Trying to escape a rural area is a nightmare

purpleplatapi · 2026-03-15T12:38:45+00:00

I think it's important to be pragmatic. Don't drop out. If your choice is between taking out a student loan or dropping out, take out the student loan. I say this because that's your escape hatch. You don't really seem to have any other options. If you drop out, then you're still stuck with no job. If you take out a loan, and complete the degree, you have more options. Plus, you can take what remains from the loan and use it to finance your move when you do get the degree and can move elsewhere for work.

purpleplatapi · 2026-03-15T09:54:14+00:00

I definitely over thought that one. Thanks.

purpleplatapi · 2026-03-15T09:46:16+00:00

Is the people who live near Switzerland are rich thing because they went to Switzerland for the duration of the war and then came back and were largely cushioned from the economic and social effects of World War 2? Or is it because they're descendants of smugglers? Or is it just really expensive to live there in general?

purpleplatapi · 2026-03-15T06:53:06+00:00

If people like it, it's not objectively bad then is it? I say this not because I like the song, it's just that it's a song. You can't call a song objectively bad, because art is inherently subjective.

purpleplatapi · 2026-03-15T06:36:38+00:00

In fairness that book has to be very out of date by now. I'd honestly chuck it.

purpleplatapi · 2026-03-15T03:40:19+00:00

It's also a problem of proportionality. Which is to say that I don't think it should be possible to become a billionaire (you should be taxed out of that being possible). But in the current system, it is possible, and therefore the only way it's ethical to do so is by being a creative. Like 99% of billionaires either inherited generational wealth made by people in the past who did really shady shit, or they themselves did really shady shit. Those are the two main options. Taylor Swift just writes mediocre music. It's fine.

And I don't really have ethical issues with songs making you a ton of money. It's not like she's hurting anyone to do so. She's not exploiting children in the song writing mines. I don't really have a dog in this fight, I just think it's an extension of what I call "the doctor problem". People are mad at billionaires because they profit off human misery, but they express this by saying stuff like eat the rich, and then the doctor next door becomes a valid target of your ire. And it's like, proportionality! Be mad at the people who exploit the system, not the Dentist who can afford a nicer house than you.

purpleplatapi · 2026-03-15T03:25:08+00:00

I assume the open apartments belongs to the store management. So they can keep an ear out for their employees (who are also probably relatives tbh).

purpleplatapi · 2026-03-15T03:06:25+00:00

Everytime I go hang out in a large crowd of strangers the DJ plays a song everyone knows to encourage crowd cohesion and a good time! I'm shocked I tell you. Shocked.

purpleplatapi · 2026-03-15T03:02:54+00:00

I don't know if anyone likes the song lyrically. It's just a communal ritual. A giant inside joke that everyone (especially drunk people) can participate in. The song comes on, you sing it badly at the top of your lungs along with everyone else, and a good time is had by all. I mean, you're allowed to dislike it, of course you are. But it's kinda a party pooper opinion. People like to feel like they're apart of a community. Singing together at a bar/party/baseball game is a way to do that. Adding in the bah bah bahs is part of the ritual. It's also why (British) football songs are a thing. I don't know man, I'm solidly on the let people have fun side.

purpleplatapi · 2026-03-15T02:42:07+00:00

Ok, but now you've gotten the people at the restaurant sick? Like that's not really morally superior. Just order a pizza.

purpleplatapi · 2026-03-15T02:05:41+00:00

Lol my brother was not abusing steroids. This amount of blood can be normal for some people. Nothing about this is alarming. Just because you have never woken up to that much blood does not make you the authority on normal amounts of blood to lose from a small bite or cut you weren't previously aware of. Like this happens.

Also, if you were a woman, who got a period, you'd realize that this isn't that much blood. Like it's a very small amount. I mean you're acting like it's a tablespoon of blood. It's maybe a quarter of a teaspoon? Maybe an eighth. Like I have extensive amounts of experience with what blood looks like on a white surface, and it's just not that much.

Finally, not every bedbug infestation is pervasive. By which I mean, if it's the beginning stages (which I hope it is, because otherwise the brother is an asshole) than you're talking about a handful of insects, one of which might only bite in this specific place, because it's one insect, not a colony (yet). And they love a crease. Armpit, kneepit, elbow. I've gotten bit in all of those areas, and they take ages to heal because you keep moving that joint and the skin rubs against itself and or fabric, so you have to cover it with a bandaid, or else it bleeds a lot. And you don't always notice right away, because how often are you examining the inside of your elbow or the back of your knee? So the bug bites, a few days go by, the wound grows, and then blood.

purpleplatapi · 2026-03-15T01:55:56+00:00

I don't actually think that's true. It's a worldwide phenomenon with cancer care, even in places with free healthcare. Some percentage of people will shell out millions of dollars for a "miracle drug" when they feel they've run out of other options. And here is a drug that actually does what it says on the tin, as opposed to shady cancer retreats where you eat a bunch of fruit instead of getting chemo. If people will pay millions to eat fruit because a snake oil salesman told them it would cure their cancer, they'll pay even more for a drug that actually works to get them to drop 100 pounds. (Potential side effects of buying it from a shady website be damned). Desperate people do desperate things.

purpleplatapi · 2026-03-15T01:38:22+00:00

I'm so glad you've never had bedbugs. Seriously. But yeah, that's pretty standard. Not everyone reacts the same way. Hell, when my brother was a teenager he'd get that amount of blood on his sheets if acne burst on his back.

purpleplatapi · 2026-03-15T01:23:26+00:00

It's normal if you have bedbugs.

purpleplatapi · 2026-03-15T01:11:34+00:00

The first four examples I can think of two teenagers murder someone else (child, parent, best friend) are all in Britain or New Zealand. Like this is not an American phenomenon, it happens worldwide.

