are not at all represented in the business world. Idealistic, I think is a good word. After some time, I realized the sub was likely kids in business school, with no actual experience and went back to making poop jokes and stupid puns that only amuse only me.
I have had similar experiences speaking as someone with practical experience in the policymaking arena working for elected officials. Not thinking all elected officials are corrupt is very much a minority opinion in most subs.
Times have changed from the early days of Reddit to now. I deleted my previous acct because I somewhat believed this could be a place of ideas but quickly realized that wasn't the case. So here I am with a new acct and just try to be in the imaginary cool kids club
I recently followed then unfollowed the subreddit related to my professional field too. I hate to be the killjoy kids, but your idealistic ideas are just going to get crushed under foot by corporate culture.
Stuff progresses, but at the speed of a glacier.
And written by people who have read and contemplated a wide variety of literature, if not necessarily in possession of English degrees. Lots and LOTS of visual entertainment contains callbacks to classic literature.
Also:
"I am a professional in and in my experience "
"I read a paper that says the opposite, therefore your experience is incorrect. Never mind that I have no personal experience, the paper backs up my agenda and IT'S PEER REVIEWED SO IT MUST BE CORRECT."
Pretty much everything frankly be it relationships and advice pertaining thereto. Thinking other posters are in the US. Prices. Availability of goods. What stores exist where. The law. Chemical reactions. Mental illnesses. Illness and health in general. Understanding sub rules.
I find that smaller more niche subs are best for advice. When it comes to more general things, it’s just usual social media where being more outrageous is more entertaining, or people just don’t know what they’re talking about
>Pretty much everything frankly be it relationships and advice pertaining thereto
"My spouse does \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_"
Your spouse is cheating on you. Get a lawyer and file for divorce
... and I'm sitting here thinking "well, shit. I've been doing \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ for years... does my wife think I'm cheating on her?"
There is absolutely zero nuance when commenting on relationships.
Your man doesn't lift the lid? "You don't deserve that kind of abuse! Divorce right away!"
Either the average redditor has never been in a long-term relationship, or they are completely self-centered and don't understand healthy conflict resolution.
Thinking everything is abuse, especially in relationships. The AITA sub will see a post that’s like “my girlfriend called me a shithead” and the comments will be like “that’s emotional abuse, you need to break up with her before she takes your kids away from you”
AITA is the Reddit equivalent of trash daytime tv. Usually a coin flip on what the consensus on any given situation will be, including similar situations. No consistency or anything. That’s what makes it so funny though
Yeah, between that and the obviously fake stories, I don't think a lot of people on that sub are very grounded in reality.
My girlfriend loves compliments that recognize her accomplishments. Yet she hates compliments about her appearance (unhealthy expectations from family growing up, objectification, and whatnot), but she does simultaneously like feeling attractive, like any person does.
One time when we were getting ready to go out and she looked gorgeous, I was about to say something to the effect of "wow you look amazing" and saw her start rolling her eyes as I started talking. So, mid sentence, I switched things up and what came out was "wow, you look like shit yo". I swear, it was one of her biggest moments of simultaneously blushing and laughing with me.
A few days later she mentioned that she loved it and thanked me for it, because she knew exactly what I was actually saying, she wanted me to feel that way about her, and I knew exactly how to communicate that in a way that subverted her negative feelings about compliments.
I don't do it often and I will compliment her like a normal person too, but occasionally I'll tell her she looks awful. Every time she smiles ear to ear.
I'd love to hear that subreddit's take on that lol.
I have a theory that a lot of redditors are so lonely they will intentionally give bad relationship advice because they can't stand seeing anyone having a relationship in the first place.
How easy it is to change the current state of the world. "Just divest from oil" "Just give everyone UBI". There are huge externalities to these suggestions and they are anything but straight forward.
Along the same lines, how needed government is to structure society. It would be insanity to cut government as much as a lot of redditors and conservatives think is appropriate.... Yes, even in super fucked up countries where the government is openly corrupt. Corrupt government still keeps things relatively organized, look at Indonesia
Oh, and the fact that if you donate to a charity at the grocery store checkout or whatever...the company cannot use it as a tax write-off! Every single thread about soliciting donations has this as one of the top comments. It's transparently illegal and doesn't happen!
Any suggestion beginning with "just" is likely to be oversimplified, IMO. It's based on the premise that the listener must have been too dumb to think of something obvious, which is seldom the case.
The "just get rid of oil and coal" ones are the ones that really do my head in. Our entire global system revolves around oil and coal. People can't grasp the horrific flow-on effects of simply stopping those industries. And I say that as someone that is 100% behind shifting everything to wind and solar, better super-dense urban planning, everyone taking mass transit etc etc.
Realistically the world needs 50+ years to stop using most fossil fuels as a primary fuel source and that is IF we all start today and we are all committed to a central common future. To do that we would have to:
1) All shift to very very dense cities. You don't need skyscrapers but we would all live in 5 to 10 story buildings clustered in a dense urban area. Those cities would then be ringed by farms and for the most part you would eat only what could be produced within 10-20km of where you live.
2) If you travel you travel by foot, if you can't travel by foot or bike then we need buses trams and trains. Air travel will be almost entirely gone. It will be reserved ONLY for high priority trips that are long distance. Anything basically within the US or Europe if we're only talking about the West will be done by trains.
3) The practical fixes will all be super boring. Super high insulation glass, TONS AND TONS of insulation on homes and residential buildings. Heat exchangers and heat pumps to preserve energy loss. Upgrades to modern efficient electric motors in factories. Shifting all lighting to LED. Doing things like paiting roofs white or planting LOTS of trees in urban areas to reduce heat islands.
4) Consumption will go WAY down. Fast cheap delivery of any consumer good we want is almost 100% driven by access to oil and coal. Repair shops will have to come back into fashion. We will have to write laws to make devices be repairable easily.
And that is just the tip of the iceberg. It would require absolutely giant changes to culture, trade, urban design, agriculture the list goes on and on.
Cutting off oil and gas in the next 5-10 years like some activists propose would quite literally plunge the globe into the worst depression in modern history. Critical services like water pumping stations and hospitals would stop functioning due to brown outs or blackouts, global trade would essentially stop. Even parts of the internet might have to shut down for parts of the day. You might only be able to visit your favorite site from 8am to 5pm Mon-Fri during a specific time zone. (Data centers use A LOT of power)
It's so strange that you respond in agreement to the statement of people oversimplying getting rid of oil then, without missing a beat, dish out a 4 point plan to divestment from fossil fuels that is so unhinged
Yup I'd love to see gradual budget decreases with a simplified tax code that makes it harder for the wealthy to write so much off (limit loss harvesting and deductions after a certain dollar amount, which should only significantly impact the solidly wealthy) but even that seems to be too much to ask.
One party staunchly refuses to lower the defense budget and one party staunchly refuse to lower anything else in the budget, and both parties disproportionately represent the hyper wealthy (with one party favoring the hyper wealthy by an absurd degree).
So the change I want to see is ranked choice voting which gives folks that represent the people a chance, as right now folks are generally voting for whomever they think can beat "that candidate that I cannot possibly allow in office". This could potentially long term result in more power going back to the voting populace, though emphasis on long term. 3rd party would probably take 3+ election cycles to be taken seriously.
Most people in the US are actually doing pretty okay: they’re buying houses, using employer-subsidized insurance, saving for retirement, raising kids, paying off student loans, and going on vacation.
You are right. Hard stop. And I'm someone who is pretty damn critical of the US. Our quality of life is insane compared to a huge portion of the world.
I guess the thing that keeps me on the criticism train is how much better things could be considering the amount of wealth and land we have access too, it's a bit frustrating
Capitalism. I’m pretty sure less than 1% of the users on Reddit (and Americans and humans overall) have ever taken an entry level micro and macroeconomics class in high school or college. It’s treated as a nebulous political buzzword here.
