I also think most people haven’t tried and would be pleasantly surprised if they did. Even in the US, almost half of all trips are bikable or walkable distances. It doesn’t have to replace your main commute, just some of your trips.

We’ve all met those people who get in their car to drive two blocks instead of walking, even in good weather. Cars are so dominant that there’s a lack of imagination around using anything except cars.

That’s definitely a big part, but it’s both. Like white flight out of cities and insisting on a detached suburban home, the other part of the story is that cars represent “social worth” for many in North America.

It’s why car people become so angrily defensive, and fight even modest changes. Cars aren’t just functional. They represent a cherished value system. Their worth as a person is tied up with their car.

That said, just like diamond rings and smoking, even this weird cultural norm was bought by industry advertising. We’re social apes, who do things to feel important and valued, even when it otherwise makes no sense.

It really doesn’t go both ways. The winning presidential candidate needs to get the most votes, and most US voters are not progressive. They’re moderate, or indifferent.

I don’t know how you could say that about HRC and Sanders. That’s not even a hypothetical: they literally had a head to head match where, to my huge disappointment, HRC won. Protesting HRC helped elect Trump, and obviously that hasn’t been good for progressive interests or democracy.

Also, many progressives stayed home or voted for the Green Party. Not that it is more the fault of progressives than SCOTUS, but blame aside, it’s a cautionary tale.

But that’s not what you wrote. You claimed that it doesn’t show new information because you can see the favicon and title. It does show new information.

When I shop online, I have many tabs from the same site open. The tab title is the store name + the item name, so the item name never fits. A bunch of identical ebay icons is way worse than this.

It’s not objectively better or worse. Some people will prefer it and some people won’t.

I bet it’s a little of both. I think every successive generation in the US has become more socially isolated. Car culture, suburban sprawl, internet culture, lack of “third places”, etc. I’m reminded of the sociology book Bowling Alone, by Robert Putnam. It starts with the observation that more Americans go bowling than ever, but memberships to bowling leagues has fallen. Americans are still bowling, but they’re bowling alone.

That’s actually even more depressing. The legal minimum wage is so low that it’s not even lifting up the wages of the most modest jobs in the lowest COL areas. It functionally doesn’t exist.

Yes, the lack of civic knowledge is sometimes frightening. I’m not one to say “both sides!”, but in this case, I see it on both the left and right: people who don’t seem to understand that most major bills in the US pass through compromise. This is true even when one party has a majority, because the US has some of the weakest party discipline of any system (eg people can vote against their party).

You are acccusing them of invoking a thing that only you invoked and when you’re called out on it, you accuse everyone else of “mental gymnastics”?

Agreed. I think both are part of the picture. Consumers are buying the wrong kind of car (or manufacturers are selling the wrong type of car), too big and too inefficient, and there is price gouging, especially during the pandemic shortage. It’s telling that car prices were the fastest to come back down of almost any consumer category last year. Shows how much they could come down.

Cars have also ballooned in size since the 90s. In the 90s, sedans were the most common type of car. Now, it’s SUVs and light trucks, which use tons more materials.

This was my thought as well. A lot of these games are never made, even when the ads do very well (as evidenced by the ad continuing for years). Someone actually made the bait game for real, in recognition of the fact that the games have been advertised for many years and never made.

Even if OP’s explanation is sometimes correct, it doesn’t seem typically correct. In fact, it seems like a rare edge case, at best.

I did a quick search for this but nothing came up. Do you have a link to an article?

Cars are the number one killer of children in Canada. We tolerate a disgusting amount of preventable traffic accidents in Canada, but comparing that to killing children by shooting them or putting them into deadly chokeholds is nonsensical.

Canadian cops are scary too, but it’s not even close. US cops are five times more likely to kill. And Canadian cops don’t have qualified immunity.

This is also how I read it. I actually really appreciate attacking the idea of “white as default”. It’s kind of like how some gamers think representing anything besides the “default” demographic is “political”.

I think this is the more revealing excerpt:

This is the defining irony of white film-making. The more oblivious your film is to matters of race, the whiter it plays. Because whiteness is often exactly that: the freedom not to see race, even when it’s right there in front of you.

Basically, being aware of whiteness makes for less racist movies. There’s nothing wrong with white movies, but it’s wrong when white movies pretend they’re not white, but universal and default. The article concludes:

Instead, our twofold expectation should be this: 1) The industry affords more film-makers of colour the same creative freedoms and commercial opportunities that are now afforded white film-makers, and 2) That the film culture – including the film-makers themselves – develop the confidence, insight and language to discuss and dethrone white cinema.

This does not sound like racist dog-whistling or white supremacy to me.

How is it “functionally” walled? How is it far from “anyone can simply download and run”? It literally is just that. Anyone can download anything and run any unsigned code. I am baffled by the fact that all the people correcting you are getting downvoted.

These countries have similarities, but this seems more like simplistic stereotypes and generalizations.

South Korea’s suicide rate is almost double that of Japan’s. Japan has a lower suicide rate than the US, and similar to European countries like Sweden.

South Koreans work some of the longest hours of any rich country. They’re closer to India and Mexico than Europe. The Japanese work fewer hours than the US. Yes, Japanese people work too much, but I think Americans don’t realize that they work too much too.

I agree with the first part, but I’m confused by “Individualism is great”. Not sure what individualism has to do with it.

Is this supposed to contrast with the US, a country where people work some of the longest hours in the developed world? I think the whole “the West is free and individualistic and Asians are conformist robots” thing is a myth.