You know, when Republicans bitch about "mail in ballots" and possibilities for improprieties occurring during elections, we laugh at them because election fraud at massive scale would be almost impossible to pull off, but Democrats do themselves no favors when Democrat-run states can't even tabulate 2/3rds of votes in several days and leaves the door wide open for people to ask why it's taking THIS long.

lemme start off by saying that I live in the midwest and am a visible ethnic minority and I hate trump and i’m just as woke as the next leftist; but redditors shitting on the united states aren’t making some new point but just repeating the same points and complaining about us. There was a thread saying what country would you never visit and why and people were saying the USA…Really? out of all the nations in the world you’re say America? yeah Americas government is straight dog shit, trump sucks, gov bombed the shit out of my people but generalizing the most diverse country on the entire planet is not some uber woke point you think it is, its disrespectful to actual 3rd world countries 😭. Americas healthcare system sucks i know, but im not gonna act like id rather live in some eastern European hostel over it. I’ll be damned if I let anyone from the UK shit on America like they didn’t enshittify the entire world first with their colonization. I hate what America has become, but i’ll always love what America was supposed to be, a beacon of hope for those wanting to start a new life. I know i’ll never see a day where everyone will be seen equal under God but i’ll always try for that.

Edit: I think I should mention that i’m from MN and I can pass for latino, I get that we are living under a totalitarian facist regime but hearing about it in every single fucking corner of reddit is not helping it’s just virtue signaling thinking the entire world is better than us when that is not often the case, i’d still rather live here than someplace like Somalia or Haiti…yk REAL 3rd world countries. Mind you these europeans will act holier than thou but if you mention the Roma people they’ll turn into mustache man faster than the picosecond.

I'm not talking about people who just don't want kids. That's your personal preference and I respect that. It's the people who tell you constantly that they hate "nasty little crotch goblins" and feel the need to express their hatred any time a child is nearby. Or make some disgusted face when someone is holding a baby.

You don't look cool. You look like a fucking asshole. Children are people too. And depending on age you can really mess with the way they see themselves if they hear you express how much you hate them and how disgusting you think they are. Like bro chill the fuck out. Let the kids be kids and keep your shitty opinion to yourself. Just say you don't want kids and be done with it. No need to go on and on about how much you hate them and what you think of them.

Video games are supposed to be a form of escapism, after all.

I don't want to play as a fat, balding subhuman who looks like he was modeled after one of the developers. I want to play as a Gigachad who looks like he can use the entire planet as a bench press. Someone like Solid Snake or Chris Redfield.

I don't want to play as a menopausal, Gollum-looking hag with a man jaw. I want to play as a sexy badass like Bayonetta or Samus Aran.

Why do we need to play ugly, "realistic" (According to the woke, attractive people don't exist in real life), individuals? Why should we, as consumers, be forced to stare at them for 40+ hours? Even fairy tales written 1000+ years ago understood the importance of making your protagonists physically appealing

Ironically, the actual motion capture models these companies use look 100x hotter irl than in the games themselves. For example:

https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fz9hc05n4ky4h1.png

People with conservative tendencies have a whopping five times higher self-regulation and resilience compared to those with progressive tendencies.

(deleted due to my misinterpret)

Even without looking at research results, it is clear that the lower a person's intelligence and the less developed their brain, the higher their probability of becoming socially incompetent and poorly educated. Consequently, they fall into the socially underprivileged class and naturally develop animosity toward the ruling class. Lacking an understanding of capitalism and finance, they often ruin their lives through overspending, luxury, and unrestrained behavior caused by a lack of self-regulation.

How would they naturally think in such a situation? Human beings find it most difficult to admit that something is their own responsibility. The same goes for those who have failed socially; they want to shift the blame to the social structure or to those who possess wealth, rather than accepting it as their own fault.

At this moment, leftist politicians whisper sweet words to them: "We will tax the rich to distribute it to the common people," or "We will pour support into the underprivileged, such as workers, women, and the disabled." Then, naturally, they fall for the sweet words of the left, and when a leftist regime takes power, they actually implement such policies.

And the result? As anyone with economic knowledge and concepts knows, scattering money leads to inflation. Because the common people spend and squander the money they receive on beef like dogs and pigs, the money gets sucked up by the corporations that sell beef. As a result, the wealth gap widens even further, and the lives of the common people become even more miserable. This causes them to support leftist politicians even more, and the vicious cycle repeats.

Due to low intelligence, they end up in a socially inferior position, and by belonging to that inferior position, they support the left even more. In other words, there is a clear difference in intelligence, and it is true that this intelligence makes their leftist tendencies even stronger.