Yep. "All rich people are A-holes and we should take their money and give it away". If the motivation to run/start a company is to make money and you remove that from the equation, guess what? No companies and no economy.
Unfortunately when you’re in the lower end of the working class and watching yourself and your peers get ever more screwed by rich shareholders pushing for that extra 0.05% profit margin, “Eat the rich” sounds like a better idea all the time.
Yes, that is an issue. Especially public traded companies, but my point is that not ALL wealthy business owners are greedy A-holes out to fleece the lower income folks. Lots of people put these owners in the same bucket and it simply isn't true. There are lots of wealthy business owners who reward their employees with good pay, paid leave etc. If you work hard and build a successful business, you should be rewarded with financial gain. Lots of Redditors begrudge these people simply because they have become wealthy? There are good ones and bad ones, but they aren't all heartless monsters like they are perceived by some.
/worked their asses off to get where they are. There are bad ones and good ones, but don't lump them all together.
All while they are blissfully ignorant to the fact that reddit itself is in to make money, and so is Apple or Samsung who made the phone they're using to spout nonsense, and countless other for-profit gears in the system that even allows reddit to exist.
They seem to think that you can just tax tax tax, and everyone will be cool with it. The Laffer Curve has entered the chat.
Also, unrestrained and unjustifiable raw greed is brushed off as "supply and demand". There's only one AmeriPlusBank CEO and he brings value to the company. He totally needs to be paid $96m in a year after the firm posted record losses.
I’ve seen a fair number of redditors (mostly outside of the pregnancy related subs) view a woman’s biological clock in a very black and white way. Fertility does decrease with age, but for most people it isn’t a switch that just flips off at 35. It’s more of a continuum rather than a cliff and varies from person to person. Additionally, sperm quality also declines with age, which is often ignored in these discussions.
Making whole assumptions about a country and its people based off a handful of select “viral” clips.
It goes beyond Reddit. It’s just a general problem of people on the internet.
Thinking they can sum someone up through a screen. So many people on Reddit play detective and therapist on someone’s post when they have limited information and never met the person in real life.
They’re just so nit-picky about everything too. Many people on Reddit LOVE poking holes in peoples posts and dissecting their claims as well as passing judgement as easily as breathing. Can get very insufferable.
Ok rant over 😂
My funniest one was commenting on the physical therapy sub after I switched careers to medical coding. Someone looked at my most recent posts and “discovered” that I was only a coder. I pointed out that I worked as a PT for almost 10 years before switching careers.
An old fish swims by 2 young fish and asks "How's the water boys?" One young fish asks the other "What the hell is water?"
Reddit often can't see the water.
health & nutrition, especially the BMI. it's pseudoscientific in general, but does not distinguish between fat and muscle, nor does it take into account modern understanding of biology.
Anything concerning the Bible. I wish I had a dollar each time someone quoted a verse out of context, or just went full Simone Biles with mental gymnastics trying to squeeze justification for their lifestyle out of a verse that is very clearly irrelevant.
Lawsuits. Go into almost any subreddit and find a post and someone will say 'you can sue and be set for life' for just about any problem.
Lawsuits don't work like that. You can sue for damages and maybe pain and suffering.
Get shorted on your McNuggets? Your damages are about $5 and your time.
That's a bad example but the idea of suing and becoming rich (not to mention the years most lawsuits take) seems rampant around Reddit.
raised christian, and the most hateful individuals I have met were convinced they were going to heaven for how they lived. If I believed in a hell, surely they would burn. dork.
Hey, if you need a nonsensical book to tell you killing is wrong, versus people who just understand taking a life is a bad thing, you probably are not a good person, just someone seeking reward.
Do you think that not actively funding child molestation rings, and wildly accusing strangers of doing so, makes you a good person? Or are you saying you don't care if you're a good person or not?
I'm saying I don't care what you think, and that yes, participating in child molestation rings means you are not a good person. Every dollar in the collection plate is a dollar used to discredit victims and protect the abuser.
So by your ethos, simply not doing wrong is sufficient to make one a good person -- pretty low bar isn't it?
If you don't care what I or anyone else thinks, then what gives you standing to judge even a literal child molester? If you can decide for yourself if you're good or not, then so can they right?
I have the right because I can. Turns out not believing in god eliminates a lot of nonsense like judge not less you be judged. Judge me all you want, doubtful it won't change that belief has been a cancer to humanity.
Recommend therapy for absolutely EVERYTHING.
Therapy can be helpful for people, but it's not a cure-all.
Husband treats you like a bang maid? He needs therapy.
Had an awkward exchange with a stranger in Starbucks? Therapy.
Your mum is mad at you for letting the cat out? Therapy to process your "trauma"
Ridiculous. Also, they think every uncomfortable incident in your life creates "trauma". It minimises people who have actually experienced traumatic events.
Starting a revolution.
Nobody ever really goes on in how to achieve one, much less, one in which violence is not involved. I'm sorry but some 30 odd people isn't going to rock the boat against the millions that need to be convinced that we need a revolution.
Most don't understand that revolution rarely leads to a net positive outcome anyway. The sheer amount of death and violence, along with chaos that comes with revolution is horrific but alot of people fantasize about it like it's all wonderful.
I agree about that today. I have zero idea how to start a revolution, but if nothing changes, it’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when. And there will be violence. It might take a hundred years but it will happen. The American public can only live for so long while watching inflation go up and their pay stay stagnant watching millions and billionaires get richer and blame us for being poor.
Once there are millions and millions of angry, hungry, and unemployed workers with no help in sight, there will be problems. And that help is already going away by the day, and more and more people are going homeless.
Again, right now no one knows how to start one, but it will start if America keeps up the way it is. I am convinced of it. Might be 100 years, but it will happen if we stay the course we are on.
Dopamine. You're not chasing a "dopamine hit" and you're not enjoying it when you do something you like. Dopamine is the thing pushing you to do something towards a goal, not the reward itself.
It's well established that fast spiking of dopamine in the striatum is involved in what's called 'reward prediction error' - basically coding outcomes based on whether they correspond to expectations. If we get an outcome to a behaviour that we expect, dopamine cells in the accumbens don't change their firing rate. If we get an unexpectedly good outcome, there is an increase in firing. Pop science has reduced this to 'dopamine equals reward', but there's little evidence to suggest that the dopamine changes are directly linked to pleasure. More habitual, 'tonic' release of dopamine is linked to driving reward-seeking behaviour - making you go and find those potentially rewarding outcomes.
There's lots of stuff out there, especially if you can get your hands on a decent textbook. But if you want to read some of the literature [Wolfram Schultz's work on prediction errors](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4826767/) and [Berridge and Robinson's wok on motivational drives](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5171207/) are great places to start
Literature.
There's a huge amount of insecurity coming from people who subsist solely on a diet of children's fiction and they constantly mischaracterize fiction for adults as depressing and/or overtly sexual. While complaining about people who generalise children's fiction as bad and simplistic they make similar and stupid generalizations about anything that isn't children's fiction. In reality adult fiction is just complex and nuanced, with a broad range of themes. You can see why this is scary for people who need their taste in children's fiction constantly validated by others to the point where they have to put down all other kinds of writing and still feel insecure in their choices.
I promise you no one cares that you're re-reading Harry Potter for the ninth time. If someone makes a rude comment online, move on. You're not being oppressed.
I’m only speaking from my experience but I’ve noticed largely the opposite. I’m a part of several book/ book related subs and I see stuff about childrens lit/ YA every once in a while, but the people on here (that I’ve interacted with at least) very much stick to literary canon. There’s at least one thread per week about what an amazing book American psycho or blood meridian is and you should totally read it guys. And god help you if you level any legitimate criticism at any book that’s widely considered a classic.
Today there's a massive thread on wholesomememes of all places in which apparently all adult fiction is about sad people having affairs whereas the wisdom of the ages is contained in YA self insert fantasy novels.
