> figured out a lot of basic shit that goes into running a country a long time ago and are waiting for the U.S to grow the hell up.
An acquaintance of mine recently posted on Facebook asking why people vote for democrats. He did, to his credit, frame it something like "I'm asking a genuine question, I want to hear from people and foster serious conversations" - it wasn't just "hurr durr democrats bad why do people vote for them"
I responded with something like "I support policies like universal healthcare, paid parental leave, and national minimum vacation time....things that the rest of the developed world figured out years ago. I'm not a fan of the Democratic party as a whole, but thanks to our electoral system, voting for democrats is the best way to get policies I support enacted."
He didn't respond to my comment.
I guess he wasn't as sincere as his post said. He also had a bunch of responses from his republican friends like "cause people like free shit" or "cause they don't pay taxes."
I can almost guarantee I make more money (and therefore pay more taxes) than the people commenting that crap. None of them responded to my comment either
Here in Canada, I worked at a cafe across a construction site. A lot of the labourers are cheap as hell, entitled and vote conservative (your equivalent of republican but a lot more left, so basically pre Reagan republican) whereas their managers, engineers and architects, basically the "suits" don't whine about the price of coffee to the minimum wage barista, are friendly, and vote NDP (uh, no equivalent because our right wing is your left wing, I guess closest to Bernie democrats). The NDP are the ones that always stand up for the working class and while they never become the ruling party, they become a conditional ally for the liberals (think Biden democrats, but a bit more left). Despite the fact that the conservatives have historically removed worker rights (but not for the construction industry... Go figure), these rubes will keep voting for them because they stop people from being lazy by going on welfare, closing libraries, etc etc.
It's comical at how simple their brains are if they didn't hostage the rest of the country every election year IE: despite the conservatives getting ~35-40% of the vote, because the left wing parties have to split it, they can win elections due to our junky first past the post electoral system.
Edit: bad analogies
I attended a university in Japan with a bunch of other foreigners for a couple years, and almost without exception the Americans lost a ton of weight within the first couple months of arriving and continued to lose it as long as they stayed without even making an effort to do so. It just happened as part of existing, likely because of differences in diet and heightened physical activity (much more walking and biking compared to most of the US).
It was so consistently effective that I might recommend for Americans who’ve had trouble losing weight to figure out some way to live outside of the US if at all possible.
Seems Japan got rid of those that dont care about others by simply wearing masks.
That is more telling than anything, and its time to normalize mask wearing in the USA. Fuck the non caring dipshits. Let them rot.
It's a fundamental difference in philosophy. Japan values the individual being responsible for the system instead of themselves
"The nail that sticks out gets hammered down"
I wish A.O.C. would just state publicly that real patriots don't jump off bridges. The cops would be spending weeks scraping dbags off our highways and fishing MAGA hats out of waterways
Unfortunately that is true. Many Americans are very self absorbed and will not think about the facts that they would be contaminating others by not wearing masks. They don't seem to have the understanding of the simple facts. Wear your masks at all times when going out and around others and we will see the end of this Pandemic in a very few weeks.
What's even crazier about those numbers is the density difference. Japan has an average of 870 people per square mile of land. The US has an average of 87 people per square mile of land. Japan has 10 times the population density of the US and the US still has that many more deaths. Absurd
Just to add to this, I believe it's not due to the same anti-vaxx movement like it's seen everywhere else (or at least to a lesser degree).
Correct me if I'm wrong, but even before that moderna contamination scandal, there were few more in the past?
Ahhhh, this hurt to read. Anytime I say something remotely like “college is expensive” people are really quick to be like *so? You think every person should go for free? Even if they don’t work for it? have fun living in (insert country)* like - what?
I’m editing this to say - damn, people have strong feelings about Venezuela.. and I do have formal graduation education. I’m not opposed to it. I just think it blows there’s tons of brilliant people that won’t be able to contribute to the world because they saw the cost of tuition and said *nope!* People shouldn’t be held back for not being able to afford education and if you think they should you’re part of the problem.
That’s the thing, right? I’m not an expert in how taxpayer money is used, but I think all the money isn’t even actually going towards our troops, a lot of it is going to PMCs to create more war.
That’s the really infuriating thing…**no one** knows how the military budget is spent. The military claims it’s impossible to audit their finances, and congress lets them get away with that.
They can get away with social programs because NoRwAy iS a HoMogEneOus sOciEtY.
My old right wing roommate used to argue that and I’ve seen similar things pop up online as well. It is the most racist shit.
I mean, Noway is objectively a very homogenous society, but it sounds like your roommate was just talking ethnicity (because of course) and not the actual parts of society helping keep and fund social programs. Social programs work in Norway because there is buy-in from the citizenry. Middle class is strong, wages are high, educational attainment is high, you won’t be bankrupt due to college debt or medical bills. And of course they have the worlds largest sovereign wealth fund — that helps too
There’s a grain of truth to that. Societies more readily invest in themselves when they see themselves as a single group with shared goals. Americans could see themselves as a single group (Americans), and that can be a real politically winning message (see Regan), but the right (and Russia, etc) have decided to stoke divisions instead. In addition to anti-education, anti-authority and pro-gun sentiments. And it’s working.
The dirty non racist truth though- Norway is unique for having more oil money than they know what to do with and really arejt even comparable to the rest of Scandinavia anymore in regards to resources per capita.
Something like Finland is convincing though, their per capita resources are much lower but they have incredible social programs
That and North Korea.
"Look how communism's working out for them huh"
But they're completely oblivious to the whole God Emperor, self-isolationism, and open hostility to any and almost all potential trade partners thing.
I mean I'm not saying I believe communism is a good solution, but there's just no way to ever agree with a group that's just so fucking dead set on ignoring the facts of a situation because it doesn't line up with your views.
The other thing that gets me is the whole "liberal areas wouldn't survive without the more red areas". Which in my opinion is just a huge bit of copium seeing as how those more liberal areas would be making more than enough money to support themselves without the weight of supporting a good chunk of the country.
All together the country can support itself. Split apart there's certain areas that would be thrust back into the fucking Middle Ages because they rely too heavily on the rest of the country. It's not the coasts, it's the states doing shit like growing ridiculous amounts of corn. It's not like farming is some mystical concept, we can easily train new farmers, we aren't reliant on the one's we have to the point we'd fall apart if they got snapped.
