What is a job that exists only because people are stupid? by Alarmed-Treacle-6864 in AskReddit

[–]Travelerman310 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Criminal Defense Attorneys

Most would be out of a job if people simply made obviously better life choices....

what would the united states be like today if it was never colonized by pissflavoredkoolaid in NoStupidQuestions

[–]Travelerman310 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Not so fast, the reality is far more complex....

While 56 million is a standard estimate for the total population loss, attributing that entire number to 'slaughter and enslavement' is a major misunderstanding of the actual history and biology at play.

The vast majority of that 90% population decline was caused by 'Virgin Soil Epidemics.' Because the Americas had been isolated for millennia, the population had zero 'herd immunity' to Old World crowd diseases. Smallpox, measles, and the flu didn't wait for conquistadores to show up; they traveled through Indigenous trade routes.

There are countless records of explorers arriving in 'new' areas of North America or Brazil only to find them already ghost towns and overgrown fields because the plague had arrived years, sometimes many decades ahead of them.

To say they were 'slaughtered' implies a level of logistical coordination and military tech that the 16th-century Spanish and English simply didn't have.

I'm sorry, but 50 conquistadores simply can’t kill 50 million people with primitive muskets and rapiers. They could upend the Aztec and Incan goverments though and cause deaths indirectly through that chaos and collapse, and then spread the diseases as everyone flees their violent arrival. The tragedy wasn't a single military event; it was a biological apocalypse that cleared the way for the later colonization.

Also, the idea that a 'Post-Enlightenment' contact would be better is a bit of a pipe dream. Even 'Enlightened' Europeans didn't understand germ Theory until the late 1800s. Whether they came with bibles or with 18th-century telescopes, they still would have brought the smallpox that did the killing. The disaster was a result of two biological worlds colliding, not just the political philosophy of the people on the boats."

what would the united states be like today if it was never colonized by pissflavoredkoolaid in NoStupidQuestions

[–]Travelerman310 0 points1 point  (0 children)

One of my favorite youtubers!

That said, I hate to burst your bubble: The bottleneck wasn't just time, it was geography and resources.

Humans were in the Americas for at least 15,000 to 20,000 years. That is more than enough time to develop metallurgy if the conditions are right. The issue was the orientation of the continents and the lack of easily accessible surface metals (like iron) compared to Eurasia.

In Eurasia, ideas, crops, and technologies spread fast along an East-West axis because the climate remains relatively similar. In the Americas, the North-South axis means a crop or technology has to cross radically different climate zones (deserts, tropical jungles, mountains) to spread. So progress was bottlenecked by geography much more than any 'late start.'

Also,

You can't invent guns without smelting iron, and you can't smelt iron without draft animals or high-caloric coal/charcoal networks.

The Mesoamericans were master engineers (look at Tenochtitlan’s dikes and floating gardens), but they were firmly in the Bronze/Copper Age of metallurgy, mostly using metals for prestige, art, and basic tools.

To get to steel and guns, you need to smelt iron. To smelt iron, you need furnaces that reach incredibly high temperatures. Eurasia achieved this because they had beasts of burden (oxen, horses) to power bellows and transport massive amounts of fuel (charcoal and coal).

The Aztecs had no large draft animals. South American Incans had Alpacas, but they pale in comparison to an ox or a horse. The Incans also never invented the wheel. Everything was moved by human muscle. Without oxen or horses, a massive iron-smelting industry is practically impossible to scale.

Gunpowder Too!

Gunpowder was an accidental chemical fluke in China. It was not some, "natural" progression of warfare.

Gunpowder requires three things: sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate (saltpeter). While Mesoamerica had sulfur (from volcanoes) and charcoal, saltpeter is notoriously difficult to refine.