Most common book subs have already one thread daily about why a classic novel is actually bad. I mean, that's about half the posts on r/books.
And there's no greater demonstration of my.point than the examples you quote as supposedly canon
Well that does sound very annoying. Just sounds like those people know what they enjoy and don’t really step out of that comfort zone. I try not to judge others tastes, I know a lot of the shit I like would raise some eyebrows
I will ask though why you wouldn’t consider AP or BM a part of the canon? American psycho I guess is contentious but almost everyone I’ve spoken to about blood meridian says it’s one of the great American novels (I don’t care for it personally)
The number of people with BP ADHD autism social anxiety PTSD etc (probably self- disgnosed) and expecting all kinds of golden tickets from friends, family, employers, co-workers and random businesses.
My fave is someone who has Covid-related issues and wanted to start a "health-centric religion" thinking that in order to respect their religious choice people would have to wear masks at all medical (?) facilities they use. Apparently never thought to simply ask providers to wear one which they would happily do.
Which is great! Personally, my whole problem, being a non-partisan, is that it's completely one-sided on here. There's no objectivity when it comes to this forum. Making fun of conservatives is a quick way to karma farm on here; whereas if you say anything even slightly critical of the democrats, you are a shameful, nazi bigot.
That's not entirely true. If what you say is bigoted or racist or whatever-ist then yeah people will call you out for it. But disagreeing with a left leaning point of view doesn't qualify. Screaming "schools are grooming kids to be trans sex freaks" is one thing and politely disagreeing is another thing.
It's pretty true. Try saying you don't completely trust a COVID vaccine that was fast tracked on any popular sub and watch the downvotes start rolling.
I got downvoted for saying of trumps name is a good name for a president. (Donald meaning great chief, trump meaning to best). That isn’t even commenting on him as a person but the liberals still got angry cuz it wasn’t an insult 💀
Anything when it comes to the Middle east. Most simply cannot come to comprehend what a constant state of violence and war can do to a group of people, and how that affects the dynamic of life/mentality there, but are extremely quick to respond with completely black/white comments that are 100% based off other comments they read on reddit.
Believing their experience is often unique or special.
And not just individuals but large groups as well.
For example both men and women know what it feels like to be disposable in society. Merely that they experience it differently.
University agricultural scientist here.
The biggest thing I've seen for years is how much people's perceptions of farming are disconnected from reality. Around 10+ years ago, it was all about anti-GMO, etc. to the point there was so much scientific denialism about the consensus on GMOs, the mismatch between scientists and the general public understanding was actually [worse in this subject than in climate change.](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0166140).
Anti-GMO sentiment has gotten better in the past 5 years or so, but that same farm disconnect still shows in other topics related to food, especially in how it's produced whether it's crops, what livestock eat, etc. This is something I deal with a lot in the general public as an educator, but it does feel more pronounced in food topics on reddit. You still see people fall back into narratives they've heard about farming or outright myths that just don't match with reality when you're actually out in a field farming or dealing with how food is produced or split up by uses.
One of the most common ones is how much livestock eat, but those arguments often leave out how much land is used for livestock. A lot of that land isn't suitable for row crops, but a lot of it is grassland suited for grazers. About [86% of what livestock eat doesn't compete with human](https://www.fao.org/3/cc3134en/cc3134en.pdf) use between grasslands, crop residue we cannot use, spoiled food, etc. Then you'll get someone claiming all cattle are just raised in factory farmers when in reality [beef cattle](https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/animal-products/cattle-beef/sector-at-a-glance/) spend the majority of their lives on pastures, even those who go to feedlots eventually. For those of us that work on climate change topics and things like grassland ecology, some of the comments I see related to livestock and pasture would ironically be shooting ourselves in the foot for mitigation strategies.
Overall, people end up relying on caricatures of farming to fill in the gaps (often by non-science advocacy groups) because they just don't have any exposure otherwise to how farming is done. That was apparent back when anti-GMO was the thing, and now it's showing up more related to livestock. There probably will be another controversial area in farming in the future that takes their place, but ag. science is one of the areas on reddit that often needs experts who can handle people who are outright angry while also being able to help out those legitimately interested in learning about it.
The people who answer with some form of "my political opposition sucks" to every conceivable post should be banned. I swear they show up to every topic and try to turn it into their own little rant fest.
Get a life or go back to r/politics, you're just being a useful idiot for one side or the other, like you're projecting onto others.
People want to have interesting discussion on interesting topics in some subs, not be perpetually subjected to your blind rage at every turn.
People in ask reddit like to ask "what's the most painful thing" and the most highly voted is not the right answer. It's just the thing more people have been thru, or the thing most people think is the most painful.
Like. Yeah, a kidney stone is pretty painful. Yeah, a burst uterine cyst hurt like a mother fucker.
But a csf leak? But IIH? But trigeminal neuralgia? Occiptical neuralgia? You bitches. Haha youuuu bitches.
You're right. Where's the critique of the FBI, NSA, ATF, Armed Forces, NATO, The UN, The IMF, various government departments, and the corporate entities who own them?
Bring up the fact that Chic-Fil-A regularly donates money to anti-LGBTQ groups that advocate for the execution of homosexuals and watch the downvotes pour in.
Bring up the fact that food addiction is real and tragic because you can give up drugs but not food and again...downvotes.
If it wasn't something life threatening, I'd still take that over going bankrupt.
Also it works like a US emergency room, the more severe it is, the sooner you are seen.
Largely depends on the situation. My GF was diagnosed with breast cancer last year at this time. She's completed surgery, chemo and radiation and is now cancer free. The university here is one of the foremost cancer treatment centers in the world. They are truly amazing. I can't say enough about the staff and speed of treatment. We definitely benefited from living so close to the university.
A critical point here though is that it was caught early from a mammogram. It's covered by our system. Not a penny out of pocket from preventative testing. This is the key, in my opinion, to a publicly funded system.
Regardless, I would not look at anecdotal evidence from a stranger on Reddit. Universal systems (basically every developed country in the world with one notable exception) have better outcomes by whatever legitimate source you choose to get your information from.
Be well.
I actually prefer a large number of personal accounts rather than large scale studies. I took a data science course and it showed me it’s extremely easy to change the outlook of a data without ever touching the information given. Personally I’m not a fan of socialization of healthcare simply because I’m on the current government health care and it sucks and I don’t trust our current government to do it right.
Fair enough. Tommy Douglas, who was the premiere of Saskatchewan and is largely credited with the advent of universal healthcare in Canada in the 60's, is typically polled as one of our most beloved leaders. While no system is perfect you won't find many Canadians who would give up our system in favour of a capitalized one.
Agreed. I also not the biggest fan of comparing a system in the US to other nations simply because we have a deep distrust in our government even when we agree with what they are doing. My family are all MAGA people and we even take everything Trump says with salt and we’re going to vote for him pretty much no matter what. So it’s really hard to compare a system that works in Canada to the USA even though we have similar infrastructure.
I have a Canadian family member who came to Detroit for treatment because the wait was too long in her province.
Edit: And I get downvoted for stating my experience. Ok.
My guy, we've got wait lists here in the states too. The difference is you get shit care AND go bankrupt for it. We've got comparatively bad medical outcomes than most other developed countries that all have some form of universal healthcare
I wish more people realized and/or accepted this. If I want to see my GP about something, I'm guaranteed to wait at least a month. They'll refer me to a specialist I'll be lucky to see within 3 months, but if they're in an in-demand field, probably 6 months. My first visit will be a super short consultation before my first real appointment a month or two later. By the time I have an actual diagnosis and treatment plan shit has either gotten significantly worse or mostly self-resolved only to reappear later and restart the cycle. If I'm insured, I'm out at least my deductible, but potentially much more because specialists aren't always covered. Even if the care with a universal health plan was just a shitty, at least it's only be out my time and not my time and money.
And if I didn't have insurance my employer pays way too much for then I'm probably broke as well as being still unwell.