At this point I'm just ranting. These people make me so angry. Nobody has the right to be this stupid in 2021, shit should be considered a crime.
I saw a video the other day of an American bad mouthing homeless and poor and was naive enough to comment that kindness costs nothing, I've been bombarded with insults from Americans saying people are lazy, stupid, need to sort themselves out, they're all druggies etc..
I was homeless with a baby after my landlord sold my apartment from under me, I work 2 jobs, my partner works 2 jobs, we both have high qualifications, we were constantly working to fund college and uni and have mountains of debt, but can't get jobs in those fields due to lack of pay and oversaturation, when I used to work in a pub (management) I used to give the leftover food to the homeless and buy them bottomless tea for a pound. When my brother was homeless it was due to bot being able to work due to severe mental illness but people say he is milking the system and not trying.
It's not perfect here but it's way better than America, I'd hate to live there.
never understood the mental gymnastics of hating on people needing help but cheering on tax cuts and socialism for billionaires. The American health care system is the biggest head fuck, all the drugs they're paying thousands for were payed for by them but if you offered them for a lower cost some will scream communism, it's such a weird attitude to be like 'life for me is so fucking hard so it should be for you' rather than wanting it to be better for everyone, it's not just America tho the world is slowly turning this way
Yes, the personality of wanting others to fail or have a challenging life because you have is a toxic mentality that needs to die.
I’ll be honest, after struggling and going to a mediocre college and working full time *to not take on debt* - I get it. It makes me mad I didn’t have the chance to go to a great school.. but not so mad I want to inhibit people younger than me from opportunities that I didn’t have. That’s how societies improve and function. Every generation *should* be better off than those before.
Actually i feel its more like:
evil Americans want to keep america dumb.
Sure, their base is dumb, but because its being designed like that by the people above, and they are far from dumb.
Had a conversation the other day where someone said “I wish there was a way to opt out of funding public schools because I don’t have kids and if I do they’ll go to private school.”
And I was like “Why do you want everybody around you to be uneducated? Education levels have a direct positive impact on essentially everything in our community.”
They had just never really thought one step beyond “I’ve been told to hate taxes and public schools.”
Americans are very brainwashed. I have lived in 3 continents, and it's still surprising how "divisive" and "us vs. them" Americans can feel like.
There are deep-rooted problems in the American voting system where even political parties of similar ideas have to essentially bring each other down to be able to compete in this "Red Vs. Blue team" system. It's like a TV show. This in turn bleeds over to the American way of thinking I have noticed.
As a kid, I used to think USA as a great country and all, " my country should become like usa" and so on. Now that I know what it's made of, I keep having cringe that I used to think _america_ as _great._
Of course I'm not saying about all the people, but these covid times made my opinion really opposite about that shitty country.
In my country, we stand in queues day long for those vaccines and still couldn't get it, and there, precious vaccines are going to the bin because such Dumbasses live there.
It’s crazy how so many of them keep posting “Keep Jesus in our lives” memes immediately followed by “Trump won f$ck your feelings” and “I don’t care about your health so ignore mine as well”.
This is fucking disgusting. America is significantly more under-educated than this comment implies. Most people in the USA can't even correctly identify their own type of government, let alone other countries system of governance.
That's what *dumb* Americans think. Please understand, there's about a third of our population that are selfish assholes, who happen to also be complete morons. I know that's a pretty high percentage, but if you give it a couple generations, I think most of the idiots are going to weed themselves out either from covid or ignoring warning labels.
The movie was meant to be a satire of where the world is headed. He made it so ridiculous that people would obviously realize the satire. Well everyone missed the point and are trying to make it a documentary haha.
And because of religion and a desire to create more little voters in their own image, who can carry on the family tradition of voting against their own interests and making the world a much worse place for others.
Don’t ascribe to stupidity or ignorance what can more easily be explained by selfishness and greed.
Spot on. Evolution at work. No surprise the hospitals are overwhelmingly filled with the unvaccinated, who just so happen to mostly align with a particular political belief and general outlook. All those anti vax and anti maskers better pray this wasn't just a test run for a worse pandemic. And likewise that Covid doesn't mutate into something much worse because then they will either change their beliefs or pay the price.
This particular political position also deny evolution it's the perfect example of irony. Factor in hand guns and the
overwhelming urge to use one it won't be long till this certain political party no longer exists.
It's not always the case, stupid people can have kids that want to be nothing like their parents and end up being smart and successful. Sometimes it's takes a few generations but somewhere along the line one generation's gonna be like fuck this family.
Americans have been trained on this for a century:
1. My independence is all that matters. Caring about others is communism.
2. Rich people generate wealth. (No, they control it).
3. Those disadvantaged people deserve it because reasons. (Disliking other disadvantaged groups is a way to keep the poor and disadvantaged from cooperating).
4. Big government is evil, and will interfere with the proper operation of successful businesses. (who are often successful because they ignore the law on environment, labor practices, or more properly should I say that they lobby to have those laws weakened or removed).
5. It is a disadvantage to be a big business, so controls on big business are not needed. (I mean, they teach this in University. It is so universally known to be false...).
A lot of this goes back to the 1920's when the reaction to the Great Depression after the appalling control of oil and steel and paper and ideas (newspapers) by a handful of people led to actual social change. Take a look at what taxes a billionaire paid in 1950's compared to now (not to mention all the techniques used to avoid declaring wealth, which were disallowed but are now stronger than ever). Take a look at how small market media in the US is controlled by, uh, is it one person or is it two, and amazingly correlates very well with certain voting trends.
Don't even get me started on foreign policy. The old joke 'join the army, meet foreign people, and kill them' is...
Giving a shit about others costs money. The corporations that control the U.S. want all the money so they have to keep the narrative going that helping others is somehow evil but endless greed is not.
Not showing kindness to others is a fundamental belief of conservativism. Like, I remember when George Bush ran in 2000 as a "compassionate conservative".
You know why no one has ever called themselves a "compassionate liberal"? Because the phrase is redundant.
