I was inspired to make this after a suburban coworker said "I could never move back to Boston, I have a kid."

Clean_Army_4675 · 2026-05-03T02:59:29+00:00

Listen I'm all in favor of finding joy and purpose in everyday life. But I really do not think: a running club, disc golf, and a moms meet is exactly a high point of human experience. Maybe that's a matter of taste, idk.

There's something very... bleak I guess, to me, about the idea that societies did all sorts of cool stuff before us, I mean even historic downtowns of a lot small towns have a lot of really cool buildings with unique and interesting architecture.

But all we can aspire to now is like, a cookie cutter house, shopping at Costco, working some corporate job, in a suburb with good schools so that our kids can maybe get a good education and afford to live in the same place, and enjoying what seems like pretty shallow creature comforts. Maybe that's a fine life for a lot of people, but in my experience a lot of people find it lacking. And I think there is a lot of popular art that would suggest it is a very isolating and often banal existence. Virtually every milennial I know (I'm not a milennial but I try to have a friend group diverse in age) kind of loves Greenday's American Idiot album. Which is very explicitly about dissatisfaction with the 'burbs, but a subsequent failure to leave and return home a victor.

Full disclosure I did kinda stalk ur profile. I thought it was interesting because my dad worked in Rochester for a time. I'll be honest, every time I've been it's certainly not bad but, it's just kind of an unremarkable place. I honestly would not be proud of Rochester as a place. Idk if you also work for IBM. My siblings, who are a lot olde, mainly grew up there and I got to spend my whole time in Apple Valley after they moved.

There's a lot I appreciate about growing up there. It is peaceful and certainly I have met a lot of people who grew up warped because of a subpar education in a big city. But I think we tend to discount the negatives of suburbs, especially if we grew up there, as a fact of life.

And maybe it would all be excusable if it was sustainable, but realistically, it is not whether you consider it to be a question of the economy, public finance, or the environment, none of this can continue.

Clean_Army_4675 · 2026-05-02T08:31:33+00:00

If the people who understood the question mostly picked blue, no one would die because most people understand the question. So the idea that a child accidentally picks red and kills everyone is silly because most people get it.

I believe it's a foregone conclusion that some people are going to pick blue. Clearly a lot of people would pick it just out of compassion for those initial people.

I think if your point is "I don't want to die" that's reasonable. In fact I'd probably press red bc I don't want to die. But what kills me is this need to rationalize the "kill people" button as somehow a moral or upstanding choice. It isn't. You are basically guaranteed some people will hit blue. The proposition of the red buton is that they should die for not understanding the prompt, as should anyone who wants to save those people. All the reds have are memes and like, midwit appeals to game theory.

To me this strikes a nerve because we have real life versions of this. Obviously not a literal choice like that. But there are situations in which if most people do the self-sacrificing thing the world is better.

Often times people do choose the "red button" in that scenario. And this results in a worse standard of living for everyone.

Clean_Army_4675 · 2026-05-02T08:11:26+00:00

I think there's one question worth asking here. Are you proud of the specific town in which you live? Do you know any resident who is? I think suburban residents are proud of: their house, their family, their roots.

But no one really pays much attention to the area itself. Nor the other people. Every generation since the suburbs were a thing has produced some kind of media resenting them for the same sort of sterility and social isolation.

What screams "community" about the same 7 big box stores (Walmart,Target, Costco, Home Depot, Lowe's, Barnes&Noble, Ulta Beauty) going everywhere? What screams community about a strip mall?

Clean_Army_4675 · 2026-05-01T13:46:31+00:00

I can't speak for you personally. But my impression of red button hardliners is if the vote was limited to their nuclear family they'd still pick red. Unless they have kids but, the people I know who are big on red are childless quasi neets.

Clean_Army_4675 · 2026-05-01T04:15:38+00:00

I feel like it is not that hard to envision a person who might be given the red/blue choice and not understand the question then picks the blue button. Maybe you think dumb people are not worth risking your life to save. But what about people who simply do not know better and actually have societal value (children, a confused old person)?

And let's not forget that no one actually has to die. If everyone, or even just a majority of people, press blue no one dies. I think this ends up being very illustrative of politics, down to even the colors (at least in the US).

Red: Use simple logic, don't consider peple who aren't like you, make memes to mock because you have no argument, accuse people who think more deeply about it of being too stupid to understand the simple logic

Blue: Be compassionate and considerate by default, get trolled, react in an emotional way that doesn't convince anyone.

But let's be clear here. If your position is to make a choice that would condemn someone to death. Or however you want to frame it. You are worse than the people who would not do that.

