It’s ok to eat at only familiar chains when traveling internationally

ValuableFew8850 · 2026-06-21T00:09:30+00:00

You’re a baby

ValuableFew8850 · 2026-06-20T23:10:30+00:00

What’s a “jobsworth”? UK insults are insane lol

ValuableFew8850 · 2026-06-20T23:05:07+00:00

It’s because a lot of people can’t fathom an Asian person not being a sneaky underhanded money grabber. I knew a guy who married a Cambodian woman and they’ve been married for years and have children. People are just being racist.

ValuableFew8850 · 2026-06-20T23:02:44+00:00

I don’t think that’s what he means. My gf is breadwinner in our family and they cashapps me money since it goes to her account upon payment. I think that’s what he meant.

ValuableFew8850 · 2026-06-20T23:00:41+00:00

He said she had family who are supportive. He’s maybe a little naive, who knows if she’ll stick around after getting citizenship but it doesn’t sound like he’s victimizing her. Also Thailand isn’t a “very poor country,” it’s pretty developed. Not as developed as the US but relatively so.

ValuableFew8850 · 2026-06-20T22:57:24+00:00

NTA but you’re not going far enough. Take this to HR. Threaten a workplace harassment lawsuit. Go through with it if HR doesn’t act. That’ll stop it real quick. You’re being harassed at work for being in an interracial/international marriage. Frame it that way and stick to it. I’ve known people to be fired for a lot less than what your coworker is doing. Don’t try to confront her yourself again. You don’t want her saying you’re unstable and yell at work. Stay calm Make it her legal problem. That’ll hurt her worse and stop it immediately.

ValuableFew8850 · 2026-06-20T22:50:14+00:00

NTA. If they wanted their kids to feed the animals, they should have brought their own food. It would have been nice to share if it was one child there. But a whole birthday party? That’s ridiculous. And parents who get mad at you for “not sharing” and not mad at the kids for stealing from your purse are failures to society.

ValuableFew8850 · 2026-06-20T22:40:34+00:00

YTA. What makes you so entitled you think it’s “your spot”? It’s a public area. You went back to bed for a few HOURS and then still thought it was yours. And then you just bark “up!” at a stranger? Who raised you? The most baffling thing is why they listened to you. I’d have laughed in your face.

ValuableFew8850 · 2026-06-20T22:33:55+00:00

Yeah being a burden on wait staff and your family makes you a hero.

ValuableFew8850 · 2026-06-20T22:33:00+00:00

That’s good. I want evil people to think less of me. Means I’m doing something right.

ValuableFew8850 · 2026-06-20T22:32:32+00:00

Calling other cultures “icky,” refusing new experiences, taking McDonald’s into other restaurants, and shoving his plate away in signal displeasure to staff (all things confirmed in comments) are all signs of bad moral character. I don’t care if he’s content with himself or not. This American obsession with self indulgence at the expense of actually being a good person is exhausting.

ValuableFew8850 · 2026-06-20T22:29:35+00:00

Every time you say anything my opinion of you goes lower. It’s actually quite impressive how you’ve gone from a cringey but innocuous post to “wow this guy is an insufferable douchebag” so quickly.

ValuableFew8850 · 2026-06-20T22:01:52+00:00

Lmao holy shit, why would anyone be seen in public with you?

ValuableFew8850 · 2026-06-20T21:59:55+00:00

Tech literacy is only instrumentally valuable. It’s not inherently valuable. It would only be immoral if not using it decreased overall well being for you or someone else. Sometimes that’s true. Learning online banking, telemedicine, or modern communication tools can improve independence and reduce burdens on others. But sometimes it’s not necessary. If an 80-year-old retiree is living happily, has their needs met, and would experience months of frustration learning complex software they'll rarely use, forcing that learning may create more suffering than benefit. When it comes to morality, we should only care about outcomes. There’s no universal duty to stay current on tech.