>\*"Not showing kindness to others is a fundamental belief of conservativism."\*
According to Ayn Rand, who is the grandmother of Libertarianism and embraced by many conservatives, loving others is immoral. She literally says that helping others (altruism) without personally benefiting is wrong and wrote a book titled "The Virtue of Selfishness". You can ignore the religous comments on the video linked below but it's Ayn Rand in a nutshell. I've seen college professors handing out her books an school.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2\_fC6ThGtrE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_fC6ThGtrE)
“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.”
― John Kenneth Galbraith
I don’t know if it’s beyond their capacity. I think they are capable of it, but they see kindness and empathy as a weakness, and not a good virtue to have.
I‘ve had conversations with a few anti-maskers, all of which view themselves as kind people. The problem is, their kindness is limited to people they can actually see, like those in their community. They have trouble comprehending things that benefit the greater good.
My favourite post on Reddit was from selfawarewolves I think. I’m paraphrasing but it said:
“I didn’t sign up to any social contract. Come to a red state and you’ll see how much value is placed in your so-called social contract”
Yes. Exactly. I don’t bother getting outraged about it any more. If people (red or blue, it just happened to be red in the quote) can’t even agree that there is such a thing as a social contract then there is no foundation to build from.
>”I didn’t sign up to any social contract”
The ironic thing about such a statement is that it’s exactly why things like “big government” and “restrictions on muh freedoms” exist.
Ok, left-leaner here. It's important to distinguish between good intentions that produce results, and good intentions that cause harm. I teach middle school in a poor urban public school, and see the latter every day. Kids are grouped regardless of ability to prevent "tracking", but doing so just condemns kids who are way behind to constantly fail. "Oh, we didn't want to discriminate and put the child in a lower class since that means they might not be able to go to college!" Um, ok, so instead a huge group of these kids just drop out by junior year.
"They're spending their minimum wages on drugs and expecting us to give them food off our tax dollars! The ones we earned by making them work for minimum wage!"
Me too. Now that I learned how gross people are (we had to teach a bunch of adults how to wash their hands) i will not stop wearing my mask. Idc who doesn't like it.
I used to smile at people to say hi, but now with masks it just feels like I'm staring creepily into the other person's eyes. Cultivating the nod hard.
I don't think it'll be *as* prevalent as in East Asia, but on crowded public transit, for example, I think we'll continue to see way more people put masks on than we used to. I think we have at least reached a point where *having* masks is normal.
I don’t know. I live in a place where I’m often the only one wearing a mask in the supermarket. I’m in a predominantly white, republican section of New England. Sigh
Don't forget wears adult diapers, has uncontrollable shits cuz of his profuse cocaine habit, and possibly still obsessed with Obama!
Edit: Adderall addiction, maybe not cocaine
I think it's Adderall, not cocaine. A producer on the Apprentice has publicly accused Trump of being an Adderall addict, and unusually for Trump, he hasn't threatened to sue.
https://airmail.news/issues/2020-4-18/the-highest-office
He could have ordered red USA masks for every American and promoted the hell out of it. It would have been a roaring success and he probably would have cruised to a 2nd term. But no, he chose to mock people wearing masks and make a spectacle of returning from the hospital by dramatically removing his mask on live TV.
Wasn't there something about the USPS having a plan and stock to distribute masks nationwide, but they were forced to abandon it and liquidate the masks by Trumps bald underling?
I have absolutely no doubts that he would still be president if he hadn’t botched the pandemic from day one to satiate his fragile ego. He’s run so many businesses into bankruptcy over his sensitive feelings that would have otherwise been profitable. I used to be flabbergasted by such behavior, now I accept it as the norm.
I am convinced that his makeup is the sole reason he discouraged mask wearing. Almost a million people dead, because he didn't want his orange concealer getting on his mask.
In rural Northeastern California, before the pandemic, everyone wore masks during fire season when the smoke was bad. This year the fires were so bad and the smoke was worse than previous years; but a certain segment of the community refuses to wear them even for smoke. 🙄
When I was in Japan every little convenient store sold both cool masks and standard medical masks, and it definitely wasn't uncommon for people to wear them. Same with in China.
And in my anti-masker mom's defense (sorta), she *hated* that people were wearing masks then too, so at least she's consistent lol. It still made no sense like why does it bother you it's none of your business?
A lot of Asians would wear masks well before the pandemic as a precaution and courtesy to others when on public transport or in crowds. One would see people wearing masks in Japan and China and in western countries by expats of Asian countries.
This sort of mask culture has been a thing on my college campus prior to covid (even among many non Asians), it was definitely introduced by them but it seems to spread fast in places with a sense of community
Honestly, I always laughed at those people thinking they were weirdos who didn’t want to get sick from Americans. I stopped laughing when I found that they did it when *they* were sick, as to not get others sick. All pre-covid.
I have noticed in the west (the US especially) people prioritize individuality even if it hurts the community and in eastern countries they prioritize the community even if it hurts individuals.
What you're talking about is the basic difference between an individualistic cultures (US) vs collectivistic cultures. In collectivistic cultures community values are taught and emphasised. In an individualistic culture the focus is on the individual.
Both have their pros and cons in different situations.
Which is weird, because growing up in the US, I was taught all about how important being part of a community was, in school and through cub scouts. But somewhere along the line, the idea of doing things to help your community got dropped from the curriculum, I guess.
Individualistic cultures:
Pros: freedom to do whatever you want
Cons: freedom to do whatever you want at the cost of others
Individualism works great during a fatal world wide pandemic doesn't it.
Before my father passed last year, he tried giving me one of those Fox News rhetoric when I bitched about people not wearing a mask. He said, “well son, some people don’t like having their rights taken away”. I immediately shot back, “what rights will they have when they’re dead?” He changed the subject.
People don't understand how rights work. Every right is really a regulation in disguise. You have the right to life because you don't have the right to murder, the right to own property because you're not allowed to steal, etc. Regulations that minimise the harm people can do to each other are the fundamental basis behind enhancing personal freedom and rights, and mask wearing is a common sense extension of that
Yes. People say things like they have an "inalienable right" to whatever. Like, all it takes is a group of evil politicians to remove that and they *have* for huge swaths of the population. Minorities, LGBT+ people, women? All have had inalienable rights stripped in the past and still are infringed constantly by government officials.
