American here. Those of us with any sense don’t care anymore about being a superpower. We know we’re a fuckin joke on the world stage. We just want a working country but we know we’ll likely never see that again in our lifetimes.
And yeah yeah, “then do something about it” is easily said. Getting people across thousands of miles to gather in one place with no affordable travel infrastructure is intensely difficult.
Oh I don’t think anything can be done about it. It’s not just the Americans fault either. The entire “free” world put their eggs in one basket so to speak. The USA has been a beacon of freedom and a place all people aspiring to be free look up too. Maybe it was all just propaganda and lies? However, even to this day Americans will defend their country thinking it’s the best that there is. Maybe the first step for Americans is to stop being so damn proud?
Great response. Apologies for my initial defensiveness. Most of what I see here is “well then do something about it” so I was just trying to head that off.
I agree with you. And yeah, it was always propaganda from like the 1960s onward at a minimum. Nixon fucked us over and we’ve been going downhill since.
Any Americans still defending this playground for pedophile billionaires are idiots who refuse to look critically at this place for even a second, and are likely part of the problem. Fuck em. There’s not much to be proud of here. Some small things, mostly local, but nothing on a national scale.
It mostly always was. Certainly no freedom to think alternatively from US nazi economic domination, or Israel’s supremacist right to their own freedom above neighbours.
The core issue with criticism of TACD de-escallation is thinking that the US still has the power advantage in this war and can “impose freedom for the world” through another Vietnam/Afghanistan length conflict. It’s not just failing to understand hegemony was never about freedom, its not understanding the impotence.
Americans, I assume like many other countries in the world, get blasted with the patriotism firehose early and often. For the first two decades of my life I generally held the assumption that America was the best and most free, England was pretty good and kind of free, then maybe some of the scandinavian countries, then all the countries no one cares about, and at the bottom was Russia, North Korea, and China, in that order. It was really hard to find information to the contrary, and even if you did, voicing doubts about America’s number-one-ness could seriously cost you a job, a family relationship, a scholarship, etc. if not actually get you under investigation by the authorities (depending on what was said and to whom). It simply wasn’t done when I was younger, at least in my social sphere.
I think the internet really did a number on America’s propaganda program, because a lot more young people nowadays, even before Trump, seem a lot more disillusioned about America and its role in the world. There’s been a bit of a backslide, I think, as the powerful have consolidated their grip on the internet, but not a complete one. Kids seem to understand that they’re being lied to, even if they don’t understand the full scope and nature of the deception.
Maybe that a consequence of who I choose to keep in my immediate IRL circle these days. Maybe it’s just hope. But I think, or hope, that we’re better off than we were 40 years ago as far as understanding what our government is actually doing goes.
Yes totally agree with a lot of this. I’m an immigrant to the USA from Poland, I was brought here when I was 6. Boy did I drink the USA cool aid. I started questioning things early though, when Obama was president. I was taught in the Chicago school district in the late 90s to 00s. Inclusion, diversity and free critical thinking were taught. PBS was also a staple during childhood.
Anyway when Obama was president I was shocked at how angry people were in certain areas of the country. I thought it was just another logical step in the USA history. Then I moved to Oklahoma in 2014 for a job and boy did that make me question what this country really is. The racism was common in Chicago, but in Oklahoma it was on another level. Sure the people were nice, but since I was a white male they would open up easily to me and I didn’t like the things I heard.
Next Trump came on the scene and that was a bit disturbing and I was surprised by his win. That’s when I started visiting Europe around 2017. As the years progressed I have become extremely disillusioned by the USA. I tried to enjoy the beautiful nature and empty spaces, but living in the cities working day to day was becoming to eat at my soul. Now I’m convinced that the cities here have been destroyed by automobiles. Any argument for more walkable and healthy cities is politicized and people are so against it. So yeah I’m hoping to move to Europe, if only it was so simple.
The US is seen on par with Russia now. Above NK; below China. Kind of just go around fucking everyone and everything, unapologetically and oblivious. Most of the rest of the world is done and started the transition to cut the US out of the picture. Globalisation is slow but a hard thing to turn once a course is set. When possible, the US will start getting sanctioned.
There’s still the jokes, but even that’s fatigued.
My state is larger than most European countries and it’s not even that large of a state.