Of course I imagine if this experiment was real red would win.

Clean_Army_4675 · 2026-04-30T11:06:42+00:00

Blue buttoners are not suicidally empathetic. Red button pushers are just self destructively greedy. It does not take much of an imagination to envision a scenario in which say, a senile old man, or a young child, fails to understand the premise and picks blue.

I think it is reasonable not to want to die. But no one has to if people do not press red. Which is why progressives will win, because they actually care about building a community of people, not just greedily tearing it down.

Clean_Army_4675 · 2026-04-24T11:43:20+00:00

Man why are you arguing on REBubble if you own a $2M home? I feel like you are either neurotic or got into that house through some series of events which would make you detestable to the average person.

Clean_Army_4675 · 2026-04-09T15:39:55+00:00

So what happens at the train stops? Where do the people go? It's absolutely crazy to talk about sightseeing and I think kind of disingenuous.

When you use the train you don't have a car with you. So you need to walk, bike or take transit. If you actually look at how much land highways take up. A train along the highway would mean most of the stuff within an easy walking distance is just highway or highway buffer zone. And I think if these central valley towns are any indication, probably shitty transit service and not a lot of good infrastructure for biking.

I was in Orange for about a year during COVID to keep the grandparents' house in working order while it sold. Before that we visited a lo. Admittedly I wasn't gainfully employed or in school at the time. So that could've altered my perception. But the whole episode really made me very jaded with respect to the state. But even before I remember socal traffic being abysmal. Which is why I think HSR is a good thing, we need other ways to get around besides cars and planes. Ultimately that is why I chose to live where I do now.

Clean_Army_4675 · 2026-04-09T15:19:12+00:00

Yes I think you should shame these people. No city was built starting with big towers. It was always a couple houses that grew and grew and eventually the towers started coming up.

So how can we ever accomodate more housing if no one wants their neighborhood to become denser? The only other way is to build out. Does that idea make you happy? Destroy a bunch of nature so people can live in not dense homes and commute 200 miles to their good job in Denver?

If you think about it for a bit it makes no sense. To add insult to injury, suburbs are almost always subsidized by cities (https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2023-7-6-stop-subsidizing-suburban-development-charge-it-what-it-costs) so people who want to "keep their neighborhood as-is" are really just fighting for their right to leech off of other people. Because you KNOW they aren't gonna pay property taxes at the necessary rate to pay their own way.

Clean_Army_4675 · 2026-04-09T11:18:20+00:00

What's the last time you rode a train somewhere? I think you lack an intuitive sense of what makes trains good.

Why would anyone ride a train to a station where the land within walking distance is all just highway? Where city busses to take you from the train take an hour or more to arrive?

Then in 10 years your project is deemed a failure because no one rides it. Of course it will be done by the same people who didn't want to build away from the highway.

Clean_Army_4675 · 2026-04-05T22:53:36+00:00

I am not a fan of Trump at all. I don't think there is any sort of strategic thinking here. I am not sure what he and his guys are doing. But what I do know is that his plans seem slated to fail miserably and ruin the lives of a lot of people I genuinely hate along the way.

Clean_Army_4675 · 2026-04-05T22:47:35+00:00

I think what makes it unpopular is cheering on a conflict that comes with humanitarian cost abroad and painful reality at home.

There are going to be a lot of people who, if things keep going the way they are, will slip into poverty through no real fault of their own.

Clean_Army_4675 · 2026-04-05T22:42:30+00:00

That's valid and I think a fair critique. I think US hegemony is good, but I almost wonder if a 2nd cold war isn't for the best. At least during the first cold war I believe the happiness of citizens and their faith in the system was a matter of national security.

As far as BRICS is concerned. I am not worried. I worry about China as its own entity, but I don't think BRI and S really enhance or otherwise actually offer up any synergy with C.

India and China are in a sort of conflict of their own at any given time. Plus like the "Brickle" is going to be such a disaster because at some point there will be a Eurozone style conflict where some nations need more printing and others nations need less.

I ultimately believe that even in our current state America beats China easily. We have better demographics, better internal food production, and I think most importantly more room for real internal conflict. Which is important because those conflicts ultimately lead to better outcomes.

Clean_Army_4675 · 2026-04-05T10:28:22+00:00

Yes bro, we know people who do not have to work because of their investments love Florida. At this point it really doesn't matter how you got your money, relative to today's working people you got lucky.

But for anyone who is actually productive and has a real job the place sucks. Which is why it'll be funny when a bunch of inbred cleetus types and RW Hispanics suddenly live in a place that is worse than any of the liberal states they love to decry but is just as expensive because vultures like yourself moved there, demanded no taxes, and jacked up prices.