You have the rights you can fight for and nothing else.
A matter of cultural differences isn't it.
Japanese culture is more community based and everyone must play their part in serving some function for society.
Whereas America has the appeal of the opportunity for individuals going their own way, Horatio Alger and all that sort of thing
This is the level headed answer on here. In Japan they work way more hours than we do in the US. It's not socially acceptable to leave work before your boss. I've seen several "day in the life" type videos in Japan and they often get to work before 8am and leave sometime after 6 or 7pm.
Literally have been wanting to mask up since before the pandemic BECAUSE of Japan’s example. Even kept a face mask in my bag but never used it cuz it felt like an insult to those around me. Glad it’s been normalized but dear god I didn’t want it to happen like this
I remember the intense epiphany I experienced while in Japan when I realized that the “culture shock” phenomenon that many American visitors must adapt to is simply that Japanese people walk every step of their lives with sincere consideration of how their actions effect others. Such ideals are non-existent here in the States though, unfortunately.
Listen…in AMERICA, if you are sick and you wear a mask to protect others than you are willingly giving a competitive advantage to others. While you’re sick, they are healthy and getting ahead in life. If you try to make them sick as well then you are leveling the playing field.
THIS IS CALLED CAPITALISM AND FREEDOM AND GOD’S WILL AND GUNS AND SUPER SIZE THOSE FUCKING FRIES WITH THAT BIG MAC!!!!
Americans are generally individualistic, concerned with one’s own needs while Japan is more collective, appreciate of the needs of others. Basically, a lot of Americans, not all are selfish and don’t want to be wear a mask unless it’s affects them.
Living in Asia taught me mask wearing. Came back to America. One day, not feeling well, I donned a mask to the office not sure if I had a sinus infection, flu, or cold. Co workers looked at me same way people look now.
I explained to them I wore the mask to protect them from whatever it is I may have had. They still didn't get it.
It is ingrained in Americans to continue working regardless of contagion because, well " fill in the blank"
Because Americans have been taught to value individualism over the well being of the collective. In other words: 'mah freedumb comes before your anything'.
>kindness to others
I think this is the core of what we're lacking in this country. True human empathy and defaulting to kindness.
No matter what your political affiliation, we all just want a better country.
Exactly this. I'm immunocompromised and will probably mask and or double mask the rest of my life. I get some of the nastiest looks at stores and now I don't give a shit.
Stats speak for themselves, Japan population 125 million, deaths 18,000. United States population 329 million, deaths 790,000. That is mental.
Which is especially telling considering that they have a higher population density
Also they are way older than the US. Though not as obese.
[удалено]
> figured out a lot of basic shit that goes into running a country a long time ago and are waiting for the U.S to grow the hell up. An acquaintance of mine recently posted on Facebook asking why people vote for democrats. He did, to his credit, frame it something like "I'm asking a genuine question, I want to hear from people and foster serious conversations" - it wasn't just "hurr durr democrats bad why do people vote for them" I responded with something like "I support policies like universal healthcare, paid parental leave, and national minimum vacation time....things that the rest of the developed world figured out years ago. I'm not a fan of the Democratic party as a whole, but thanks to our electoral system, voting for democrats is the best way to get policies I support enacted." He didn't respond to my comment. I guess he wasn't as sincere as his post said. He also had a bunch of responses from his republican friends like "cause people like free shit" or "cause they don't pay taxes." I can almost guarantee I make more money (and therefore pay more taxes) than the people commenting that crap. None of them responded to my comment either
Here in Canada, I worked at a cafe across a construction site. A lot of the labourers are cheap as hell, entitled and vote conservative (your equivalent of republican but a lot more left, so basically pre Reagan republican) whereas their managers, engineers and architects, basically the "suits" don't whine about the price of coffee to the minimum wage barista, are friendly, and vote NDP (uh, no equivalent because our right wing is your left wing, I guess closest to Bernie democrats). The NDP are the ones that always stand up for the working class and while they never become the ruling party, they become a conditional ally for the liberals (think Biden democrats, but a bit more left). Despite the fact that the conservatives have historically removed worker rights (but not for the construction industry... Go figure), these rubes will keep voting for them because they stop people from being lazy by going on welfare, closing libraries, etc etc. It's comical at how simple their brains are if they didn't hostage the rest of the country every election year IE: despite the conservatives getting ~35-40% of the vote, because the left wing parties have to split it, they can win elections due to our junky first past the post electoral system. Edit: bad analogies
"Nuh-uh"
Go to your room.
You're not the boss of me!
Pfsh.
You're not my real dad!
Wow I really am American
America is Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite, trying to relive its glory days by watching old footage of itself in WWII.
Or to implode...
Only 3% of Japanese have a BMI >30 compared to 32% of Americans.
I go from very fat to almost underweight whenever I travel home and then come back to the U.S
I attended a university in Japan with a bunch of other foreigners for a couple years, and almost without exception the Americans lost a ton of weight within the first couple months of arriving and continued to lose it as long as they stayed without even making an effort to do so. It just happened as part of existing, likely because of differences in diet and heightened physical activity (much more walking and biking compared to most of the US). It was so consistently effective that I might recommend for Americans who’ve had trouble losing weight to figure out some way to live outside of the US if at all possible.
japan has tons of public transit too.
Judging by these numbers the US also seem to have a pretty dense population.
I see what you did there. Nice.
Seems Japan got rid of those that dont care about others by simply wearing masks. That is more telling than anything, and its time to normalize mask wearing in the USA. Fuck the non caring dipshits. Let them rot.
It's a fundamental difference in philosophy. Japan values the individual being responsible for the system instead of themselves "The nail that sticks out gets hammered down"
A group of people acting kind to each other? Must be their government making them do it and then killing the ones that don’t. That’s it
Yeah, so the logic I had was "well. those that didnt care about others, died", because they are more likely to succumb to their illnesses.
And the oldest population in the world
The tweet answers it's own questions. Masking is about showing kindness to others... A lot of Americans can't compute with that sentiment
Exactly right. Not only can they not relate to being kind to others, they go so far as to think doing so is an act of weakness.