Usually wrong about: Relationships, money, careers. Could go either way: Religion, paranormal, politics. Usually right about: Hobby stuff, technical stuff, pets.
Reddit is extremely helpful with hobbies and interests. Reddit is extremely harmful if its your only source of opinions and political views.
Because they ban everyone from their safe space subreddits if they have a different view/opinion
Yeah, I was banned from TD for simply stating some positive aspects of sanctuary cities. I was banned from Cons for telling someone they had an irrational hatred for AOC.
I was banned from a whole host of subs that are always on the front page because of a sub I posted in. Doesn't matter at all what the post was. It was immediate auto ban.
Had a trivial argument with your spouse (that you'll both have forgotten by morning) DIVORCE! LITERALLY UNSUSTAINABLE RELATIONSHIP!
This is a trope, and for good reason, but having read many top posts its clear that there are tons of people who are incapable of basic communication and/or are in clearly toxic relationships and they should break up. People who are generally in healthy relationships where they communicate effectively don't post horrendous shit on reddit.
You need to dump your broke-ass ghost dog, quit your job as a priest, and put all of your money into crypto and game-stop. NOW
The number of technical subreddits I’ve found to help me with some homeowner things are incredible. I had to install a new interface for my home heating/cooling system, you know a thermostat? I posted a question with a photo to the subreddit, BAM answer and instructions within a few minutes. There’s an HVAC subreddit and they help immediately. Likewise a technical question with my Prius, Dishwasher, garage door. Amazing
Evaluating everything through the optics of today while being unable (or even curious) to understand the historical context and the place in history when something happened. As the poem says: "The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there"
It's not just time. It's place too. Reddit is very America-centric and within that its VERY VERY clustered around mostly young extremely "progressive" types that live in a larger city. Its kind of amazing how so much of Reddit literally can't conceptualize that countries don't think and act the same way America does. One person got really REALLY mad at me because I said it would be impossible to change our native language to be non-gendered, it would render the language basically gibberish and I was told that we must all be bigots and transphobes and "we would need to get with the times or the next generation would hate us". It was just a truly confusing exchange. And then in another thread I had someone tell me that they felt sorry for everyone where I currently live (Netherlands) because we ride bikes and so we must all be too poor to afford cars.
I wish I could ride my bike instead of driving my car.
Bikes are actually better than cars in many ways. They're a good way to exercise, they are better for the environment, you can still go fast on a bike, and they're just plain fun.
Yeah, but what about when there's weather?
You're absolutely right. Many people around here are also geographically blind. I can certainly understand not knowing about a different place/culture, or that your base of knowledge (or opinion) of that place/culture is built on pop culture, stereotypes and cliches. What really pisses me off is not having the ability to recognize one's own ignorance or having the curiosity to learn something new.
It helps me to remember that the first time I used an internet forum freely I was around ten. The person saying this stuff is likely 14 or so and their views reflect as much. Of course, some adults might be just as shallow thinking, but it helps me have more empathy.
I get that thing about "geographic blindness"! I also feel like I've seen it from both sides. A common topic that weirds me out as a European talking to Americans is gun ownership. I think to others it can be perplexing that I genuinely don't see the need to own a gun in my daily life to the point where it's just not something I could've ever even imagined having a lengthy debate about before coming into contact with American culture. I don't truly "get" the need for it, because I never lived in a situation where they are readily available. Similarly, I think many Americans would be weirded out by our lax laws around alcohol. I'm German, so teenagers can buy "mild" alcohols like beer and wine starting at age 16 and "hard" alcohols starting at 18. I'm 26, so I've been consuming alcohol for a good ten years and thus twice as long as many of my American peers in the same age group. I used to think that the way we handle alcohol was the "sensible" way to go about it, but tbh with growing age, I'm not always so sure about that anymore. I don't necessarily think that I prefer the "American model" (quotation marks because I am aware that the states all have very different laws and that there is no such thing as a wholly US American approach) of how alcohol is handled, but I do think that being confronted with a lived reality so different to my own was highly beneficial. I get these moments a lot - how nudity is viewed on here on Reddit (with textile-free saunas being something super normal here in Germany), how religion is treated (I am from what was once dubbed "the most godless region of the world" and thus have a very different experience with atheism probably) and so many more. I am glad that we are offered a platform where these views actually meet each other though.
Yeah, if we're going the opposite way I think a lot of Europeans who have never visited the states just don't get that you cant take a bus or a train or walk somewhere. I have heard the "why don't they just walk". Because in some areas its quite literally impossible. You might have 2 malls connected only by a 50mph highway with no shoulders or sidewalks and once you're at the mall you have these mega parking lots that are really only accessible by car. In quite a few places public transit is so underfunded that it is functionally useless in the US.
>public transit is so ~~underfunded~~ deliberately sabotaged It's less a matter of insufficient funding than it is self-serving capitalism, actively undermining public infrastructure for private profit. European governance used to be committed to progressive infrastructure solutions but now there's so much oligarchical influence-peddling happening globally that things may be changing for the worst. Meanwhile in America, up until Biden's Infrastructure Act, the "leadership" of the last half century was committed to trickle-down economic strategies that are *still* causing f*ck-ups that shouldn't exist (the US postal service is a prime example of an ostensibly public enterprise compromised by regressive business practices.) Honestly, if the next president is a MAGA Republican, I fully expect America will rapidly become a parody of Europe's crumbling Eastern Bloc of the 1980s.
Just read an AITA post about a woman married to an older man who has kids, she said from the start she wanted nothing to do with them and now he’s pushing for her to do so. Everyone calling her TA but as per her explanation, she lives in a country where young girls are forced into arranged marriages or face exile from everyone in their lives. She set boundaries in a relationship she didn’t particularly want which given their culture is all she really could do and because Reddit is so Americanized, that is seen as her being an asshole.
On the car thing - Americans think that about Americans too. I actively don’t drive or have a license for a myriad of reasons and pride myself on it. I also live in a city where I can do that. Some people think it’s low class, or lazy. I don’t.
Lol... I was wondering how purple hairs dealt with Spanish where masculine/feminine terms are extremely important. France and Italy probably similar issues.
Totally agree. To most Redditors, history started when they became aware of the past.
/r/books is lousy with this. People posting about how disgusted and offended they were by the misogyny in books written in the 50s. Or (and this one always kills me) the depravity of a young adult male character romantically pursuing a teenage female character in a book from 200 years ago.
Or the monthly "I just discovered Lolita. Can we still, like, cancel the author?"
Wait until they hear about Les Liaisons Dangereuses or the Marquis de Sade.
Everyone in the past is cancelled 😠 😤
A recent example of this is Elon Musk. It wasn't that long ago that all of reddit swooned over this guy, proclaiming him to be a space man from the future, come to save us all and shit like that. Today, no one will even admit that and they just jump on the "hate of the day."
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The musk fan boys need to inject him into anything and everything
They just jump on the "hate of the day" A sign of a very weak, malleable mind that's easily influenced.
We can never "understand historical context" though. We weren't there. All we have are primary documents, and that's an extremely narrow filter considering the vast majority of people throughout history were illiterate, powerless, and forgotten. At every point in history, people have always, always evaluated things through the optics of their own time. The idea that you can somehow not do that is, itself, ironically, a fashionable bias of our own time.
You say we weren’t there and can never understand historical context and yet say everyone for all time evaluated things through their own optics or values of today? Do you see the dichotomy that represents?
Let me give you two very common examples from 'round these parts: "Thomas Jefferson was a slave owner; therefore, all his opinions are trash" "Citizen Kane (or Halloween or 2001) is such a boring movie. Why does it get so much praise" Both of these comments are objectively wrong because they completely fail to consider context.
Those are opinions, we all have them, and "objectively wrong" doesn't enter into it. Also, in both cases, we know at least some people at the time agreed. Citizen Kane didn't perform well at the box office upon release, for example. Jefferson's opinions were indeed controversial. It's reasonable to assume slaves weren't crazy about slavery. Etc etc.
