One is a profession that can be a particularly dangerous way of life. Orders from above put you into place far from support, with limited resources, often in contact with hostiles on a daily basis. You're often left to fend for yourself with only what you have on you against overwhelming odds. Command structures often pit you against your peers in petty internal politics around rank. The pay isn't great, and those that stick with it for the long haul to make a lifetime of it often leave scared and mentally injured. It can be a thankless job in putting your life and health on the line to achieve the overall goal.
The other profession usually involves wearing a uniform and enforcing USA's geopolitical interests in other countries.
A family friend of ours just quit his highschool teaching job and is moving his family because he was threatened with a gun in his classroom. The student was expelled, but not arrested and knows where he lives.
I was attempting to be humorous; obviously that failed. Surprisingly it doesn’t seem to be apparent to many as to why America glorifies soldiers rather than teachers so I guess I’ll elaborate.
Glorifying soldiers is a nationalistic practice designed to distract from the very real cost of war I.e. the death of young men and women to protect capitalist interests.
It’s a tactic to encourage impressionable people to join ‘for glory’ or prestige when in reality there is very little of either. First hand accounts of literally any war will tell you this.
You could use this same tactic for teachers but historically teaching is seen as a ‘woman’s’ job and so the existing value structures of our society preclude this profession from the same veneration. I.e. the patriarchy is why teachers aren’t glorified in the same way.
I think it's worth noting that the "glorifying soldiers" tactic doesn't really work; the US military routinely falls short of recruiting goals, and among people who do join, patriotism isn't a common given reason.
id argue that that's not true but my roommate and his friend made me watch 30+ minutes of commentated (by my friends) WW2 footage. i had to be like "hey man with all due respect i get the appeal I think but im not really interested in the glorification of something this horrific im sorry." they were understanding but that level of interest in something so bleek was crazy.
also they were using WW2 japenese slurs and saying id walk up to that if i were there. and im like NO THE FUCK YOU WOULDNT you wouldnt even make it out of the armored car that took you there bud. people are not as badass as they think they are and soldiers arent badass they just want to see their families again we dont have to cheer them on like the opposing side doesnt also just wanna go home to their families.
While travelling in the states, I was so perplexed to see that in some car parks where you'd expect to see disabled parking that there were parking spots for veterans.
More precisely: The reason for the two party system: FPTP voting. The Brits do the same shit, and have the same problems.
The way it feels now (more cult-like than political and representing the populace) automatically and unavoidably stems from this FPTP issue. It automatically reduces the whole field to a reduced number of options, and while each reduction step takes longer than the last, this will ultimativley lead to a one-party state. It's not a question of IF, it's a question of WHEN and the REP program for 2025 to basically turn the government upside down to get unbeatable is trying to achieve this very single party state.
We do do the same and we do have the same problems, but it's not so bad. We have at least 4 parties in parliament who have a voice and a number of others who are at least represented. It's not good, but you have it worse
We technically have more than 2; but nobody ever votes for the other parties, and the other parties are almost never given the opportunity to debate or have big ad campaigns. 🤷🏻♂️
And to be fair: Some of those other parties are even more narrow minded than the two big ones.
The two party system isn’t really codified in law, it’s just kind of a side-effect of the way we vote and the way government is organized. Due to those two things, it’s hard to change.
It's an inevitable conclusion of our winner take all voting system. "The man with the most votes wins." If 4 candidates run, and they get 22% 22% 16% and 40% of the vote, the man with 40% of the vote wins the race, and 60% of the population didn't get the candidate they voted for.
Now imagine you've got a red, orange, green and blue party. Orange voters get together and decide "You know, the Red party's platform is pretty similar to ours, what if we didn't run a candidate next time and instead encouraged our voters to vote for the Red candidate instead? The blue candidate won with 40% of the vote, but our two parties put together would have 44%.
In the next election with three candidates, the red candidate wins 44% to 40%, prompting a similar conversation at the Green party headquarters. Soon enough there are two parties.
We're one of if not the oldest representative democracy in the world today; our constitution is 250 years old, there's some old bugs still in the code base.
Basically because we were early adopters to modern republic systems. We tried something new because parliament was a bit too kingy for our tastes. But due to its simplicity it became really easy for two parties to wipe the floor with everyone else. And basically the only times they’ve changed was at the start and again shortly before our civil war. Neither party has ever had good reason to change the system, which would require massive agreement to change our constitution. So nobody does.
For example, politically I’m a syndicalist, but the democrats are pro union, pro environment, pro woman, and pro lgbt, all of which with a big asterisk but still I consistently vote for them because the greens didn’t win with Nader so they’re definitely going to lose now. So I dutifully vote Democrat because the only other party that has a chance is the republicans and they hate me and everything I believe in.
If we could do it again we’d do it better but in our defense we didn’t really have anyone to model off of
It's like a restaurant with a single dish and you can only chose a side. One's xenophobia with a sprinkle of batshit crazy, the other's utter impotence.
Keeping your gun accessible when driving your car. Needing or wanting to open carry when you go shopping. Needing to pose with your family all holding powerful guns for a Christmas photo. I don’t get it.
Most of America doesn't do it, just the people who are afraid of violence - which also happens to the same people who would quickly resort to violence. At this point, seeing a person wearing a gun is the same as seeing warning colors on other species like insects. If you see it, turn and go the other way. There is literally nothing worth the inconvenience of dealing with those people. (And hospitals don't allow open carry so matters of life and death can be attend to without worry.)
A modern analog I like is to high grade digital encryption.
Terrorists and criminals use it, and governments want to ban it. But that doesn't actually mean it should be banned, or that people who oppose a ban are terrorists or criminals.
Totally, except regulating encryption makes much more sense because of al those encryption-violence deaths that happen daily in the US. All those kids with easy access to encryption going to school and encrypting their classmates, the policemen not intervening because they are afraid to get encrypted by the kids armed with military grade AES-512 routines.
It is a modern analog, but with its limits - all this stuff doesn’t happen in countries where encryption is much more regulated and you can’t buy encryption routines in malls.
I thought @draghetta made a good point in way that wasn't particularly shallow or dismissive. Not trying to stir hostility here, just throwing in my 2 currency subunits.
To clarify, I disagree because you're both missing my point, which is to explain and help people understand, and not an argument put forward in justification of anything.
Responding to an attempt to help bridge a gap of understanding by sarcastically dismissing any value in the analogy without even attempting to understand why it's being offered is, to me, a dismissive and shallow thing to do.
That's not a great analogy though... you would have to add that, even though most people use it responsibly, banning digital encryption would cause a very dramatic reduction in harm caused by the people that don't use it responsibly.
Furthermore digital encryption actually serves an inherent purpose so banning it would also cause some harm to society simultaneously. On the other hand, civilian gun ownership serves no inherent purpose so society wouldn't be harmed by banning it, and we would only lose the risk.
You had a tyrant that tried to overthrow a legitimate election through violence.
Where were all gun nuts then? Those who weren’t attempting said coup, that is. Doesn’t sound reliable to me.
As for what happens to disarmed populations, most of Europe has gun control laws that would make any American have a heart attack, and yet here we are, no dictators to be seen up to GMT+3. Do say, what is it that happens to disarmed populations? What is happening to us that I somehow didn’t notice?
And gun control being racist.. I’m sorry, what? This right here, this is the thing I’ll never understand about Americans. Everything is racist. You can’t talk about anything, somebody will play the “racist” card before you can get any deeper than slogans. Absolutely every single thing turns out to be a race issue. Sure, you guys had very big issues with racism until very recently (learning about sundown towns for me was a huge WTF moment) and it’s very hard to deal with a past so ugly - but still, maybe not everything is about race.
In America, gun control started as a way to disarm black people. Worked out well when the Klan wanted to lynch someone. Thats what was racist about it.
Sounds like the usual American retcon.. you have a race obsession now so everything all the time was about race. A bit like Marx, who was obsessed with class struggle so literally every single event in history was actually a class struggle.
Also if you search online you’ll find plenty of articles they say they gun control is perceived as a racial issue, because gun control damages the rights of whites - with similarly flimsy arguments and mental gymnastics.
Then why did the NRA start to get more "senesable gun control and not all gun owners are trustworthy" after the black panthers started to carry guns in the open
That rascally rabbit isn’t a tyrant just because he keeps tricking you. I know you’re traumatized but he doesn’t actually have power over you. It’s all in your head.
I don't know about the racism thing, but I doubt it. As far as the other thing, it doesn't have to be a choice between no guns or no restrictions. In the UK we have a ban on handguns and some hoops you have to jump through to own a rifle. Nothing too onerous I believe (though I've never tried to own a gun.)
I'm not afraid of our government becoming tyrannical. If it did, though, and guns are really the only reliable way to deal with them (I'm not convinced but anyway) then we still have plenty going around.
The ones that won, they used diplomacy. The armed conflict only ruined and made peoples lives miserable. Here's a doc you can listen to first hand accounts from members of the IRA.
https://www.pbs.org/show/once-upon-time-northern-ireland/
Not disagreeing with you, but - you’ll have to admit, it’s a lot easier to have diplomatic talks when your side has a credible threat behind it. Do you think the Brits would have listened if the IRA had just done peaceful sit-ins?
Oh I didn't mean you specifically, it's just a general comment on how policies of the European centre right parties are labelled in the American media. The Overton window is shifted to the left in Europe.
I was surprised to find out that abortion pre Rove versus Wade decision in the United States abortion was much more accessible than it was in the European Union.
Generally shifted to the left the overton window but not always.