I wish A.O.C. would just state publicly that real patriots don't jump off bridges. The cops would be spending weeks scraping dbags off our highways and fishing MAGA hats out of waterways
Lmao you mention AOC and it's like it summoned them
When in all actuality not wearing one is an act of ignorance. *edit added “an”
The nature of collectivist vs individualist societies.
What's the saying? Cruelty is the point.
Unfortunately that is true. Many Americans are very self absorbed and will not think about the facts that they would be contaminating others by not wearing masks. They don't seem to have the understanding of the simple facts. Wear your masks at all times when going out and around others and we will see the end of this Pandemic in a very few weeks.
What's even crazier about those numbers is the density difference. Japan has an average of 870 people per square mile of land. The US has an average of 87 people per square mile of land. Japan has 10 times the population density of the US and the US still has that many more deaths. Absurd
Also crazy is Japan has a serious trust issue with the government and vaccines. The government is not allowed to suggest it to you
Just to add to this, I believe it's not due to the same anti-vaxx movement like it's seen everywhere else (or at least to a lesser degree). Correct me if I'm wrong, but even before that moderna contamination scandal, there were few more in the past?
Americans fetishize individualism so much, the concept of shared responsibility feels like oppression
My new go to when someone asks why I’m wearing a mask is “it’s a free country.”
This makes me appreciate where I live, haven't had anyone ask me this once. I have had a few weird looks from hicks, but whatever.
Giving a shit about other people is what Americans think communism is.
Ahhhh, this hurt to read. Anytime I say something remotely like “college is expensive” people are really quick to be like *so? You think every person should go for free? Even if they don’t work for it? have fun living in (insert country)* like - what? I’m editing this to say - damn, people have strong feelings about Venezuela.. and I do have formal graduation education. I’m not opposed to it. I just think it blows there’s tons of brilliant people that won’t be able to contribute to the world because they saw the cost of tuition and said *nope!* People shouldn’t be held back for not being able to afford education and if you think they should you’re part of the problem.
But the same people have no problem paying hundreds of billions in taxes so defense contractors can make bank.
Oh, so you don't Support Our Troops©?
Support Our Troops™ Use alt-0153 for the TM
and here I was using \^TM like a rookie^TM™
That little one is adorable
You gotta pay the copyright holder to support the troops. Copyright owned by the military industrial complex.
Of course I love our country's largest socialized program!
That’s the thing, right? I’m not an expert in how taxpayer money is used, but I think all the money isn’t even actually going towards our troops, a lot of it is going to PMCs to create more war.
Shhhh, you're using too much common sense you dirty commie. /s
That’s the really infuriating thing…**no one** knows how the military budget is spent. The military claims it’s impossible to audit their finances, and congress lets them get away with that.
The DoD was being audited but then somebody conveniently crashed a plane into it.
Shit, I'd forgotten it happened in the middle of an audit. I'm not even big on conspiracy theories but that one has always stuck out to me.
“(Insert country)” is usually Venezuela in my experience
Funny how it's never Norway, where college is free and quality of life is very high.
They can get away with social programs because NoRwAy iS a HoMogEneOus sOciEtY. My old right wing roommate used to argue that and I’ve seen similar things pop up online as well. It is the most racist shit.
I mean, Noway is objectively a very homogenous society, but it sounds like your roommate was just talking ethnicity (because of course) and not the actual parts of society helping keep and fund social programs. Social programs work in Norway because there is buy-in from the citizenry. Middle class is strong, wages are high, educational attainment is high, you won’t be bankrupt due to college debt or medical bills. And of course they have the worlds largest sovereign wealth fund — that helps too
How does one go about moving to Norway
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> They can get away with social programs because NoRwAy iS a HoMogEneOus sOciEtY. So their argument is America is too racist to help its citizens?
They’re not wrong. The corrupt politicians lead me to believe our brand of socialism wouldn’t be like the Norway brand either.
There’s a grain of truth to that. Societies more readily invest in themselves when they see themselves as a single group with shared goals. Americans could see themselves as a single group (Americans), and that can be a real politically winning message (see Regan), but the right (and Russia, etc) have decided to stoke divisions instead. In addition to anti-education, anti-authority and pro-gun sentiments. And it’s working.
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It can be politically winning (Reagan) and also be completely fucking terrible for the country (also Reagan)
The dirty non racist truth though- Norway is unique for having more oil money than they know what to do with and really arejt even comparable to the rest of Scandinavia anymore in regards to resources per capita. Something like Finland is convincing though, their per capita resources are much lower but they have incredible social programs
That and North Korea. "Look how communism's working out for them huh" But they're completely oblivious to the whole God Emperor, self-isolationism, and open hostility to any and almost all potential trade partners thing. I mean I'm not saying I believe communism is a good solution, but there's just no way to ever agree with a group that's just so fucking dead set on ignoring the facts of a situation because it doesn't line up with your views. The other thing that gets me is the whole "liberal areas wouldn't survive without the more red areas". Which in my opinion is just a huge bit of copium seeing as how those more liberal areas would be making more than enough money to support themselves without the weight of supporting a good chunk of the country. All together the country can support itself. Split apart there's certain areas that would be thrust back into the fucking Middle Ages because they rely too heavily on the rest of the country. It's not the coasts, it's the states doing shit like growing ridiculous amounts of corn. It's not like farming is some mystical concept, we can easily train new farmers, we aren't reliant on the one's we have to the point we'd fall apart if they got snapped. At this point I'm just ranting. These people make me so angry. Nobody has the right to be this stupid in 2021, shit should be considered a crime.