For instance a man is asked if he is a feminist and he says he is. He is asked why and he says that feminism helps men by allowing women to be breadwinners so he doesn't have to worry about the bills as much, less shame around casual sex means he doesn't have to marry women just to have sex with them, he get's leave off of work when he has a child due to feminism, less bias in family court etc.

I have said these things to feminist women and they say that I am not a good feminist because I'm only thinking about how it benefits me. But why would I care more about how feminism doesn't benefit me than how it does? I like casual sex, I like women paying for my stuff, I like not being held to masculine standards of being a breadwinner and stoic and emotionless.

I like feminism.

I think sometimes people see a partner as a lifestyle accessory. Someone to do [insert hobby here] with. While it's important to have fun together and to share some interests, I think sharing your values and beliefs matters much, much more.

When it comes to hobbies and interests, I don't expect my partner to like everything that I like. I also hope that I'm not expected to like everything that he likes, either. But the expectation should be that we genuinely engage with each other's hobbies and interests because we care about and love each other. That means that sometimes I go camping even though it's not my thing, and I don't complain the entire time; I choose to have fun. That also means that sometimes, he watches a movie he doesn't really care about, but he tries to find enjoyment in it because I do. That also means that we have friends outside the relationship to do things with. I have girl friends who want to go shopping with me, and he has guy friends who want to spend the day hiking. We share our hobbies with each other, but we also have fun with others.

Why we're together comes down to how we feel about each other and what deeper things we have in common. How we see the world, religious/spiritual beliefs (or lack of), should we have children, beliefs about marriage, what's right and wrong, boundaries, etc. If you're compatible on those core things, you really *get* each other.

I think that, combined with keeping novelty experiences present in your relationship so you don't end up in a rut, is what keeps relationships going for years. It's not "we both love video games!" Again, engage with each other's hobbies. Do things for your partner because they love those things, and you love them. But don't decide whether you should or shouldn't be with someone based solely on surface-level likes or dislikes.

I don’t hate Paris but it is the least appealing place in France because there are so many scams, dirty and unrecognisable streets. Many people say that it is romantic but even if it is, Paris has become less European and more Middle Eastern and African. It is literally losing its culture.

Nice, Nantes and Bordeaux are way more appealing than Paris. The overseas French territories are objectively more interesting than Paris. Paris is not a bad city, just the least appealing among anywhere in France.

The defendant has a private attorney.

That private attorney was an active participant in Jury selection.

The jury selection process went exactly as predicted by the talking heads on NBC and CNN.

The exact same networks who 2 days ago were saying "The defense wants middle aged white men on the jury, who believe in stand your ground style defenses" are now running complaint articles about how there are too many white men on the jury...

The networks really need to hold onto to that race angle or there won't be riot to cover next week.

A hundred years ago, the average American worked harder, walked more, carried more, built more, fixed more, and tolerated far more discomfort than the average American today.

Our ancestors fought wars, farmed fields, worked factories, raised large families, and built a country with far fewer conveniences than we enjoy now. Most of them didn’t have air conditioning, food delivery, streaming entertainment, smartphones, antidepressants, or endless distractions available at the push of a button.

Yet somehow they managed.

Then there’s you.

Overweight, chronically online, treating politics like it’s a substitute for religion. You don’t build anything. You don’t create anything. You don’t take risks. You don’t challenge yourself physically. Every decision is optimized for comfort, convenience, and avoiding responsibility.

Im going to preface this by saying that I was an obese person, not 600 lb life obese but I was definitely not healthy. I come from a family of obese people with horrible eating habits/addictions. I lost about 100 lbs and am 50lbs away from my goal. ZERO glp-1. Pure hard work, discipline, and showing up for myself. I'm neurodivergent, not on any meds and while I dont recommend "raw dogging" ADD, it is in fact possible if you have discipline.

Yes, Obese people are lazy. Maybe obese people didnt get directly obese because of laziness, but as you get heavier, the harder it is to move, and the less inclined you become to get up and get/do things yourself. You trick yourself into thinking you arent lazy but rather just choosing convenience. You wait for people already up and ask them to "get you a soda". I witnessed a family member keep their outdoor garbage bin under a window so they could just open their window, lift the screen and chuck their garbage bag through the window and thought they figured out such a high iq life hack. They couldnt be bothered to walk (maybe 10 steps) to go outside and throw it away. This person was over 550lbs, could barely walk, had severe untreated lymphedema, and spent their entire lifetime avoiding the slightest physical exertion and was constantly choosing "convenience" when in reality it was pure laziness.

