I like American music. Do you like American music? I like American music, too, baby.

Other versions of me:

  • @Nemo
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  • metafilter.com/user/324647

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USA Lemmies: Where do you live?

I comment a lot on stories having to do with state governments and legislation or regions of the country. It got me wondering how many people I'm accidentally disparaging when I don't mean everyone in said state or region is terrible. So… Please be as specific or obtuse as your privacy filter requires. I'll start:...

Nemo ,

It's impossible to ask a stupid question here, actually. Try it!

Here, I'll do one:

******** ?

Nemo ,

Action unrestrained by threats of violence or other coercion.

Nemo ,

Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.

Nemo ,

I first heard it in the context of carpentry, but I've since heard it in kitchens as well.

Nemo ,

No. Cereal thrown into a broth might be a soup. Now, if we want to talk about whether a caffe latte is a soup, there's a conversation.

Nemo ,

watch them say "cereal"

Nemo ,

"social media" is the rebranded name for what they used to call "Web 2.0", which refers to websites where the content both comes from users and is associated with user accounts.

Both reddit and lemmy clearly fit the bill just as much as livejournal and blogger do.

Nemo ,

Girl, no. I don't know anything about you and I know you deserve better.

Nemo ,

Leaving aside legality, who would want this?

Nemo ,

Because communism doesn't work for large, heterogenous groups, so increasing amounts of coercion are used to keep the system running.

And new forms of government such as socialism are generally more succeptible to corruption as people find the new loopholes; as a government gets more corrupt, those who corrupted it seek to consolidate their power.

I think socialism can be made workable, as we examine and correct the problems with previous attempts. I don't think communism works well for human societies, as it requires people to act better than we know they do.

Nemo ,

Oh I completely agree.

Established systems, at least ones that last, tend to have checks on corruption or on consolidating power. These are not always effective, obviously, and corruption is always a danger. My critique was specifically how newer systems have new and unforseen avenues do these antisocial activities.

Nemo ,

It's always striking to see "liberal" used as an epithet. It's like trying to insult someone by calling them "well-read".

Nemo ,

This is every system, but new systems have new avenues for corruption and usually no established defense against it.

Nemo ,

Leaving aside nonsensically calling the CCP socialist or the USSR a success, I'm curious about your racism argument.

I don't see how acknowledging that racism exists and is a barrier to class unity is racist. I tend to think acknowledging that racism exists is the first step towards fighting racism. What's your reasoning here?

I'll note as well that that criticism was towards communism, not socialism which I think can work just fine for both large groups and diverse ones.

Nemo ,

I'm sorry, I shouldn't have included arguments in my request for clarification, that was extremely poor form and you were right to have been dismissive.

But if I have some previously unexamined belief that's rooted in racism, I do earnestly want to correct it. If you've got something to teach me that can help, I want to hear it and will thank you for telling me.

Nemo ,

Maybe I was too generous, and the reason attempts at communism and socialism tend to go authoritarian is because some holding those ideologies have unnecessary decided to align themselves against liberalism.

Nemo ,

Hey, thanks for your clear and cogent comment. It helped me understand why the antipathy exists and how my own biases were clouding my perspective. You clearly understand liberalism much better than I understand communism, but now at least I understand it a little better. Props.

Nemo ,

Thanks for taking the time to write all this out for me, especially the stuff about China's capital projects. I will certainly be less blithe about trotting out the party line on that topic.

Nemo ,

I braid my hair into pigtails. I can't explain it, but everyone is nicer to me when I wear my hair like that.

Nemo ,

I would always have restaurant hummus on hand.

Nemo ,

The gullible often become victims. I don't understand the distinction you're making. Between personal failing and societal failing? They feed into each other. Both warrant correction.

Nemo ,

The present. I can use emulation to play all my old favorites, often for free, and there's never been such a rich plethora of indie and studio games available.

Nemo ,

NES: River City Ransom, Crystalis, Zelda ][

SNES: Super Mario World, Chrono Trigger, Link to the Past

GB: Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, Minish Cap, Tetris

DOS: The Quest for Glory series, ZZT

Nemo ,

I did play that on emulator a decade or so ago. It's part of the same series as Illusion of Gaia, right? I don't really remember Terranigma that well, maybe it's time for a replay.

Nemo ,

Adding a separate comment to add, if you've never played it, Super Mario X was a very fun, apparently not-entirely-legal fangame made my Redigit (who went on to create Terraria). He took it down at Nintendo's demand, but you can still find a copy.

Hey i just wanna know are raccoons evil in some kind of way ?

A lot of things i thought were cute and nice like dolphines, ducks, cats (i saw one cat eat anothers new born), dogs (multiple cases of eating dead owners due to a variety of reasons starting from trying to wake em up to other malicious reasons), hamsters etc turned out to be wrong . Raccoons are the only thing i believe in...