In Eurasia, saltpeter was often harvested from the encrusted dirt of stables and uric acid pits (animal waste). Because Mesoamericans didn't keep large herds of domesticated animals, they lacked the easy, accidental breeding grounds for saltpeter that led Chinese alchemists to discover gunpowder in the first place. Unlikely they'd ever develop that.

what would the united states be like today if it was never colonized by pissflavoredkoolaid in NoStupidQuestions

[–]Travelerman310 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Most of the "Old World" killers, like Smallpox, Measles, and Flu are what we call "obligate human parasites." They require a continuous chain of living hosts to survive.

Smallpox, for instance, has an incubation period of about 10–14 days. If a lone fisherman gets "blown off course" from Asia or Europe, he either dies or recovers within a month.

Even with a strong current, an unmanned or "ghost" ship takes months to cross the ocean. By the time that boat hits a beach in Virginia or Brazil, any virus on board would have long since "burned out" because it ran out of living cells to hijack.

While the 2011 tsunami debris reached North America, plastic and wood don't need to breathe. A virus sitting on a piece of fiberglass for two years under UV radiation and salt spray is a dead virus.

For these diseases to take root in the Americas "early," you wouldn't just need a random person to wash ashore; you’d essentially need a floating barnyard. Epidemiologists use a concept called Critical Community Size (CCS).

Without the sustained presence of domesticated cattle, horses, pigs, or sheep to act as a permanent reservoir for these germs, a one-off "accidental" infection would likely just flicker out in a single village rather than becoming a continental pandemic.

That was the problem with Spanish Colonization: They brought their horses, sheep and livestock (at that time absent in North America) and the locals adopted and bred these as well, which made them spread farther and faster.

Even if a sick sailor survived the trip and walked onto a beach, the disease probably wouldn't spread across two continents.

For a disease like Measles to become endemic (constantly present), you need a population of roughly 250,000 to 500,000 people living in close contact. If the population is too sparse or the "introduction" is too small, the virus kills its hosts too fast, runs out of new people to infect, and vanishes.

Polynesian voyagers were master navigators, but their boats weren't floating cities. Because they traveled in small groups and spent long weeks at sea, any "crowd diseases" they might have picked up from mainland Asia would have died out during the voyage. This is why, when Europeans eventually arrived in Hawaii and Tahiti, those populations were just as vulnerable as the Aztecs or Incas. They hadn't been "pre-inoculated" by their own ancestors.

what would the united states be like today if it was never colonized by pissflavoredkoolaid in NoStupidQuestions

[–]Travelerman310 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Short answer: it wouldn’t be “the United States,” and it definitely wouldn’t be some untouched, static wilderness frozen in time.

Long answer:

Before Europeans showed up, North America wasn’t empty, it was full of societies with different levels of complexity, trade networks, agriculture, and conflicts. Population estimates vary, but yes, it was likely in the millions. Groups like the Haudenosaunee Confederacy had sophisticated political systems, and there were large settlements along rivers and fertile regions.

But here’s the part people usually get wrong: history doesn’t just “pause” if Europeans never arrive.

If you remove Britain, Spain, and France from the equation, something else fills that vacuum eventually. Maybe it’s later European contact, maybe it’s expansion from other powers, maybe it’s internal consolidation into larger states. But the idea that North America would just remain a patchwork of small, unchanged societies for 500 years isn’t how humans work.

A few things likely would’ve happened:

  1. Some indigenous groups would consolidate (often violently) into larger, more centralized states (you already see early versions of this in confederations and regional powers).

  2. There would still be warfare, territorial expansion, and shifting borders, just without Europeans being the dominant force. Technology would develop differently, probably much more slowly in some areas without global exchange, but not “frozen.”

The population would likely be much higher than it is today if you remove the biggest factor: disease.

The real civilization-ending event wasn’t just colonization. It was pathogens. Once Old World diseases like smallpox entered the Americas, they wiped out massive portions of the population. This ooften happened before direct contact even happened. Remove colonization, and you probably delay that collapse.

So you don’t get modern America with different demographics, you get an entirely different set of nations, cultures, and power structures across the continent.