When people say “then do something about it voting isn’t working” they’re asking 50 different countries to drop their jobs (most of them getting fired in the process and losing Healthcare) and personal lives to get mowed down by gung-ho losers who can’t wait to kill anyone they think is further left than they are.
Seriously, there are several websites dedicated to illustrating the true size of countries compared to others, just fiddle around with some European countries overlaying them on the US.
My friends in the UK complain about travel time and distance to get to relatives houses on holidays when the relative is only 60 miles away. I used to drive 60 miles just to get to work.
Seriously, I’d love to be able to drop everything and go demand change or else but the reality is far more complex and bloody than that.
When people tell Americans “go do something about it and don’t take no for an answer” what they are really saying is “go kill yourself via law enforcement” but are either too naive or too cowardly to say it directly.
It’s harder to get people concentrated enough to stage effective protests, if a small number of people live spread out over a huge area.
That wouldn’t be such a barrier if the people as a whole really wanted to protest, but it’s still a mixed bag, and the less densely populated the area, the less likely people are to want to protest, as they tend to be more conservative or politically apathetic regions (very roughly)
“My friends in the UK complain about travel time and distance to get to relatives houses on holidays when the relative is only 60 miles away. I used to drive 60 miles just to get to work.”
A phrase that I’ve heard that captures the contrast well is:
In the UK, 100 miles is a long distance; In the US, 100 years is a long time
As a Brit, I can’t imagine driving 60 miles to get to work.
When I was a kid, we’d sometimes take a day trip out to the seaside, which was 63 miles away. If we wanted to do this, we’d have to get up super early so we could have enough time there.
For a longer holiday in the Summer, we would occasionally take a trip to a different place a bit further down on the coast, which was an 85 mile journey. We viewed that as being prohibitively far away for a day trip, and I don’t remember ever going there if we weren’t spending at least 4 days there (including the travel days).
It’s insane how relative our perceptions of these things are.
UK: 30 miles in built-up areas, 70 miles on motorways. Most of Europe has 120 or 130 km/h (75 or 80 mph), except Germany which technically has no general speed limit on the Autobahn.
I think our speed limits are comparable to similar roads in the US, but that there are more highways/long and wide roads with a high speed limit in the US, so it probably goes faster.
The route we used to drive to get me to college (high school) was 8 miles and took around 30 minutes on a good day. I imagine that’s more time than a comparable journey would take for you.
There weren’t really any sections of this route where we could drive fast. The first mile was suburban and had a speed limit of 30mph, but frequent traffic lights and minor slowdowns due to parked cars on the side of the road (the UK has fewer dedicated parking places like driveways or garages). The next couple of miles had a limit of 60mph, but it was super twisty and hilly roads such that you’d be insane to drive at 60mph. Places like these are quite common, where it’s like the speed limit is just obligatory and they’re just saying “use your best judgement for the conditions”. Does the US have many speed limits like that, I wonder? Regardless of if there are similar stretches of road in the US, they’re far more dense in the UK, I reckon
Once we got out of the twisty, wooded area, it was a 40mph limit, but even that was only for two miles, before it dropped back down to a 30mph due to the main road taking you through a small farming hamlet that used to be a thriving settlement 600 or so years ago. Then once we got past that, there was a tiny stretch of 40mph road until we hit the urban areas, with all the intersections and traffic that entailed.
My point is that in the UK, if you’re not on a Motorway, then even the big main roads will often have you constantly slowing down and speeding up. The UK is much more dense than the US, even in somewhat rural places like where I lived.
To give another brief example, that 85 mile, longer seaside journey I mentioned in my original comment would typically take 2 and a half hours, if traffic was normal. Looking at the map, a lot of this journey wouldn’t take place on motorways.
Thanks for sharing your perspective; I really enjoy getting glimpses into the worlds of other people. It’s especially nice to have normal and interesting conversations with Americans online, because with how much the US dominates the news, it can be easy to slip into thinking of the US purely as a big, abstract entity.
American here. Those of us with any sense don’t care anymore about being a superpower. We know we’re a fuckin joke on the world stage. We just want a working country but we know we’ll likely never see that again in our lifetimes.
And yeah yeah, “then do something about it” is easily said. Getting people across thousands of miles to gather in one place with no affordable travel infrastructure is intensely difficult.