I'm not familiar with RvW, but I'd suspect that in Europe it's largely member state competency, and the more religious societies might have stricter rules. I know Poland is very prohibitive, and so was Ireland until very recently when a highly publicised human tragedy turned people against the rigid rules of the Church.
The short version is that USA was more left than all EU members states on abortion -
Sadly that WAS true. However I live in California and it still is true.
Left here in California AKA me is actually left for the European Union too. That's why your original comment struck me as weird it's because for me and my state which is bigger than many European countries in both size and economic might is as left as the European Union.
I do not believe the overton window shift applies to California only the USA
At-will employment makes no sense to me. You go to work every day knowing you could be fired without any possibility of taking the time to find another job. It would drive me crazy.
Nope. I literally walked into work, dropped off my badge, said I quit and never looked back. HR called and I let it go to voicemail. They wanted to confirm my mailing address. A few weeks later I got my last paycheck. I left that company to change fields and it has never come up as an issue in subsequent roles. Quitting without notice is a fantastic perk that almost no one will be able to use. The key is to burn out early so looking for the next job is just around the corner.
In here we have mandatory notice up to three months depending on tenure. It’s perfectly normal for new employers to have to wait the notice period when hiring a new person. Mind you, that’s 3 more guaranteed pay checks after you quit.
If you want to leave early you can negotiate a shorter notice, which i personally have never seen refused - normally people don’t want to keep leavers around so they’ll agree to a couple of weeks for handovers and then happily send you away with your (mandatory, tenure based) severance bonus.
If your old employer is petty and wants to keep you around for the whole notice you can just stop caring and carry on with the bare minimum. What are they going to do, fire you? Unless you’re causing them serious damage in that time they can’t do anything about it. That is also why employers tend to be very happy when you try to negotiate a short notice period.
I can understand how satisfying it must be to show up, slam your badge on somebody’s desk and say “fuck you I quit” - but other than those two seconds of joy I don’t see any other benefits.
There's no negotiating anything with at will employment. You just leave if you want to leave.
You can negotiate if you want to. Or you can say fuck off and just get another job somewhere else. That's the freedom of it. You're not locked into any type of contact.
Yeah but I don’t understand how that’s better. Your employer has to agree to keep you around longer rather than the other way around, feels much worse for financial well-being. But even if it was the same, there’s no way that’s worth having zero notice firing without just cause.
It feels a bit like cope ngl- like yeah I’m doing chemo I can’t eat anything but flavourless meal replacements but look I’ve never been slimmer! That’s a remarkable perk!
I don't get it either. Ignoring the inherent power imbalance between a single worker and an employer, good luck getting Gardening Leave in an at-will workplace.
Depending on your contract, you can absolutely just leave mid shift with no repercussions. Even if you breach your contract, the company will have to pursue legal action to claim any damages, which is costly.
I guess that also makes it somewhat easier to get hired though? You can give your employees a chance without thinking too much about it, and if they suck just fire them.
We have this in Germany - for the first six months of employment. Ok, it's still two weeks notice because that's the right thing to do, but still, it's less than the 1/2/3/4/5/6/7 months of notice required after working at a place for 0.5/5/8/10/12/15/20 years. (BGB §622 for the curious)
There is no reason to keep the possibility for such a short notice indefinitely.
For the most part, in my experience, don't be a fuck up and you won't get fired. Every company I've ever worked for has had very strict rules about firing people, It can take months for someone to get fired for anything short of violence, theft, or sexual harassment.
That depends on where you're working. If you're working for a company in an industry that tends to lay people off at certain times, then yeah you're probably to be laid off in the future. Most companies aren't like that though.
Vote for people who actively oppose universal healthcare, mandatory PTO policies, universal family leave policies, universal college-level education, etc.
Oh, i have to drive from single family zone to commercial district to pick up a loaf of bread. Then drive to education district to drop kids at kindergarten, and finally to business district to work.
At the end of the day i hang out at bar/entertainment district with the guys from work to have a beer, but there's no public transport so I have to drink alcohol free so I can drive back home. That's only 120 miles in a day!
City design and suburbs. Like if I had to drive 40 minutes to get groceries I would prefer to starve and those suburbs look like death would be the better alternative. Also driving to go for a walk, wtf?
Voting registration. I get a letter that I can vote and what the options are. Then on voting day, which is on a Sunday, because why would it be on any other day, I just walk into my town hall with that letter and my ID card, put down my crosses and leave. It's like a walk in the park, often quite literally.
What’s not to understand about your healthcare? It’s the one thing you literally cannot live without. Make the barrier to it $$$ (and tie it to your employment) means you’ll always have a subdued work force, and a big money funnel for the wealthy.
That's only the start and even then not quite accurate. I don't have insurance through my employer, for example: I used to have it through the government and now I have private, and before either I just bought healthcare with cash on the barrelhead.
And the thing is, paying cash is usually less than half of the price charged to insurers, even if you set up a payment plan, because individuals are easier to get to pay than the insurance corporations. And there's ab additional discount for paying day-of-service because then they don't even need to send a bill and they know they'll actually get paid! So it can be a lot cheaper to buy healthcare in cash, depending on how much you need.
But now let's say you have government insurance: Very good on preventative care, pediatrics, prenatal. Everything generally performed in-house and same-day, but scheduling is a crapshoot. Still the simplest insurance option once you have it.
Employer-provided insurance: My ex-employer, two jobs and half a decade ago, is still fighting with their insurance provider at the time about a hospital visit I had back then. Insurance says it wasn't withing coverage dates, HR can prove otherwise.
Private insurance (but also employer insurance): Actual healthcare providers don't know and don't care if services are within network; which can change on a whim anyway, so someone who was in network when you schedule an appointment might be out-of-network three months later when you finally get in there. Since you can't just schedule with a specialist without a referral, it takes at least two months and two appointments to see one, often more like six months, and whether or not your insurance will pay for it is up in the air anyway. And you're paying hundreds of dollars each month for this "service". It's insane.
And this is for a young family in relatively good health seeking preventative care. I can't even image this nightmare of corporatism and bureaucracy with a chronic condition or an emergency.
The Electoral College exists because it was never the intent for the President to be elected by the public. It sticks around because changing it requires changing the Constitution, and a majority of states benefit from the status quo.
The "winner takes all" political system that ends with two extremist parties and a huge divide between people
Healthcare. Do I need to say anything?
The extreme divide between rich and poor
Police force. They hire lowly educated people, preferably racist, receiving barely any training, and what they do get is mostly nonsense. They then get military equipment, and the entire system is protected by a corrupt union
The amount that news organizations are allowed to lie
Come visit the UK. We have fluid ounces too, but only for baking. Your drink will be served by the millilitre, unless it's beer in a pub, or milk in a home, in which case it will be served by the pint.
A shot? An eighth of a cup? Sixteenth of a pint? I mean, I get it. Metric is standard, but of all the units to pick on, the fluid ounce is probably one of our more reasonable measurements. We have acres of less-intuitive units.
It’s all base 2/8/16, which is a hell of a lot more sensible than base 10 units.
Debatable. I probably shouldn't restart the whole imperial vs metric debate, but I might just say that people who grow up with metric think exactly the opposite.
Imperial sucks, and metric is better, but still +1 for dozenal. Anybody who isn't for it is either confused about the very concept of different bases (I've talked to plenty of those), or biased.
I don't know why you dozenal advocates are being downvoted.
Yeah this is why most old measurement systems used 4 8 12. 4 fingers to a palm, you don't count the thumb as a finger. Then 4 palms to arm, for a total of 16 fingers. At 12 arms into a bigger unit so you can count the joints on your hand
That actually how the Egyptians made their cubits. Tuck your Thumb under you hand and place all four finger at your elbow. You have about 4 palms before you get to your wrist.
Grocery baggers. I'm German - we pack our own bags over here and most customers do NOT like others to fondle their groceries. We literally do not have any "baggers" in any supermarket, and if a cashier packs a customer's bags without being specifically asked to do so (basically never happens) the customer will take that as an insult - as if you're trying to say they don't get out of your sight fast enough / that you want to speed up their departure to get rid of them, or that you don't think they're capable of that super basic, simple task. It's considered rude and condescending.
A cashier is expected to scan the stuff the customer wants to buy, take payment, hand over the receipt and change, and then leave the customer and their groceries alone.
they have an insane amount of gun and gun related deaths
They don't have Universal Healthcare
they don't have a federal payed leave law
they don't have a maternal/paternal leave law
they don't have tuition free universities
they don't have decent mass transportation
The use of the imperial system
It just doesn't make sense and baffles my mind for the richest country in the world to treat it's citizens like this
Okay now I'm stretching the OPs idea a little bit, but America is big.
How people live in South America never needing to learn other language than Spanish and plausibly never interacting with a foreign language outside movies. I spent some time in Chile, the place I lived in had a nice janitor. He did not speak English, I only knew a few loose words in Spanish so communication was... peculiar. Only after 2 months of awkward interactions he realised, that I probably am not Spanish native speaker and it hit me.
When your entire life in a continent where everyone speaks flavours of Spanish or Portugese, you can have successful, international career only in Spanish, participate in all kinds of rich culture only in Spanish and all signs and labels are only in Spanish, huge majority of tourists speak Spanish... it is not immediately obvious, that people may not speak Spanish.
Don't get me wrong, it's not dunking on "dumb spanish speakers". There are ton of places in Europe where people disregard English, where it's famously hard to communicate in anything other than the local language, but the fact, that other languages exist is apparent to everyone once they learn to read. Awareness that people actually speak these languages is the most natural knowledge from ground school as we learn that "Germany speaks German. Italy speaks Italian" etc. A perspective which does not involve being in constant proximity to numerous foreign languages felt like something that made no sense to me in the past until I actually came into contact with it.