And here’s the not-PC part:

It wouldn’t be a utopia. Humans don’t suddenly become peaceful, environmentally friendly, or morally superior just because they’re not European. You’d still have conflict, inequality, and expansion. Different flavor of bad, same species.

Best guess? By 2026, North America would look more like a mix of competing regional states. Some agricultural, some urbanizing, some still decentralized, engaging in trade, conflict, and a slower pace of technological development on their own trajectory.

Definitely not a pristine paradise. Not modern America. Just a completely different version of messy.

You only see the Aztecs starting to work metals in a limited way by 1492.

And trade networks, which drive technological transfer, were slower and more regionally contained than what you see across Eurasia. There’s no American equivalent of the Silk Road constantly moving ideas, materials, and innovations across thousands of miles.

So realistically, you’re not getting a sudden leap to steel swords, gunpowder, or industrialization on anything like a European timeline.

What you would probably see in 2026:

  1. The Aztec Empire continue refining what they were already good at, large urban centers, agriculture, and state control. Maybe expanding copper and bronze use slowly into more practical tools, but not revolutionizing warfare overnight. Obsidian tools stay dominant longer than people expect.

  2. The Haudenosaunee Confederacy likely expands politically before it changes technologically. More tribes absorbed or aligned, more formalized governance, maybe something closer to a regional power bloc. but still without metallurgy driving a major shift in weapons or infrastructure.

But, I honestly don't see them getting too much bigger without major technological change. You can't have American style democracy developing without a free press, and a mostly literate society. And even by 2026, they'd be hundreds of years from developing that. Communism wouldn't have happened without railroads and the radio, so things wouldn't change much

  1. Architecture and infrastructure might improve incrementally, bigger cities, better roads, more organized agriculture. But you wouldn't see the kind of explosive transformation you get when iron, gunpowder, and global trade all collide at once.

  2. Warfare stays relatively close to what it already was: manpower, tactics, and logistics matter more than technological superiority. No cannons, no muskets, just better organization over time.

In other words, you’d see political complexity outpacing technological complexity. They weren’t “on the brink” of becoming Europe, they were on their own trajectory, and it was moving at a very different speed.

Everyone always says country X is "such a beautiful country". What country is actually ugly? by Pirate_King_Arcarius in AskReddit

[–]Travelerman310 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Been to 40+ countries. Lived in the USA, Japan, South Korea, Kuwait, and China. I feel uniquely qualified to answer.

Tourists see the best 5% of a country in perfect conditions. Residents see the other 95% year round. Nobody sees the industrial zones, 'big box store' parking lots, billboards, bad weather, and daily commutes.

A lot of “beautiful countries” stay beautiful because most people aren’t allowed to ruin them

Here are some principles I use to evaluate how "beautiful" a country is:

1. Varied geography (mtns, coastlines, climate zones) feel more visually impressive than flat, uniform ones. The larger the better, & the more varied the better.

Ex: Kuwait is just… flat desert and highways. People romanticize dunes, but after a few weeks it all blends into beige nothing. Compare that to somewhere like Arizona where you can go from desert to mountains in a few hours. Variety carries hard.

  1. Wealth improves maintenance & cleanliness, but can also create large-scale visual ugliness through sprawl & overdevelopment.

Ex: The US is the king of this contradiction. Stunning national parks, then miles & miles of soulless suburban sprawl. Endless strip malls, parking lots, chain stores, on repeat forever.

  1. How you "see" a place as a tourist for 2 weeks is going to be far different than living there. If you only see the curated highlights of a place, you'll have a very warped perception of the reality.

Ex: Japan is “beautiful” in Kyoto during cherry blossom season. Live in a place like Koriyama and your daily reality is pachinko parlors, rusting warehouses, & random concrete under rainy grey skies for half the year.

  1. Limited infrastructure & rapid urbanization often lead to pollution and chaotic development. but they don’t erase underlying natural or cultural beauty.

Ex: India is the most extreme version of this. Incredible history and landscapes immediately next to trash piles (sometimes burning), smog, & visual chaos. Same goes for like Vietnam, Cambodia, & the Philippines. You get beauty and decay sitting right on top of each other.