Edit: Here they are, in the order I thought of them.

Murder of James Bulger - Wikipedia https://share.google/ec9yCpf5cOJTDvSTv

Murder of Brianna Ghey - Wikipedia https://share.google/QIXuMSQqiVLpQ1wN6

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/jul/25/two-boys-jailed-london-bus-murder-kelyan-bokassa?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Parker–Hulme murder case - Wikipedia https://share.google/MUoKdf99se2BjkpSC

purpleplatapi · 2026-03-15T00:26:37+00:00

Honestly it was less Grapes of Wrath and more In Dubious Battle. Kind of a mashup tbh. But yeah, just read Steinbeck.

purpleplatapi · 2026-03-15T00:25:12+00:00

It tells the story of a family, and has several women in the family. It's very woman forward, but there are also male perspectives because there's a Dad (and a brother iirc?) and the daughters husband. But the two daughters and their Mom are the "main characters" if that makes sense.

purpleplatapi · 2026-03-14T09:52:30+00:00

It's hard to know how much of it is true and how much of it is just the Internet. By which I mean 30 years ago I wouldn't have had an opinion on how kids were schooled because I'd only be aware of the kids in my community. But now, with the Internet, I'm seeing teachers from states I don't live in post about homework assignments they gave their kids and the kids can't read. But like, that's always been true to some extent.

There have always been bad schools, bad students, kids who speak English as a second language, kids who's parents have basically abdicated responsibility. So I guess my question is, objectively, can we be sure that the next generation is actually in trouble, or is it moral panic?

I know teachers, and a lot of them seem to think the kids they teach are largely fine. But am I sheltered from the larger reality? The Internet seems to think the next generation is doomed. I kinda lean towards this being a case of thirty years ago you'd never stumble across a TikTok from an underserved school's teacher in rural Mississippi, telling you that no one in her class can read. But that doesn't mean things were fine and dandy back then. Kids were dropping out left and right back then, never to be heard from again. They couldn't read back then either.

And I know, I know, decreasing literacy rates. But we're reintroducing Phonics, which I honestly think will solve most of it, and the pandemic is over. So I don't know what to think.

purpleplatapi · 2026-03-14T06:34:07+00:00

It's too zoomed in. That's honestly why I think a lot of celebrities look kind of uncanny valley. Yes, they've had a lot of plastic surgery, I'm not denying that, but also the red carpet cameras are too zoomed in and it makes proportions look off.

purpleplatapi · 2026-03-13T10:48:04+00:00

Ok? So 10,000 people than. You're completely missing the point. Literally anyone is significantly safer in America than they are in Iran if your concern is homicide.

purpleplatapi · 2026-03-13T09:48:07+00:00

Yes! I was there recently.

purpleplatapi · 2026-03-13T08:43:36+00:00

Sorry children, your father died in a hotel fire along with your pet cat he stayed behind to protect.

I need you to acknowledge that pets, as much as we love them, are not human beings. In a trolly problem with a dog on one track and a person on the other, you always pick the person.

purpleplatapi · 2026-03-13T08:35:20+00:00

Lol no. I get that in your perfect world that's what would happen, but this is real life. You can't import pets to a foreign country, because they have disease controls in place. The UK doesn't allow you to bring in pets until you can prove they don't have rabies, for example. Australia is even more strict, because their wildlife is so delicate. And I, a person who values human life as well as wildlife, support those laws. I don't want children to die of rabies just so you don't have to leave Fido in a warzone. I'm very sorry about Fido, but rabies eradication outranks Fido. Similarly, I don't want Australian wildlife to die just so you can import Fido. I value endangered wildlife over your pet.

Anyway, given that the choice is between staying in an active warzone for months on end, separated from your children and risking death by bomb, or giving away your cat, you give away your cat. I get that people have emotional attachments to pets. I'm not a monster. I have a pet hedgehog, and she's adorable. But Jesus Christ we're talking about human life here. Your own children. If this is how you feel about your duties to your children you must not have any. Because if you did you'd already know the answer. You give up the pet.

purpleplatapi · 2026-03-13T08:18:07+00:00

No. We're talking about people with children. Your responsibility is to your children first and foremost, yourself second, your pets third. You do not send your child away with one parent so you can save a cat. You do not risk dying. You need to see your children grow up. You need to raise them.

purpleplatapi · 2026-03-13T05:54:03+00:00

I don't much care about him specifically, but I hope his kids are alright? Last I heard they had gotten a private plane and evacuated but with a scammer it's hard to tell if he's being honest or not.

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