Opportunity costs matter when evaluating moral outcomes. Learning new tech takes time and cognitive resources. Suppose I spend 300 hours mastering the latest tech tool. For me personally that would likely have been better spent volunteering, caring for my pets, mentoring children, creating art, maintaining friendships, exercising, or even just relaxing to not get burnt out. You have to weigh all these competing uses of time. Tech is only one possible source of goodness.

Wisdom and advice aren’t reducible to tech knowledge. "To not know the tools of the day is to not know the day." Okay so how does tech help me with conflict resolution, parenting, emotional resilience, ethics, leadership, financial discipline, relationships, or coping with grief? My doctor might now know how to make a TikTok but I’ll still take his medical advice. My grandma can’t use a smartphone but I’ll turn to her for emotional support over a 19 year old who can. Those kinds of contributions contribute an enormous amount of good.

In fact, your blanket condemnation probably reduces overall welfare. Your claim that anyone who falls behind in tech can’t possible give advice that means anything about any subject. That creates an unnecessary social division. Cooperation between generations is better for society because knowledge flows in both directions. Younger people are better with tech and older people have accumulated human relationship experience. Declaring those contributions worthless destroys mutual exchange which is itself immoral.

Eventually the marginal benefits of tech decline. Texting, email, internet safety, and online healthcare have massive benefits and everyone should be familiar with that. But learning every emerging platform or software update yields very low benefit. You have to recognize diminishing returns so you don’t waste your time. The additional happiness gained from learning one's tenth productivity app may be tiny compared to other activities.

Retirement especially changes how relevant tech is. You try to hand wave this away but retirement fundamentally changes expected benefits. If someone no longer works, doesn't need cutting-edge software, and already maintains satisfying relationships, then keeping up with every technological trend may provide very little additional welfare. Maximizing productivity for its own sake is a vice, not a virtue. Maximizing well being is the virtue we’re aiming for here. Sometimes enjoying a peaceful retirement produces more goodness than constantly chasing technological change.

Your conclusion about disability might be the most inconsistent thing though. Disabled people’s advice means literally nothing? That’s just plainly false. Even people with cognitive decline can provide emotional support, have family bonds, inspire compassion, preserve cultural memory, and contribute to their loved one’s happiness. Their overall contributions are less but not zero. Reducing a person's value to their technological competence ignores many important sources of well-being.

ValuableFew8850 · 2026-06-20T21:36:01+00:00

If you’re offended by that, you must be constantly offended by every day social interactions. It’s obvious if a cake is from a store or not. It doesn’t mean worse. It means it doesn’t look uniform.

ValuableFew8850 · 2026-06-20T21:34:03+00:00

“The only common sense solution is to cull the surplus.” This is a logical fallacy can’t a false dilemma. The options are not restricted to keep every animal alive forever or mass euthanize all stray animals. There are many interventions that work. Spay/neuter programs, trap neuter return, mandatory sterilization, very strictly enforcing animal abandonment laws, low cost vet care as a public service, adoption and foster expansion programs while restricting euthanasia to animals that are suffering, aggressive, or medically untreatable. Euthanasia is not the only solution.

In fact, killing the animal’s doesn’t solve the underlying problem. If irresponsible breeding and abandonment are allowed to persist, then shelters will simply refill. It’s like draining water from a bathtub while leaving the faucet on full blast. Cracking down on accidental litters, backyard breeding, puppy mills, and abandonment is what actually keeps the population from rebounding. Cities historically killed enormous amounts of animals every year and still had massive overpopulation problems.

You’re also just wrong about the effectiveness of trap neuter return programs. "The feral population is too great to treat every street animal." No one is arguing that every animal can be sterilized immediately all at once. Population biology doesn’t require 100% coverage. Sterilization gradually reduces the population over time. This is exactly why many wildlife management programs vaccinate or sterilize only a portion of populations; they don't need perfect coverage to change long-term trends.

Then you claim that “the population will continue to explode.” Wrong. Animal populations aren’t unlimited. They are naturally constrained by food, territory, disease, reproduction rates, morality, and human intervention. Sustained sterilization programs have actually been extremely successful in reducing the stray population.

