Thank on your knees to fate that you weren’t born in Egypt
There’s no worse cesspit on earth that isn’t a warzone
Even India is more civilised and even nice folks in comparison
Friend of my friend once said that staying there she will either kill herself, get r**** or join hamas and she eventually joined hamas so yeah
My friend is from Egypt and he says the same but I have no idea what exactly is there that is so bad. Can I elaborate.
I’ve been to Egypt several times, and sometimes I’ve stayed with people who have moved there.
The impression I get is that there very few ways for people born there to raise themselves up above what I call “The Hustle”. There’s a state of being where the key to survival is extracting money out of everyone you meet. By fair means or foul, you must make money.
It can be making sure every person that walks into your shop buys something. It can be being a kerb crawling tuk tuk driver pestering walkers by. It can be thieving. It can be taking bribes in local government. Everybody is on the hustle. You can’t afford to trust people because they’ll take any advantage they can. It’s a permanent state of stress and fear.
…and then there are the immigrant whales that move there, buy a big house on the coast and exploit the locals by flashing the cash.
All of that said, when people do manage to find something stable, they’re a great people, but there are so few decent ways to make enough money.
Mentality is just merciless and cruel. Years of generational human abuse. Abused become abusers. Corruption, nepotism, patriarchy. On Egypt Facebook your feed is full of videos of animal abuse and laughing smileys in comments. It’s a dark place
Using ‘civilized’ in this context evokes a bit too much Western colonial brain rot for my tastes.
India and Egypt are two very different countries geographically, culturally and politically.
India has its own problems with Hindu fascism.
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If enough locals had their way, we would return to an independent republic
It’s good to put your own problems into perspective sometimes.
Am I allowed to complain since I live in the USA ?
Do what I do. Grit your teeth and avoid the headlines. Check in daily but don’t get sucked in. Check the uplifting news to feel better.
No. You and your fellow citizens voted for this.
I voted Harris so no I didnt vote for this.
no, not all of us did. it just so happens that morons yell the loudest
Either people voted against him, for him, or abstained from voting (implicitly agreeing with whatever decision the majority made).
The last two groups there, vastly outweighed the first one in this election.
You’re right, not everyone wanted this… But that’s how democracy is. You vote and, at least in theory, the person that the most people vote for (believe in/agree with), is then made president.
By definition, democracy will always have people who didn’t vote for the current government.
All I’m saying is that either by action (voting for Trump) or inaction (not voting), a majority decided that he should become president.
You dug your bed, now lie in it ?
More or Less.
Personally I blame the absentee voters. People who could have voted, but didn’t, and by not voting, indirectly supported Trump in winning the election.
Unless there’s a serious shake up of how things work in the USA, there’s shit all that can be done about it now, since getting him out of office requires that the people near the top (senators/Congress/whatever) need to take action in indict him and start the process of ejecting him from office, but then they’ll be left with the current VP, and I’m not sure that’s better.
Either way, nobody at the top is taking action against Trump, so the whole thing is moot. They have grounds, but they are not willing to do it.
GG. RIP the USA.
Assuming you meant “voted”:
No, I and many others didn’t, actually, maybe learn how our voting system works before throwing gover half the country into a bus with less than half the country
I think you mean “over”. (Thanks, I make many typos, just returning the favor)
And… Didn’t Trump get the popular vote this time around? So more there were more voters for Trump than anyone else?
Idk. I don’t live there but I know your voting system well enough… Since everyone wants to talk about it, apparently.
The fact that he won, even by a small amount, which… In this case, he won by more than a small amount, is the point. You and your fellow Americans knew what you were signing up for, and you knew what he was saying he will do this time around. None of this was a surprise. He’s been talking deportation and tariffs for over a year. Now that they’re here, suddenly a lot of people are regretting their decisions… Again, this was not a surprise. They voted for this and yet take issue when this exact thing happens.
There may be many people who didn’t vote that could have, who would have voted against Trump, but the fact is, by not voting, you are implicitly agreeing with whatever decision is made by your fellow citizens. Putting the decision in their hands. As someone once said “if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.”
Either you voted for it, you were okay with letting others decide and you’re complicit, or, you were part of the minority of people who voted against Trump. One of these three things is true for each and every American.
I’m sorry, but this is what the majority of the people in your country wanted.
I’ve never understood the argument that you shouldn’t complain about the environment you interact with because other people interact with worse environments.
Like, okay, that’s good to keep in mind with respect to privilege and assumptions and such, but like…
I can’t deliver a first-hand account of someone else’s life, and I can’t identify the possible solutions to their problems as well as I can for my own — let alone access their world as well as my own, to try to fix some of the problems.
I think on some level the people who say “focus on those other people’s problems” know that those other problems are less accessible.
It’s not that they want you to do better activism. It’s that they want you to do none.
It’s basically whataboutism
I’ve never understood the argument that you shouldn’t complain about the environment you interact with because other people interact with worse environments.