Very large cars. You can easily fit 5 people in a small car.. lol.
Your voting system. Registering to vote? Wtf is this? Here you get your "ticket" to vote, by mail, automatically after you turn 18, a few weeks before the election date. And you are required by law to get time off, to vote, if youre otherwise unable to make it in time.
Also paying for education.. lol. Here its all free. In fact, im getting paid to study. (Not a ton but enough to get by)
Electing positions that require specialized skills or have judiciary authority. You elect your law enforcement, your judges, your fucking dog catchers. What the fuck?? Is it so hard to come up with a meritocratic method of selecting a fucking dog catcher that you must just throw your hands up and just ask random people what to do?!
My experience is from Canada, but Canada is in America so it should count:
insane amounts of empty space. It's one thing to know that in America several hours drive doesn't count as "far away", another to experience it.
guns. Not like in "them americans only shoot themselves", but like in "any hardware store carries full gamut of weapon-adjacent accessories and it's normal" wtf mates, you can't keep your murder machines confined to murder machine shops? We manage to do it with porn and sex toys in Europe (at least my part of it), sure you can too with guns?
malls. We do have malls in Europe. I still don't get them, but it is a choice to go there. Where I lived in Canada it was the only shopping option. Why not corner shops? These suburbs waste a ton of space, no one has ever thought in a capitalist brain "hey let's put a shop closer to the people and charge them more because they burn less fuel and waste less time to get here"?
And a very specific nitpick: calling places "european" like a point of pride while in fact they are rather not. Quebec City and Montreal I think both pride themselves on being "the most europe-like cities in north america" and... they're not europe-like? Like, ok, the old town is nice, but that's it.
Cars. You seem to buy cars like smartphones( actualy probably even worse since buying phone on credit dosent seem to be as common nowadays ) . If you can afford the credit payment for the card dosent mean you can afford the car.
In fact why everyone buys stuff on credit cards in the US . It seems insane to me to go to debt for a stupid cofee.
Everything in this thread so far is normal stuff I could have guessed. Guns, metric, tipping, etc. Most of it has large groups of people in the country that agree, or at least know.
What are some non-obvious things? Culture shock isn't about major political issues. It's about universal things that turn out to not be universal.
For example, US people have a strong culture of how standing in line works. It's basically a moral sin to butt in line unless you have someone holding your place. This is universal in the country. My understanding is that other countries differ. Is that true?
They will look you in the eyes and smile while they cut you off in line at the bakery to buy a fucking baguette, not even realizing the injustice they have done you.
Source : I go to France at least once a year on vacation.
Well, that also depends on your attitude in the boulangerie. If you're busy standing around looking and going ah-humm and look like you're still browsing while the cashier isn't doing anything, then yeah folks are just gonna walk to the counter to order that baguette. The transaction is gonna take 20sec, they already know what they want, the baker already knows what they want because they buy the same thing every day, and probably they're gonna give them the exact change needed.
If there's an actual queue and people are waiting in line, no one in their right mind would try to cut, in some French regions that's how you end up at the hospital.
Well you said it yourself that you cut in line when people are a little indecisive at the bakery...
I've seen people cut through an entire line at la poste and walk up to a counter directly to get service while everyone else was yelling at them and still get served. It boggled my mind.
I've seen people rush to huddle trying to all get into a bus at the same time instead of doing a queue like anywhere else in the world.
People pretending they have a question, walk directly to a the cash register at a market and then ordering directly while a whole queue is waiting to be served.
I'm from Montréal and I have a lot of French friends who complain everytime they come back from a visit home about this type of behaviour and how it just made them rage.
To be fair though, this type of behaviour is mostly from older generations with a few exceptions. And then there Paris....
Okay yeah I have to admit some of the examples ring pretty true, especially the bus one, there's no discipline there.
I don't go back to France that often since I live abroad and when I do I avoid people like the plague, hate the bastards.
I still wouldn't say that cutting in line is accepted, in my example at the boulangerie I don't picture a line, just someone standing in the shop looking at the choices and there's no one waiting at the counter. But yeah you're right that maybe it gets tried more than other countries, but I also remember vividly people getting called out for it, you also mention the people at la poste were yelling at them so clearly it's not like a normal thing.
I think what you describe is more the uncoordinated and individualist/me first French attitude rather than just line-cutting like I've experienced for example in China where that's really like if you leave 20cm in front of you they slip in and no one says anything, if you do that in the wrong line in France you won't forget it.
Finally, lol sometimes I forget Paris is part of France, hate these bastards even more than the rest of them.
PS I married a compatriot of yours and have family in Outaouais, we'll probably move there some day and visit regularly. Quebec people are super chill and friendly compared to French, so I think that's also part of the culture shock, not line cutting but just the fact we're a bunch of assholes.
Yeah it's not accepted. When there is a line and people do cut in, they're usually told. Hahaha.
Like many other French people have told me "la France c'est bien mais c'est plein de français".
To be fair, I've had a generally positive experience. Except for Paris, people are generally nice. Especially in Bretagne and in the south.
Parisians are... execrable. There's always exceptions, but my general experience has been pretty much consistent with every visit.
I was expecting people in Bordeaux to be a bit similar but it was the complete opposite. People would actually take the initiative to ask us if we needed help if we looked like we were looking for directions.
In Chamonix I made a bunch of friends in only a couple of days of visiting hahaha. They were really chill. Like a bunch of surfer dudes, but in the mountains.
You say "off of". In the UK we just say off. "Get off my lawn" Vs "Get off of my lawn". Why do you need the extra word?
You call pasta noodles. Pasta is not noodles.
I once got kicked off (of) a beach at 9pm by a police officer. Wtf? It's the beach, who cares if I'm on it at night? And why is it so important to have a police car patrolling it?
On that note, trespassing seems much more serious in America. In a lot of the world you can just wander around, if it's on somebody else's land it's no big deal as long as you don't cause a mess.
For the culture thing, Americans are generally louder and less subtle than any other nationality. They're more friendly and energetic. There's a certain type of dry sarcastic humour that never lands with Americans. I don't want to call it British humour because there's never any confusion with the rest of Europe
I spent some time in Germany and it's very much so not true there. I was waiting on line for something and my German friend got in a different line and he got his food a solid ten minutes before me. Afterwards he explained that he took the line against the wall so people could only budge in front of him from one direction. He told me "Germans cut. It's just the way it is."
The lack of relegation or promotion in your sports leagues. Isn't the same 20 teams being in the Superbowl, MLB, NBA, every year boring? How do you live without the shaudenfraude of seeing a previously good team go down or the glory of a team cooking up and giant killing in their first tip flight season?
An NFL season consists of a 3 week pre-season and an 18 week regular season during which all teams in the league--currently 32--compete within their division and conference. The winners of each of the four divisions in both conferences plus three wild card teams who among the remaining teams have the best record of both conferences (14 teams in all) go on to play in the post-season playoffs, a single-elimination tournament whose final, championship game is the Super Bowl.
American football fans enjoy the schadenfreude of a previous championship team not even making the playoffs, or the glory of a team who hasn't made the playoffs in recent memory going all the way to The Big Game.
Yeah, when you live in the US, moving anywhere else isn't as easy as packing up your things to go to a new country. We don't have the benefit of an EU or Schengen Zone.
Oh actually no most of us can’t reasonably leave. We don’t have a shengen type deal or financial security so leaving is actually quite difficult for most of us.
I asked an American who was getting citizenship in my country if they were going to relinquish their american citizenship and was told that was pretty much unthinkable for an american.
Yeah I can’t imagine why I would. Like the country has its huge issues but holy fuck is our passport an amazing thing to have. It’s a thing of nobody but us will fuck with us.
The United States is one of only two countries that taxes based on citizenship, not place of residency. That means it doesn’t matter where you hang your hat — if you’re legally a U.S. citizen, you have a tax obligation to the U.S.
Taxes, Boris Johnson gave up his citizenship as he didn't want to pay tax on a country he didn't actively reside in. I always thought that was kind of ironic given half the reasons for independence were due to paying tax to a foreign power.
It takes swathes of resources to get out of this hellhole. You wanna provide about $50k and a guaranteed job / housing / transport out for me? Then I can leave.
Yes, if you see a private home in France with the French flag, you'd pretty much assume the people living there are far right extremists. Normal people use the Brittany flag instead.
Pickup trucks everywhere. No public transportation usually. General Tso's chicken is a typical Chinese food you get. Weed products are available almost everywhere legally. Light beer. No proper lager beer even in small breweries. How people drive. No sidewalks most of the time. The whole health industry. Electric sockets. So many churches. The general war against trans people. The general war against women.
It takes about 8 to 12 hours to drive across Texas, which is longer than it takes to cross Germany. France and Germany have different laws, and so do Texas and New Mexico. Once you realise that the USA is essentially 50 different countries stapled together, it makes a lot more sense.
Texas has a bigger population than Australia. In fact, it would be 51st largest population and 40th largest area in the world if it split off from the USA.
Not so sure about this.....maybe you could find two states that have very differing laws compared to France-Germany, but on the whole it's probably not true. Kind of hard to quantify that though.
It works the same way it works in Europe between countries in the EU. The laws are similar enough that it isn't a problem in most cases. There are also efforts that states do to harmonize parts of the law. It keeps the peace because states have different ideas on how to govern themselves.
That then plays out to taxes, as some states have a far more active government than others. So, the states, counties, and municipalities have their own ways to generate revenue to provide the services their communities want.
That is actually pretty rare in the USA. If anything, Americans are very mobile within the country. It is common for people to live in multiple states within their lifetime.