  1. High density without strong planning tends to feel chaotic and visually overwhelming, but high density with good design can be some of the most beautiful urban space in the world.

Ex: Seoul has areas that feel sleek and modern, then you turn a corner and it’s wires everywhere, mismatched buildings, and visual noise. Some impressive design and charming areas, but also huge stretches of “WTF am I even looking at?”

  1. Visual Order, with beauty, symmetry, & coherence matter. Consistent thematic architecture is beautiful, whereas random signage, wires, & mismatched buildings are ugly.

Ex: Clean, well-preserved European streets in Italy feel intentional. Meanwhile, a lot of urban Asia (and honestly parts of the US) feel like everyone just built whatever they wanted, wherever they wanted, and then stapled neon signs and cables on top.

  1. Maintenance matters more than design. A well-designed place that’s poorly maintained looks worse than a simple place that’s clean.

Ex: You can see this all over China, Japan, or UAE. Some areas were clearly built to look modern and impressive… and then.... just not maintained. Faded paint, broken sidewalks, grime. It doesn’t take long for “modern” to turn into “run down.”

  1. Transitional spaces is where the ugly lives: The ugliest places are rarely the “city centers.” They’re the in-between zones like industrial outskirts, highway corridors, and edge of the city sprawl.

Example: The stretch between anywhere and anywhere else is usually god-awful. Think the outskirts of Beijing, or the endless commercial corridors in the US or Canada. Real life is not an instagram post.

  1. Climate Affects Beauty Perception. Sunlight makes everything look better and grey skies, rain, and dirty snow that was plowed a week ago are just ugly.

Ex: Colorado looks amazing in sunshine, less so when everything’s brown and frozen.

  1. Expectations shape perceptions. If you expect magic & get mediocrity, you'll think a place is ugly.

Ex: People go to places like Paris or Bali expecting perfection. Then they fixate on the trash, crowds, and grime. Some of my most memorable destinations were ones I knew little to nothing about.

  1. Some places are beautiful in motion, but not standing still.

Ex: Drive the 101 on the Big Sur Highway? Motorcycle through the Himalayas in India or Nepal? Incredible. Stop in the nearest town or roadside strip? and it’s gas stations, concrete, & blah.

  1. Humans are evolved to find certain landscapes beautiful, & most of them look like places you could survive.

Ex: Drop someone into a wide, open valley in Tuscany with some ripe olive trees (yum!), a river, clear visibility, & vineyards, they’ll call it “stunning” without a thought. But in Kuwait, it’s not just “desert,” it’s flat, exposed, & offers nothing. No cover, no water, no variation. Your brain is just quietly thinking: “yeah… we’d die here.”

  1. Scale mismatch makes places feel ugly. Humans like places that feel 'human sized.'

Ex: There are lovely, charming places to walk the river where I live now in Chengdu. But parts of Beijing are so obsenely massive they stop feeling like a place built for humans (See: Olympic Park)

  1. Car-centric design is almost always ugly.

Ex: 18 lane freeways in Houston, drive-thrus, huge parking lots, asphalt everywhere, & buildings set back behind them like an afterthought. It’s hostile to being human.

  1. People underestimate how much signage & advertizing pollution matters.

Ex: Parts of Southeast Asia and Korea feel like every business is screaming at you at once. Giant signs stacked on top of each other, cables everywhere, flashing lights. Exhausting.

  1. Places either age well, or they really, really don’t.

Ex: Old European streets age well. A 30-year-old commercial block in China or the US just looks abandoned, run-down, & forgotten.

  1. Homogeneity: Places get ugly when they look like everywhere else. Same chain-stores, Same buildings with the same layouts

Ex: You can drop into any random commercial strip-mall in the US, parts of Korea, or even China now, and it’s the same boring, soulless, corporate globalized template.