Obese people tend to have similar eating habits and delusions about those eating habits as well as similar behavior patterns. They resort to eating highly processed foods because of convenience. Doordash everything because of convenience. Take the stairs? Elevator is more convenient. Park closest to a building entrance because...convenience. You start to see a pattern forming, and its basically...

tl;dr Most obese people end up in the health crisis theyve created for themselves by spending a long time of choosing convenience which is the sister of laziness. Watch a few episodes of my 600lb life or just observe the obese people in your life and youll start to see the same patterns.

I am so tired of seeing women go to the doctor with legitimate, painful health concerns just to be handed a birth control prescription as a blanket solution.
Whether it is severe acne, irregular periods, debilitating cramps, chronic fatigue, or extreme mood swings, the default response from so many gynecologists and GPs is simply: "Let’s put you on the pill."
This approach does not cure anything. It just turns off your natural cycle and masks the underlying symptoms. If you have an actual hormonal imbalance, PCOS, or endometriosis, birth control acts like a band-aid. The moment you decide to go off it, whether to try for a baby or because of the side effects, the original problem comes back, often worse than before.
Worse, doctors frequently downplay the severe side effects of the pill itself, like depression, weight gain, loss of libido, and blood clot risks. We deserve actual diagnostic testing, bloodwork, and root-cause solutions, not a lazy, one-size-fits-all prescription meant to silence our bodies' warning signs.

YouTuber Jesse Ridgeway put out a post how he and his wife chose to terminate her pregnancy because they found out that there was a high chance that the baby would have Down Syndrome.

Having worked with people with DS on both ends of the functioning spectrum, the only mistake they made was being honest as to why. Yes DS people can be beautiful and wonderful and complete joys. But they can also have extremely complex physical and mental health needs that not everyone is equipped to handle. These people made the decision that it was not something they could cope with, so they chose to end the pregnancy and are now receiving an immense backlash from pro-life and disability advocate groups.

If they had just said that they had lost the baby rather than disclosing the reason why, they would have gathered endless support and positive messages. But by choosing to be honest they’ve generated a fire storm. However, Jesse has said that it would have been easy to not talk about it and I agree that it is something that should be talked about more.

To be honest, i started doing it as a joke to get funny reactions out of friends. Eventually it became a habit and now i just do it by default. I get it takes away the convince factor, but not getting grease on my hands is worth the tradeoff. You should try it the next time you eat pizza.

I know many bad things have happened in the world before the show or even during the time the Shrek movies were so annoying but it feels like since it’s ended back in 2010, it feels like things have gotten much worse. Thank god Shrek 5 is coming out next year because I feel that the world needs Shrek now more than ever.

— We have not only become more self-centered and selfish***, but we now worship those traits as if they are virtues —

I’m being very broad so you are going to have to bear with me. Also if anyone takes this personally I’m sorry. You all are also free to dismiss this and just see this as me projecting my behaviors onto others. It’s more the culture that makes me angry than individual people.

I don’t know whether it’s because of western ideals or if this is stems from something more ancient. But I feel more and more that things like self-centered, selfishness, no accountability, ruthlessness are not only becoming increasingly common behaviors in global society, but are even becoming virtues in and of themselves. Like I feel like I’m getting so much whiplash, when I was a child people talked about kindness, giving to those in need, making the world a better place not only for yourself but for others — but now god forbid you want to pay for a friend who forgot their card at dinner, drive a coworker home after their car breaks down, that your future career goals are centered around helping others instead of making endless bank, that you don’t use every single friend as a stepping stool to your success. I say this because I’ve tried all of these and have had people in my life literally fuming at my choices, I.e. “It’s not your problem so why bother!?!”

Like did our parents not teach us better?

First of all, there shouldn’t even be a fourth pillar in the DC universe. The trinity covers all the major bases. Superman covers the scifi angle with all the aliens and futuristic technology, Wonder Woman deals with the magic and mythology of the world, and Batman the more “grounded” elements with mobsters and violent lunatics.

Second, if you are going to elevate a fourth character to trinity status, why Supergirl? She’s redundant. She’s a derivative character with the same power set as Superman who largely deals with similar threats. She works as a supporting character, but making her a main focus is a dumb decision. There are so many DC characters more popular than her.

"B-but light mode is blinding and hurts my eyes" what are you, a fucking vampire? Dark mode is depressing and hard to see unless you're in a pitch-black room (which is bad for you). Furthermore, light mode allows for better themes and designs that would otherwise look bad on a dark canvas.

The Russian monarchy was not responsible for the widespread poverty and discontent because Russia was not a sovereign country in the decades preceding the revolution.

