People have a right to be stupid, though.

A lot of culture, is irrational and or superstitious. Tibetan culture has a lot of that, Chinese culture as well and American culture is also no exception.

You may find that disagreeable and not worth preserving, and I’m even inclined to agree with that on many occasions. But who is to decide which parts of ones own culture can be done away with, if not the people practicing that culture?

Can I decide which parts of your culture don’t agree with MY values and take that away from you?

It was more of a rhethorical question and I wanted to imply, that it’s not a significant number. But data (even if it’s somewhat poorly presented) is always appreciated.

I’m surprised to see that there are more catholics than I’d have guessed and one could argue that the pope is a religious icon whose word matters to many even if they’re not part of his specific denomination.

But on the other hand, a lot of people who represent as catholics may have been raised catholic but we don’t know how much of a role that plays in their life and their political views or how much they really follow religious authority. I was raised catholic myself and for loads of people who are part of that church, the word of the pope isn’t really their law to live by.

And then there’s also cognitive dissonance, that I imagine to play a big role with MAGA-hats.

All in all, I’d say the pope’s influence is fairly limited there.

How many Americans are catholics though? (And how many of those are hispanics anyways?)

It’s easy to ignore the pope, when he’s not even part of your denomination.

I disagree with that prediction.

The planet will be fine with it. Life will adapt to it. Even humans will survive it, as a species.

But our modern inustrialized civilizations will collapse.

The paradoxical thing is, that those greedy, wealthy elites who are mostly responsible don’t care, because they think they’re the ones to survive, when in reality, their wealth and power relies the most on the status quo of the rules of society.

It’s not ‘just’ about plants and algae dying, it’s about the tipping point for the climate. Oceans are a huge carbon sink, considering all the carbonates that Coral Reefs, Clam Shells and stuff like that are made of. The more acidic it becomes, the more those carbonates will react to become carbon dioxide, that will end up in the atmosphere, thus still enhancing the greenhouse effect.

Bit of a vicious cycle there.

I am happy to criticise the US system at any point, but the notion that it’s a democracy only on paper is a misrepresentation of reality.

They managed to vote Trump out of office, and back in. Something that wouldn’t have been possible if it were not a democracy.

Now the system of course has loads of difficulties and is suffering from extreme economic inequality, that leads to an immense influence of rich people over the undereducated masses, but they still have to spend their money for massive propaganda campaigns to win votes for their side, so the fundamental processes are still democratic.

We’re gonna see if that remains the case by the end of Trump’s second term, though.

Yet it doesn’t occur to them to have DOGE check wether that money is spent responsibly. Wonder why.

Thanks for the info. Didn’t know that and I just assumed from reality that this couldn’t be a case. My fault for mixing up politics with reality. 😅

Alright, I stand corrected. TIL.

Seems like this requirement is kind of a paper tiger, since there’s no deadline and several of the existing Euro coutries don’t even meet the economic criteria.

Though I do understand that it would be a hindrance for the Brits to agree to these terms, even though they’re largely hypoethetical, and given the whole Brexit history, the EU won’t be likely to exempt them from this regultion. I wonder what kind of deal Denmark has made there to be the only exception.

Switching to the Euro was never a requirement for EU membership, though.

Brits didn’t have it before, and there are other EU countries that stick to their national currency.

If there are no clues pointing to another motive, it’s the most likely explanation, thus they are investigating it as such. It’s not a confirmed femicide yet, though.

Also, I’d guess the ideological base that kept monarchies around as a system (at least in Europe) has been shattered fundamentally.
The idea, that the ruling class is put there by god’s grace isn’t something that can work as the foundation of power structures in our post-modern world.
There’s a reason why the remaining monarchies in Europe are really democracies, that simply keep a bunch of monarchs around for representational purposes.

It should also be noted, that a significant part of that motivation is to avoid consequences they’d face for acting out their right-wing extremist, racist views.
Fines, debt and taxes are only the tip of the iceberg.

Two and a half months, they weren’t joking about slow German bureaucracy 😱

Bureaucracy has nothing to do with it.

Oh! You’re bringing up an example from the Australian state of Victoria!

I was just wondering for a minute why homes built during Queen Victoria’s reign were a special challenge for the electricity grid.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian_house

Don’t understand why you’re being downvoted. Because you’re exactly right. They just finished school and very likely don’t have a job. Very likely they are going to want to study later on and are spendig their time between the final school exams in spring and the start of the winter semester at university travelling, as man young Germans do.

Vacation time in Europe is a lot better than the US, but this has nothing to do with it. Depending on your contract you could get 30 days off in Germany, and since you don’t have to count the weekends or state holidays, if you work a regular Mo-Fr work week, you can arrange for a 6 week trip, but they had already spent 5 weeks in Thailand and NZ, were planning 5 weeks in Hawaii and then keep going other places. The way they are travelling is out of reach for most employees in Germany and it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity for many.

If he ever has to sit on that couch in the White House to be asked “have you said ‘thank you’?”, he can say yes and point to this.

It’s no surprise, they find lead in there. Our analytics have become crazy sensitive, we can detect the tiniest amounts of chemicals nowadays.

That’s why it’s very important to check articles like this one for what actually was found in order to avoid uninformed sensationalizing.

Reading through this article makes you wonder how Washington came up with their regulation for lead levels and why it differs so much from the FDA’s standards.

Even if we know, that no amount of lead can be considered ‘safe’, we have to have a regulation, of what is allowed and what we deem acceptable. Routinely testing products against these standards of course has to happen, otherwise, they’d be pretty useless.

I know perfectly well, what a straw man is. But I’m not gonna argue about it and leave the de-railing to you.

The point is, that your example is a made up fantasy, that never happened and you’re arguing against it to support your stance, while no one ever pleaded for that case. Doesn’t matter what we call it, it’s bullshit rhethoric either way. And it doesn’t make you look like someone who’s arguing in good faith.

Your news article also doesn’t support your fantasy. None of the people in this article are wearing flannel shirts or scraggly beards, basically it doesn’t tell us anything about the gender expression of these people at all. The only thing male about them is their genitalia (which is biological sex, not gender), and while I can understand, that this leads to confusion in an all naked spa, it is a completely different thing, than what you initially argued against.

Also your source is pretty obviously biased against trans people, their wording makes that clear.

Nope. It doesn’t debunk anything. Gender dysphoria is a mental illness, yes, but it is not the same thing as being trans, it is a possible consequence of being trans .

Not everyone who’s trans has that mental illness, but I guess they share the feeling, that they don’t want to express the gender identity of their assigned gender very strongly. So your strawman of the person who does everything in their control to appear as a masculine manly-man and to fit a masculine sterotype, while they identify as a woman is highly unlikely.