I call this the “children of Africa” -argument. Basically, it’s an argument that you can never complain about anything or do anything to better something, because “some kids are starving in Africa”; someone always has it worse. It’s purpose is to belittle and brush aside either the problem worded out or the person saying it (or both).
The argument that we shouldn’t worry about things because there are worse circumstances out there essentially implies a race to the bottom.
It implies we can’t fix anything about anything except the worst thing, so everything else will naturally degrade and decline.
We won’t fix the worst thing either because it’s too remote.
i think the joke here is that a lot of people who come across this do live in America and it implies we all pity them
Actually fr! Studied a year there and I had no driver license back then… Which was fuckin painful as there was little to no other infrastructure! It was also fun to start uni with a 2 hour consultation about school shootings…
But the worst thing? They fucken start every conversation with a ‘how are you’ and look at you like you are boinkers if you say anything aside from ‘good’! Well I am not fuckin good at most times…
Lived in multiple eu countries as a contrast and its incomparably worse, while there is an amount of money I would go back temporarily but I would never settle down there
I have a coworker who greets me with “Hi, what’s up? How’s it going?” and then just continue walking without expecting an answer. It’s such a pet peeve of mine, lol. We’re not Americans, we live in Europe, and this person is definitely an exception, but it still catches me off guard every single time.
You see, “how are you?” Isn’t a genuine quotation, it’s just a way of saying “hello” and feigning interest in someone’s well-being. In all actual fact, nobody gives a shit.
Just say “fine” and move on.
I say “doing alright, how about you”l and that usually covers it
This is so strange of you start to think about it: A whole country decided to ask about your feelings, which is a super deep question. But it doesn’t accept anything other than “fine”. Like, you are not greeting someone by wishing them well, or peace or welcoming them, but by demanding a fixed fake answer that everything is offs. It makes the one who greets look like they care. But they usually do not. So every conversation has to start with a lie by the person who was greeted first.
There’s a lot more thats superficial about America if you keep looking.
So you have to answer it? To what sort of languical constructs are you expected to answer?
You don’t have to. It’s socially accepted and preferred if you do, but I have, and have had done to me, simply ignoring the question and moving the conversation forward to the point.
I live in Canada, we follow a lot of the same here, I try to be more genuine than the average and give a nonspecific but truthful response. Anything from “I’m having a day”, to “it could be worse”, or “not the worst” kind of deal. Basically setting a low bar for how I’m doing and saying I’m somewhere above that.
You don’t have to reply with “fine”, but it’s one of the fastest ways to end the greeting part of the conversation and move on to more important topics.
Wait, so y’all don’t have to lie and tell people you’re doing good? This is an American thing?
Yeah…
I am an American but have had a lot of friends from all over the world.
We are kind of exceptional in the extent of normalized, utterly disingenuous ‘standard social interactions and phrases’ that we use.
We talk like NPCs using throwaway, canned dialogue lines, and if we don’t do NPC talk, well then that is actually viewed as antisocial…
Even though basically everyone else in the world would view this all as the opposite, inverted. Such forced bullshit conversations are generally viewed as bullshit and disingenuous.
Land of the individual!..
So long as you conform to various social norms that are so routine most of us don’t ever even stop to question their prevalence or function.
I hear ya, but I gotta say, America ain’t nothing compared to Japan in that regards. They have actual standardized stock phrases for all types of interactions, at work and at home. I have been in meetings where some participants literally didn’t utter a single word that resembled an original thought, and it was completely acceptable.
That is very true, Japanese corporate business culture is on a whole other level.
Somewhat ironically, all my experiences with actual Japanese people are via Karate… in the Dojo, very strict, formal, no nonsense.
But uh, just casually hanging out? At least the ones I knew,… much more rowdy, haha.
Unrelated to my earlier Karate experiences, about a decadr after I’d gotten my black belt, and had since laid off Karate a bit… I once randomly befriended a Japanese man… who claimed he had been an actual Yakuza, a Yakushi… he explained to me that he had fucked up some operation, and instead of losing a finger, his superior struck him with the blunt side of the… I guess it would have been a waki-zashi?.. stuck him on the knuckle, and that finger of his was pretty messed up.
He took that, and permanent exile from Japan, over… losing a finger, and then likely just getting killed… he’d pissed off another group pretty severely.
… We then got to talking about Anime, Yokai, and of course Karate… said he was a 4th Dan, 4th Degree Black Belt and uh… yeah, he was very, very significantly skilled in a few basically play fight, not even proper sparring bs we got into a few times.
Initially, he said he wanted me to prove I wasn’t bullshitting about my black belt. Gave him my Style and as much family lineage of it that I remembered… and he then, almost totally without warning, threw a punch right at my face.
I did nothing. Didn’t move at all.
His fist stopped about a half centimeter from my nose.
He laughed, said ‘You blinked’, I laughed, and he believed me after that.
