do not expect anybody to speak english

Can I add: also don’t expect that your body language and gestures are going to be the same. Had to learn this the hard way

I buy CDs for the booklets (and am massively disappointed if there is none)

It is not about being rich or super rich. It is about climbing the hierarchy being an exploitative act in itself. If you dream of creating your own business you will - you have to, basically by default - do this by exploiting other people on the way up. Your success and you becoming “mildly rich” is always built on the backs of others.

Edit: just to be clear, I am fully aware that in the greater scheme of things, a person earning 30k or even 300k is not the enemy of someone earning 25k. Obviously we need to get rid of pervertedly excessive wealth. Having 300k-30k-25k hating on each other distracts from the bigger problem.

But at the end of the day, and I say this with as little moral judgement as possible, as soon as one person controls another one’s salary and undercuts it for their own profit, we are in a system in which success is achieved via exploitation. And this is the case in 99.9% of work environments.

Meat is way too cheap anyway.

This is why I hate that they are focussing on Döner and are even asking for a Dönerpreisbremse. For all I care, discuss falafels, french fries, anything that has no meat in it. I’m not a vegan or vegetarian but it is hilarious to complain that a meat based dish should still be the “easily affordable” fast food for everyone. In 2024. Come on.

Yeah that’s kinda mean. I have a certain phobia and I hate it so much when I am being vulnerable and let people in on it and then they try to talk me out of it or say “x is not that bad!” Or talk about it or joke or even think it’s cool to expose me to it like they are a fucking therapist. Ok, you just didn’t want to know the jello secret, that’s not exactly a crippling phobia, but it’s still a mean move.

If it is a consolation to you, there is vegan jello.

I personally find gelatin a great way to use up more of the animal, and it’s not bugs or anything like that, if you eat pork or beef that’s really an ok product imo. It’s not even offal. Bones also have other usage in cuisine, but in case you don’t want to know I’ll leave that out.

Anyway, back to vegan jello. It’s made with agar agar, which is basically a polymer extracted from algae, instead of gelatine. Tastes good! Highly recommend.

Apart from one young teenager I knew who really wanted to become a tax consultant - all kids I’ve ever met, be it while I was small myself or while I was tutoring or parenting - want to have “simple” jobs, hands on jobs. Ask kids on the playground and you will hear vet, doctor, and astronaut said along with trash truck driver, waiter, and cleaning lady.

It always breaks my heart that these kids grow up and learn that society gives a crap about certain jobs, be it their low social status and appreciation for their work or their pay. Sure, interests also change when you grow up, but I bet if working conditions, social appreciation and pay were right, we would have much more people happily and freely choosing “low life jobs”.

PS as far as I know the teenager now has a career as a blogger focussing on queer issues with his bf in Berlin, he didn’t become a tax consultant after all.

Oh and the Russians have had people killed outside Russia when they felt the need to so you’re not really safe anywhere once you’re on their hit list.

Well to be fair, I’d argue that’s not an argument. People are willing to go to prison and die for their beliefs (case and point Navalny). So what is your own destiny or death when you can save your family, friends, and country from this dictator. I’m sure you would find a willing kamikaze assassin.

There are far, far more nukes in the world than defense systems for nuclear missiles. If one person “presses the button”, everyone else will, and maybe 1% of all nuclear missiles will be caught.

Yeah there have been “news just hit!” articles for years and years and years about how he has terminal cancer or parkinsons or anything else and is about to die soon. That his face is bloated because of steroids because of some cancer treatment or whatever. (Somehow no one ever attributes it to an overuse of fillers.) And the first 5 articles you might fall for it, but after the sixth article like that and in something like year 8 you kinda realize that these news have no substantial claim. Fool me five times, shame on you. Fool me six times shame on me.

How about don’t have kids so you can work more and more flexible hours on demand in aspiration of a fabricated idea of a career

Fuck me that’s the best counter point I have heard so far. Thanks!

(In case you really work at a NICU: thank you so much for your work.)

Only the parallel experience will fully submerge you into the lore!

That’s what David Lynch said

It might be helpful if you finished one book first before you start another.

