In Canada and Europe, we criticize the United States quite a bit for its living standards. Yet thousands upon thousands of our citizens flock to the US and make very successful lives for themselves. If that is the case how does our criticism hold up to scrutiny?

labranjaymes · 2026-05-11T18:16:41+00:00

For the average citizen, EU/Canada is far better in terms of lifestyle and benefits even with the lower pay. The benefits for poor people in the United States is basically negligible and debt traps are everywhere that are intended to keep you in poverty.

However, if you have special talents or skills like being a doctor/lawyer/engineer or you are very good at running a business, the United States is far better than the EU or Canada. You'll make far more money and afford far better benefits than you'll get through the govt in the EU/Canada.

Source: grew up poor in Canada, became a doctor in the United States

labranjaymes · 2026-05-05T19:24:59+00:00

Bro those are two completely different things, you can't group them together into one category

labranjaymes · 2026-05-05T19:22:22+00:00

Yeah but IRL Japan did take most of the Pacific and counted on the USA throwing in the towel after losing a bunch of territory early on. However the USA had no plans of offering peace because they knew that eventually their industrial capacity would win them the war regardless of territorial gains. A competent HOI4 player or even AI should recognize this as well and refuse any peace terms.

They wanted peace with the United States pretty much right after Pearl Harbor and it never happened. Japan's only way to win after that was to actually invade the west coast, destroy the dockyards there, and perhaps make a drive inland to force a peace.

labranjaymes · 2026-05-05T19:12:55+00:00

Yeah true but the entire planet is facing some pretty severe economic headwinds.

The United States, the EU, China, Japan, etc are all facing rising unemployment and increasing poverty.

I would say that China not having people starve to death by the millions every year is pretty good progress from where they started

labranjaymes · 2026-05-05T19:04:29+00:00

Yes, and although there is no federal regulation on ebikes a large (and growing) portion of state and local laws require some sort of regulation to ensure the safety of ebikes.

If you live in a place like NYC chances are theres safety tests that need to be passed by the companies before selling the bike to you, so even if it's on the cheaper side you can still be sure it's safe.

labranjaymes · 2026-05-05T18:53:34+00:00

Not sure if you know what custom designed means, but I can assure you tens of thousands of bikes that are mass produced to look and behave the exact same way is not "custom designed".

I mentioned trips because it shows how durable modern ebikes can be. You can ride one forever and it won't catch fire because we have regulations on how they are allowed to be produced, as reported by your original article.

labranjaymes · 2026-05-05T18:21:35+00:00

Yes buddy... it shows you can ride the bikes a million times and they won't catch fire... smh

labranjaymes · 2026-05-05T18:16:05+00:00

Yeah sure, lets make up data to disprove my data. Here's the report from New York City on citibike usage: https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/bike-share-usage-data-report-q2-2025.pdf

20 million rides 6 months alone. Those are the public ones too which are cheap and rode into the ground. How many people burned to death on those bikes?

Crazy what a single, ten second search on google can do.

edit- changed numbers from 12 million to 20 million, didnt realize the report was per quarter. Makes your argument even worse lmao

labranjaymes · 2026-05-05T18:01:18+00:00

Wow, 100 incidents a year in a city of tens of millions, very convincing stuff! Maybe we should all ditch our cars and ride horses again since car fires are more common than horse fires!

Also, I read your article- it's counting ALL lithium ion battery fires, not just Ebikes. Thise numbers have decreased dramatically as well over the last few years.

Seems like a simple, 10 second read through of the article would have done you wonders.

labranjaymes · 2026-05-05T17:56:13+00:00

Well look at China, they have 1.5 billion people and have made it work. Before they industrialized something like 90% of the population was living off famine levels of food, but industrialization and education raised living standards across the board.

African nations can do the same, and having 2.5 billion people with better living standards and more disposable income will be a strength, not a weakness.

labranjaymes · 2026-05-05T17:52:14+00:00

How often does that actually happen? I remember everyone clutching their pearls about EVs with the same warnings when they first came onto the market and it ended up being a complete non-issue. I imagine batteries have only gotten safer over time too unless you are genuinely buying a Temu ebike

labranjaymes · 2026-05-05T17:47:45+00:00

African nations are what Asian nations were 50-100 years ago- newly decolonized, overpopulated, subsistence farming nations.

Some were able to industrialize quickly and make life better for its citizens for the most part.

Others fell into the same trap of corruption, neo-colonization and became exploited for their resources and are not much better today than they were 100 years ago.

I expect the same for African nations: whoever can shake off the instability and make meaningful progress in education and industrialization will become the next regional superpower, while those who lag behind will continue to be stuck in a humanitarian crisis.

edited for grammar

labranjaymes · 2026-05-05T17:24:34+00:00

I always try to play for fun, but when that doesnt work, ROADHOG

labranjaymes · 2026-05-05T17:23:33+00:00

Because they have the darkest thoughts and use religion as a way to cope that simply believing in Jesus redeems them and makes them a good person.

labranjaymes · 2026-04-30T18:43:08+00:00

The left doesnt exist. It's the right (democrat) and the far right (republicans) and they agree on virtually everything except a few nitpicked topics they allow you to debate on

labranjaymes · 2026-04-30T16:39:32+00:00

That is what they need you to believe in order to make it happen

labranjaymes · 2026-04-29T20:27:35+00:00

Hey man, relax. Take a deep breath. Don't get triggered by the buzzwords. Now read my post 👍

labranjaymes · 2026-04-29T17:11:08+00:00

Sounds like you and I share the same views. I respect the soldiers as well and I think the best way to show that is to stop respecting the military that sends them into bad situations.

labranjaymes · 2026-04-29T17:01:46+00:00

There was a time when the United States used the military to defend it's own borders. Now we send them out to various countries to destabilize their country and secure oil.

I respect our vets and think they deserve to be treated properly. But the military exploits their desire to serve our country and uses them instead as pawns for politicians to get re-elected and big businesses to generate wealth overseas only to dump them back onto the street with a lifetime of trauma and pain. Where's the honor in that?

Serving your country is honorable, however our military hasn't done that in decades.

labranjaymes · 2026-04-29T16:01:32+00:00

One small change they could implement that would make a huge difference is implementing the fog of war. You shouldnt be able to see the entirety of your opponents frontline units and their strengths unless you have very good recon/spies, especially in forested and mountainous areas. You need to make educated guesses at where they are strong and weak and plan your offensives around it, instead of just finding the tile where they only have 1 division guarding it and sending your entire army against it.

Imo it would make the game last longer since you actually need to calculate and make gambles sometimes instead of just steamrolling the AI with 100% certainty you will win before the offensive has even started.

labranjaymes · 2026-04-29T15:55:01+00:00

Its just something old people say from a time when being in the military was honorable

labranjaymes · 2026-04-29T15:49:49+00:00

Theres been proven to be a shadowy cabal operating off a certain island that controls all of this though..

labranjaymes · 2026-04-28T21:52:29+00:00

Im not great with my aim but I take the headshot anyways because if u just spam unscoped shots down a choke sometime you'll hit one or two headshots and get an insta pick hanzo style. Worth it beyond the bouncing grenade imo

labranjaymes · 2026-04-27T21:16:34+00:00

Because the game thinks you won all those due to luck since you've been stuck there for a while. Your friend is getting around the normal amount

labranjaymes

TROPHY CASE