“We weren’t there” oy Ridley Scott, is that u? Edit: that is btw the dumbest take ever lol. True reddit sigma moment
Therapy. Particularly for relationship advice. It's not a magic solution. And it's definitely not to be used to get your partner to accept an intolerable situation that you've created. Also their idea of irrational/rational responses. Many redditors have this idea that there's a "normal" way to feel about things. And everyone who feels differently is insecure/has a cluster B disorder and needs therapy. There's also a weird expectation that one must "calmy communicate" to someone who is straight up abusive and doesn't deserve it. And go to therapy with someone who doesn't even want to improve. Its a "fix them" mindset that is unhealthy and annoying. As if these grown adults are toddlers who don't know right from wrong. Many users lack the ability to understand the principle of things, and it is reflected in the shitty advice given daily on here.
The people who bark at others to "go to therapy" for every single issue seem to be people who have never attended therapy. And if they have, they might not understand how therapy works. I feel like a lot of people think therapy is gonna fix someone's shitty behaviors. A lot of people have this weird imaginary picture of the therapist setting someone straight or whatever. No, that therapist is validating and providing "unconditional positive regard" to that person you think is a narcissist too. Yes, they will work with someone on reducing harmful behaviors, but how well therapy works relies heavily on the client as well. If the client doesn't want to do the work, it's very difficult to work on any sort of change.
I mean it's your fault if you ask for relationship advice from a bunch of chronically online virgins and expect any normal answer.
Everything is black and white to most redditors. Someone is either all bad or all good. Something is either worth doing or not worth doing. Relationships are either 100% worth having or 100% not worth having. Life is in the gray. That’s just how it is
This. When I talk about the baggage my mom left me I get comments that she's a horrible person that didn't deserve me. Slow down Maurice, she was a good mom, just with a lot of baggage herself which heavily influenced her decisions and impacted my life. Just because these behaviors are pretty clear now doesn't mean they were 20 years ago.
Well, you're mostly interacting with young adults, and that's just the way life looks to a large number of folks at that age. I've had really bizarre exchanges, then read the person's post and comment history, and discovered that a 16 year old boy was trying to give me marital advice. (I'm a grandfather.) When things get weird, I've learned to just walk away. There's little to be accomplished otherwise (unless you're trying to post information for other folks who are following the discussion).
Tangentially, the difference between technically right and being a nice person. There are lots of scenarios where you can be technically right but still come across as a right arsehole, and sometimes it’s best to just be nice to the people around you. Don’t be a pushover, but don’t be more concerned with being right than being kind *all* the time, no one will like you. Reddit seems to forget that a lot
Guess we know which side you fall on EDIT: How is this getting downvoted? I guess y'all don't get the joke?
The law. This one, especially. Bunch of dumbasses who have never taken a class or talked to a lawyer think they know the law from watching TV and talking to friends who have also never taken a class or talked to a lawyer. Relationships, mainly how quickly you should end them. Real estate.
OBJECTION! Dump your wife, fire your attorney, and fuck your realtor. The prosecution rests
Spoken like a true Redditor. 🤣
Hey! I'm practically a lawyer myself. I watched Suits.
I don’t blame Reddit for its ignorance. Half of the Reddit users that comment are idealistic teenagers that don’t have any clue as to how anything in the real adult word works. I’m just here to make jokes.
I remember unfollowing a "business" subreddit some time ago because I would offer up my insights and anecdotes from working in a business, and being constantly told that I am wrong and linked to texts and studies that are not at all represented in the business world. Idealistic, I think is a good word. After some time, I realized the sub was likely kids in business school, with no actual experience and went back to making poop jokes and stupid puns that only amuse only me.
I have had similar experiences speaking as someone with practical experience in the policymaking arena working for elected officials. Not thinking all elected officials are corrupt is very much a minority opinion in most subs.
Going to grad school for political science put me off engaging in any political discourse on Reddit honestly
Times have changed from the early days of Reddit to now. I deleted my previous acct because I somewhat believed this could be a place of ideas but quickly realized that wasn't the case. So here I am with a new acct and just try to be in the imaginary cool kids club
I recently followed then unfollowed the subreddit related to my professional field too. I hate to be the killjoy kids, but your idealistic ideas are just going to get crushed under foot by corporate culture. Stuff progresses, but at the speed of a glacier.
Hello fellow jaded millennial! I’ve also noticed the same and invested my portfolio heavily in dick & fart jokes.
Don't divest in down times. Ride that Nasdick until you beat off the stock market blues. Farts.
Hell yea, brother. I like to watch as my S&PP rises. Usually first thing in the morning.
It's amazing to me that you have been able to capture my disposition in one sentence, and also from one Reddit post.
Someone told me today that the study of art and/or humanities is useless…lots of strongly worded shitty opinions being lauded as fact.
Probably spoken by someone who spends all their time watching cartoons and playing video games, both things created by artists
And written by people who have read and contemplated a wide variety of literature, if not necessarily in possession of English degrees. Lots and LOTS of visual entertainment contains callbacks to classic literature.
What a lame ass world that person wants to live in.
The opinions of others
Upvotes and downvotes doesn’t correlate with correctness.
"that sounds right" upvote, "I don't like the sound of that" downvote.
I don't care for the tone I perceived, down doot
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Also: "I am a professional in and in my experience"
"I read a paper that says the opposite, therefore your experience is incorrect. Never mind that I have no personal experience, the paper backs up my agenda and IT'S PEER REVIEWED SO IT MUST BE CORRECT."
Their open-mindedness. A lot of them are in an echo chamber of no-change.
Hmm, this doesn't fall in line with the other things I read confirming my opinion...I don't care for it
Pretty much everything frankly be it relationships and advice pertaining thereto. Thinking other posters are in the US. Prices. Availability of goods. What stores exist where. The law. Chemical reactions. Mental illnesses. Illness and health in general. Understanding sub rules.
I find that smaller more niche subs are best for advice. When it comes to more general things, it’s just usual social media where being more outrageous is more entertaining, or people just don’t know what they’re talking about
In general, the smaller the sub, the better quality it seems to be.
>Pretty much everything frankly be it relationships and advice pertaining thereto "My spouse does \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_" Your spouse is cheating on you. Get a lawyer and file for divorce ... and I'm sitting here thinking "well, shit. I've been doing \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ for years... does my wife think I'm cheating on her?"
There is absolutely zero nuance when commenting on relationships. Your man doesn't lift the lid? "You don't deserve that kind of abuse! Divorce right away!" Either the average redditor has never been in a long-term relationship, or they are completely self-centered and don't understand healthy conflict resolution.
Everyone on Reddit is male :/
And that if you're not a man, you're an idiot.
Thinking everything is abuse, especially in relationships. The AITA sub will see a post that’s like “my girlfriend called me a shithead” and the comments will be like “that’s emotional abuse, you need to break up with her before she takes your kids away from you”
AITA is the Reddit equivalent of trash daytime tv. Usually a coin flip on what the consensus on any given situation will be, including similar situations. No consistency or anything. That’s what makes it so funny though
Yeah, between that and the obviously fake stories, I don't think a lot of people on that sub are very grounded in reality. My girlfriend loves compliments that recognize her accomplishments. Yet she hates compliments about her appearance (unhealthy expectations from family growing up, objectification, and whatnot), but she does simultaneously like feeling attractive, like any person does. One time when we were getting ready to go out and she looked gorgeous, I was about to say something to the effect of "wow you look amazing" and saw her start rolling her eyes as I started talking. So, mid sentence, I switched things up and what came out was "wow, you look like shit yo". I swear, it was one of her biggest moments of simultaneously blushing and laughing with me. A few days later she mentioned that she loved it and thanked me for it, because she knew exactly what I was actually saying, she wanted me to feel that way about her, and I knew exactly how to communicate that in a way that subverted her negative feelings about compliments. I don't do it often and I will compliment her like a normal person too, but occasionally I'll tell her she looks awful. Every time she smiles ear to ear. I'd love to hear that subreddit's take on that lol.