Oh I don’t think anything can be done about it. It’s not just the Americans fault either. The entire “free” world put their eggs in one basket so to speak. The USA has been a beacon of freedom and a place all people aspiring to be free look up too. Maybe it was all just propaganda and lies? However, even to this day Americans will defend their country thinking it’s the best that there is. Maybe the first step for Americans is to stop being so damn proud?
Great response. Apologies for my initial defensiveness. Most of what I see here is “well then do something about it” so I was just trying to head that off.
I agree with you. And yeah, it was always propaganda from like the 1960s onward at a minimum. Nixon fucked us over and we’ve been going downhill since.
Any Americans still defending this playground for pedophile billionaires are idiots who refuse to look critically at this place for even a second, and are likely part of the problem. Fuck em. There’s not much to be proud of here. Some small things, mostly local, but nothing on a national scale.
It mostly always was. Certainly no freedom to think alternatively from US nazi economic domination, or Israel’s supremacist right to their own freedom above neighbours.
The core issue with criticism of TACD de-escallation is thinking that the US still has the power advantage in this war and can “impose freedom for the world” through another Vietnam/Afghanistan length conflict. It’s not just failing to understand hegemony was never about freedom, its not understanding the impotence.
Americans, I assume like many other countries in the world, get blasted with the patriotism firehose early and often. For the first two decades of my life I generally held the assumption that America was the best and most free, England was pretty good and kind of free, then maybe some of the scandinavian countries, then all the countries no one cares about, and at the bottom was Russia, North Korea, and China, in that order. It was really hard to find information to the contrary, and even if you did, voicing doubts about America’s number-one-ness could seriously cost you a job, a family relationship, a scholarship, etc. if not actually get you under investigation by the authorities (depending on what was said and to whom). It simply wasn’t done when I was younger, at least in my social sphere.
I think the internet really did a number on America’s propaganda program, because a lot more young people nowadays, even before Trump, seem a lot more disillusioned about America and its role in the world. There’s been a bit of a backslide, I think, as the powerful have consolidated their grip on the internet, but not a complete one. Kids seem to understand that they’re being lied to, even if they don’t understand the full scope and nature of the deception.
Maybe that a consequence of who I choose to keep in my immediate IRL circle these days. Maybe it’s just hope. But I think, or hope, that we’re better off than we were 40 years ago as far as understanding what our government is actually doing goes.
Yes totally agree with a lot of this. I’m an immigrant to the USA from Poland, I was brought here when I was 6. Boy did I drink the USA cool aid. I started questioning things early though, when Obama was president. I was taught in the Chicago school district in the late 90s to 00s. Inclusion, diversity and free critical thinking were taught. PBS was also a staple during childhood.
Anyway when Obama was president I was shocked at how angry people were in certain areas of the country. I thought it was just another logical step in the USA history. Then I moved to Oklahoma in 2014 for a job and boy did that make me question what this country really is. The racism was common in Chicago, but in Oklahoma it was on another level. Sure the people were nice, but since I was a white male they would open up easily to me and I didn’t like the things I heard.
Next Trump came on the scene and that was a bit disturbing and I was surprised by his win. That’s when I started visiting Europe around 2017. As the years progressed I have become extremely disillusioned by the USA. I tried to enjoy the beautiful nature and empty spaces, but living in the cities working day to day was becoming to eat at my soul. Now I’m convinced that the cities here have been destroyed by automobiles. Any argument for more walkable and healthy cities is politicized and people are so against it. So yeah I’m hoping to move to Europe, if only it was so simple.
Were a joke*
The US is seen on par with Russia now. Above NK; below China. Kind of just go around fucking everyone and everything, unapologetically and oblivious. Most of the rest of the world is done and started the transition to cut the US out of the picture. Globalisation is slow but a hard thing to turn once a course is set. When possible, the US will start getting sanctioned.
There’s still the jokes, but even that’s fatigued.
The only thing we have on Russia at this point is gasoline is not currently being rationed.
Well, privatisation aligned with state control and now the consequential oligarchy groups…
Fuel rationing comes after you attack a nation, blow too many resources, and fuck it all over, but stick in for the long haul.
Oh…
Last thing left is changing the laws for longer terms of leadership so a leader can be continuously reelected by controlling the channels of voting.