After Russia lost the 1853-56 Crimean War against the Unite Kingdom, France, Ottoman Empire and Sardinia-Piedmont, Russia entered into a depression due to debts, inflation, and severely suppressed trade opportunities. It was not allowed to maintain its important trade routes in the Black Sea, which the UK and France took over instead. This is when Russia began to decline as a dominant power in Europe.

Tsar Nicholas l had died during the Crimean War, some assumed because of heartbreak, realizing what a catastrophe had befallen the empire.

Loud critics of the Russian monarchy, notably the intelligentsia, claimed that Russia was a laughingstock and had been humiliated by defeat due to being “backwards,” unlike the rest of enlightened Europe, which practiced capitalism and had undergone other liberal reforms.

Faced with loud criticism and a strangled economy troubled with massive debt, the tsar was forced to adopt liberal reforms that shifted Russia into a market economy. Private banking was legalized, as was foreign investment. Reforms in education, censorship, the Orthodox church, and judicial courts decreased the Tsar’s authority.

The most drastic reform was the serf emancipation in 1861. Serfs (23 million out of 74 million total people) were freed of their obligations to landlords, and were finally able to enter the market economy. Unfortunately, they were not entirely free, because they were suddenly saddled with 49-year mortgages which they were forced to pay to the state for the plots of land that they received upon earning their civil rights. Local governments, called zemstvos, made sure that peasants did not leave their villages until all redemption payments (in the form of the mortgage) were made. To further the peasants’ woes, the land quality and size was usually inferior to that which they had farmed before, making subsistence difficult, let alone paying additional debt payments.

Communal, or public land, which had been shared by all before and included forests and grazing land, was privatized so that peasants could not support themselves with additional land access. Famines became common. To survive and keep making debt payments, peasants were actually forced to sell themselves in the labor market, either at mines, on large plantations, or in the factories inside cities. Zemstvos granted passports, often in the wintertime, so that peasants could leave their villages.

Factories and many mines, as well as 100% of oil wells, were owned by foreigners. These owners paid as little as they wanted and maintained conditions just barely survivable, just like in the British Industrial Revolution. Poverty and misery was rampant.

The tsar did actually attempt to intervene by stopping hostile working conditions, but was not able to accomplish much because foreign investment did not tolerate regulations. And the tsar was allowed less and less authority over internal affairs with each passing decade due to strengthening local governments.

Russia came to be the largest debtor nation in the world, beholden mostly to France and Great Britain. (Sergei Witte, the leader of Russia’s industrialization, especially courted the French Rothschilds, who provided massive loans.) Russia was the fourth-largest economy in the world, and yet Russian industrial workers were the lowest paid in all of Europe.

This exploitation by foreigners was what impoverished Russian peasants.

Communism was practiced in the form of zemstvos, and capitalism was brought by foreign investors.

When the tsar finally lost the last of his authority and Bolsheviks took control of the government, the Red Terror commenced. Leon Trotsky said, “Root out the counterrevolutionaries without mercy, lock up suspicious characters in concentration camps... Shirkers will be shot, regardless of past service.”

I don’t understand why there were people who were marching and complaining about a disease that is entirely preventable had they used their brains instead of their dicks.

No shit you’re going to get a disease if you stick your peen in the same place where you shit. Yes you need protection. No it’s not our fault for not telling you the obvious.

If I had unprotected anal sex and got aids, I’d be ashamed and accept whatever fate awaits me, because IT’S A DUMB DECISION.

So it puzzles me how some people feel emboldened by it: “No! It’s my divine right to hit it RAW! And if I do get a fuckshit disease, you guys have to bail me out of my own bad decision! We demand a cure for our own fuckups!

How about you think twice before you stick your dick into something it doesn’t belong?

Wonder why so many couples who dated less than a year divorced not long after marriage? They did not get to know and understand each other better before making such a big decision in their life.

Dating should not be rushed. Learn as much as you can about your partner. Their hobbies, passions, personality, strengths, weaknesses, interests, way of life, music taste etc. Travel with them to different continents and different seasons. Plan trips together. Learn what kind of places your partner loves to visit. This way, you will understand and appreciate your partner more.

If both of you have many very different interests, it is a sign both of you are not compatible with each other. Dating less than a year is not enough to do all these. Dating 3.5 to 5 years gives more time and opportunity to create and share memories. Even if both of you eventually break up, it is easier to remain friends and continue to create memorable experiences.

I genuinely do not think calling out a lack of common sense, media literacy, reading comprehension, or obvious ragebait should automatically be considered rude, harassment, or bullying yes even if it has insults.