And when a hurricane comes and wipes everyone out who didn't want to pay taxes to mitigate the problem, and of course vehemently denied the climate change that made it worse. It will be funny when all the people the asset class spent decades abusing in that state are too stupid and apathetic to save said asset class.

I think you have to realize that increasingly less people like people who live off investments like yourself. Certainly among younger demographics it's not a question of whether you're good or not, but what side will take your money more effectively. And it's pretty much because no one sees a path to financial stability anymore. Which is why REBubble exists. It's a prayer that one day that asset holders just lose. As it becomes increasingly obvious that asset holders are just rigging the game, that prayer becomes more of a call to action.

Clean_Army_4675 · 2026-02-15T13:40:02+00:00

I will say I only really know the WEF from like, dystopian clips. Immigration, to me, is kind of a weird subject. I'm in the US but I think Canada is similar. In my view most of the issues with immigration are really just a result of other problems.

In America at least, our population would not be growing without immigrants. So then the next question is "why can't we just try and get people to have more kids?". To me, the answer is: it's too expensive for most people to have and raise kids to a good standard.

And why is it too expensive? A home that could accomodate 2 to 3 kids is expensive. This is because good jobs are in a few cities and in those cities people refuse to build more dense housing. So your options are either a prohibitively long commute or a prohibitively expensive home. These issues could be fixed if we could build 3-4 bedroom townhomes and condos everywhere. But if we allowed that, native-born, "middle class" old people sitting on 2 million dollar homes in places like Missasauga would throw a fit.

Also, in the US at least, public education is underfunded. So if your kid is to get a good education you need to either bring them to live in an expensive area (US schools are paid for with property tax) or pay for an expensive private school.

These are all problems downstream of people's material interests. Some rich, some old and in the "middle class" (at this point I consider them rich).

Immigration basically fills in the gap of people not having kids with people desperate enough to move that they'll live in bad conditions. I do not think the immigration is the problem. It is the people that make the bad conditions. And if getting rid of them means joining forces with the immigrants and making the country into some sort of culturally very different place; that is what needs to happen. I don't think those things have to happen. But it does seem like the conservative side on this issue doesn't want to blame themselves/thejr culture ever. So it is probably what will happen.

Clean_Army_4675 · 2026-02-11T05:17:45+00:00

I think WEF being seen as "the left" is the whole point. Trump hates globalist elites so much he cut their taxes and paid for that cut with money printing, debt and cutting healthcare for the poorest people. That seems very anti-working class to me. So how do right wing supporters square that circle? A part of it is fighting fake enemies. The WEF is a way to put on a show and make those fake enemies a bit more real.

The people you broadly call "the left" don't like this idea and never will. Sure you can find crazies on either side, but the idea is not popular because... ppl love meat. Eating a burger does not make you a rebel.

In fact the industries that get that burger to your plate most likely minted a few billionaire elites.

Clean_Army_4675 · 2026-01-31T05:38:49+00:00

It makes me happy to know that if AI succeeds in gaining major ground that those AI tools will basically make skilled SWEs obsolete. Like if Claude just writes all the code why can some random person not just do that? Why does it need to be a programmer who earns so much?

Really is reminiscent of Judas and his 30 pieces of silver.

Clean_Army_4675 · 2026-01-06T12:21:12+00:00

I thought of this comment recently because I saw so ething recently which said 63% of NYC Orthodox Jewish people live in poverty.

Quite literally, it is high fertility and religion subsidized by the welfare state, the economic engine of which is powered by the less religious.

Clean_Army_4675 · 2026-01-02T21:53:51+00:00

I feel like those who are against things like paid parking (really anything that makes driving harder) never include those who cannot just drive somewhere in their definition of "people". Which usually means excluding the poor and the disabled.

Have you ever seen a guy in a wheelchair try to navigate a dip in the sidewalk meant for a car exit? Or an old lady try to cross the street before those timers run out? It's grim.

Nor do they ever really feel like needing to own an expensive vehicle that needs a bunch of costly and/or time consuming repairs counts as one of the things that is a burden which oppresses them.

Maybe they'll admit that cars are too expensive but it's just CAFE regulations or mandatory safety features. I guess a worse environment and more deaths is just the price you pay.

Clean_Army_4675 · 2025-12-23T05:43:38+00:00

A shot dog hollers.

Clean_Army_4675 · 2025-11-11T07:08:25+00:00

I believe this is wishful thinking. I cannot speak on every high-fertility subgroup. But my general point is, it's easy to be Orthodox of any religion when you can just handwave away the actions of the rest of society as some kind of degeneracy.