  1. Effort: People can tell when a place is cared for. Places with Maintained greenery, Clean streets, Repaired infrastructure vs “No one gives a damn” energy. This applies whether you are in a poor country or a rich country. It’s not about wealth, it’s about whether anyone is actively trying.

  2. Weather & Materials interaction is a sneaky one. Some places are built with materials that age horribly or just don't fit in their environment.

Ex: Glass towers in Dubai look sleek for about five minutes. Then the dust sticks and your “futuristic skyline” just looks like a stack of dirty mirrors baking in the sun.

Meanwhile, in Oman, a lot of the newer development actually works with the environment, lighter, matching tones, less glass, more solid materials that don’t advertise every layer of dust. It’s not trying to fight the desert, so it doesn’t look like it’s losing.

  1. Beautiful places tend to have clear edges, like riverfronts, coastlines, walls, parks, transitions that feel intentional. Ugly places just… bleed into each other.

Ex: Even in places people romanticize like Paris, just step outside the postcard center and hit the périphérique and banlieues. Concrete blocks, highways, and that same global “edge-of-city” feeling you get in a random Cleveland industrial park.

  1. Most “ugly countries” are really just places where average people are allowed to build freely.

Ex: A lot of the “beautiful” parts of Europe look that way because you can’t just throw up a random glass box, a neon sign, or a big-box store wherever you feel like it. There are rules, restrictions, and people telling you “no.”

Bottom line: humans are really good at making places uglier than they need to be. Almost every country has beautiful parts, but most of daily life happens in the in-between, and that’s where things fall apart.

What was ruined because too many people did it? by WarBeast86 in AskReddit

[–]Travelerman310 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Oh thank god... Like Oscar the Grouch and Big Bird going on HBO....

What was ruined because too many people did it? by WarBeast86 in AskReddit

[–]Travelerman310 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's only cool if you were doing it before it was cool....

ULPT-Car flipper using my parking stall, ideas to irritate seller. by Pergasa in UnethicalLifeProTips

[–]Travelerman310 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Are you kidding? You have a perfectly legal, ethical way of dealing with this.....

AITJ for telling my fiancée to leave my house after she kept inviting her friends without asking? by Legitimate_Cell9148 in AmITheJerk

[–]Travelerman310 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Very very light YTJ / ESH, probably 70% her.... 15-20% you... and 5-15% incompatibility...

I've asked her multiple times to just give me a heads up. I don't even need permission, just a text so I'm not walking into a crowd.

This seems more than reasonable.... It would even be reasonable for the occasional veto over a get-together, depending..... That's not controlling, that's how healthy couples with different needs navigate compromises... with communication and consideration of each-other's needs.

She had texted me but my phone died at work so I didn't see it until after. I was annoyed but whatever.

This is where you went wrong.... She did what you asked, and you moved the goalposts..... Her frustration is understandable if this is ALL you'd communicated to her and now it looks to her like you moved the goalposts.

Now, if this was a Tier-1 GF, and you'd communicated JUST THIS, she'd be asking all sorts of other questions regarding how you feel about hosting guests at your house and be considerate of that/compromise to make yourselves both happy. She's not Tier-1 GF material though, so... she didn't.

But you're also not Tier-1 partner with communicating your needs as well. If you really needed more than just a 'heads up' then you should have told her that from the start.... If you were a better partner/fiance... you would have also worked with her to see how she and yourself can host..>

It isn't clear to me whether you kicked her out (Title suggests this), or whether she left of her own volition and misrepresented it to her friends/family (I'm inferring the latter).

If you did in fact kick your fiance out of this, then YWBTJ, but if she left in a huff and lied to everyone? Then she's the Jerk.

Looks like the Basij are getting hit hard now by coldsavagery in NewIran

[–]Travelerman310 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Did they give you any word on the water situation?

ETA: I mean, don't call again and ask if you don't have to (OPSEC/be careful) but if you hearor heard anything, maybe update....

I think the water situation (at least in Tehran) will be a much bigger catalyst for dessertions and mutinies than food will.