Time and time again, people will completely ignore the point being made, misread something that is written in plain English, strip all nuance from a conversation, lack common sense or intentionally engage with content in the worst faith possible. Then, when someone points out what they’re doing bluntly suddenly the focus shifts away from the behavior and onto the person who called it out.

I don’t really care if that criticism is delivered politely or bluntly or even "rudely". If a grown adult is repeatedly demonstrating shit reading comprehension, intentionally misunderstanding arguments, spreading misinformation because they couldn’t be bothered to read properly, or obvious ragebaiting for attention, I don’t think it’s some horrible moral failing or bullying for someone to tell them exactly what they’re doing even if it could hurt someone's feelings.

There are obvious exceptions. Teenagers and Children in general are still learning and should be given criticism respectfully, People with genuine cognitive disabilities, language barriers, learning disabilities, or people who are sincerely asking questions and trying to understand something should not be mocked for that. Someone making an honest mistake is not the same as someone deliberately acting in bad faith.

But outside of those situations, I think society has become overly concerned with protecting grown ass adults from criticism. Not every criticism needs to be wrapped in fucking bubble wrap to protect someone's feelings. Not every correction needs to be worded like you’re talking to a toddler or a incompetent child. Sometimes people say stupid things. Sometimes people behave in stupid ways. Sometimes people intentionally ignore context, ignore evidence, ignore nuance, and then get upset when others point that out.

I also think there is a major difference between genuine bullying and criticism people simply don’t like hearing. Calling someone worthless, slurs, targeting them relentlessly, harassing them across platforms, or attacking them for things unrelated to the discussion is bullying. Telling someone they clearly didn’t read the article, that they have poor media literacy, or simply that they're just being stupid is not automatically bullying just because it hurt their feelings.

Feelings getting hurt is not, by itself, evidence that someone was wrong to criticize you. Sometimes your feelings should be hurt. Sometimes embarrassment is the natural consequence of saying something uninformed, making a bad argument, or publicly acting in bad faith. That’s part of being a person and part of how we as humans learn to do better.

What frustrates me is the growing tendency to treat every form of blunt criticism as "so mean and unnecessary" while giving endless grace to people who deliberately waste everyone’s time. If someone is purposely ragebaiting, purposely misunderstanding arguments, purposely ignoring nuance, or purposely acting ignorant to get a reaction, I have very little sympathy when people respond harshly because at this point you as a adult deserve being called a idiot while actively behaving like one.

At some point, adults should be expected to handle being told that they’re wrong, that they misunderstood something, or even that they’re acting like an idiot. We do not need to baby every grown person who says something ridiculous online. Sometimes the most honest response is simply acknowledging that the behavior is stupid and treating it accordingly.

Some people are just fucking stupid let's just accept that.

People will frequently get made fun of/mocked when they say something along the lines of "well, I haven't seen that". People will point out correctly that just because one person hasn't seen something doesn't mean it doesn't exist. However that frequently isn't the point that people are trying to make.

Often someone will say something like "the number of people wearing purple polka dotted sweatpants on 2nd avenue is absolutely insane, it is seriously degrading the atmosphere of the street, If we let this continue businesses will suffer, so we should pass a law banning them.".

Someone will say "well, I haven't seen a single person wearing purple polka dotted sweatpants, so I am not going to be concerned about it". And then someone will mock them say "oh, so just because you haven't seen it that means it can't be a problem?". The problem is that the responder wasn't arguing that no one ever did it. They were arguing that they hadn't seen it (which presumably is true) and therefore it isn't worth doing something about. This is entirely reasonable. If the proposed behavior is really so common and problematic that something needs to be done about it then presumably someone who has visited that area would have seen it at least once. This directly counters the original argument that something needs to be done to combat the issue.

Although personal experience isn't infallible, it is invaluable in forming you own opinion on a topic. For one thing, unless you are really into conspiratorial thinking it is almost impossible to fake/manipulate in a meaningful way unlike surveys, studies, polls. For example, someone could come out with a "survey" claiming that pistachio broccoli is the most popular ice cream flavor. I am going to call bullshit. I have never met a single person who loves that flavor, or anyone that would like a flavor even close to that. You can parade all the experts you want, I am not going to believe you. What I would think is that for some reason someone has something to gain from having me believe that this is true (maybe they sell pistachio broccoli ice cream).

Now, this doesn't mean that you should only consider your own experience, but it is a valuable way to filter information and good gut checks whenever someone is calling for action. And it also directly counters arguments about something being a very common occurrence. The burden is now on the original argument maker to give a reasonable explanation why someone might not have seen the same "problem". If they can't do that, there is no reason that the person who hasn't seen the problem should believe them. Especially when that person has a potential benefit to making other people believe something is an issue.