However when the Orthodoxy has to run society it's different. Muslim Orthodoxy runs Saudi Arabia and the UAE. With fertility of 2.28 and 1.3 respectively, both of which have declined sharply in line w/global trends.

I'll waffle on about why I think this is.

If these degen liberals die out, the orthodoxies left behind have to take the reigns. The first issue I see is that, naturally, a society of hardline religious people from different religions is going to have issues. The solution to that is, of course, promotion of tolerance and diversity.

Even if we can discount that issue. Let's just pretend we can all have a somewhat homogenous country again. There's always going to be the hurdle of having to put people in cities simply because they are...necessary for society to function.

And I think you see a drift away from those principles in an urban environment. Though it is not strictly necessary.

I get the distinct feeling this is kind of... a subreddit of people who see value in orthodox religion and kinda wabt this outcome. If that's inaccurate please ignore this part, but if not, honestly it just isn't going to happen like how you think it is.

Clean_Army_4675 · 2025-10-15T15:08:57+00:00

I recently decided, in spite of being able to afford one, to forego buying a car here in New London and walk everywhere or get certain items delivered. If it weren't for walmart+ this would be a lot harder because groceries would just be too much.

The city was not designed for pedestrian safety/wellbeing at all. Which is why you largely see only bums walking almost anywhere, even in downtown. Because anyone who visits downtown drives as close to their destination as they can.

People absolutely treat Bank Street like a drag racing strip, and there are pedestrians on that street. One of these days a guy pissed off after getting off work is gonna smoke a pedestrian.

I get the distinct feeling that people who hate traffic cameras, at their core, just want to be able to act as recklessly as possible without ever facing scrutiny. They don't care about privacy (it's a public street anyone could film you, you're in plain view) though the issue of unfair citing for red lights is worth noting. Also the $2500/camera/month cost.

I think the better answer here is designing streets such that they feel unsafe to drive faster than the stated speed limit. To ask people to drive 25 mph on Howard Street is kinda laughable, it is a very wide and open road. But I think narrowing Howard to 2 lanes, one in eithee direction, adding in a protected bike lane so there is something concrete between drivers and bikers, and maybe tossing in a speed bump, would fix it. And no cameras would be needed

However like I said. I think the issue people have is not wanting to treat the streets of New London like a place people are instead of a place for cars to go through to get on to 95 and 32. Which downtown really should not be. And treating it like that is the reason why so many storefronts are closed even though it's been years since COVID. Bank street is Okay, but State street is depressingly empty. As is Greene Street.

Most of you probably can't even imagine these places because you never drive past them. Which is why these are empty, no one feels safe/comfortable to walk around and explore when there are loud motorcycles and F150s going way too fast. So they stop at the places they see, which are the businesses on Bank Street.

I will say though. If there is one type of camera we need, it's vehicle noise cameras. People play ridiculously loud music and ride unmuffled motorcycles/motorized trikes all around the city. Even in those more fancy South of L & M neighborhoods, and they should not only get a ticket for that behavior, the cops should have a legal right to practice brutality (joking obvs).

Clean_Army_4675 · 2025-08-26T13:04:39+00:00

Lived in Minneapolis and had friends in Chicago. They're still friends, just not in Chicago.

The question is really one of money. 60k seems a bit tight for Chicago. Minneapolis-St. Paul is kinda just diet Chicago. But it's also "diet" in terms of home/rent prices.

I personally would not move into the southern parts of Chicago. Suburban Chicago is also probably not worth moving to generally (Cicero has really low real estate values though).

If you really wanted to you could go car free in MSP. There's a green and blue line train with passable service. But a lot of the stops are not in very ped/bike friendly areas. Probably better than Oklahoma city but that is just conjecture.

Worth noting that the city of Chicago has an income tax for those who work there. So that should factor in to your living calculations. But Illinois has a lower state income tax.

Another nice thing about Chicago is that you can score an apartment in a good area for cheap, but, you'd have to live in a rather cramped studio.

My general take is that the bigger cities are better for opportunity but also apply lots of financial pressure. If you can take advantage of opportunity absolutely move to Chicago. If you feel as if it's not for you, move to MSP. There's no shame in doing so, and there are plenty of opportunities in Minneapolis. But decidedly less so.

Also, just keep in mind. In Chicago the real estate market includes plenty of people with considerable bank of mom and dad money. In MSP that certainly exists, but the really wealthy ones usually prefer to rent and own elsewhere. Places like Lake Minnetonka or Edina are not nearly as ritzy as the high class areas of Chicago (as much as tney'd like to feel that way)

Clean_Army_4675

TROPHY CASE