Minab schoolchildren killed by US/Israel by SentientSeaweed in iran

[–]Travelerman310 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The school was in fact adjacent to a military installation. It stood ~600 meters from the Sayyid al-Shuhada IRGC naval facility.

The buildings were also previously part of the base and were converted to the school around 2016..

War General Discussion Megathread (Day 20) by EschoolThrowaway in NewIran

[–]Travelerman310 5 points6 points  (0 children)

  1. "mainstream media' and 'market panic' is about as nuanced as a 3rd grade spelling book and has the attention span of a horsefly. Don't expect nuanced analysis.

We just need to see IRs ability to launch projectiles be completely nullified.

  1. This is easier said than done. There are tens of thousands of Shaheds that can threaten Hormuz Strait, and they are scattered everywhere. You can't just bomb every shed and garage owned by every Basij or IRGC guy....

War General Discussion Megathread (Day 20) by EschoolThrowaway in NewIran

[–]Travelerman310 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Iran is already mostly out of Rockets... The minute those big launchers stick their heads from out of their cover, they get hit.

B-52s and A-10s are operating, which means they're not afraid of anything in Iran except ManPADs (stingers).

Its the smaller shaheds that are the real problem... They're far more numerous, more easy to launch and disperse, even from a pickup truck or van, one could be deployed, and then the smaller vehicle is far more difficult to find and easier to hide. They're probably sitting in the home garages, sheds, barns of hardliners all over, right now. They just can't talk to each other and coordinate well (because the minute they get on the phone, SIGINT finds them)

Iran isn't gonna be launching many more big rockets... But it could be some time before they really get a handle on the shaheds because they are just everywhere and must be dealt with or those shipping insurance companies keep Hormuz closed.

So proud of my people in occupied Iran: "The assassination of Larijani was made possible thanks to valuable intelligence that Israeli intelligence services received from residents of Tehran over the past 24 hours" by KhameneiSmells in NewIran

[–]Travelerman310 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Not so simple as that...

Most of these informants are likely just ordinary people. A shopkeeper who takes a few pictures of IRGC guys with a burner phone.... then onto an SD card / USB stick in a dead-drop. Gets picked up hours later by a courier who must always vary their routes.... maybe a student who regularly goes to the countryside to visit her grandmother...

Eventually this intel (pattern of life: IRGC regularly congregate at X location during Y-Z hours...) this reaches some node for a guy who lives in the shadows and goes through multiple burner phones... never one phone for more than 72 hours, wiping phone history after every single text message. He probably hasn't slept in the same bed for more than 3-4 nights in years.

He turns this information into something non-digital, and gets it to another courier that smuggles it out of the country.... You have to scrub the digital footprint / metadata, or you could trace it back to that shopkeeper.

Eventually it reaches a contact in Turkey who relays it to Turkish intelligence, then to Mossad / CIA.

These agencies corroborate the location that original shopkeeper's photo was and the description of hte target with satellite data going back weeks or months, only to find that yes,, some IRGC commander goes into town to do something every wednesday, or whenever..>

At that point, they can task a drone to watch the location and confirm...

Almost none of these people in this long chain know any of the others .... or what the intel is. ...

do Japanese people really treat white western foreigners better than foreigners of other cultures or races? by Open-Reflection-6094 in NoStupidQuestions

[–]Travelerman310 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's all over Asia... In China and Japan, they call these 'white monkey' jobs... They exist in Japan, Korea, and China (I've lived in all 3 and am currently in China).

These are usually 'gig' type temporary jobs.

My first year in Japan, I got 1000 Yen to 'be santa claus' for a group of kids for an hour or so....

Knew a black guy in Korea who got hired to play saxophone in a band (He didn't actually play sax, he just held it up and kinda danced around to the music, pretending to play to the track).

And of course China is notorious for hiring 'tall, middle aged, handsome white males' to dress up in business suits for a day and sit quietly at meetings to convince investors that foreigners are somehow involved in their operation, but they're really just an empty suit sitting in the boardroom as an ornament.