It is bad for the water treatment plants or pipes if its overused. Only water should go down the drain. I can't imagine the comfort they provide makes up for their downsides.
only once have one clog, and stop the trash bag from having so much food stinking in it. The water could be a problem if you treatment plants aren't set up for it.
If you don't compost and you don't want your garbage to stink, they make sense to me. If you're using it properly, i.e. just putting food waste in it, it's going to decompose safely.
I use them more for taking care of the little bits of food that wash off my dishes when I have to clean them in the sink. Instead of grabbing all that gunk out of the sink and throwing it away (which is gross to do), I just let it go down the drain and grind it up in the disposal. EZPZ.
Am American... Have had several places over the years with garbage disposal units.
I absolutely abhor the things... Almost no one uses them properly so they put shit in them that should be going in the trash causing clogs and busted disposal units.
If my wife didn't insist on having one I absolutely would not have one in my house ever again.
I have several, including one in my kitchen, but I’m not sure how the number of trash cans in my house really changes the equation of “discarded chicken trimmings == really stinky trash can tomorrow”.
We do, and most trash in my house ends up going in recycling. But there are still things that go in the regular trash that cannot be recycled. That is part of the problem actually. Because most things end up in the recycle bin, my regular trash bin takes 8-10 days to fill up. That is a lot of time for some raw chicken trimmings to just sit there making stank, especially so close to where I prepare my food.
Nope, but even if I’d did, shuttling all that waste directly from my kitchen to my curbside bin would be a lot more work than just sending it down the disposal.
Americans seem very "fighty" compared to people from many other countries. You just have to say something that could be construed as liberal (the American kind) or conservative, too politically correct or incorrect, or mention you ride a bicycle or have an outdoor cat, to set some people off. With some Americans having a conversation is like navigating a minefield, especially those who have very little understanding of the rest of the world and reads everything you say into an American context, language barriers and all.
I love talking politics, and have had pleasant conversations with all kinds of people but I have learned from experience to just not bother with Americans, unless they're the very curious and open kind.
It's such a strange contradictory place. You pride yourself in freedom of speech but are so puritanical you refer to using the toilet as 'using the restrooms' and 'taking a comfort break'. Everyone knows you're going in there to crimp one off, not to have a comfortable rest in a designated room.
The fraternity and sorority thing at universities is really odd too. I don't really know what they're for aside from providing a dedicated environment for abuse via the deceptively amiable name of 'hazing'.
And referring to all your sports competitions as World Championships when the only teams that play are American. Bit cringey. I mean, you probably would win if there was an actual international basketball or baseball or american football competition, but at least the World Champion thing would actually mean something then.
Most Americans (inside and outside of Usa) are very poor but still they are trying so hard to believe Usa was kinda great country and they were somewhat rich who live there.
Lol. First time someone asked me this in the UK, I replied with "Is that a question I'm actually supposed to answer, or just a different kind of hello?" The look on their face was classic.
Do you call brittish/japanese cars right-hand drives or left-hand drives? As far as I knew, the cars are labelled by the position of the steering wheel not the traffic lane they ride on.
They glorify soldiers way too much and teachers way too little
Between the two there is a big difference:
One is a profession that can be a particularly dangerous way of life. Orders from above put you into place far from support, with limited resources, often in contact with hostiles on a daily basis. You're often left to fend for yourself with only what you have on you against overwhelming odds. Command structures often pit you against your peers in petty internal politics around rank. The pay isn't great, and those that stick with it for the long haul to make a lifetime of it often leave scared and mentally injured. It can be a thankless job in putting your life and health on the line to achieve the overall goal.
The other profession usually involves wearing a uniform and enforcing USA's geopolitical interests in other countries.
U got me in the first half not gonna lie
Your comment made read the other comment.
Worth it.
Ah, the old
RedditLemmy switcharooHold my bulletprove backpack. I am going in.
Hello, future people!
It was good but I saw it coming right away lol.
A family friend of ours just quit his highschool teaching job and is moving his family because he was threatened with a gun in his classroom. The student was expelled, but not arrested and knows where he lives.
I fucking hate it here. Guns need to go.
As an American, it confuses me as well
You poor thing, maybe if your teachers were praised more you’d have been taught better and be less confused.
Feel free to enlighten us, O wise one.
I have no idea, I’m just sympathetic to the plight of confused Americans.
Well you’ve certainly confused this one. Though I suspect you’ve confused some Europeans as well
I was attempting to be humorous; obviously that failed. Surprisingly it doesn’t seem to be apparent to many as to why America glorifies soldiers rather than teachers so I guess I’ll elaborate.
Glorifying soldiers is a nationalistic practice designed to distract from the very real cost of war I.e. the death of young men and women to protect capitalist interests.
It’s a tactic to encourage impressionable people to join ‘for glory’ or prestige when in reality there is very little of either. First hand accounts of literally any war will tell you this.
You could use this same tactic for teachers but historically teaching is seen as a ‘woman’s’ job and so the existing value structures of our society preclude this profession from the same veneration. I.e. the patriarchy is why teachers aren’t glorified in the same way.
I think it's worth noting that the "glorifying soldiers" tactic doesn't really work; the US military routinely falls short of recruiting goals, and among people who do join, patriotism isn't a common given reason.
Whoosh
The public school system, especially middle which is age 11-13/14 I think, almost never used my accommodations :) at least college is better at that
Soldiers and patriotism...
id argue that that's not true but my roommate and his friend made me watch 30+ minutes of commentated (by my friends) WW2 footage. i had to be like "hey man with all due respect i get the appeal I think but im not really interested in the glorification of something this horrific im sorry." they were understanding but that level of interest in something so bleek was crazy.
also they were using WW2 japenese slurs and saying id walk up to that if i were there. and im like NO THE FUCK YOU WOULDNT you wouldnt even make it out of the armored car that took you there bud. people are not as badass as they think they are and soldiers arent badass they just want to see their families again we dont have to cheer them on like the opposing side doesnt also just wanna go home to their families.
ugh
While travelling in the states, I was so perplexed to see that in some car parks where you'd expect to see disabled parking that there were parking spots for veterans.
Sticker price isn't the price you pay at the till. Why? Why do you do that.
Massive gaps between the walls and doors of public lavatory cubicles. This is not some mystical, advanced technology. Get it together.
Two party system. They can't possibly represent everyone's interests. Feels more like religion to me .
They don't represent anyone's interests except their own.
And those who lobby them and/or help them get reelected.
Two party system is great for polarizing the society.
More precisely: The reason for the two party system: FPTP voting. The Brits do the same shit, and have the same problems.
The way it feels now (more cult-like than political and representing the populace) automatically and unavoidably stems from this FPTP issue. It automatically reduces the whole field to a reduced number of options, and while each reduction step takes longer than the last, this will ultimativley lead to a one-party state. It's not a question of IF, it's a question of WHEN and the REP program for 2025 to basically turn the government upside down to get unbeatable is trying to achieve this very single party state.
We do do the same and we do have the same problems, but it's not so bad. We have at least 4 parties in parliament who have a voice and a number of others who are at least represented. It's not good, but you have it worse
Two parties that are, if I'm not mistaken, the Right and the Rightest.
Didn't the USA see any leftist ideology as radical?
The Cold War did some terrible things to our ideology.
We technically have more than 2; but nobody ever votes for the other parties, and the other parties are almost never given the opportunity to debate or have big ad campaigns. 🤷🏻♂️
And to be fair: Some of those other parties are even more narrow minded than the two big ones.
CGP Grey made an excellent video explaining our voting system: Minority Rule: First Past the Post Voting
Skip to 1:36 to hear about how, no matter how many parties we have, it always comes down to 2 major parties competing in this voting system.
I vote for one of those other parties!
The two party system isn’t really codified in law, it’s just kind of a side-effect of the way we vote and the way government is organized. Due to those two things, it’s hard to change.
It's an inevitable conclusion of our winner take all voting system. "The man with the most votes wins." If 4 candidates run, and they get 22% 22% 16% and 40% of the vote, the man with 40% of the vote wins the race, and 60% of the population didn't get the candidate they voted for.
Now imagine you've got a red, orange, green and blue party. Orange voters get together and decide "You know, the Red party's platform is pretty similar to ours, what if we didn't run a candidate next time and instead encouraged our voters to vote for the Red candidate instead? The blue candidate won with 40% of the vote, but our two parties put together would have 44%.
In the next election with three candidates, the red candidate wins 44% to 40%, prompting a similar conversation at the Green party headquarters. Soon enough there are two parties.
We're one of if not the oldest representative democracy in the world today; our constitution is 250 years old, there's some old bugs still in the code base.
Basically because we were early adopters to modern republic systems. We tried something new because parliament was a bit too kingy for our tastes. But due to its simplicity it became really easy for two parties to wipe the floor with everyone else. And basically the only times they’ve changed was at the start and again shortly before our civil war. Neither party has ever had good reason to change the system, which would require massive agreement to change our constitution. So nobody does.
For example, politically I’m a syndicalist, but the democrats are pro union, pro environment, pro woman, and pro lgbt, all of which with a big asterisk but still I consistently vote for them because the greens didn’t win with Nader so they’re definitely going to lose now. So I dutifully vote Democrat because the only other party that has a chance is the republicans and they hate me and everything I believe in.
If we could do it again we’d do it better but in our defense we didn’t really have anyone to model off of
Jokes on you, in the end they both represent the same interests
It's like a restaurant with a single dish and you can only chose a side. One's xenophobia with a sprinkle of batshit crazy, the other's utter impotence.
American here. Hate it, hate it, hate it.
As an American, I find it amazing that countries can have more than two active parties but also have a plurality voting system.