Yeah pretty much. Most of us don’t even ask.
if they’re a friend we will often ask but then we want a genuine reply (which isn’t always given)
Yes. Among friends it’s different.
Wow
That would save so much bullshit if I could just skip that stupid pleasantry.
I tell people how I’m doing now and then to throw people off. Feels sort of like a power play, but they usually seem to think “wow this guy is full of himself.”
If anyone asks me how I’m doing my bog standard response is “Fucking terrible but apart from that I’m OK.”
They probably get annoyed because you didn’t say ‘fine’ and now they have to think about you to see if you’re kidding or not which should hopefully make them think about asking in the future
That’s the idea.
It doesn’t work most of the time. I got a talking to from one manager. That one kinda entertained me.
Hell that’s regional even in the US. Most social interactions in the PNW used “What’s up!” in whatever variation to mean “Hi!” and “How’s it going/are you doing?” meant "Tell new how you’re feeling or how your day/task is progressing“. Honest answers were quite normal. The only people who were bothered were the bourgie types, and fuck 'em in any case.
We also just didn’t talk to unfamiliar people outside of social spaces if it could be helped.
Ehhhhh, this is not standard in all places. If someone asks me how I am I will answer honestly but vaguely. “Living the dream, I’ve been better, meh, good, pretty good.” It’s common for other people to answer the same way, too. The part that’s not as socially acceptable is to go into detail about it if you don’t know the people well/people don’t have follow up questions about it.
Why would you do that ngl. If someone asks how I am, of course I tell the truth. If they don’t want to know, they shouldn’t have asked.
You’ll be at work, walking the opposite direction as a co-worker who you are seeing for the first time that day. “How are you?” You can’t stop to talk, so you only have time for a 1-3 word answer max.
“How are you?” is a greeting, not a question.
…Unless it’s from a close friend.Are you supposed to answer it? Yes? So its a question wowsies…
No, you aren’t necessarily expected to answer. “Hi” is a totally normal and expected response, for example.
In the US. That’s the point. If I get asked that, the other person generally has some degree of interest in my genuine answer
Yes, I’m affirming the commenter and letting other viewers know this is the standard and not just OPs perception.
Well then the question mark is a lie
I’ve even seen it a lot that people don’t even reply to “how are you”, they just start talking about something else. So weird…
They interpreted it as [acknowledgement that they are aware of your presence], which it most likely is.
We are so fucked.
If you think the USA’s domestic policy is terrible and social murder, wait till you find out about its foreign policies. They do social murder too, but regular murder, mass murder, and terrorism sponsored by the richest nation are also on the table.
That gun country?
The soon to be Chinese subsidiary.
Good point. There can’t be anyone left alive by now.
Nobody is except one person. It’s Mr Rogers in a blood stained sweater.
“There can be only one”
sigh. why have a reddit alternative if its just the same as reddit.
It’s not the same, you don’t get banned for mentioning Luigi or criticizing Musk here
You would never get banned for. Criticizing musk or trump on reddit either.
I mean, you joined and commented on world.
Sorry, I’m new to lemmy. But that explains a few things, thankd. So is there different versions, and is .world left leaning? Do you know if there are any center leaning, or even slightly right leaning versions of lemmy then? Cheers.
World is basically reddit lite, full of reddit refugees who want the reddit experience without the reddit baggage.
Lemmy as a whole is left-leaning, sometimes so far left it loops back around (i.e tankies). I’m not an expert on the other instances, but I know well enough to avoid the tankie ones.
From farther back that I care to remember
Mom has more fingers than daughter? This just feels like AI slop
The weird sepia tone and rigid composition is a pretty solid indicator of AI generation (no idea which model[s] though)
All of them, it seems like.
Are you not human? Children don’t grow all their fingers until they’re around 16. Maybe do some research next time, gleepglorp.
Both of them staring blankly ahead’s a big tell, too.
You do know that fingers can obscure other fingers from certain angles, right?
Or do you think the mom has 5 fingers on one hand and only 4 on the other?
Okay but it’s still definitely soulless AI slop, fingers aside
I don’t need these clues like the number of fingers anymore, just look at how soulless that image looks. This is either AI or an artist that lost their will to live.
Yeah, OK. I never said it wasn’t 🤷
From farther back that I care to remember
then what did you mean by this? you seemed to imply that this was an old comic from a while ago
I’m really very sorry that you can’t figure this out on your own. But then again, intelligence isn’t for everyone…
lmao ok dude
Lol, you’re the one who came complaining…
i merely asked a question, I wasn’t complaining at all
Oh yeah… from way before we got AI image generation tools… not that that has anything to do with it… dont worry about it… its from far back…
Thoughts and prayers
So this is Christmas
Camera slowly pans across various shots of Americans
And what have you done?
1 800 number comes up on the screen for donations
I hope they find a cure lol (lots of love)
got license to complain then