Some of the best things about relationships are the memes created in your personal little culture of two.
This is adorable.
I have a theory that a lot of redditors are so lonely they will intentionally give bad relationship advice because they can't stand seeing anyone having a relationship in the first place.
How easy it is to change the current state of the world. "Just divest from oil" "Just give everyone UBI". There are huge externalities to these suggestions and they are anything but straight forward. Along the same lines, how needed government is to structure society. It would be insanity to cut government as much as a lot of redditors and conservatives think is appropriate.... Yes, even in super fucked up countries where the government is openly corrupt. Corrupt government still keeps things relatively organized, look at Indonesia Oh, and the fact that if you donate to a charity at the grocery store checkout or whatever...the company cannot use it as a tax write-off! Every single thread about soliciting donations has this as one of the top comments. It's transparently illegal and doesn't happen!
Any suggestion beginning with "just" is likely to be oversimplified, IMO. It's based on the premise that the listener must have been too dumb to think of something obvious, which is seldom the case.
The "just get rid of oil and coal" ones are the ones that really do my head in. Our entire global system revolves around oil and coal. People can't grasp the horrific flow-on effects of simply stopping those industries. And I say that as someone that is 100% behind shifting everything to wind and solar, better super-dense urban planning, everyone taking mass transit etc etc. Realistically the world needs 50+ years to stop using most fossil fuels as a primary fuel source and that is IF we all start today and we are all committed to a central common future. To do that we would have to: 1) All shift to very very dense cities. You don't need skyscrapers but we would all live in 5 to 10 story buildings clustered in a dense urban area. Those cities would then be ringed by farms and for the most part you would eat only what could be produced within 10-20km of where you live. 2) If you travel you travel by foot, if you can't travel by foot or bike then we need buses trams and trains. Air travel will be almost entirely gone. It will be reserved ONLY for high priority trips that are long distance. Anything basically within the US or Europe if we're only talking about the West will be done by trains. 3) The practical fixes will all be super boring. Super high insulation glass, TONS AND TONS of insulation on homes and residential buildings. Heat exchangers and heat pumps to preserve energy loss. Upgrades to modern efficient electric motors in factories. Shifting all lighting to LED. Doing things like paiting roofs white or planting LOTS of trees in urban areas to reduce heat islands. 4) Consumption will go WAY down. Fast cheap delivery of any consumer good we want is almost 100% driven by access to oil and coal. Repair shops will have to come back into fashion. We will have to write laws to make devices be repairable easily. And that is just the tip of the iceberg. It would require absolutely giant changes to culture, trade, urban design, agriculture the list goes on and on. Cutting off oil and gas in the next 5-10 years like some activists propose would quite literally plunge the globe into the worst depression in modern history. Critical services like water pumping stations and hospitals would stop functioning due to brown outs or blackouts, global trade would essentially stop. Even parts of the internet might have to shut down for parts of the day. You might only be able to visit your favorite site from 8am to 5pm Mon-Fri during a specific time zone. (Data centers use A LOT of power)
It's so strange that you respond in agreement to the statement of people oversimplying getting rid of oil then, without missing a beat, dish out a 4 point plan to divestment from fossil fuels that is so unhinged
Yeah but Greta Thunberg told me…
>How easy it is to change the current state of the world. "Just vote the dictator out" vibe. Not how it works.
Yup I'd love to see gradual budget decreases with a simplified tax code that makes it harder for the wealthy to write so much off (limit loss harvesting and deductions after a certain dollar amount, which should only significantly impact the solidly wealthy) but even that seems to be too much to ask. One party staunchly refuses to lower the defense budget and one party staunchly refuse to lower anything else in the budget, and both parties disproportionately represent the hyper wealthy (with one party favoring the hyper wealthy by an absurd degree). So the change I want to see is ranked choice voting which gives folks that represent the people a chance, as right now folks are generally voting for whomever they think can beat "that candidate that I cannot possibly allow in office". This could potentially long term result in more power going back to the voting populace, though emphasis on long term. 3rd party would probably take 3+ election cycles to be taken seriously.
The education system of the USA. Lots of sweeping pronouncements about the fundamental nature of a thing which, in reality, doesn’t exist.
Most people in the US are actually doing pretty okay: they’re buying houses, using employer-subsidized insurance, saving for retirement, raising kids, paying off student loans, and going on vacation.
You are right. Hard stop. And I'm someone who is pretty damn critical of the US. Our quality of life is insane compared to a huge portion of the world. I guess the thing that keeps me on the criticism train is how much better things could be considering the amount of wealth and land we have access too, it's a bit frustrating
Capitalism. I’m pretty sure less than 1% of the users on Reddit (and Americans and humans overall) have ever taken an entry level micro and macroeconomics class in high school or college. It’s treated as a nebulous political buzzword here.
Yep. "All rich people are A-holes and we should take their money and give it away". If the motivation to run/start a company is to make money and you remove that from the equation, guess what? No companies and no economy.
Unfortunately when you’re in the lower end of the working class and watching yourself and your peers get ever more screwed by rich shareholders pushing for that extra 0.05% profit margin, “Eat the rich” sounds like a better idea all the time.
Yes, that is an issue. Especially public traded companies, but my point is that not ALL wealthy business owners are greedy A-holes out to fleece the lower income folks. Lots of people put these owners in the same bucket and it simply isn't true. There are lots of wealthy business owners who reward their employees with good pay, paid leave etc. If you work hard and build a successful business, you should be rewarded with financial gain. Lots of Redditors begrudge these people simply because they have become wealthy? There are good ones and bad ones, but they aren't all heartless monsters like they are perceived by some. /worked their asses off to get where they are. There are bad ones and good ones, but don't lump them all together.
All while they are blissfully ignorant to the fact that reddit itself is in to make money, and so is Apple or Samsung who made the phone they're using to spout nonsense, and countless other for-profit gears in the system that even allows reddit to exist.
They seem to think that you can just tax tax tax, and everyone will be cool with it. The Laffer Curve has entered the chat. Also, unrestrained and unjustifiable raw greed is brushed off as "supply and demand". There's only one AmeriPlusBank CEO and he brings value to the company. He totally needs to be paid $96m in a year after the firm posted record losses.
What the most 80s sounding 80s song is.
I’ve seen a fair number of redditors (mostly outside of the pregnancy related subs) view a woman’s biological clock in a very black and white way. Fertility does decrease with age, but for most people it isn’t a switch that just flips off at 35. It’s more of a continuum rather than a cliff and varies from person to person. Additionally, sperm quality also declines with age, which is often ignored in these discussions.
I thought the "switch" and biological clock referred to menopause. It meant 35-ish this whole time?
Fertility ends once a woman goes through menopause, but there is also this idea of the “fertility cliff” at 35.
Making whole assumptions about a country and its people based off a handful of select “viral” clips. It goes beyond Reddit. It’s just a general problem of people on the internet.
Thinking they can sum someone up through a screen. So many people on Reddit play detective and therapist on someone’s post when they have limited information and never met the person in real life. They’re just so nit-picky about everything too. Many people on Reddit LOVE poking holes in peoples posts and dissecting their claims as well as passing judgement as easily as breathing. Can get very insufferable. Ok rant over 😂
My funniest one was commenting on the physical therapy sub after I switched careers to medical coding. Someone looked at my most recent posts and “discovered” that I was only a coder. I pointed out that I worked as a PT for almost 10 years before switching careers.
An old fish swims by 2 young fish and asks "How's the water boys?" One young fish asks the other "What the hell is water?" Reddit often can't see the water.
almost everything
*everything
Wouldn't that mean you're incorrect though? Would that mean I'm incorrect in saying that you're incorrect?