…Oh, shit
It’s okay, you still got a GDP that ensures everyone is taken care of and then some…
…oh, jeez.
Look,. It seems grim. But try find moments of fun in your work day. With any luck you’ll be rescued by well-regulated militias.
My state is larger than most European countries and it’s not even that large of a state.
When people say “then do something about it voting isn’t working” they’re asking 50 different countries to drop their jobs (most of them getting fired in the process and losing Healthcare) and personal lives to get mowed down by gung-ho losers who can’t wait to kill anyone they think is further left than they are.
Seriously, there are several websites dedicated to illustrating the true size of countries compared to others, just fiddle around with some European countries overlaying them on the US.
My friends in the UK complain about travel time and distance to get to relatives houses on holidays when the relative is only 60 miles away. I used to drive 60 miles just to get to work.
Seriously, I’d love to be able to drop everything and go demand change or else but the reality is far more complex and bloody than that.
When people tell Americans “go do something about it and don’t take no for an answer” what they are really saying is “go kill yourself via law enforcement” but are either too naive or too cowardly to say it directly.
What does the size of the country have to do with anything
It’s harder to get people concentrated enough to stage effective protests, if a small number of people live spread out over a huge area.
That wouldn’t be such a barrier if the people as a whole really wanted to protest, but it’s still a mixed bag, and the less densely populated the area, the less likely people are to want to protest, as they tend to be more conservative or politically apathetic regions (very roughly)
Nailed it. Very well said.
A phrase that I’ve heard that captures the contrast well is:
As a Brit, I can’t imagine driving 60 miles to get to work.
When I was a kid, we’d sometimes take a day trip out to the seaside, which was 63 miles away. If we wanted to do this, we’d have to get up super early so we could have enough time there.
For a longer holiday in the Summer, we would occasionally take a trip to a different place a bit further down on the coast, which was an 85 mile journey. We viewed that as being prohibitively far away for a day trip, and I don’t remember ever going there if we weren’t spending at least 4 days there (including the travel days).
It’s insane how relative our perceptions of these things are.
I’ve gone 100 miles just to spend the day at an arcade.
What’s the speed limit like in Europe (and the UK)?
UK: 30 miles in built-up areas, 70 miles on motorways. Most of Europe has 120 or 130 km/h (75 or 80 mph), except Germany which technically has no general speed limit on the Autobahn.
I think our speed limits are comparable to similar roads in the US, but that there are more highways/long and wide roads with a high speed limit in the US, so it probably goes faster.
The route we used to drive to get me to college (high school) was 8 miles and took around 30 minutes on a good day. I imagine that’s more time than a comparable journey would take for you.
There weren’t really any sections of this route where we could drive fast. The first mile was suburban and had a speed limit of 30mph, but frequent traffic lights and minor slowdowns due to parked cars on the side of the road (the UK has fewer dedicated parking places like driveways or garages). The next couple of miles had a limit of 60mph, but it was super twisty and hilly roads such that you’d be insane to drive at 60mph. Places like these are quite common, where it’s like the speed limit is just obligatory and they’re just saying “use your best judgement for the conditions”. Does the US have many speed limits like that, I wonder? Regardless of if there are similar stretches of road in the US, they’re far more dense in the UK, I reckon
Once we got out of the twisty, wooded area, it was a 40mph limit, but even that was only for two miles, before it dropped back down to a 30mph due to the main road taking you through a small farming hamlet that used to be a thriving settlement 600 or so years ago. Then once we got past that, there was a tiny stretch of 40mph road until we hit the urban areas, with all the intersections and traffic that entailed.
My point is that in the UK, if you’re not on a Motorway, then even the big main roads will often have you constantly slowing down and speeding up. The UK is much more dense than the US, even in somewhat rural places like where I lived.
To give another brief example, that 85 mile, longer seaside journey I mentioned in my original comment would typically take 2 and a half hours, if traffic was normal. Looking at the map, a lot of this journey wouldn’t take place on motorways.
Thanks for sharing your perspective; I really enjoy getting glimpses into the worlds of other people. It’s especially nice to have normal and interesting conversations with Americans online, because with how much the US dominates the news, it can be easy to slip into thinking of the US purely as a big, abstract entity.