First Past the Post voting makes it more likely: https://youtu.be/s7tWHJfhiyo?si=X-8oz1K6iYxKhBeB
Tipping
Also, losing their shit over nudity
Puritans for the latter.
Bribery / slavery for the former.
While having a huge porn industry.
Huh, the US and Japan aren't so different.
We have tipping in Europe, but that's mostly only done if you have a very good experience, not because you are expected to. Just pay your employees.
Keeping your gun accessible when driving your car. Needing or wanting to open carry when you go shopping. Needing to pose with your family all holding powerful guns for a Christmas photo. I don’t get it.
Most of America doesn't do it, just the people who are afraid of violence - which also happens to the same people who would quickly resort to violence. At this point, seeing a person wearing a gun is the same as seeing warning colors on other species like insects. If you see it, turn and go the other way. There is literally nothing worth the inconvenience of dealing with those people. (And hospitals don't allow open carry so matters of life and death can be attend to without worry.)
A modern analog I like is to high grade digital encryption.
Terrorists and criminals use it, and governments want to ban it. But that doesn't actually mean it should be banned, or that people who oppose a ban are terrorists or criminals.
Totally, except regulating encryption makes much more sense because of al those encryption-violence deaths that happen daily in the US. All those kids with easy access to encryption going to school and encrypting their classmates, the policemen not intervening because they are afraid to get encrypted by the kids armed with military grade AES-512 routines.
It is a modern analog, but with its limits - all this stuff doesn’t happen in countries where encryption is much more regulated and you can’t buy encryption routines in malls.
Your comment comes off as shallow and dismissive. I'd be happy to discuss this further, but not under those conditions.
I thought @draghetta made a good point in way that wasn't particularly shallow or dismissive. Not trying to stir hostility here, just throwing in my 2 currency subunits.
To clarify, I disagree because you're both missing my point, which is to explain and help people understand, and not an argument put forward in justification of anything.
Responding to an attempt to help bridge a gap of understanding by sarcastically dismissing any value in the analogy without even attempting to understand why it's being offered is, to me, a dismissive and shallow thing to do.
I disagree.
What a shallow and dismissive thing to say
What would you suggest?
That's not a great analogy though... you would have to add that, even though most people use it responsibly, banning digital encryption would cause a very dramatic reduction in harm caused by the people that don't use it responsibly.
Furthermore digital encryption actually serves an inherent purpose so banning it would also cause some harm to society simultaneously. On the other hand, civilian gun ownership serves no inherent purpose so society wouldn't be harmed by banning it, and we would only lose the risk.
But but but what if they get fascists in power! What if a bunch of goons attempt a coup!
Your gun will help a lot against the military...
Yeah, but it's way harder to kill someone accidentally (or in a fit of rage) with high grade digital encryption than with a firearm.
Guns are the only reliable way to deal with tyrants. And while its not everytime, look at what happens to disarmed populations usually.
Also gun control started as and still is racist.
You had a tyrant that tried to overthrow a legitimate election through violence.
Where were all gun nuts then? Those who weren’t attempting said coup, that is. Doesn’t sound reliable to me.
As for what happens to disarmed populations, most of Europe has gun control laws that would make any American have a heart attack, and yet here we are, no dictators to be seen up to GMT+3. Do say, what is it that happens to disarmed populations? What is happening to us that I somehow didn’t notice?
And gun control being racist.. I’m sorry, what? This right here, this is the thing I’ll never understand about Americans. Everything is racist. You can’t talk about anything, somebody will play the “racist” card before you can get any deeper than slogans. Absolutely every single thing turns out to be a race issue. Sure, you guys had very big issues with racism until very recently (learning about sundown towns for me was a huge WTF moment) and it’s very hard to deal with a past so ugly - but still, maybe not everything is about race.
In America, gun control started as a way to disarm black people. Worked out well when the Klan wanted to lynch someone. Thats what was racist about it.
Sounds like the usual American retcon.. you have a race obsession now so everything all the time was about race. A bit like Marx, who was obsessed with class struggle so literally every single event in history was actually a class struggle.
Also if you search online you’ll find plenty of articles they say they gun control is perceived as a racial issue, because gun control damages the rights of whites - with similarly flimsy arguments and mental gymnastics.
It’s almost as if it’s all bullshit.
Then why did the NRA start to get more "senesable gun control and not all gun owners are trustworthy" after the black panthers started to carry guns in the open
King George is the funny answer.
The Taliban insurgency is a much more recent one.
The viet cong fought the USA and won.
The IRA fought well.
I can keep going, but its easier to just link a wiki page. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_revolutions_and_rebellions
That rascally rabbit isn’t a tyrant just because he keeps tricking you. I know you’re traumatized but he doesn’t actually have power over you. It’s all in your head.
I don't know about the racism thing, but I doubt it. As far as the other thing, it doesn't have to be a choice between no guns or no restrictions. In the UK we have a ban on handguns and some hoops you have to jump through to own a rifle. Nothing too onerous I believe (though I've never tried to own a gun.)
I'm not afraid of our government becoming tyrannical. If it did, though, and guns are really the only reliable way to deal with them (I'm not convinced but anyway) then we still have plenty going around.
If youre in the UK, what did the IRA use to fight the British in the Troubles?
The ones that won, they used diplomacy. The armed conflict only ruined and made peoples lives miserable. Here's a doc you can listen to first hand accounts from members of the IRA. https://www.pbs.org/show/once-upon-time-northern-ireland/
Not disagreeing with you, but - you’ll have to admit, it’s a lot easier to have diplomatic talks when your side has a credible threat behind it. Do you think the Brits would have listened if the IRA had just done peaceful sit-ins?
Bombs mostly and they were always illegal.
What about it? Going to go bang, explosions are fun. Shooting people bad. What else did you want to know?
-signed Bleeding heart lefty with a gun
American lefty, which means you'd be at best centre right in any country with a healthcare system.
Why do you say that?
Oh I didn't mean you specifically, it's just a general comment on how policies of the European centre right parties are labelled in the American media. The Overton window is shifted to the left in Europe.
I was surprised to find out that abortion pre Rove versus Wade decision in the United States abortion was much more accessible than it was in the European Union.
Generally shifted to the left the overton window but not always.
For example, abortion.
Fair point.
I'm not familiar with RvW, but I'd suspect that in Europe it's largely member state competency, and the more religious societies might have stricter rules. I know Poland is very prohibitive, and so was Ireland until very recently when a highly publicised human tragedy turned people against the rigid rules of the Church.
The short version is that USA was more left than all EU members states on abortion -
Sadly that WAS true. However I live in California and it still is true.
Left here in California AKA me is actually left for the European Union too. That's why your original comment struck me as weird it's because for me and my state which is bigger than many European countries in both size and economic might is as left as the European Union.
I do not believe the overton window shift applies to California only the USA
At-will employment makes no sense to me. You go to work every day knowing you could be fired without any possibility of taking the time to find another job. It would drive me crazy.
Oh it's terrifying.
You should not compare that to employment as it is known in other countries.
Rather compare it to slavery. Doesn't it look better now? ;-)
The flip side is we can quit at anytime.
Yeah, that really doesn't make up for it.
I mean, I'll take the months notice period and knowing I get redundancy if my job goes over being able to quit a bit faster.
So like mid-shift or are there any limits to this?
I quit by showing up 3 hours early and sent an eff you I’m out email. Dropped my badge on my desk and walked out without talking to anyone.
No. You just tell someone above you that you quit, and then leave.
You could walk out without telling anyone, but that's rare. Depends on how shitty the job is.
Nope. I literally walked into work, dropped off my badge, said I quit and never looked back. HR called and I let it go to voicemail. They wanted to confirm my mailing address. A few weeks later I got my last paycheck. I left that company to change fields and it has never come up as an issue in subsequent roles. Quitting without notice is a fantastic perk that almost no one will be able to use. The key is to burn out early so looking for the next job is just around the corner.
I’m sorry I don’t get why this is a perk.
In here we have mandatory notice up to three months depending on tenure. It’s perfectly normal for new employers to have to wait the notice period when hiring a new person. Mind you, that’s 3 more guaranteed pay checks after you quit.
If you want to leave early you can negotiate a shorter notice, which i personally have never seen refused - normally people don’t want to keep leavers around so they’ll agree to a couple of weeks for handovers and then happily send you away with your (mandatory, tenure based) severance bonus.
If your old employer is petty and wants to keep you around for the whole notice you can just stop caring and carry on with the bare minimum. What are they going to do, fire you? Unless you’re causing them serious damage in that time they can’t do anything about it. That is also why employers tend to be very happy when you try to negotiate a short notice period.
I can understand how satisfying it must be to show up, slam your badge on somebody’s desk and say “fuck you I quit” - but other than those two seconds of joy I don’t see any other benefits.
There's no negotiating anything with at will employment. You just leave if you want to leave.
You can negotiate if you want to. Or you can say fuck off and just get another job somewhere else. That's the freedom of it. You're not locked into any type of contact.
Yeah but I don’t understand how that’s better. Your employer has to agree to keep you around longer rather than the other way around, feels much worse for financial well-being. But even if it was the same, there’s no way that’s worth having zero notice firing without just cause.
It feels a bit like cope ngl- like yeah I’m doing chemo I can’t eat anything but flavourless meal replacements but look I’ve never been slimmer! That’s a remarkable perk!
I don't get it either. Ignoring the inherent power imbalance between a single worker and an employer, good luck getting Gardening Leave in an at-will workplace.
https://www.gov.uk/handing-in-your-notice/gardening-leave
Depending on your contract, you can absolutely just leave mid shift with no repercussions. Even if you breach your contract, the company will have to pursue legal action to claim any damages, which is costly.