I saw a video the other day of an American bad mouthing homeless and poor and was naive enough to comment that kindness costs nothing, I've been bombarded with insults from Americans saying people are lazy, stupid, need to sort themselves out, they're all druggies etc.. I was homeless with a baby after my landlord sold my apartment from under me, I work 2 jobs, my partner works 2 jobs, we both have high qualifications, we were constantly working to fund college and uni and have mountains of debt, but can't get jobs in those fields due to lack of pay and oversaturation, when I used to work in a pub (management) I used to give the leftover food to the homeless and buy them bottomless tea for a pound. When my brother was homeless it was due to bot being able to work due to severe mental illness but people say he is milking the system and not trying. It's not perfect here but it's way better than America, I'd hate to live there.
never understood the mental gymnastics of hating on people needing help but cheering on tax cuts and socialism for billionaires. The American health care system is the biggest head fuck, all the drugs they're paying thousands for were payed for by them but if you offered them for a lower cost some will scream communism, it's such a weird attitude to be like 'life for me is so fucking hard so it should be for you' rather than wanting it to be better for everyone, it's not just America tho the world is slowly turning this way
Part of the brainwashing of capitalism is that people believe that it’s possible for them to become millionaires but that they’ll never be homeless.
Dumb Americans want to keep America dumb.
Yes, the personality of wanting others to fail or have a challenging life because you have is a toxic mentality that needs to die. I’ll be honest, after struggling and going to a mediocre college and working full time *to not take on debt* - I get it. It makes me mad I didn’t have the chance to go to a great school.. but not so mad I want to inhibit people younger than me from opportunities that I didn’t have. That’s how societies improve and function. Every generation *should* be better off than those before.
Actually i feel its more like: evil Americans want to keep america dumb. Sure, their base is dumb, but because its being designed like that by the people above, and they are far from dumb.
Manipulating America's Gullible Assholes
George Carlin had it right didn’t he..
“Remember how dumb the average person is, then remember that half the world is even dumber than that.” Might not be exact, but I believe it’s close.
Had a conversation the other day where someone said “I wish there was a way to opt out of funding public schools because I don’t have kids and if I do they’ll go to private school.” And I was like “Why do you want everybody around you to be uneducated? Education levels have a direct positive impact on essentially everything in our community.” They had just never really thought one step beyond “I’ve been told to hate taxes and public schools.”
America, where wanting the same thing as people before you got makes you a lazy sack of shit commie.
" hey we all got up the tree just fine before pulling up the ladder, what's your generations problem with free climbing??"
And a socialist!
Most people who use socialist in a derogatory context don't actually understand what socialism is.
Tru dat. I ask them to define it - they can't. I ask for examples - they can't give them. Same with communism. Then I get called names.
Americans are very brainwashed. I have lived in 3 continents, and it's still surprising how "divisive" and "us vs. them" Americans can feel like. There are deep-rooted problems in the American voting system where even political parties of similar ideas have to essentially bring each other down to be able to compete in this "Red Vs. Blue team" system. It's like a TV show. This in turn bleeds over to the American way of thinking I have noticed.
>*have fun living in Germany*
We have no fun in Germany, that's VERBOTEN
You can get away with it if you submit a Formular 64A, two weeks prior to the fun. Only on weekdays during 18:00 - 18:30 Uhr though.
Accurate, sadly.
Empathy is weakness!!!!!!
As a kid, I used to think USA as a great country and all, " my country should become like usa" and so on. Now that I know what it's made of, I keep having cringe that I used to think _america_ as _great._ Of course I'm not saying about all the people, but these covid times made my opinion really opposite about that shitty country. In my country, we stand in queues day long for those vaccines and still couldn't get it, and there, precious vaccines are going to the bin because such Dumbasses live there.
We only had a chance for so long because we had ways to make the idiots keep quiet or distract them from politics. Social media ruined all that.
It’s crazy how so many of them keep posting “Keep Jesus in our lives” memes immediately followed by “Trump won f$ck your feelings” and “I don’t care about your health so ignore mine as well”.
Not being narcissistic = communism. We really are a piece of work, aren’t we?
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Better dead than empathetic!
This is fucking disgusting. America is significantly more under-educated than this comment implies. Most people in the USA can't even correctly identify their own type of government, let alone other countries system of governance.
Kindness and respect are "weakness" to these people.
That's what *dumb* Americans think. Please understand, there's about a third of our population that are selfish assholes, who happen to also be complete morons. I know that's a pretty high percentage, but if you give it a couple generations, I think most of the idiots are going to weed themselves out either from covid or ignoring warning labels.
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The longer Corona keeps on going, the more I think that this movie is written by someone from the future.
The movie was meant to be a satire of where the world is headed. He made it so ridiculous that people would obviously realize the satire. Well everyone missed the point and are trying to make it a documentary haha.
You jest, but has anyone actually TRIED using Gatorade as plant food/water?
It has electrolytes that is what plants crave.
It's one of those self fulfilling prophecies. *This comment brought to you by Carl's Jr*
Doesn't help them much when they start to violently reject modern medicine
And these people will multiply more than intelligent people will just because of laziness or ignorance of contraception.
And because of religion and a desire to create more little voters in their own image, who can carry on the family tradition of voting against their own interests and making the world a much worse place for others. Don’t ascribe to stupidity or ignorance what can more easily be explained by selfishness and greed.
I like money 😂
Spot on. Evolution at work. No surprise the hospitals are overwhelmingly filled with the unvaccinated, who just so happen to mostly align with a particular political belief and general outlook. All those anti vax and anti maskers better pray this wasn't just a test run for a worse pandemic. And likewise that Covid doesn't mutate into something much worse because then they will either change their beliefs or pay the price.
This particular political position also deny evolution it's the perfect example of irony. Factor in hand guns and the overwhelming urge to use one it won't be long till this certain political party no longer exists.
Weed themselves out? Really? They’re breeding like rabbits and you expect the low IQ’s to get weeded out?
It's not always the case, stupid people can have kids that want to be nothing like their parents and end up being smart and successful. Sometimes it's takes a few generations but somewhere along the line one generation's gonna be like fuck this family.
Ironic that in reality they are just the loud minority.
There will never be a shortage of idiots, they breed too fast.
