If they bring up their cultural religion, values, politics, philosophy, or social dynamics, suddenly things can become an area of controversy and even ethical debate

Italians will go three rounds in the ring over which neighborhood has the best ice cream shop. I wouldn’t even say its uncontroversial. But these also tend to be attributes that vary heavily even at relatively short distances in older communities. A certain meal prepared a certain way or a dance/music style that originated in your neighborhood becomes a unique touchstone to your community.

I might note that this is something “Planned Communities” tend to lose out on. Everyone gets a Chilis. Everyone gets a radio station franchise that plays the same six songs on a loop. Everyone gets an AMC that shows the same ten movies as everywhere else. Everyone gets a Catholic Church and a Methodist Church book-ending the local elementary school.

Then you leave your provincial cookie-cutter suburb and visit London, a city where the dialect of the language changes by intersection. Or you do a road trip in Italy and find out how every tiny township has this one kind of dish they’re all really proud of. Or you just drop into inner city Houston and get an earful of Chop’n’Screw music played by guys with spinners on the wheels of their lowered Cadalliacs. Then you find some weird old bookshop in Montrose that sells pagan bumper stickers.

OP is British

Adios, sucker.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_long_spoons

Heard St. Peter is checking all social media history back five years before they let you into Heaven.

All Hail

Slaps the side of the federal government

This bad boy can fit so many more surveillance programs

One Piece is the straw hat.

He finds it in the first episode.

There. Saved you 1100+ 22min episodes full of fun and adventure and friendship.

You’re welcome.

Fully unironically. “Brush your teeth or the Fairy won’t pay top dollar for them”

I assumed the Ghost of Christmas Imperative would just be shouting “CELEBRATE CHRISTMAS!” over and over again, while blowing an air horn that plays carols.

So to ignore class and imperialism in your advocacy for trans rights means to effectively throw the majority of trans people under the bus.

I mean… this is literally what the liberals have said they want to do, re: 2024

Democrats Lost Voters on Transgender Rights. Winning Them Back Won’t Be Easy.

The number of policies liberals seem willing to support shrinks with every election cycle as reactionaries in national media flog them for speaking out. Police Brutality in 2014. Health care in 2016. Climate Change in 2018. Student Debt in 2020. Opposition to Genocide in 2022. It seems 2024 was the year we had to stop caring about LGBTQ.

I wonder what we’ll be asked to give up next in our quest to win that “Moderate” voter.

angry Mermaid noises

First 9 years of school is absolutely mandatory where I come from

Attendance is mandatory. Failure is always an option.

Then after 12 years of school you still need a degree for most job listings.

You can find jobs (even good paying jobs) that don’t require a degree, but they tend to be labor intensive, health hazardous, and with awful working hours. There’s a job I’m always seeing open in Houston for non-college recruits that involves hosing out shipping containers at the port. The job starts around 6pm and you’re in a giant rubber hasmat suit dealing with tanker ships full of toxic chemicals. The bosses want you to work 12 hour shifts, you’re in close with heavy machinery on a dock, and you’re surrounded by carcinogens that you have to meticulously shield and clean yourself of and hope your PPE is keeping you safe on the clock.

$80k+/year. The bigger companies looking for people with experience will pay north of $150k.

You can also work out on a rig for $150k+. You can drive trucks overseas (Americans working in Iraq could earn $200k+/year back during the occupation). If you do have military experience, there’s a ton of money working as a “consultant” in Private Defense. No college necessary. But… you know… there’s trade offs.

The glut of US tech workers is due to the excessive number of H1B visas being issued.

That’s been part of it. But even with the H1B and the outsourcing, there’s a ton of technology to be administered, maintained, and repaired. We’re a technology economy. The glut of US tech workers is due to induced demand.

Why hire an expensive American new graduate when you can hire someone from India with 3-5 years of experience at 60% market rate instead?

Because you need to be able to communicate your needs fluently and India is in the wrong time zone. You can outsource some of your work some of the time, but follow this logic to its conclusion and you begin to ask why you’re even in business in the states. Why not just invest money in India’s private sector if you’re so convinced their workers can do a better job at a lower price? Why have an American business at all?

Replace me with an AI and I will laugh my way straight over to the brokerage where I short your stock.

Chevron replaced their whole IT department with Indian outsourcing companies a year ago and they’re already falling apart from the inside out.

I mean, me too. Glad I never had a talent or penchant for art. I’d be broke.

All my friends got married and now half the table is spouses with a few spots reserved for a cameo from one of the kids

Yes.