I mean, I don’t live in an at-will state and I can quit at any time too.
So you live in Montana?
... because that's the only one.
I guess that also makes it somewhat easier to get hired though? You can give your employees a chance without thinking too much about it, and if they suck just fire them.
We have this in Germany - for the first six months of employment. Ok, it's still two weeks notice because that's the right thing to do, but still, it's less than the 1/2/3/4/5/6/7 months of notice required after working at a place for 0.5/5/8/10/12/15/20 years. (BGB §622 for the curious)
There is no reason to keep the possibility for such a short notice indefinitely.
For the most part, in my experience, don't be a fuck up and you won't get fired. Every company I've ever worked for has had very strict rules about firing people, It can take months for someone to get fired for anything short of violence, theft, or sexual harassment.
Thanks for the answer. It’s clearer now.
Some companies having strict rules isn't a stand-in for decent workers protections.
Employers don't have protections from employees flaking out either. It goes both ways.
Yeah, there's quite a power imbalance there ...
Only if you're easily replaceable.
No, then there's still a power imbalance, only slightly less egregious.
This is true. No idea why you're being downvoted. There are tons of protections in place for workers in at-will states.
Nope. You can just get laid off for "no reason."
No you can't.
Labor laws are a very real thing.
Yes, that's the entire point of "at-will" employment.
There are protected classes, but "for no reason" is quite legal in most states, which is the terrible reality. US labor laws suck.
https://www.findlaw.com/legalblogs/law-and-life/what-are-your-legal-rights-if-you-are-laid-off/#:~:text=Federal%20Protections&text=Nearly%20all%20jobs%20are%20considered,long%20as%20it's%20not%20discriminatory.
That depends on where you're working. If you're working for a company in an industry that tends to lay people off at certain times, then yeah you're probably to be laid off in the future. Most companies aren't like that though.
They will say of themselves as being Irish/Italian/other-european-nationality because their great-grandfather or great-grandmother came from there.
A “politics” channel on a site called Lemmy.World that is specifically only for US politics, because America is the world.
The obsession with mutilating baby boy’s penises.
Vote for people who actively oppose universal healthcare, mandatory PTO policies, universal family leave policies, universal college-level education, etc.
City zoning.
Oh, i have to drive from single family zone to commercial district to pick up a loaf of bread. Then drive to education district to drop kids at kindergarten, and finally to business district to work. At the end of the day i hang out at bar/entertainment district with the guys from work to have a beer, but there's no public transport so I have to drink alcohol free so I can drive back home. That's only 120 miles in a day!
City design and suburbs. Like if I had to drive 40 minutes to get groceries I would prefer to starve and those suburbs look like death would be the better alternative. Also driving to go for a walk, wtf?
The way politicians and the political system nakedly serves the needs and interests of corporations and the wealthy, and not the average individual.
The way that the price you're quoted invariably gets bumped up by various taxes.
The insane system that is tipping, including the fact that a lot of workers are so underpaid that they rely on tips to get by.
The incessant adverts on TV for medical products, particularly prescription drugs.
Voting registration. I get a letter that I can vote and what the options are. Then on voting day, which is on a Sunday, because why would it be on any other day, I just walk into my town hall with that letter and my ID card, put down my crosses and leave. It's like a walk in the park, often quite literally.
Healthcare, electoral college, how supreme court justices are elected, first past the post voting system.
Edit: and the self assurance to nitpick a foreigner over the details of how justices come into their job.
The EC is a mechanism to make the Presidential election less democratic.
Supreme Court Justices aren't elected at all. The President nominates a judge and the Senate votes to approve that person for the post.
FTtP voting is bad. It's just awful. The more you understand it the clearer that becomes.
Healthcare... no cap, we don't understand it, either. It's a mess.
What’s not to understand about your healthcare? It’s the one thing you literally cannot live without. Make the barrier to it $$$ (and tie it to your employment) means you’ll always have a subdued work force, and a big money funnel for the wealthy.
That's only the start and even then not quite accurate. I don't have insurance through my employer, for example: I used to have it through the government and now I have private, and before either I just bought healthcare with cash on the barrelhead.
And the thing is, paying cash is usually less than half of the price charged to insurers, even if you set up a payment plan, because individuals are easier to get to pay than the insurance corporations. And there's ab additional discount for paying day-of-service because then they don't even need to send a bill and they know they'll actually get paid! So it can be a lot cheaper to buy healthcare in cash, depending on how much you need.
But now let's say you have government insurance: Very good on preventative care, pediatrics, prenatal. Everything generally performed in-house and same-day, but scheduling is a crapshoot. Still the simplest insurance option once you have it.
Employer-provided insurance: My ex-employer, two jobs and half a decade ago, is still fighting with their insurance provider at the time about a hospital visit I had back then. Insurance says it wasn't withing coverage dates, HR can prove otherwise.
Private insurance (but also employer insurance): Actual healthcare providers don't know and don't care if services are within network; which can change on a whim anyway, so someone who was in network when you schedule an appointment might be out-of-network three months later when you finally get in there. Since you can't just schedule with a specialist without a referral, it takes at least two months and two appointments to see one, often more like six months, and whether or not your insurance will pay for it is up in the air anyway. And you're paying hundreds of dollars each month for this "service". It's insane.
And this is for a young family in relatively good health seeking preventative care. I can't even image this nightmare of corporatism and bureaucracy with a chronic condition or an emergency.
Supreme Court justices aren’t elected.
The Electoral College exists because it was never the intent for the President to be elected by the public. It sticks around because changing it requires changing the Constitution, and a majority of states benefit from the status quo.
There is a plan for its abolishment. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUX-frlNBJY&pp=ygUXdG9wIHNuZWFreSBwbGFuIGNncGdyZXk%3D
How any judge is just elected…
If justice isn't democratic then nothing is.
Canadian here but still, shoes in house? Gross. Obsession with gun culture? Also gross.
Your houses seem to be made out of paper. Then you complain about strong winds..
Guns. Just restrict them, it's not that hard
The "winner takes all" political system that ends with two extremist parties and a huge divide between people
Healthcare. Do I need to say anything?
The extreme divide between rich and poor
Police force. They hire lowly educated people, preferably racist, receiving barely any training, and what they do get is mostly nonsense. They then get military equipment, and the entire system is protected by a corrupt union
The amount that news organizations are allowed to lie
Imperial unit system.
Their US customary units. What even is a fluid ounce, and what is it doing in my drink?
They're Florida Ounces
Come visit the UK. We have fluid ounces too, but only for baking. Your drink will be served by the millilitre, unless it's beer in a pub, or milk in a home, in which case it will be served by the pint.
And here’s me hoping to be served by the bartender.
oh and British imperial pints are different than US customary pints just for the extra fun
Oh that's true. American pints are a disappointment.
A shot? An eighth of a cup? Sixteenth of a pint? I mean, I get it. Metric is standard, but of all the units to pick on, the fluid ounce is probably one of our more reasonable measurements. We have acres of less-intuitive units.
That sounds like slang term for a boger.
Flounces are the best part of US Customary units. It's all base 2/8/16, which is a hell of a lot more sensible than base 10 units.
Is that because you have 16 fingers?
We take off our shoes. Duh.
Debatable. I probably shouldn't restart the whole imperial vs metric debate, but I might just say that people who grow up with metric think exactly the opposite.
I'll convert to metric once we convert to a dozenal number system. Ten is a terrible number to base our counting system on.
Maybe when you are counting apples, but not when you are dealing with arbitrary amounts. Why else is our number system base 10?
Because ten fingers. Base 12 is still better.
2x2x3. You can divide 12 so many ways, its nice.
Imperial sucks, and metric is better, but still +1 for dozenal. Anybody who isn't for it is either confused about the very concept of different bases (I've talked to plenty of those), or biased.
I don't know why you dozenal advocates are being downvoted.
You're serious? Why? I've genuinely never heard this stance before.
Is it because they're powers of two and are therefore easier to halve, quarter, etc. for baking and cooking purposes?
Yeah this is why most old measurement systems used 4 8 12. 4 fingers to a palm, you don't count the thumb as a finger. Then 4 palms to arm, for a total of 16 fingers. At 12 arms into a bigger unit so you can count the joints on your hand
I can't tell if you're kidding. How do you keep track of four palms per arm?
That actually how the Egyptians made their cubits. Tuck your Thumb under you hand and place all four finger at your elbow. You have about 4 palms before you get to your wrist.
Interesting. Learned something new today, thanks!
Yes.
Maybe before we had the scientific ability it measure micro-measurements. It makes no sense today.
It doesn't really matter, does it? Just look at the mL.
Thinking Europeans are the only other humans on Earth
Grocery baggers. I'm German - we pack our own bags over here and most customers do NOT like others to fondle their groceries. We literally do not have any "baggers" in any supermarket, and if a cashier packs a customer's bags without being specifically asked to do so (basically never happens) the customer will take that as an insult - as if you're trying to say they don't get out of your sight fast enough / that you want to speed up their departure to get rid of them, or that you don't think they're capable of that super basic, simple task. It's considered rude and condescending.
A cashier is expected to scan the stuff the customer wants to buy, take payment, hand over the receipt and change, and then leave the customer and their groceries alone.
American here. Honestly eager to hear what they have to say. It would be cool insight into things I don't even really think about! ^^
Restaurant tipping instead of decent wages; somehow the blame is on the "stingy" customer
they have an insane amount of gun and gun related deaths They don't have Universal Healthcare they don't have a federal payed leave law they don't have a maternal/paternal leave law they don't have tuition free universities they don't have decent mass transportation The use of the imperial system
It just doesn't make sense and baffles my mind for the richest country in the world to treat it's citizens like this
Okay now I'm stretching the OPs idea a little bit, but America is big.
