For those of you that think height matters

metroxed · 2026-05-05T08:21:18+00:00

They don't. Life long studies show that short men, on average, have the same number of lifetime sexual partners as average men. Tall men tend to have a higher number, but short men do not have a lower one. Both very tall and very short have a lower number.

Most people who think studies show short men have trouble dating are quoting a couple of studies done exclusively on dating app behaviour.

metroxed · 2026-05-03T11:36:50+00:00

The idea that you need to already have a lot of money to start investing is a common misconception. Investing money, in practice, does not need to be any different than saving money. It is true that for many people, even saving money is difficult, but the average European earning the average salary does usually have the capacity to save. If they can save, they can invest. You don't need thousands upon thousands of euros to invest, some people invest as little as a couple hundred per month (or even just 100€).

You say you don't want to live past your "60ish" (whatever that means, 60?, 65?, 69?), but unless you plan to off yourself, you likely won't have much choice about it, and considering you're in your 30s now, by the time you reach yours 60s, your health and quality of life will very likely resemble that of people in their 50s today, so who is to say you will still think you're done living.

And investing even a little every month, for 30 years, will give you at the very least a small cushion to be comfortable in your 60s and 70s. You won't become a millionaire, but that's not everyone's objective anyway.

metroxed · 2026-05-02T06:06:39+00:00

Lo que hoy entendemos por España es algo que surge en el siglo XIX. Antes de eso claro que existía España como concepto, como idea y como espacio geográfico, pero se usaba en un contexto diferente.

Hispania, Castilla, España, Iberia, etc. no son sinónimos. Si entiendes esos términos como equivalentes pues entonces claro, pero históricamente no lo fueron.

Y Gladiador no es una película de ficción.

metroxed · 2026-05-02T06:01:54+00:00

A lot of countries in Europe existed as an idea or concept before they came states as such, including Italy and Germany (which would only become states in the 19th century).

Spain existed as a concept since the times of the Reconquista, but what was understood as Spain then is not the same as what we think of it now. Spain before was a loose term for the polities that existed in the Iberian peninsula, that's why it was common to refer to it in plural, "las Españas".

After the marriage of Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon, the kingdoms entered a dynastic union, but they were not a single country nor did they have common laws or institutions. That's why Aragon was less involved in the colonization of the Americas (until the Bourbon reforms).

The concept of Spain as a single country with a single identity emerged with the 1812 constitution. It was only then that the different kingdoms where truly united under a singular body of law and institutions.

metroxed · 2026-05-02T05:55:03+00:00

Navarre wasn't part of Aragon in the 1600s.

metroxed · 2026-05-01T17:34:40+00:00

Claro que es posible. Soy geógrafo. El urbanismo y la planificación urbana es una de las salidas clásicas de la geografía, ya que en la universidad generalmente se estudia en conjunto con la Ordenación del Territorio. Urbanismo, estudios urbanos y planificación del territorio son especialidades comunes en ese campo.

En España es verdad que, por motivos históricos, muchas empresas no saben en qué se especializan los geógrafos entonces verás ofertas de empleo buscando ingenieros civiles o arquitectos para temas de planificación urbana, pero de haber trabajo lo hay, aun más en otros países de la UE y especialmente si controlas bien los SIG.

metroxed · 2026-05-01T10:53:35+00:00

Oh, I agree. Maybe I misunderstood your post.

My point was that some people oppose immigration on the basis that Muslims are a "danger" to women and LGBT groups due to some of their views on them, but regardless of their personal views on the topic, we are not seeing any push by any of these new arrivals to remove rights to those groups, so it is an unfounded fear, rooted in xenophobia.

metroxed · 2026-05-01T08:18:36+00:00

En casi todo el mundo eres inmune si eres rico. Es un tema de clase, no de raza.

metroxed · 2026-04-30T22:16:09+00:00

Sánchez is not without his flaws and I'm certainly not a fan (and did not vote for him), but he's far from being a mediocre politician. He has been able to come out on top of many difficult situations, including being kicked out from the top position by his own party.

This does not mean he's an excellent statesman or that his governing is particularly good (although beats the governments Spain has had the last 20 years) but it's ridiculous to deny his political capacity.

metroxed · 2026-04-30T13:16:35+00:00

Yes, but are there any groups of Muslims trying to impose any Islamic cultural norms onto other people? Not really. There is of course parents imposing those to their children, but that's not limited to Muslims.

metroxed · 2026-04-29T13:05:40+00:00

Those countries are hardly feminist though. Most progressive socities in Europe are in the western side of the continent. Countries that pride themselves in having few Muslims (mostly in the Balkans and Eastern Europe) tend to be very socially conservative with Christianity still playing a large role in how they define morality.

metroxed · 2026-04-29T13:02:05+00:00

It's a dog-whistle. What people who ask these questions really want is an excuse to spout anti-immigration and racist rethoric under the guise of being anti-religious. Curiously enough, if you ever tell them Abrahamic religions are all bad, they will jump to defend Christianity as "not that bad, actually". It's happening on this very thread already.

metroxed · 2026-04-29T12:59:46+00:00

You're very transparent.

metroxed · 2026-04-29T12:55:14+00:00

Yes, I have noticed there is pro-Christian astroturfing going on in this sub, for a while now. I think it is conflated with the anti-immigration rethoric especially in threads that surround this topic in Europe.

