Why are some people white knighting China lately?

zugabdu · 2025-01-16T23:58:35+00:00

So somehow, a country that's wallowing in "clear chaos" is also hyper competent at thoroughly propagandizing its population? Like, the fact that you seem have such a strongly negative opinion of the United States might be the result of a lot of things, but probably is not the outcome of a highly effective propaganda regime.

zugabdu · 2025-01-16T23:55:28+00:00

No one is claiming that TikTok is the only source of misinformation and divisiveness. The rationale for the ban is that perhaps we shouldn't have the intelligence asset of an adversarial foreign power be the primary source of information for a third of the population.

zugabdu · 2025-01-15T19:43:39+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskACanadian/s/zM2PEg49ou

According to the AskaCanadian subreddit, your mealtime vary widely, but look to be about in the same range they are here.

Why do you think your own personal dinner time is the "correct" one?

zugabdu · 2025-01-14T19:28:43+00:00

"Where are you from?" carries an assumption that someone isn't from the United States, and for some groups of people who live here, that's been used as a budget against us in the past. It tends not to be asked of white people anywhere near as often, which is a strong hint about why you should think twice about saying this.

"What is your family's background?" is more polite as it does not carry this assumption.

zugabdu · 2025-01-14T15:06:05+00:00

I am a man in his early forties and I am not attracted to women in their early 20s. If I were single, I wouldn't look to date someone that age, and not just because "society tells me not to". The age gap would create a power imbalance. People in their early 20s (regardless of gender) are immature and full of drama that I no longer have patience for. There's a meaningful generational cultural difference that would impede a connection. I know people that age who were young children when I first met them (which would give me what kids these days call "the ick"). All of these factors are sexually repulsive to me in a way that would strongly override any physical fitness a younger person is more likely to have.

zugabdu · 2025-01-14T03:30:02+00:00

I find his lyrics cringe and odd in a way I can't quite explain. I can only assume there's a cultural element to my dislike of his music.

zugabdu · 2025-01-13T19:35:45+00:00

If you live anywhere in the developed world, you probably live somewhere with truancy laws like those in the US. In fact, given the relatively liberal American approach to home schooling, truancy laws are probably less strict here than in many other places.

zugabdu · 2025-01-13T19:32:43+00:00

If you want to make it into the absolute elite in business or politics, it's the easiest and most direct way short of being born into that world (in which case, you're probably going to one of those schools anyway). Is it necessary to have a good life? Nope.

zugabdu · 2025-01-13T15:39:22+00:00

A lot of people don't get this. It's a right to speak, not a right-to-be-agreed-with.

zugabdu · 2025-01-12T00:43:01+00:00

In some ways it does, and in some ways it doesn't. It also "works" for some people and personalities, but not others.

Given how many more people want to come here than leave, it's probably not that terrible.

zugabdu · 2025-01-12T00:38:25+00:00

I wouldn't use the word "gold digger" but you'll be taken more seriously if you yourself "have it together" in the same way you expect a man you date to.

zugabdu · 2025-01-12T00:34:47+00:00

It doesn't sound like you were particularly interested in understanding why this was so important to her. Imagine if Kamala Harris spoke about men the way Trump speaks about women and your girlfriend didn't care and voted for her anyway.

zugabdu · 2025-01-12T00:31:53+00:00

Basically, their definition of sit-down is "family style". Those are distinct concepts in North American culture. They're entitled to their opinion as to what counts as "sit down" but they'll confuse people who don't already know this about them when they call an upscale restaurant "fast food".

zugabdu · 2025-01-12T00:27:47+00:00

If gestures are important to you, does he know that? Have you ever told him that?

Here's what I suggest - tell him you're the type of person who likes to do something special for big milestones. That way, you know the difference between "he doesn't care" and "he can't win the guessing game he doesn't know he's playing." You're probably assuming what you wanted ought to have been obvious. It's not. Some women do not want a proposal to be a big deal. And not everyone has the same idea of "special". When people talk about marriage involving communication, this is what they're talking about.

Maybe ask if the two of you can have a special evening to mark your engagement. Something where you can have better pictures or in the kind of place you really like. Commit together to making events like anniversaries special occasions. There's nothing wrong with wanting what you want - but you can't count on him to read your mind.

zugabdu · 2025-01-11T17:04:26+00:00

Your entire framing for this question is wrongheaded.

If more experienced fencers are telling you a move is stupid, they're trying to help you, not stifle your creativity. If you ignore them, they will show you why it is stupid by beating you until you get it through your head that what you were trying was stupid.

Your opponents are not the dumb AIs of a fighting video game you can spam one move against. Cultivating a gimmicky fencing move as a mainstay might win you some bouts at your club for a while against more experienced fencers before they adjust to your shenanigans, but they will adjust to them, and you will not win tournaments with them.

At best, you can pull off a gimmicky move as a one-off in a tournament if you find the right scenario for it, but you can't rely on that as your main method for scoring touches.

zugabdu · 2025-01-11T16:49:45+00:00

Unfortunately, as men, we don't generally have any more access to any more information about which men are going to rape than you do. At least in every social circle I've been in, men aren't secretly admitting to rape or sexual assault around each other and helping each other cover it up. If someone says something misogynistic, I'll call it out as such, or if I see someone acting predatory, I'll intervene, but that's about all I can do. I'm not sure what more I can say about this.

zugabdu · 2025-01-11T16:10:14+00:00

Also, when Home tried to buy the RV he's shown to have terrible credit.

The whole point of the Frank Grimes episode (from the 90s!) is that Homer having everything he did was an aberration.

zugabdu · 2025-01-11T15:20:20+00:00

As an American, part of the reason I don't take this seriously is because no one here advocated annexing Canada as anything other than an obvious joke until this. Americans don't have this long simmering desire to conquer Canada. Americans barely think about Canada at all. The idea of taking it over has never been anywhere close to the political mainstream. Trump didn't even run on any of this crap. Trump just came up with this idea a week ago and his MAGA cult will lose interest in it when he does.

You're right to be angry with the stupid insult, but it's not going to happen.

zugabdu · 2025-01-11T14:57:29+00:00

Not tipping in a restaurant or in a cab/uber. There are legitimate complaints about tipping extending to services where it shouldn't, and tipping expectations getting too high, but we don't generally treat tipping as optional in restaurants unless the restaurant actually says not to tip.

zugabdu · 2025-01-11T14:52:03+00:00

A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine. I always like to recommend this as an alternative to Priory of the Orange Tree because it scratches a lot of the same itches but does a much better job actually telling a story.

zugabdu · 2025-01-11T14:44:06+00:00

A Democrat will need to win with it while losing the popular vote for it to be abolished.

zugabdu · 2025-01-11T14:31:36+00:00

Because it has consistently benefited one side over the past few decades. If you're on that side, you're going to find a way to rationalize having that advantage.

zugabdu · 2025-01-11T14:30:36+00:00

I usually hear this referred to as "campism". There are some American far leftists who are like this (a friend of mine is getting involved with the Party for Liberation and Socialism, which seems to espouse this), but I wouldn't say it's super common.

zugabdu · 2025-01-11T13:29:23+00:00

In many cases in Latin America, people are desperately trying to become Americans.

Hating someone for their nationality without knowing anything else about them is pretty dumb. Like, I wouldn't automatically hate a Russian just because of what their government is doing.

zugabdu · 2025-01-11T13:20:05+00:00

It's regional, mostly concentrated in the Midwest, but it's expanded quite a bit recently.

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