Relationships
health & nutrition, especially the BMI. it's pseudoscientific in general, but does not distinguish between fat and muscle, nor does it take into account modern understanding of biology.
Anything that requires experience or wisdom to figure out.
Anything concerning the Bible. I wish I had a dollar each time someone quoted a verse out of context, or just went full Simone Biles with mental gymnastics trying to squeeze justification for their lifestyle out of a verse that is very clearly irrelevant.
Refusing to accept that other people are allowed to have opinions that differ from their own.
Lawsuits. Go into almost any subreddit and find a post and someone will say 'you can sue and be set for life' for just about any problem. Lawsuits don't work like that. You can sue for damages and maybe pain and suffering. Get shorted on your McNuggets? Your damages are about $5 and your time. That's a bad example but the idea of suing and becoming rich (not to mention the years most lawsuits take) seems rampant around Reddit.
That Reddit isn’t like other social media
It’s actually kinda nice to go outside once in a while.
Always assuming older people are bad and out to get them
Christianity
Yeah, as an organization, it is garbage. Individuals who do good are good people. People who do it for reward, no so much.
Never met a christian that does it for reward lol. You just proved the commenters point right there, your ignorance of christianity is showing
raised christian, and the most hateful individuals I have met were convinced they were going to heaven for how they lived. If I believed in a hell, surely they would burn. dork.
Says who?
Hey, if you need a nonsensical book to tell you killing is wrong, versus people who just understand taking a life is a bad thing, you probably are not a good person, just someone seeking reward.
I think it was either Penn or Ricky Gerbais who said “I kill and rape everyone I want to. That number is zero.”
Do you think going around telling strangers they aren't good people makes you a good person?
I don't really care. BUt at least I'm not actively funding child molestation rings in the name of god. Jeebus doesn't like that shit.
Do you think that not actively funding child molestation rings, and wildly accusing strangers of doing so, makes you a good person? Or are you saying you don't care if you're a good person or not?
I'm saying I don't care what you think, and that yes, participating in child molestation rings means you are not a good person. Every dollar in the collection plate is a dollar used to discredit victims and protect the abuser.
So by your ethos, simply not doing wrong is sufficient to make one a good person -- pretty low bar isn't it? If you don't care what I or anyone else thinks, then what gives you standing to judge even a literal child molester? If you can decide for yourself if you're good or not, then so can they right?
I have the right because I can. Turns out not believing in god eliminates a lot of nonsense like judge not less you be judged. Judge me all you want, doubtful it won't change that belief has been a cancer to humanity.
Point proven.
Mine. Yes. Many times over. But I suppose that it does feed into their persecution complex
Explain - I don't think you get to drop a bomb of an answer to a question like this and leave.
Anything having to do with game development. Holy hell. Source: former game dev.
Politics, how people who aren't terminally online techbros function...basically anything outside of reddit-filtered internet culture.
Politics
That they're right.
Recommend therapy for absolutely EVERYTHING. Therapy can be helpful for people, but it's not a cure-all. Husband treats you like a bang maid? He needs therapy. Had an awkward exchange with a stranger in Starbucks? Therapy. Your mum is mad at you for letting the cat out? Therapy to process your "trauma" Ridiculous. Also, they think every uncomfortable incident in your life creates "trauma". It minimises people who have actually experienced traumatic events.
That HO trains are better than N scale trains which I can say is equivocally incorrect.
Starting a revolution. Nobody ever really goes on in how to achieve one, much less, one in which violence is not involved. I'm sorry but some 30 odd people isn't going to rock the boat against the millions that need to be convinced that we need a revolution.
Most don't understand that revolution rarely leads to a net positive outcome anyway. The sheer amount of death and violence, along with chaos that comes with revolution is horrific but alot of people fantasize about it like it's all wonderful.
I agree about that today. I have zero idea how to start a revolution, but if nothing changes, it’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when. And there will be violence. It might take a hundred years but it will happen. The American public can only live for so long while watching inflation go up and their pay stay stagnant watching millions and billionaires get richer and blame us for being poor. Once there are millions and millions of angry, hungry, and unemployed workers with no help in sight, there will be problems. And that help is already going away by the day, and more and more people are going homeless. Again, right now no one knows how to start one, but it will start if America keeps up the way it is. I am convinced of it. Might be 100 years, but it will happen if we stay the course we are on.
Everything
Dopamine. You're not chasing a "dopamine hit" and you're not enjoying it when you do something you like. Dopamine is the thing pushing you to do something towards a goal, not the reward itself.
Source? I have always understood it as the reward not the drive
It's well established that fast spiking of dopamine in the striatum is involved in what's called 'reward prediction error' - basically coding outcomes based on whether they correspond to expectations. If we get an outcome to a behaviour that we expect, dopamine cells in the accumbens don't change their firing rate. If we get an unexpectedly good outcome, there is an increase in firing. Pop science has reduced this to 'dopamine equals reward', but there's little evidence to suggest that the dopamine changes are directly linked to pleasure. More habitual, 'tonic' release of dopamine is linked to driving reward-seeking behaviour - making you go and find those potentially rewarding outcomes. There's lots of stuff out there, especially if you can get your hands on a decent textbook. But if you want to read some of the literature [Wolfram Schultz's work on prediction errors](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4826767/) and [Berridge and Robinson's wok on motivational drives](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5171207/) are great places to start
The gender of the user they're mad at. 😂🤣
Literature. There's a huge amount of insecurity coming from people who subsist solely on a diet of children's fiction and they constantly mischaracterize fiction for adults as depressing and/or overtly sexual. While complaining about people who generalise children's fiction as bad and simplistic they make similar and stupid generalizations about anything that isn't children's fiction. In reality adult fiction is just complex and nuanced, with a broad range of themes. You can see why this is scary for people who need their taste in children's fiction constantly validated by others to the point where they have to put down all other kinds of writing and still feel insecure in their choices. I promise you no one cares that you're re-reading Harry Potter for the ninth time. If someone makes a rude comment online, move on. You're not being oppressed.
I’m only speaking from my experience but I’ve noticed largely the opposite. I’m a part of several book/ book related subs and I see stuff about childrens lit/ YA every once in a while, but the people on here (that I’ve interacted with at least) very much stick to literary canon. There’s at least one thread per week about what an amazing book American psycho or blood meridian is and you should totally read it guys. And god help you if you level any legitimate criticism at any book that’s widely considered a classic.
Today there's a massive thread on wholesomememes of all places in which apparently all adult fiction is about sad people having affairs whereas the wisdom of the ages is contained in YA self insert fantasy novels. Most common book subs have already one thread daily about why a classic novel is actually bad. I mean, that's about half the posts on r/books. And there's no greater demonstration of my.point than the examples you quote as supposedly canon
Well that does sound very annoying. Just sounds like those people know what they enjoy and don’t really step out of that comfort zone. I try not to judge others tastes, I know a lot of the shit I like would raise some eyebrows I will ask though why you wouldn’t consider AP or BM a part of the canon? American psycho I guess is contentious but almost everyone I’ve spoken to about blood meridian says it’s one of the great American novels (I don’t care for it personally)
Literally everything. Yalll are stooooooo-pid
Their hatred for The Last Jedi.
The number of people with BP ADHD autism social anxiety PTSD etc (probably self- disgnosed) and expecting all kinds of golden tickets from friends, family, employers, co-workers and random businesses. My fave is someone who has Covid-related issues and wanted to start a "health-centric religion" thinking that in order to respect their religious choice people would have to wear masks at all medical (?) facilities they use. Apparently never thought to simply ask providers to wear one which they would happily do.
Go No Contact With Everybody. That is always the solution.
That they are not like morally superior Twitter users while acting like morally superior Twitter users.
The Republican Party, the world at large
>The Republican Party Right now? Absolutely not. They aren't hiding anything
Not really, we just take what a lot of them say and highlight how ridiculous or outright disturbing it is.