How people live in South America never needing to learn other language than Spanish and plausibly never interacting with a foreign language outside movies. I spent some time in Chile, the place I lived in had a nice janitor. He did not speak English, I only knew a few loose words in Spanish so communication was... peculiar. Only after 2 months of awkward interactions he realised, that I probably am not Spanish native speaker and it hit me.
When your entire life in a continent where everyone speaks flavours of Spanish or Portugese, you can have successful, international career only in Spanish, participate in all kinds of rich culture only in Spanish and all signs and labels are only in Spanish, huge majority of tourists speak Spanish... it is not immediately obvious, that people may not speak Spanish.
Don't get me wrong, it's not dunking on "dumb spanish speakers". There are ton of places in Europe where people disregard English, where it's famously hard to communicate in anything other than the local language, but the fact, that other languages exist is apparent to everyone once they learn to read. Awareness that people actually speak these languages is the most natural knowledge from ground school as we learn that "Germany speaks German. Italy speaks Italian" etc. A perspective which does not involve being in constant proximity to numerous foreign languages felt like something that made no sense to me in the past until I actually came into contact with it.
Lack of history.
In LA I've been told that old buildings are demolished to build new ones.
Something 50 years old is an historic landmark there.
Saying "could care less" when that's not what they mean.
Cheap wooden houses in areas with termites
And no insulation, so you rely on expensive AC
Tipping
Very large cars. You can easily fit 5 people in a small car.. lol.
Your voting system. Registering to vote? Wtf is this? Here you get your "ticket" to vote, by mail, automatically after you turn 18, a few weeks before the election date. And you are required by law to get time off, to vote, if youre otherwise unable to make it in time.
Also paying for education.. lol. Here its all free. In fact, im getting paid to study. (Not a ton but enough to get by)
Electing positions that require specialized skills or have judiciary authority. You elect your law enforcement, your judges, your fucking dog catchers. What the fuck?? Is it so hard to come up with a meritocratic method of selecting a fucking dog catcher that you must just throw your hands up and just ask random people what to do?!
Religion.
Anti Vax.
Militarised police.
Racism.
Political corruption.
Foreign wars.
Mass shootings.
Healthcare.
Public transit.
Abortion.
UFO.
Capitalism.
Two weeks holiday.
Maternity leave.
My experience is from Canada, but Canada is in America so it should count:
Absolute hostility against pedestrians. Or not-driving in general. It seems you are unworthy of public services if you don’t own a car in the US.
Tipping and calculating your own taxes
Police officer: *sees black man running*
*spins wheel*
dadada·da·da-da-da–da–da—da — da TRESPASSING
(The wheel is 60% trespassing)
Also, what are sheriffs for?
Several things, but top of the list is guns.
No promotion/relegation in their sports leagues so it's just the same 20 teams playing in the top flight every year. Sounds well boring.
Cars. You seem to buy cars like smartphones( actualy probably even worse since buying phone on credit dosent seem to be as common nowadays ) . If you can afford the credit payment for the card dosent mean you can afford the car. In fact why everyone buys stuff on credit cards in the US . It seems insane to me to go to debt for a stupid cofee.
Everything in this thread so far is normal stuff I could have guessed. Guns, metric, tipping, etc. Most of it has large groups of people in the country that agree, or at least know.
What are some non-obvious things? Culture shock isn't about major political issues. It's about universal things that turn out to not be universal.
For example, US people have a strong culture of how standing in line works. It's basically a moral sin to butt in line unless you have someone holding your place. This is universal in the country. My understanding is that other countries differ. Is that true?
France doesn't understand how to queue.
They will look you in the eyes and smile while they cut you off in line at the bakery to buy a fucking baguette, not even realizing the injustice they have done you.
Source : I go to France at least once a year on vacation.
Well, that also depends on your attitude in the boulangerie. If you're busy standing around looking and going ah-humm and look like you're still browsing while the cashier isn't doing anything, then yeah folks are just gonna walk to the counter to order that baguette. The transaction is gonna take 20sec, they already know what they want, the baker already knows what they want because they buy the same thing every day, and probably they're gonna give them the exact change needed.
If there's an actual queue and people are waiting in line, no one in their right mind would try to cut, in some French regions that's how you end up at the hospital.
Ah.. no.
I mean they will literally cut you off as you're about to order and shout over you.
I've been to all corners of the country except for Alsace and it was extremely common.
And even if someone is still deciding, it's still extremely rude to cut people off.
I really cannot confirm this. I am French.
Well you said it yourself that you cut in line when people are a little indecisive at the bakery...
I've seen people cut through an entire line at la poste and walk up to a counter directly to get service while everyone else was yelling at them and still get served. It boggled my mind.
I've seen people rush to huddle trying to all get into a bus at the same time instead of doing a queue like anywhere else in the world.
People pretending they have a question, walk directly to a the cash register at a market and then ordering directly while a whole queue is waiting to be served.
I'm from Montréal and I have a lot of French friends who complain everytime they come back from a visit home about this type of behaviour and how it just made them rage.
To be fair though, this type of behaviour is mostly from older generations with a few exceptions. And then there Paris....
Okay yeah I have to admit some of the examples ring pretty true, especially the bus one, there's no discipline there.
I don't go back to France that often since I live abroad and when I do I avoid people like the plague, hate the bastards.
I still wouldn't say that cutting in line is accepted, in my example at the boulangerie I don't picture a line, just someone standing in the shop looking at the choices and there's no one waiting at the counter. But yeah you're right that maybe it gets tried more than other countries, but I also remember vividly people getting called out for it, you also mention the people at la poste were yelling at them so clearly it's not like a normal thing.
I think what you describe is more the uncoordinated and individualist/me first French attitude rather than just line-cutting like I've experienced for example in China where that's really like if you leave 20cm in front of you they slip in and no one says anything, if you do that in the wrong line in France you won't forget it.
Finally, lol sometimes I forget Paris is part of France, hate these bastards even more than the rest of them.
PS I married a compatriot of yours and have family in Outaouais, we'll probably move there some day and visit regularly. Quebec people are super chill and friendly compared to French, so I think that's also part of the culture shock, not line cutting but just the fact we're a bunch of assholes.
Yeah it's not accepted. When there is a line and people do cut in, they're usually told. Hahaha.
Like many other French people have told me "la France c'est bien mais c'est plein de français".
To be fair, I've had a generally positive experience. Except for Paris, people are generally nice. Especially in Bretagne and in the south.
Parisians are... execrable. There's always exceptions, but my general experience has been pretty much consistent with every visit.
I was expecting people in Bordeaux to be a bit similar but it was the complete opposite. People would actually take the initiative to ask us if we needed help if we looked like we were looking for directions.
In Chamonix I made a bunch of friends in only a couple of days of visiting hahaha. They were really chill. Like a bunch of surfer dudes, but in the mountains.
Corsica is ... Corsica. LoL!
In the UK we pride ourselves on our ability to queue for no apparent reason.
Sir, pride in the sanctity of the Queue is reason enough alone.
Seriously though, being in places where people don't queue properly is miserable. That's something America should be applauded for.
We only embrace the chaos of the queueless on Black Friday.
Unless you're up the ramp at the pub, then it's everyman for himself and hope the bar maid has a good memory.
Now I'm picturing pubs with orderly lines and it just feels very wrong.
I know some small petty things!
You say "off of". In the UK we just say off. "Get off my lawn" Vs "Get off of my lawn". Why do you need the extra word?
You call pasta noodles. Pasta is not noodles.
I once got kicked off (of) a beach at 9pm by a police officer. Wtf? It's the beach, who cares if I'm on it at night? And why is it so important to have a police car patrolling it?
On that note, trespassing seems much more serious in America. In a lot of the world you can just wander around, if it's on somebody else's land it's no big deal as long as you don't cause a mess.
For the culture thing, Americans are generally louder and less subtle than any other nationality. They're more friendly and energetic. There's a certain type of dry sarcastic humour that never lands with Americans. I don't want to call it British humour because there's never any confusion with the rest of Europe
Why would it not be bad to cut in line? It just makes sense to respect people's time by maintaining FIFO order.
I spent some time in Germany and it's very much so not true there. I was waiting on line for something and my German friend got in a different line and he got his food a solid ten minutes before me. Afterwards he explained that he took the line against the wall so people could only budge in front of him from one direction. He told me "Germans cut. It's just the way it is."
God, how is there not more daily murder there.
The lack of relegation or promotion in your sports leagues. Isn't the same 20 teams being in the Superbowl, MLB, NBA, every year boring? How do you live without the shaudenfraude of seeing a previously good team go down or the glory of a team cooking up and giant killing in their first tip flight season?
...Two teams play the Super Bowl every year.
An NFL season consists of a 3 week pre-season and an 18 week regular season during which all teams in the league--currently 32--compete within their division and conference. The winners of each of the four divisions in both conferences plus three wild card teams who among the remaining teams have the best record of both conferences (14 teams in all) go on to play in the post-season playoffs, a single-elimination tournament whose final, championship game is the Super Bowl.
American football fans enjoy the schadenfreude of a previous championship team not even making the playoffs, or the glory of a team who hasn't made the playoffs in recent memory going all the way to The Big Game.
It’s the same here in the Netherlands.
Putting american flags everywhere. What do you want to tell me with that? That you like the country? Obviously you do or else you wouldn't live there
Don't make such assumptions.