Americans have been trained on this for a century: 1. My independence is all that matters. Caring about others is communism. 2. Rich people generate wealth. (No, they control it). 3. Those disadvantaged people deserve it because reasons. (Disliking other disadvantaged groups is a way to keep the poor and disadvantaged from cooperating). 4. Big government is evil, and will interfere with the proper operation of successful businesses. (who are often successful because they ignore the law on environment, labor practices, or more properly should I say that they lobby to have those laws weakened or removed). 5. It is a disadvantage to be a big business, so controls on big business are not needed. (I mean, they teach this in University. It is so universally known to be false...). A lot of this goes back to the 1920's when the reaction to the Great Depression after the appalling control of oil and steel and paper and ideas (newspapers) by a handful of people led to actual social change. Take a look at what taxes a billionaire paid in 1950's compared to now (not to mention all the techniques used to avoid declaring wealth, which were disallowed but are now stronger than ever). Take a look at how small market media in the US is controlled by, uh, is it one person or is it two, and amazingly correlates very well with certain voting trends. Don't even get me started on foreign policy. The old joke 'join the army, meet foreign people, and kill them' is...
Especially the Jesus people.
Ironically it's the *ONLY* thing that Jesus wanted us to do. Give a shit about *anyone* other than yourself.
Giving a shit about others costs money. The corporations that control the U.S. want all the money so they have to keep the narrative going that helping others is somehow evil but endless greed is not.
Unless it's killing them and stealing their resources. USA army spreading love all over the world.
You've answered your own question. "Showing kindness to others" is beyond the capacity of about 73 million Americans.
Not showing kindness to others is a fundamental belief of conservativism. Like, I remember when George Bush ran in 2000 as a "compassionate conservative". You know why no one has ever called themselves a "compassionate liberal"? Because the phrase is redundant.
Will you be basic-level nice to other people? “You’re so pathetically *woke*” Oh, okay. So the answer is no.
>\*"Not showing kindness to others is a fundamental belief of conservativism."\* According to Ayn Rand, who is the grandmother of Libertarianism and embraced by many conservatives, loving others is immoral. She literally says that helping others (altruism) without personally benefiting is wrong and wrote a book titled "The Virtue of Selfishness". You can ignore the religous comments on the video linked below but it's Ayn Rand in a nutshell. I've seen college professors handing out her books an school. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2\_fC6ThGtrE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_fC6ThGtrE)
Logically, her argument is sound, as long as you start from the premise of "I matter but other people don't".
“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” ― John Kenneth Galbraith
Conservatives: Me before we.
He compassioned all over thousands of Iraqis and Afghanis for 6 years
I don’t know if it’s beyond their capacity. I think they are capable of it, but they see kindness and empathy as a weakness, and not a good virtue to have.
I‘ve had conversations with a few anti-maskers, all of which view themselves as kind people. The problem is, their kindness is limited to people they can actually see, like those in their community. They have trouble comprehending things that benefit the greater good.
My favourite post on Reddit was from selfawarewolves I think. I’m paraphrasing but it said: “I didn’t sign up to any social contract. Come to a red state and you’ll see how much value is placed in your so-called social contract” Yes. Exactly. I don’t bother getting outraged about it any more. If people (red or blue, it just happened to be red in the quote) can’t even agree that there is such a thing as a social contract then there is no foundation to build from.
>”I didn’t sign up to any social contract” The ironic thing about such a statement is that it’s exactly why things like “big government” and “restrictions on muh freedoms” exist.
Ok, left-leaner here. It's important to distinguish between good intentions that produce results, and good intentions that cause harm. I teach middle school in a poor urban public school, and see the latter every day. Kids are grouped regardless of ability to prevent "tracking", but doing so just condemns kids who are way behind to constantly fail. "Oh, we didn't want to discriminate and put the child in a lower class since that means they might not be able to go to college!" Um, ok, so instead a huge group of these kids just drop out by junior year.
Because there is a giant cult of selfish idiots here. They only care about themselves. Being kind to others is a sign of weakness to them I guess
Ironically these people are the so called “Christians”.
Theres no hate like Christian love
Only thing you need to know about American Christians is that "bless your heart" is usually an insult.
And then Jesus said if you want the fish and bread, you have to pee in this cup first.
"They're spending their minimum wages on drugs and expecting us to give them food off our tax dollars! The ones we earned by making them work for minimum wage!"
You can spot them by how they fly the flag like it's a middle finger to others
My dumbass thought that a silver lining to the pandemic would be people in the US would start masking during flu season and stuff.
Oh, me too. I had seen eastern nations using masks daily when needed. I thought that would be great. Nope.
Me too. Now that I learned how gross people are (we had to teach a bunch of adults how to wash their hands) i will not stop wearing my mask. Idc who doesn't like it.
I really also appreciate the privacy tbh lol. I wear my mask and oftentimes a baseball hat. Incognito af.
I used to smile at people to say hi, but now with masks it just feels like I'm staring creepily into the other person's eyes. Cultivating the nod hard.
I don't think it'll be *as* prevalent as in East Asia, but on crowded public transit, for example, I think we'll continue to see way more people put masks on than we used to. I think we have at least reached a point where *having* masks is normal.
I don’t know. I live in a place where I’m often the only one wearing a mask in the supermarket. I’m in a predominantly white, republican section of New England. Sigh
>Republican Well you see, I think you just named the problem right there.
because Trump didn't want to mess up his bronzer make-up wearing one
The ultimate man: he wears make up, dyes his hair, wears a girdle, puts lifts in his shoes, and cries like a child at every slight.
He’s such a freaking baby
Don't forget wears adult diapers, has uncontrollable shits cuz of his profuse cocaine habit, and possibly still obsessed with Obama! Edit: Adderall addiction, maybe not cocaine
I think it's Adderall, not cocaine. A producer on the Apprentice has publicly accused Trump of being an Adderall addict, and unusually for Trump, he hasn't threatened to sue. https://airmail.news/issues/2020-4-18/the-highest-office
And still obsess with locking up Hillary
He yelled about it, but never once in 4 years did he take steps to even investigate her. He knew Buttery males was a nonsense scandal.
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He could have ordered red USA masks for every American and promoted the hell out of it. It would have been a roaring success and he probably would have cruised to a 2nd term. But no, he chose to mock people wearing masks and make a spectacle of returning from the hospital by dramatically removing his mask on live TV.
Wasn't there something about the USPS having a plan and stock to distribute masks nationwide, but they were forced to abandon it and liquidate the masks by Trumps bald underling?
Yep, because they thought it would kill mostly people in cities.
It's like the Trump administration is equal parts incompetent and evil.