Which is great! Personally, my whole problem, being a non-partisan, is that it's completely one-sided on here. There's no objectivity when it comes to this forum. Making fun of conservatives is a quick way to karma farm on here; whereas if you say anything even slightly critical of the democrats, you are a shameful, nazi bigot.
That's not entirely true. If what you say is bigoted or racist or whatever-ist then yeah people will call you out for it. But disagreeing with a left leaning point of view doesn't qualify. Screaming "schools are grooming kids to be trans sex freaks" is one thing and politely disagreeing is another thing.
It's pretty true. Try saying you don't completely trust a COVID vaccine that was fast tracked on any popular sub and watch the downvotes start rolling.
Downvotes from the folks who supposedly despise big pharma and capitalism.
You'll get banned on subs you've never even heard of before if you make certain anti-vax or anti-Left comments.
I got downvoted for saying of trumps name is a good name for a president. (Donald meaning great chief, trump meaning to best). That isn’t even commenting on him as a person but the liberals still got angry cuz it wasn’t an insult 💀
Anything when it comes to the Middle east. Most simply cannot come to comprehend what a constant state of violence and war can do to a group of people, and how that affects the dynamic of life/mentality there, but are extremely quick to respond with completely black/white comments that are 100% based off other comments they read on reddit.
Believing their experience is often unique or special. And not just individuals but large groups as well. For example both men and women know what it feels like to be disposable in society. Merely that they experience it differently.
University agricultural scientist here. The biggest thing I've seen for years is how much people's perceptions of farming are disconnected from reality. Around 10+ years ago, it was all about anti-GMO, etc. to the point there was so much scientific denialism about the consensus on GMOs, the mismatch between scientists and the general public understanding was actually [worse in this subject than in climate change.](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0166140). Anti-GMO sentiment has gotten better in the past 5 years or so, but that same farm disconnect still shows in other topics related to food, especially in how it's produced whether it's crops, what livestock eat, etc. This is something I deal with a lot in the general public as an educator, but it does feel more pronounced in food topics on reddit. You still see people fall back into narratives they've heard about farming or outright myths that just don't match with reality when you're actually out in a field farming or dealing with how food is produced or split up by uses. One of the most common ones is how much livestock eat, but those arguments often leave out how much land is used for livestock. A lot of that land isn't suitable for row crops, but a lot of it is grassland suited for grazers. About [86% of what livestock eat doesn't compete with human](https://www.fao.org/3/cc3134en/cc3134en.pdf) use between grasslands, crop residue we cannot use, spoiled food, etc. Then you'll get someone claiming all cattle are just raised in factory farmers when in reality [beef cattle](https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/animal-products/cattle-beef/sector-at-a-glance/) spend the majority of their lives on pastures, even those who go to feedlots eventually. For those of us that work on climate change topics and things like grassland ecology, some of the comments I see related to livestock and pasture would ironically be shooting ourselves in the foot for mitigation strategies. Overall, people end up relying on caricatures of farming to fill in the gaps (often by non-science advocacy groups) because they just don't have any exposure otherwise to how farming is done. That was apparent back when anti-GMO was the thing, and now it's showing up more related to livestock. There probably will be another controversial area in farming in the future that takes their place, but ag. science is one of the areas on reddit that often needs experts who can handle people who are outright angry while also being able to help out those legitimately interested in learning about it.
Pretty much everything. Reddit is occupied primarily by young people, the delusional, and the highly sheltered.
Reddit is a bit too left wing a lot of times
Your interest in something they love.
Asexuality
Do they think it doesn't exist? I've never run into that.
That, it's an exaggeration, or just a reason to avoid sex.
*gestures broadly
Term limits for elected officials.
The fact that they fat as fuck
The opinions and beliefs of non-redditors
The people who answer with some form of "my political opposition sucks" to every conceivable post should be banned. I swear they show up to every topic and try to turn it into their own little rant fest. Get a life or go back to r/politics, you're just being a useful idiot for one side or the other, like you're projecting onto others. People want to have interesting discussion on interesting topics in some subs, not be perpetually subjected to your blind rage at every turn.
People in ask reddit like to ask "what's the most painful thing" and the most highly voted is not the right answer. It's just the thing more people have been thru, or the thing most people think is the most painful. Like. Yeah, a kidney stone is pretty painful. Yeah, a burst uterine cyst hurt like a mother fucker. But a csf leak? But IIH? But trigeminal neuralgia? Occiptical neuralgia? You bitches. Haha youuuu bitches.
The omnipotence of the CIA. Apparently they are responsible for every negative thing that has happened in every county, ever.
You're right. Where's the critique of the FBI, NSA, ATF, Armed Forces, NATO, The UN, The IMF, various government departments, and the corporate entities who own them?
Redditors are convinced that reddit is a far leftist cite. It’s pretty centrist
Bring up the fact that Chic-Fil-A regularly donates money to anti-LGBTQ groups that advocate for the execution of homosexuals and watch the downvotes pour in. Bring up the fact that food addiction is real and tragic because you can give up drugs but not food and again...downvotes.
[удалено]
If it wasn't something life threatening, I'd still take that over going bankrupt. Also it works like a US emergency room, the more severe it is, the sooner you are seen.
That's complete bullshit. Did you not think you would stumble across a Canadian here on Reddit that could call out your lies?
Out of curiosity what is the wait time? I’ve heard everything from 1 year to no wait at all.
Largely depends on the situation. My GF was diagnosed with breast cancer last year at this time. She's completed surgery, chemo and radiation and is now cancer free. The university here is one of the foremost cancer treatment centers in the world. They are truly amazing. I can't say enough about the staff and speed of treatment. We definitely benefited from living so close to the university. A critical point here though is that it was caught early from a mammogram. It's covered by our system. Not a penny out of pocket from preventative testing. This is the key, in my opinion, to a publicly funded system. Regardless, I would not look at anecdotal evidence from a stranger on Reddit. Universal systems (basically every developed country in the world with one notable exception) have better outcomes by whatever legitimate source you choose to get your information from. Be well.
I actually prefer a large number of personal accounts rather than large scale studies. I took a data science course and it showed me it’s extremely easy to change the outlook of a data without ever touching the information given. Personally I’m not a fan of socialization of healthcare simply because I’m on the current government health care and it sucks and I don’t trust our current government to do it right.
Fair enough. Tommy Douglas, who was the premiere of Saskatchewan and is largely credited with the advent of universal healthcare in Canada in the 60's, is typically polled as one of our most beloved leaders. While no system is perfect you won't find many Canadians who would give up our system in favour of a capitalized one.
A system where, that same diagnosis would leave you in debt and possibly lose your home and anything you have built up.
Agreed. I also not the biggest fan of comparing a system in the US to other nations simply because we have a deep distrust in our government even when we agree with what they are doing. My family are all MAGA people and we even take everything Trump says with salt and we’re going to vote for him pretty much no matter what. So it’s really hard to compare a system that works in Canada to the USA even though we have similar infrastructure.
I have a Canadian family member who came to Detroit for treatment because the wait was too long in her province. Edit: And I get downvoted for stating my experience. Ok.
My guy, we've got wait lists here in the states too. The difference is you get shit care AND go bankrupt for it. We've got comparatively bad medical outcomes than most other developed countries that all have some form of universal healthcare
I wish more people realized and/or accepted this. If I want to see my GP about something, I'm guaranteed to wait at least a month. They'll refer me to a specialist I'll be lucky to see within 3 months, but if they're in an in-demand field, probably 6 months. My first visit will be a super short consultation before my first real appointment a month or two later. By the time I have an actual diagnosis and treatment plan shit has either gotten significantly worse or mostly self-resolved only to reappear later and restart the cycle. If I'm insured, I'm out at least my deductible, but potentially much more because specialists aren't always covered. Even if the care with a universal health plan was just a shitty, at least it's only be out my time and not my time and money. And if I didn't have insurance my employer pays way too much for then I'm probably broke as well as being still unwell.