Yeah, when you live in the US, moving anywhere else isn't as easy as packing up your things to go to a new country. We don't have the benefit of an EU or Schengen Zone.
Very much not true. Moving to another country full time is not particularly easy for a lot of people.
Oh actually no most of us can’t reasonably leave. We don’t have a shengen type deal or financial security so leaving is actually quite difficult for most of us.
I asked an American who was getting citizenship in my country if they were going to relinquish their american citizenship and was told that was pretty much unthinkable for an american.
Yeah I can’t imagine why I would. Like the country has its huge issues but holy fuck is our passport an amazing thing to have. It’s a thing of nobody but us will fuck with us.
Not having to pay tax in the US when you don't live or work there.
The United States is one of only two countries that taxes based on citizenship, not place of residency. That means it doesn’t matter where you hang your hat — if you’re legally a U.S. citizen, you have a tax obligation to the U.S.
American passport is one of the few that still demand taxes even if you never been to the US for ages, look it up.
Taxes, Boris Johnson gave up his citizenship as he didn't want to pay tax on a country he didn't actively reside in. I always thought that was kind of ironic given half the reasons for independence were due to paying tax to a foreign power.
It takes swathes of resources to get out of this hellhole. You wanna provide about $50k and a guaranteed job / housing / transport out for me? Then I can leave.
They do this in Europe too though (not with the US flags, obviously).
Norway is particularly famous for flying the flag everywhere.
Fair, I have also seen plenty of flags in Denmark.
As a German it weirds me out. We don't do that kind of nationalism any more.
Switzerland also. People have proper flagpoles in their garden, it's quite stange.
I see a good bit of flag waving in the Netherlands as well. In France though I'd be weirded out if I saw one besides on official buildings and stuff.
Yes, if you see a private home in France with the French flag, you'd pretty much assume the people living there are far right extremists. Normal people use the Brittany flag instead.
I was
very pleasedaghast that they had porn on TV in Europe after a certain hour when visiting in my teenage years.they had softcore porn at the airport in Moscow when I visited in the mid-90s! i was a young teenager being mesmerized by tits.
I've been to european countries where they do this too.
What's up with that "bus shaming"? It would never occur to me to judge people based on whether they use public transport VS own a car!
Pickup trucks everywhere. No public transportation usually. General Tso's chicken is a typical Chinese food you get. Weed products are available almost everywhere legally. Light beer. No proper lager beer even in small breweries. How people drive. No sidewalks most of the time. The whole health industry. Electric sockets. So many churches. The general war against trans people. The general war against women.
School/mass shootings.
Sandwich for lunch.
Gas operated dryers.
High school proms being such a big thing.
It takes about 8 to 12 hours to drive across Texas, which is longer than it takes to cross Germany. France and Germany have different laws, and so do Texas and New Mexico. Once you realise that the USA is essentially 50 different countries stapled together, it makes a lot more sense.
Well that Germany you mentioned happens to be 16 states stapled together
And US states are further broken down by many counties staples together
And in my state we even break counties down another level
The ones that don't still have something equivalent like "Parishes".
Alright. So one American state is the size of 16 German ones.
Your second biggest state*
When you compare the size. When you compare the population… it depends.
Texas has a bigger population than Australia. In fact, it would be 51st largest population and 40th largest area in the world if it split off from the USA.
I'd imagine that France and Germany probably have more similar laws than some US states do because of the EU.
Maybe? The EU is way younger than the US though.
Also the EU is way less powerful over the individual EU countries than the US federal government is over the states.
Not so sure about this.....maybe you could find two states that have very differing laws compared to France-Germany, but on the whole it's probably not true. Kind of hard to quantify that though.
Their tipping culture seems insane to me.
It is, to reasonable people.
It works the same way it works in Europe between countries in the EU. The laws are similar enough that it isn't a problem in most cases. There are also efforts that states do to harmonize parts of the law. It keeps the peace because states have different ideas on how to govern themselves.
That then plays out to taxes, as some states have a far more active government than others. So, the states, counties, and municipalities have their own ways to generate revenue to provide the services their communities want.
Most people never leave their home town, let alone their state.
That is actually pretty rare in the USA. If anything, Americans are very mobile within the country. It is common for people to live in multiple states within their lifetime.
Garbage disposable units.
That's really something the rest of the world should learn to use, they're an upgrade.
Its handy af, why not
It is bad for the water treatment plants or pipes if its overused. Only water should go down the drain. I can't imagine the comfort they provide makes up for their downsides.
only once have one clog, and stop the trash bag from having so much food stinking in it. The water could be a problem if you treatment plants aren't set up for it.
If you don't compost and you don't want your garbage to stink, they make sense to me. If you're using it properly, i.e. just putting food waste in it, it's going to decompose safely.
I use them more for taking care of the little bits of food that wash off my dishes when I have to clean them in the sink. Instead of grabbing all that gunk out of the sink and throwing it away (which is gross to do), I just let it go down the drain and grind it up in the disposal. EZPZ.
Am American... Have had several places over the years with garbage disposal units.
I absolutely abhor the things... Almost no one uses them properly so they put shit in them that should be going in the trash causing clogs and busted disposal units.
If my wife didn't insist on having one I absolutely would not have one in my house ever again.
My garbage can doesn’t get nearly as stinky now that I don’t have to throw much food waste in it.
You only have one garbage can?
I have several, including one in my kitchen, but I’m not sure how the number of trash cans in my house really changes the equation of “discarded chicken trimmings == really stinky trash can tomorrow”.
You don't have separate recycling? With recycling bins & separate food waste collection, our general waste wheelie bin takes ages to fill up...
We do, and most trash in my house ends up going in recycling. But there are still things that go in the regular trash that cannot be recycled. That is part of the problem actually. Because most things end up in the recycle bin, my regular trash bin takes 8-10 days to fill up. That is a lot of time for some raw chicken trimmings to just sit there making stank, especially so close to where I prepare my food.
I've found it helps if the bin isn't completely closed off so the trash can dry. But I take it out every couple days, regardless of how full it is
You have a street bin for organic waste?
Nope, but even if I’d did, shuttling all that waste directly from my kitchen to my curbside bin would be a lot more work than just sending it down the disposal.
See there's your problem.
i fail to see how this hypothetical organic waste bin is better than the garbage disposal
Americans seem very "fighty" compared to people from many other countries. You just have to say something that could be construed as liberal (the American kind) or conservative, too politically correct or incorrect, or mention you ride a bicycle or have an outdoor cat, to set some people off. With some Americans having a conversation is like navigating a minefield, especially those who have very little understanding of the rest of the world and reads everything you say into an American context, language barriers and all.
I love talking politics, and have had pleasant conversations with all kinds of people but I have learned from experience to just not bother with Americans, unless they're the very curious and open kind.
Worshipping guns.
A garbage disposal in the sink. Practically illegal everywhere. They seem fun to have though
Work hard.
Why???
Random pick from a rather long list: The fact that the president can (and does; a lot..) "pardon" random criminals.
Think that calling a waiter to your table is rude. Like are supposed to wait forever?
It's such a strange contradictory place. You pride yourself in freedom of speech but are so puritanical you refer to using the toilet as 'using the restrooms' and 'taking a comfort break'. Everyone knows you're going in there to crimp one off, not to have a comfortable rest in a designated room.
The fraternity and sorority thing at universities is really odd too. I don't really know what they're for aside from providing a dedicated environment for abuse via the deceptively amiable name of 'hazing'.
And referring to all your sports competitions as World Championships when the only teams that play are American. Bit cringey. I mean, you probably would win if there was an actual international basketball or baseball or american football competition, but at least the World Champion thing would actually mean something then.
Came up recently... cupholders in cars. You really have to drink in the car while driving?
Europeans speak 1.5~2.5 languages each
US Americans seem like 0.8 with phrases like could care less or your a dick.
Garbage disposal
Scientology
Most Americans (inside and outside of Usa) are very poor but still they are trying so hard to believe Usa was kinda great country and they were somewhat rich who live there.
That you greet by saying how are you doing, but you arent always expected to answer it!?!?!?
Don't some British do this as well, with "you all right?"
Yes. The correct answer is "Not too bad, you?" and after they've also not answered truthfully the conversation may begin.
So do the Irish, with their “hey haysegoyen”
Took me weeks to figure out I wasn’t supposed to answer
Irish greetings are the best. My fav is "What's the story?"
Lol. First time someone asked me this in the UK, I replied with "Is that a question I'm actually supposed to answer, or just a different kind of hello?" The look on their face was classic.
British people are excluded, they drive on the right side /s
(I am not familiar with this btw)
Filing one’s own taxes.
Using personal pronouns too much. It’s not your ABCs, billions of people use the modern Latin alphabet
"Panties"
Ick.
Pumpkin pie
I don’t understand why Americans that hate their own country but wont leave for a better place.
Driving on the left...
Americans drive on the right, same as Europe. It's us Brits that drive on the left.
You nowadays let your colonies do whatever they want?
We don't let them, we're powerless to stop them. And it's not like we're making good decisions either.
Most ex colonies drive on the left.
Do you call brittish/japanese cars right-hand drives or left-hand drives? As far as I knew, the cars are labelled by the position of the steering wheel not the traffic lane they ride on.
The cars yes, the traffic no.
You said driving on the left. That means the left side of the street.
So if you're driving a car and the steering wheel is on the left side of it, you are NOT driving on the left?
You're arguing semantics here. You did understand my point and is spinning it your way to try and sound smart.
As the legend Michael Jordan would say: "stop it, get some help"
Correct. I would drive on the right (side of the road) with this left hand drive car.
Stop it, take this help: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-_and_right-hand_traffic
Wrong side.
Yes, that's right! =)