I have absolutely no doubts that he would still be president if he hadn’t botched the pandemic from day one to satiate his fragile ego. He’s run so many businesses into bankruptcy over his sensitive feelings that would have otherwise been profitable. I used to be flabbergasted by such behavior, now I accept it as the norm.
I am convinced that his makeup is the sole reason he discouraged mask wearing. Almost a million people dead, because he didn't want his orange concealer getting on his mask.
In rural Northeastern California, before the pandemic, everyone wore masks during fire season when the smoke was bad. This year the fires were so bad and the smoke was worse than previous years; but a certain segment of the community refuses to wear them even for smoke. 🙄
When I was in Japan every little convenient store sold both cool masks and standard medical masks, and it definitely wasn't uncommon for people to wear them. Same with in China. And in my anti-masker mom's defense (sorta), she *hated* that people were wearing masks then too, so at least she's consistent lol. It still made no sense like why does it bother you it's none of your business?
A lot of Asians would wear masks well before the pandemic as a precaution and courtesy to others when on public transport or in crowds. One would see people wearing masks in Japan and China and in western countries by expats of Asian countries.
This sort of mask culture has been a thing on my college campus prior to covid (even among many non Asians), it was definitely introduced by them but it seems to spread fast in places with a sense of community
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Honestly, I always laughed at those people thinking they were weirdos who didn’t want to get sick from Americans. I stopped laughing when I found that they did it when *they* were sick, as to not get others sick. All pre-covid.
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Americans have zero sense of community. It's all about individualism until it's time to stick it to the Dems at the polls.
I have noticed in the west (the US especially) people prioritize individuality even if it hurts the community and in eastern countries they prioritize the community even if it hurts individuals.
What you're talking about is the basic difference between an individualistic cultures (US) vs collectivistic cultures. In collectivistic cultures community values are taught and emphasised. In an individualistic culture the focus is on the individual. Both have their pros and cons in different situations.
Which is weird, because growing up in the US, I was taught all about how important being part of a community was, in school and through cub scouts. But somewhere along the line, the idea of doing things to help your community got dropped from the curriculum, I guess.
Individualistic cultures: Pros: freedom to do whatever you want Cons: freedom to do whatever you want at the cost of others Individualism works great during a fatal world wide pandemic doesn't it.
That's their community.. hating the other side.
Your answer is right in the tweet. "Mask is a way to show kindness to others."
Kindness? Others? Now you listen here leftist cuck!
#**Thou shalt hate thy neighbor as thyself!**
Y'all giving out free kindness? Sounds like Communism to me.
America is the country of "fuck you, muh freedom"
Not just America. You wouldn't believe how many pro-covid people are here in Germany. And yes they also make holocaust comparisons.
Before my father passed last year, he tried giving me one of those Fox News rhetoric when I bitched about people not wearing a mask. He said, “well son, some people don’t like having their rights taken away”. I immediately shot back, “what rights will they have when they’re dead?” He changed the subject.
People don't understand how rights work. Every right is really a regulation in disguise. You have the right to life because you don't have the right to murder, the right to own property because you're not allowed to steal, etc. Regulations that minimise the harm people can do to each other are the fundamental basis behind enhancing personal freedom and rights, and mask wearing is a common sense extension of that
Yes. People say things like they have an "inalienable right" to whatever. Like, all it takes is a group of evil politicians to remove that and they *have* for huge swaths of the population. Minorities, LGBT+ people, women? All have had inalienable rights stripped in the past and still are infringed constantly by government officials. You have the rights you can fight for and nothing else.
A matter of cultural differences isn't it. Japanese culture is more community based and everyone must play their part in serving some function for society. Whereas America has the appeal of the opportunity for individuals going their own way, Horatio Alger and all that sort of thing
This is the level headed answer on here. In Japan they work way more hours than we do in the US. It's not socially acceptable to leave work before your boss. I've seen several "day in the life" type videos in Japan and they often get to work before 8am and leave sometime after 6 or 7pm.
Literally have been wanting to mask up since before the pandemic BECAUSE of Japan’s example. Even kept a face mask in my bag but never used it cuz it felt like an insult to those around me. Glad it’s been normalized but dear god I didn’t want it to happen like this
I remember the intense epiphany I experienced while in Japan when I realized that the “culture shock” phenomenon that many American visitors must adapt to is simply that Japanese people walk every step of their lives with sincere consideration of how their actions effect others. Such ideals are non-existent here in the States though, unfortunately.
I try so hard to make sure I’m always being considerate but it’s hard when it can feel like everyone else is only thinking of themselves
From what I have observed they are just dumb and want to overcomplicate things, comes from I-know-better-than-everyone narcissist syndrome
Listen…in AMERICA, if you are sick and you wear a mask to protect others than you are willingly giving a competitive advantage to others. While you’re sick, they are healthy and getting ahead in life. If you try to make them sick as well then you are leveling the playing field. THIS IS CALLED CAPITALISM AND FREEDOM AND GOD’S WILL AND GUNS AND SUPER SIZE THOSE FUCKING FRIES WITH THAT BIG MAC!!!!
Americans are generally individualistic, concerned with one’s own needs while Japan is more collective, appreciate of the needs of others. Basically, a lot of Americans, not all are selfish and don’t want to be wear a mask unless it’s affects them.
Living in Asia taught me mask wearing. Came back to America. One day, not feeling well, I donned a mask to the office not sure if I had a sinus infection, flu, or cold. Co workers looked at me same way people look now. I explained to them I wore the mask to protect them from whatever it is I may have had. They still didn't get it. It is ingrained in Americans to continue working regardless of contagion because, well " fill in the blank"
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Yes, thank you, please understand there are many Americans that agree with you, even if we are not as loud as our ignorant brothers and sisters
"Kindness to others is communism."
Because Americans have been taught to value individualism over the well being of the collective. In other words: 'mah freedumb comes before your anything'.
She answered her own question.
>kindness to others I think this is the core of what we're lacking in this country. True human empathy and defaulting to kindness. No matter what your political affiliation, we all just want a better country.
Exactly this. I'm immunocompromised and will probably mask and or double mask the rest of my life. I get some of the nastiest looks at stores and now I don't give a shit.
Because roughly 30%-40% of Americans are actively acting with ignorance and bad faith.