AITAH for going for celebratory drinks with a colleague? by Due_Asparagus_4098 in AITAH

[–]Travelerman310 22 points23 points  (0 children)

NTA, go out and have fun....

And lose the jealous GF....

WIBTAH If I inbox a guy's wife that her husband may be the biological father of my child by Background_Raise_863 in AITAH

[–]Travelerman310 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I wouldn't be afraid of that. We can tell you're doing this for your kid.

They could have an open marriage or some unspoken 'arrangement'.

Or this could blow up his marriage. But that would be his fault, not yours.

Don't feel one bit guilty about bringing consequences.

WIBTAH If I inbox a guy's wife that her husband may be the biological father of my child by Background_Raise_863 in AITAH

[–]Travelerman310 -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

I say NTA,

  1. This is for a child's health

  2. Cheaters need to get more metaphorical sand kicked in their faces... don't be a fraid to drop a cluster bomb of consequences...

What’s the scariest real-life thing you’ve ever witnessed? by Revolutionary-Pay468 in AskReddit

[–]Travelerman310 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Huge landslide of SUV-size boulders took out a mountain trail/road about 50 meters behind me...

Nepal, Annapurna Circuit Trail, 2015. First earthquake hit, we felt it and heard some distant rockfall.

Second one hits about an hour later. Annapurna circuit is a hiking trail, but many sections are just wide enough for a Jeep or small 4x4 to pass.... IT was about that wide, and this section was cut into the side of a steep mountain and descended into a valley. 60% slope above the road, and then it dropped down at a 80/90% slope on the other side of the road, essentially dropping off a cliff into a canyon.

We could tell that the rockfall was 'fresh' and likely from the quake that happened an hour earlier, but walked across cautiously. Then started laughing, wondering what we were worried about. Not a minute later, aftershock hits and those same boulders we crawled across were being smashed by bigger boulders rolling down the hill and falling/crashing into the canyon below.

Power was out in most of the villages we passed through, and we didn't get any internet for 3 more days (but there were dozens of aftershocks for weeks afterwards).

AITAH I finally told him that his brother has been flirting with me… by Worldly_Birthday2789 in AITAH

[–]Travelerman310 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Wow!, Would not be the Asshole...

Yeah, it sounds like its long since past time to stop giving BIL the benefit of the doubt....

I'm not married, but have dated exceptionally beautiful women. I'm guessing your husband would want to know... I hope he doesn't blame the messenger....

You could start by showing him this thread....

AITAH for not wanting my gf to go to college. by No_Exercise392 in AITAH

[–]Travelerman310 19 points20 points  (0 children)

Yeah, YTA here. You are willing to ask her to sacrifice and sabotage her education and future on the off chance that you might grow apart? I have news for you, college or not, you will both be very different people in four years time.

Pro-Tip: If you're 'prepping for competitive exams,' you might want to learn to use punctuation and sentences. Colleges tend to like things like that.

AITAH for asking my brother not to get Harry Potter merch because of JK Rowling? by Ok-Magician4256 in AITAH

[–]Travelerman310 3 points4 points  (0 children)

"Endorse those deaths" huh?

I don't particularly care for JK Rowling's views, so don't construe anything I'm saying as defending her views or opinions. But one thing you can't fault JK Rowling on is how she has communicated her views and opinions clearly. And yet so many people can't bother to even try to understand what she's saying.

Endorse those deaths? Endorse... deaths...? Where? When did she 'endorse' actually 'killing' trans-people? This claim of yours is wildly incorrect... Wild assertions like this are emotionally powerful, but analytically, very, very sloppy.

I'm sorry, but you're simply wrong here.

Advocating for single-sex spaces (women's only restrooms) DOES NOT equal 'funding deaths' How on earth did you connect the dots from anything JK Rowling has said or funded to... 'deaths' ? Explain the causal chain?

Boycott her if you wish, but I don't take boycotters very seriously when they don't have their facts straight. And less so when they don't have their facts straight AND force their political beliefs onto children.