I would argue - again, as you said, no morale here - it is a very tactical move.

The more civilians die, the less there is support for the war to go on. Yes, some do feel more radicalized (“now I have nothing left to lose”) but I have come to learn that a majority feels just demoralized (“how many more need to die until this is stopped?”).

(Please note: whatever you or I think we would feel in that situation is irrelevant, you can’t know unless you are in this very conflict right now, and also - any kind of thinking and feeling and emotion is valid. Both and everything in between makes sense.)

The more civilians die or are harmed/attacked, the less the public feels safe. They aren’t because they know they are as much a target as a brigade. They know their enemy is ruthless. After over two years of constant fear and panic and death around you, you might very well start to disagree with a hardline position (“fight until Ukraine is free and Russia is defeated”). I’ve heard from much more refugees than I would have ever expected that they just want the conflict to end, yes, with losses on the Ukrainian side, with compromises that are not fair, but that they just want it to stop. Zelensky is losing popularity by the day because he has created that public image of someone who is not willing to compromise at any cost. Now imagine how amazing it must feel to Putin that people are mad that Zelensky cancelled the presidential election. It is obvious from the outside that holding an election, let alone changing a president in the middle of a war is insanity. For a lot of people, it is angering, since they don’t feel like the war will ever realistically stop with Zelensky in power.

The other effect of targeting civilians like that is of course that you drive them out of the country. You create a refugee crisis. You destabilize Europe, look at Germany, we constantly bitch about tOo MaNy RefUGeeS. It creates tension, it creates a financial drain, people don’t want to support the war with missiles anymore. It has already cost “their country” (i.e. Germany etc) too much.

So, yes, “only” 29 people have been confirmed dead so far. But the damage this missile created is much, much bigger than “just” 29 deaths. In some ways, this incredibly vicious tactic is brilliant.

That moment when your relatives or family friends gift you Russian chocolate candy like it’s a special treat but you just really don’t want to put it in your mouth

Man I have tried so often to play them but in the almost three years of her existence my kid just hated recorded music. Sometimes I am allowed to sing mammal and that’s it.

As someone without a car but with a child let me tell you, cars significantly reduce our living standard.

Most places we go I need to constantly tell my toddler not to walk too much to the left or right or run or slow down, I have to control her like a slave, or suppress her emerging wish for independence by holding her by the hand all the time, or even worse, put her in a stroller. Hell there are so many cars parked here (even on corners) that I often cannot leave the sidewalk safely with a stroller or cross the street safely (so that I would see a coming car or a coming car would see me).

I’d happily be less of a “germophobe” and have my kid run around with dirty hands, pick up dirt, etc. But car dirt is definitely not the “healthy dirt” so no, no dirt for you. Don’t touch, don’t play.

I want my child to grow up in a city that embraces her existence. I want her to feel like a welcomed member of society. But instead I have to keep telling her so many negative things, this is dangerous, don’t go there, don’t do this. She still loves being downtown and prefers this often to the playground or nature (which we try to encourage). She loves the tram and trains. But there are so many restrictions of free movement it breaks my heart.

And I am in a privileged position living in a German city. I can’t even begin to imagine how devastating it would be in an even more car centric society.

Nono, the radical left invented transism just a couple of years ago, what are you talking about smh

I’m not sure what country you are from, but as someone whose vote literally is counted before I even see a ballot, let me tell you, please vote or at least do something. If you don’t like the way politics in your country work, go out and demonstrate. Take it to the streets. Talk to your neighbors, make leaflets. But please don’t just go bitter and sit in your corner because everything is shit anyways. Because this is how we ended up with a lot of the messes we are having now. I “voted” for the first time this year in a rigged election and before that I also always thought the way you do. Democracy is dead, why bother, my vote doesn’t count anyway. But once I stood in this fucking line and smuggled in a non erasable pen and voted and went out knowing no one will even look at this ballot something changed.

You know we all are so focused on him not being reelected in 2024 that we forget that if he won’t he’ll definitely find a way to run again in 2028 and we have all this hell all over again