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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 13th, 2023

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  • Absolutely! Like I said, this is a topic I’ve always struggled with, and I’ve leaned both ways. I just so happen to be leaning on the side of recreational air travel this week lol.

    The example with Prague strikes me as rooted in capitalism, not so much tourism. Like, ideally governments (local or otherwise) in tourist-heavy areas step in and implement things that address those capitalistic problems you describe - penalize rental property conglomerates, enforce a liveable minimum wage, build affordable permanent housing and mixed-use spaces, etc. I hear your comparison between tourism and imperialism, and I get that some tourist areas are pretty awful where the local residents are treated as subhuman and that definitely sucks, but idk, it feels more like a capitalist/classist issue to me.


  • I think the difference is that it’s harder (impossible-feeling) for people with ADHD to abandon the nostalgia box distraction and get back to the chore they were doing. Or, once a person with ADHD finishes going through the nostalgia box and starts coming down off that dopamine hit, it can be hard (impossible-feeling) to do anything afterwards, let alone the boring chore, leaving the person stuck in a “frozen” state.

    Obviously there are different levels of severity to ADHD, and my understanding of it is colored/biased by my personal experience, I’m not a doctor, etc., but this is the difference I’ve noticed at least.


  • Do you think “having tourism” would do more damage than “not having tourism”? Because that’s what we’re really comparing here. Tourism may be a net negative, but if the absence of tourism is a bigger net negative, well, I’d argue that “having tourism” is the better option.

    Obviously making tourism into a net positive should be the goal, but that’s a whole different discussion (which your idea of “educational holidays” probably fits into). But I don’t think we get there with a blanket ban on most forms of air travel. Not to mention, making air travel more efficient/greener would have huge ripple effects across multiple industries. That seems like a no-brainer approach to me, at least in the long term.


  • Man, this is one I’ve tried to wrestle with multiple times. I feel like there are monumental benefits to trans-Atlantic/trans-Pacific recreational flights (really just most long international flights). Banning those would almost certainly increase feelings of isolation, and probably make the already-rampant xenophobia plaguing the world even worse. There really aren’t viable alternatives to flying for getting across a multi-thousand-mile-wide ocean - boats are too slow for the average person, and building trains over the ocean is impractical. Maybe the focus should be on making planes more environmentally friendly, instead of outright banning them?





  • You can save quite a bit by getting a refurbished Pixel - looks like the cheapest “Google certified” option (so it comes with a 1-year warranty) is a 6a for $250, which is nearly half off MSRP. I’ve been using my 6a since launch, so it’s been going for 3 years now and I have no desire to upgrade.

    You can definitely get cheaper smartphones, but $250 for a 6a feels like a pretty big bang for your buck.


  • Bro this could be literally any large east-Asian city on an overcast day, most (all?) of which have better urban planning than the rest of the world by a large margin, and most of which fall firmly on the “capitalist” side of the spectrum. “Bloc” housing (or as we call them over here, big-ass apartment buildings) aren’t some communist-exclusive phenomenon.



  • Eh, splitting the party (or at least exposing the division within the party) is a long shot, but it’s really the only productive way forward if the Democrats want to actually change and fix things. Repeatedly exposing Democrats that vote against the people’s interests is the most surefire way to get those Democrats voted out and replaced with more progressive candidates. Failing that, breaking away from the Democratic party and forming a new more progressive party isn’t the worst long-term option, even if it (probably) won’t be very effective in the near-term.






  • What difference does to make if someone is sitting on the bench, laying down, standing, crouching, or in any other comfortable resting position? It’s a public bench, to be used by the public however they see fit, as long as they’re not causing harm.

    It’s weird to enforce the “correct” usage of a public bench, or the “correct” amount of space a person is allowed to take up, especially with such drastic elements that you yourself admit are not very effective.


  • Literally anyone using the bench potentially prevents someone else from also using the bench. Why is it a bigger deal when it’s a homeless person doing the using? Also, I’m sure there are other more attention grabbing options than a flyer, if we use our imaginations a little bit. Why is your focus on prevention and not education/outreach anyways?



  • If you were in marching band, there’s a good possibility that you had more thorough training in marching than what’s given in basic training, especially if you went to competitions. Marching makes up like half the activity of marching band (it’s in the name). Marching is only one of a plethora of things that are taught during the few months of basic training, and once you’re out of basic, you may never have to march again.

    I also think your expectations on how rhythmically-inclined the average person (or soldier) is might be on the high side based on your experience in an activity with a bunch of highly rhythmically-inclined people.