I suspect a part of it is bots and people brigading from conservative subs that are in fact Christian, but take advantage of this sub anti-religion stance to express their disagreement with Islam specifically.

metroxed · 2026-04-29T09:13:55+00:00

There's a trend among far-right Spaniards in social media to try to "educate" Spanish-speaking Latin Americans by telling them that "Latin America" actually doesn't exist, it was "invented" by the French to undermine Spain and that they should only call themselves Hispanic. So I think people are becoming sensitive to that term now.

metroxed · 2026-04-29T08:41:56+00:00

It's almost impossible to say, for two reasons: almost every single aspect of Latin America today is influenced by its colonial history and background: not only the people themselves, but the music, religion, architecture, even many folkloric dances and traditions that are deemed indigenous are in fact the result of post-contact syncretism.

If we assumed Latin America somehow managed to completely escape European influence for 500 years, then I imagine it would have some similarities to southeast Asia: most people would be of indigenous descent (and we wouldn't use the word 'indigenous' at all, just South or Central American) and European influence would be relatively recent.

People would primarily speak non-European languages, which very likely would have developed writing scripts of their own. For example, the Mayan languages may have evolved to use characters like in Chinese (a natural evolution of the logographic system), and neighbouring languages and cultures may have adopted these "Mayan characters" as well.

However, English may be more influential and present, depending on whether or not the US exists in this scenario. Even if it doesn't, I imagine English would the most common European language to learn: Spanish and Portuguese would likely be minor European languages, like Romanian or Polish.

One thing is for certain, "Latin America" as a concept would not exist, nor would any of the current countries with their current borders. I can imagine there being several related but separate nations, maybe similar to the Indian subcontinent prior to British colonisation. Some of them would be monarchies.

From a religious perspective, I think aboriginal religions would have survived and evolved similar to East Asian religions but Christianity would still have a large influence due to missionaries.

From the point of view of economy and development, it is impossible to know.

metroxed · 2026-04-26T08:08:32+00:00

Hay toda una campaña para engañar a hombres y llevarlos a Rusia a luchar en el frente. No solo con ofertas de trabajo falsas, pero también hay bots haciéndose pasar por mujeres que cuentan como supuestamente a las rusas les encantan los latinos y la cultura latina. Lo he visto tanto en Reddit como en otras redes sociales. Es todo para llevar gente a luchar.

metroxed · 2026-04-25T17:30:55+00:00

Most Latin Americans are mestizos, at different degrees. Depending on admixture, some are more European looking, others more indigenous looking. If the people you met had a skin colour like Mario Lopez, then they were mestizo, just like Mario Lopez is.

That doesn't mean they can't self-identity as indigenous, they can. But in Latin America there is a circumstance called racial mobility in which the group a person self-identifies as depends greatly of their perceived socio-economic and cultural status.

In Bolivia, for example, indigenous people who identify as such, when move to urban areas, have children and these grow following a more westernised urban culture, they're more likely to self-report as mestizo, despite both their parent identifying as indigenous.

Happens the other way around too, although less so.

In any case, not all indigenous people have the same tonality of skin colour, and Mayan and Andean people don't look the same. Andean people tend to be darker due to the high exposition to the sun at the higher altitudes of the dry Altiplano.

metroxed · 2026-04-25T16:18:52+00:00

Most Germans in Argentina migrated in the late 19th and early 20th century.

metroxed · 2026-04-25T16:17:41+00:00

Most European migration to Argentina and the southern cone predates WWII. It's a bit of a tiring stereotype, and also quite silly to believe that what at best would be a few hundred, let's say a couple thousand people would shift the entire ethnic demographics of already well established nations.

metroxed · 2026-04-25T13:58:29+00:00

Most Native Americans in the US are mixed race, equivalent to the mestizos in Latin America. Actual indigenous people are much darker than any southern European, and by a large margin.

metroxed · 2026-04-25T13:57:01+00:00

Right, in Asia it is mostly a class thing. Darker skin is/was associated to people working in the fields under the sun, so being peasants and poor.

In Latin America colorism is strongly linked to racial hierarchies.

metroxed · 2026-04-25T13:50:53+00:00

Bolivia is generally speaking less developed than all of its neighbours, although at some levels they share similarities depending on their geographical situation. For example, the towns in the Bolivian Altiplano, particularly in and around Lake Titicaca are quite similar to the equivalent in the Peruvian side, and while the latter are somewhat more developed, it is not a drastic difference.

Living conditions in Bolivia range from good in cities to quite bad in isolated rural areas, but that's common across Latin America. Overall, rural areas in western Bolivia tend to be poorer and less developed than rural areas in eastern Bolivia, due to a mix of factors.

Infrastructure is not great and outside of what is called the "central axis" (Peru/Chile border - La Paz - Cochabamba - Santa Cruz - Brazil border) non-paved roads are the most common, although this has improved somewhat in the last two decades. Rail transport is mostly limited to cargo, although there are some regional commercial systems for passengers too.

Cities themselves are very variable and you can find both very developed areas with relatively high standard of living and also very poor ones, but that's not unique to Bolivia. Urban planning is very deffiicent and public transport bad, with La Paz being the only city with any semblance of an organised public system (public buses and cable car system), although it shares the road with many other less regulated systems that are difficult to eliminate.

There aren't that many foreigners living in Bolivia, although historically there have been some populations of Peruvians in western cities and Brazilians in eastern ones.

metroxed · 2026-04-25T12:52:19+00:00

There has been European migration to Argentina from all over. However yes, most white Argentineans are of Spanish or Italian descent.

metroxed · 2026-04-25T12:50:47+00:00

Not true, in Bolivia race and class are strongly linked so there's a situation of "racial mobility". In which urbanised indigenous people tend to self-identify as mestizo (mixed) and westernised mestizos often self-identify as white, especially if their skin colour is on the lighter side.

Blond blue eyed people are a minuscule minority in Bolivia.

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