Nemo ,

If they weren't up to no good, why would they wear masks?

No but seriously they will straight-up murder chickens for the fun of feeling the hens' necks snap under their fingers.

How come liberals dont hate conservatives the way conservatives hate liberals

I constantly see angry mobs of people decrying "woke", "critical race theory", ""grooming"", and whatever other nonsense they made up this week. They march around with guns, constantly appending lib as a prefix to any word they can use to denigrate. They actively plot violence and spew hatred in the open....

Nemo ,

Assuming that you used "liberals" to refer colloquially to the American left wing and "conservatives" to mean the right...

You do see the inverse. You see it in this thread: Calling conservatives rats, saying they don't have morals. I just read all the current answers, and less than a third of them made any attempts to understand those on the right instead of othering them.

Nemo ,

Even if we're using "conservatives" to refer to the entire right wing here, insurrectionists and those who support them are a tiny minority.

Nemo ,

I'm going to make a second comment, from the point of observation bias:

OP obviously knows people who have been attacked by vicious, hateful people on the right. But OP is probably hanging around neither the people on the right being attacked by vicious, hateful people on the left, nor around the vicious, hateful minority of the left who are attacking people on the right.

So she hasn't seen it. But I have. I've been attacked from the right for my progressive views and from the left for my conservative views, and from both by people who assume that if I think A I must also think B and C, no matter how benign A is and horrific C is.

Nemo ,

Well, a lot of both conservatives and Republicans are part of a middle-eastern death cult, but so are are a lot of progressives and Democrats and moderates and independents. I am.

Some don't like to think of Christianity in those terms, but the shoe fits.

Nemo ,

That most changes are bad and this people who advocate for change are to be viewed with skepticism

That there is inherent value to human labor

That the family is the primary unit of society

That heirarchies are natural to humanity and can be beneficial OR destructive

That freedom of religion (including the freedom to disdain religion) is the most important human right

That human rights are real things on their own, an essential part of the human condition, and cannot be granted or removed by governments, only respected or infringed

That any discussion of policy must include a discussion of what will cost, the likely secondary effects, and how likely it is to actually address the problem it seems to address

That government spending should not exceed government revenue over a ten-year period

That the Constitution is a carefully constructed document that has seen the US become the longest-lasting liberal democracy in history, and should be defended as such

That Enlightenment liberalism is the best form of society thus far, and while it can be refined it ought not to be replaced

Nemo ,

Damn, typos, but this is not the kind of comment you want marked as "edited". My apologies.

Nemo ,

yes

Nemo ,

I actually protested for marriage equality here in Illinois; my wife and I refused to file our marriage license until the law was updated and asked our wedding guests to forgo gifts and instead donate to Lambda Legal and other organizations also working for marriage equality.

So when I say "families", I do mean queer couples as well. But also intergenerational households. The focus on individualism and geographical mobility has been destructive to intergenerational wealth and wisdom, to familial connections, and to mental health. It's one of my big gripes with the way capitalism operates in the US, honestly; the balance of power lies far too heavily with employers rather than the workers and this often means that family life suffers for the sake of economic advantage.

But yeah, I'm also talking about children. I don't think anyone who doesn't want kids should be pressured to have them, but for those who do want kids, that's something we as a society should encourage. To that end I favor pronatalist policies as well as policies that seek to make adoption easier and less expensive, especially domestic adoption.

And while I know sometimes pronatalism is used as a fig leaf for anti-immigration sentiment, that's not the case here; I'm very pro-immigration for a variety of reasons but it's no secret that immigrants tend to have larger families and are more likely to have international households.

How do people actually dumpster dive to get free food? Are there any other cheap/free ways like this to get food?

My local food bank can only provide 8 packages with referrals every time before you run out, and I have, but my situation hasn't improved financially due to various set backs and I'm struggling to feed myself. I've heard that supermarkets throw out massive amounts, but have never been in a position where dumpster diving seemed...

Nemo ,

fallingfruit.org used to list a few dumpsters that reliably held good food; bakeries especially toss a lot of product at the end of the day

as for tips, check for rat poison first

What linguistic constructions do you hate that no one else seems to mind?

It bugs me when people say "the thing is is that" (if you listen for it, you'll start hearing it... or maybe that's something that people only do in my area.) ("What the thing is is that..." is fine. But "the thing is is that..." bugs me.)...

Nemo , (edited )

I really can't stand when someone says something happened, or they did something, "on accident".

No. You do something on purpose or by accident.

Nemo ,

It turns out that lots of people are actually against recognizing human rights, as long as their rights are protected.

Nemo , (edited )

I generally went a year and half after a break-up before swearing off women; once I swear off women I have a new girlfriend within two weeks. Never fails.

Nemo ,

I've often said that most problems in my life could be attributed to lack of sleep, lack of nutrition, lack of partyin', or lack of churchgoin'. The latter two certainly help meet people.

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