Ioper
1mo ago
I mean, the urbanisation rate of those countries at the time of their civil wars were sub 30% which was about half of the European average.
Ioper
1mo ago
Is there just a vast reserve of ball-washers on the internet?
Yes, and as more people get online the worse it gets. This is further magnified by negative comments increasingly getting filtered (often automatically) and positive ones getting boosted.
Its in general not in a content creator's interest to have their comment section not being positive, regardless of actual audience reaction.
I haven't read a ton of ACT and even less of the comments (due to tech issues with substack comments) but are they better than the SSC blog comments? Things were getting pretty dire towards the end there.
Ioper
2mo ago
A most ill order them by location and dependency but mostly I try to not think about it at all because then I'll start procrastinating. The important part for me is to get going since that's the hard part for me. Once I'm actually working I don't need motivation to keep working.
Its like exercising, the hard part isn't finishing your workout when you're at the gym, it's going to the gym.
Ioper
2mo ago
In the meantime, I'll get warmed up here.
My wife commented just today that it was intolerably hot outside at the playground. It was 22c (in the shade).
Ioper
2mo ago
You don't want the type of people who are unemployed to take care of your kids though.
The people you want taking care of your kids are unaffordable since they've better options. The market can't really solve this for the middle class. The best you can do is usually hiring teenage girls from middle class+ families, but they can't do that full time for obvious reasons.
Ioper
2mo ago
I don't really understand your complaint, having a cleaning lady is not some rich person extravagance. Its affordable for pretty much everyone in society. If you have a job, you can afford it.
Ioper
2mo ago
Just reading the Wikipedia article leaves me with the naive impression that we know that it was a horror show of abuse and barbarism but that we have a very poor idea what happened on a demographic level (what percentage of the population died? How much of the decline was reduced briths as opposed to deaths? Was the decline 10% or 50%? Etc.) and to what degree the Belgians were directly responsible as opposed to criminally negligent.
Ioper
2mo ago
Fucking everything I do is tiptoeing around not triggering anyone's anxiety so as not to be treated as a threat,
This unfortunately sounds exactly like something one type predator would do...
Its a fairly common thing with glasses due to the very large per unit margins for the frames. There might be some restrictions but you can often get a much more expensive item discounted.
Ioper
2mo ago
Kind of but it isn't necessarily a right/left thing and people don't necessarily falsify their opinions.
b) normie Europeans voted for Israel for political reasons because they're more sympathetic to the Israeli cause than the Palestinian - seem not to have occurred to her.
I don't know whether this is true or not but I think it's at least not unreasonable for people to get the impression that the support for Palestine is far more universal than it is, especially among people older than 25.
Its mostly the far left that is concerned enough about the topic to publicly talk about and organise protests about the issue, which can leave the impression of much more widespread support than actually exists. Furthermore, the far left is also pissing people off by being histrionic and obnoxious which can lead to people opposing Palestine out of spite rather than opinions on the conflict.
Just looking at my own friend group this is pretty much the case. The only one that brings up the topic is the far left guy, but at a poker night when he didn't show up and the topic came up, it turned out everyone else is either apathetic or quietly pro-israel/anti-Hamas, people just didn't want to get into a fight with the pro-palestine guy.
I think this a fairly frequent thing happening and especially with the left due to their ability to organise protests.
Ioper
2mo ago
My experience is largely contrary to yours but the final one is exactly me and my wife, not in small part because my wife likes to 'tidy up' and rearrange things. I have a very good memory and don't lose things, unless someone moves them. What I'm bad at is not remembering where things are but searching for and finding things that have been moved.
Ioper
2mo ago
I thought Huel was pretty good but then they switched all their products to pea protein and just can't stand it. It tastes similar to puke.
Ioper
2mo ago
Here it's more uncanny valley stuff imo. The correct words are used but it comes off as a status insecure under/working class person studying up before going to the best restaurant in town, trying to impress their boss/date/family with words they learned an hour ago. Its barely a step up from ordering "your most expensive wine".
This is of course fine when that is what's literally happening in the story but it rarely if ever is.
Ioper
2mo ago
Related to this, I've noticed that various webnovel authors seem to be using the same LLM for describing high society activities and products that they likely have little to no personal experience with.
Well, its either that or they're doing a remarkable job at copying each others style but only in this particular area...
Fun fact: Japan has almost 2x the tfr of korea. Japan has managed to stabilise and even reverse the trend somewhat while Korea breaks new records of low tfr every year.
Ioper
2mo ago
Just because i haven't seen it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Maybe it's a American thing related to regulations or something.
Ioper
2mo ago
There are no bottom vents,
I have genuinely never seen a grill in any price class (except one time use ones) without bottom vents. Its Not like this is some expensive innovation requiring precision engineering. You just need holes in the bottom.
Even my mini portable grill bought from the supermarket for like 20$ has bottom vents.
Ioper
2mo ago
It works reasonably well as pain management for certain types of chronic pain.
Ioper
2mo ago
Whats wrong with tea and what is non sweet juice? Do you mean juice that has had its fructose somehow removed or just juice without added sugar? If it's the latter then I don't see the problem, unsweetened juice is still incredibly sweet.
Ioper
2mo ago
One thing I wish I would’ve done while pregnant was the whole freezer meal prep thing. Having healthy food to eat while breastfeeding and recovering from delivery is really helpful to me physically and mentally but can be hard to prepare when I’m home alone with baby all day.
I second this and if you can get the grandparents involved in cooking for you then that can be really helpful. My mother really wanted to help out but was cognizant of that visiting too often could be a more of a burden than help so she got to cook and freeze meals for us that she could drop off once a week or so the first couple of months.
She got to be involved and help out and we got a really valuable help. The alternative had probably been a lot more takeout and very simple meals, and m frankly much more stress.
All parents are different but if someone has a strong desire to be helpful then this is something valuable they can do.
Isn't it pretty common for retirement savings being tied up in stocks, and other wealth in real estate?
A lot of wealth will be passed on to younger generations but that isn't primarily stocks, for the broad middle class anyway.
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