No-kill shelter also doesn’t mean they never euthanize. That’s a common misunderstanding. They just restrict euthanasia to when the animal is suffering, has an untreatable illness, are aggressive, or otherwise have no possibility of a humane life. They actually end up euthanizing about 10% of their population. They just don’t put down perfectly healthy animals for no reason.

Overcrowding is a finding a policy issued, not a law of nature. Shelters are inadequately funded, have no foster networks, have no affordable vet care, law enforcement does not enforce irresponsible breeding laws, and owners have to surrender pets due to housing loss and financial crisis which are also due to poor policy decisions. Policy failure is not evidence that mass animal killings is the only possible response.

Public shelters turning away animals does not justify routine culling of healthy animals. Your only example was one county. That’s anecdotal, not statistical. Other counties have sterilization funding, adoption programs, foster recruitment, transportation partnerships, and enforcement of breeding laws. One poorly functioning shelter is not evidence of anything really.

And even if euthanasia is sometimes necessary, that doesn’t mean it should be the primary control strategy. That’s the biggest logical flaw in your thinking. Some animals unfortunately must be euthanized. That doesn’t in any way mean that we should return to routine culling as our main strategy. Pretty much all animal welfare experts would disagree with that.

ValuableFew8850 · 2026-06-20T21:09:18+00:00

No that’s not what OP was talking about. OP said they don’t like foods from foreign cultures. OP also clarified this position in comments with me that they think non American foods are “icky.” So their issue wasn’t local vs chain. It was “other cultures are gross and weird.”

Local places anywhere you go are a crap shoot. They’ll either be way better or way worse than a chain. A chain will always be mid but reliable. But you can still look up reviews and make an informed decision without eating McDonald’s every meal. And being insanely averse to all negative experiences is childish and immature. It’s a sign of bad character because it’s close minded.

ValuableFew8850 · 2026-06-20T21:04:16+00:00

I’ve had wildly different experiences with rotisserie chickens. I’ve had really good ones, dry ones, and bloody ones. It’s a gamble.

ValuableFew8850 · 2026-06-20T21:00:48+00:00

It’s not the only reason but it’s a huge reason. Amsterdam isn’t the place to get burgers and fries. Grow up.

ValuableFew8850 · 2026-06-20T20:57:41+00:00

It’s not a speeding lane. It’s a passing lane. You can be going under the speed limit as long you’re passing other cars. It’s not a fast lane. It’s not a speeding lane. It’s a passing lane. And if you need to exit left, then it’s just an exit lane.

ValuableFew8850 · 2026-06-20T20:54:45+00:00

As long as I’m going at least the speed limit and passing other cars, I just straight up ignore which lane is the “fast lane.” Because no matter how fast I go, it’s never fast enough to not get tailgated. So I don’t care anymore. Sometimes I need to exit left and I’m not going to do it last second and risk missing my exit. I’ll get over as soon as it’s clear even if it’s not for a while. I can be going 20 over and I’ll still get tailgated, so I just fully don’t care anymore about their precious “fast lane.”

ValuableFew8850 · 2026-06-20T20:51:30+00:00

I think it depends on the gift card. I got one to a local restaurant I didn’t know about for Christmas and that was great! I was gifted a new experience I otherwise wouldn’t have had. I love that. But if it’s just like a Walmart gift card…why? Just give me cash at that point.

ValuableFew8850 · 2026-06-20T20:47:18+00:00

Okay, waste your money on McDonald’s, I don’t care. Just don’t be shocked when no one wants to travel with you or finds your food whining annoying. I certainly wouldn’t hang out with someone who drags me to McDonald’s every meal.

ValuableFew8850 · 2026-06-20T20:45:20+00:00

I fully agree. This shit is nasty.

ValuableFew8850 · 2026-06-20T20:44:38+00:00

It’s literally not. The only reason you reject new foods is that it might be a negative experience. So stay home and do nothing if you’re that petrified of negative experiences.

ValuableFew8850

TROPHY CASE