Europeans don't, maybe sometimes can't, understand the absolute crushing pressure and gaslighting that most Americans are put through to make us the way we are.
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@quinn The broader world is as foreign to many Americans as California is to Florida or Utah is to New York.
Its an important part of understanding and facing our challenges.
Most folks aren't so different but the belief that they are makes them coil up into tiny worlds and tiny lives, fearful of every possible source of joy and thus angry at every possible theft of joy that's within that tiny worldview.
@clarablackink @quinn Don't forget taking shit for traveling overseas. I'll never forget that.
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Europeans don't, maybe sometimes can't, understand the absolute crushing pressure and gaslighting that most Americans are put through to make us the way we are.
It's a decades long effort to turn most of the population into a money and power pump for a tiny elite class, all while grinding us into dust.
We're crazy and scared all the time, and have no idea what's going on in the rest of the world.
There's a reason dying of opiates seemed like a rational choice to a lot of people.
Is the solution to get more people to vote and vote wisely?
Or is that not the right strategy?
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Europeans don't, maybe sometimes can't, understand the absolute crushing pressure and gaslighting that most Americans are put through to make us the way we are.
It's a decades long effort to turn most of the population into a money and power pump for a tiny elite class, all while grinding us into dust.
We're crazy and scared all the time, and have no idea what's going on in the rest of the world.
There's a reason dying of opiates seemed like a rational choice to a lot of people.
@quinn so even America's failures are exceptional
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@clarablackink @quinn Don't forget taking shit for traveling overseas. I'll never forget that.
@drwho @clarablackink @quinn Yeah, the “very different worlds” experience of having some mentors see my semester in China as upwardly-mobile and career-making and having some relatives decide then and there I was forever after a brainwashed commie (and I’d still have *identified as a republican* at the time.) But a lot of left-wing folks of my acquaintance decided I must have become a converted communist on exactly the same evidence. The profundity of black and white thinking and in-group vs. out-group sentiment based in narrowcasting informational control even twenty years ago was bad, and now it’s positively horrific. It’s *intended* to replace the educational negotiations of diverse community perspectives with kneejerk reactions to team colors.
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Europeans don't, maybe sometimes can't, understand the absolute crushing pressure and gaslighting that most Americans are put through to make us the way we are.
It's a decades long effort to turn most of the population into a money and power pump for a tiny elite class, all while grinding us into dust.
We're crazy and scared all the time, and have no idea what's going on in the rest of the world.
There's a reason dying of opiates seemed like a rational choice to a lot of people.
@quinn
Hey, hang in there! I know decades of Hollywood movies showing Americans defeat dictators and oppressive regimes all around the world can't be wrong
I have full faith that you'll be able to deal with this one too!But seriously, the part about being crazy and scared sounds to me like you guys might have quite a bit in common with some of the Russians living currently under Putin's regime they oppose. Not saying the US is yet that far in the deep end, but still.
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@drwho @clarablackink @quinn Yeah, the “very different worlds” experience of having some mentors see my semester in China as upwardly-mobile and career-making and having some relatives decide then and there I was forever after a brainwashed commie (and I’d still have *identified as a republican* at the time.) But a lot of left-wing folks of my acquaintance decided I must have become a converted communist on exactly the same evidence. The profundity of black and white thinking and in-group vs. out-group sentiment based in narrowcasting informational control even twenty years ago was bad, and now it’s positively horrific. It’s *intended* to replace the educational negotiations of diverse community perspectives with kneejerk reactions to team colors.
@cwicseolfor @clarablackink @quinn I was told that I "was getting above my station and needed to learn a few lessons."
I told my relatives that it was a conference for work when I lived in DC and suddenly that was okay.
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Europeans don't, maybe sometimes can't, understand the absolute crushing pressure and gaslighting that most Americans are put through to make us the way we are.
It's a decades long effort to turn most of the population into a money and power pump for a tiny elite class, all while grinding us into dust.
We're crazy and scared all the time, and have no idea what's going on in the rest of the world.
There's a reason dying of opiates seemed like a rational choice to a lot of people.
@quinn You've basically described eastern europe, except here we do alcohol and gambling, not opiates. -
Europeans don't, maybe sometimes can't, understand the absolute crushing pressure and gaslighting that most Americans are put through to make us the way we are.
It's a decades long effort to turn most of the population into a money and power pump for a tiny elite class, all while grinding us into dust.
We're crazy and scared all the time, and have no idea what's going on in the rest of the world.
There's a reason dying of opiates seemed like a rational choice to a lot of people.
@quinn The utter insanity of people quoting Horatio Alger and the pull yourself up by your bootstraps nonsense as aspirational...I can't even.
We are living in Gilded Age 2 Electric Boogaloo and people are still blaming themselves when their kids are hungry.
We are bombarded with late stage capitalism messaging from wakefulness to hopefully ad-free dreams. Except for paper books, and owned media, there is no factor of our reality that is not serving us advertising telling us that life would just be better if we spent more. That people with more are better people. And you want to be a better person, so you should buy this thing. If you don't, you're a bad person.
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@JessTheUnstill @3am @clarablackink @quinn When I (native Texan) moved to California, friends/family were all like, oh you'll get red paint thrown at you if you wear leather, or you'll have to get your car's exhaust completely redone, or the taxes there are out of control.
What I found is that CA news is heavily spun in TX, and TX news is... just as bad or worse than presented in CA.
@solitha
@JessTheUnstill @clarablackink @quinnlol, its the opposite for me, i grew up in ca and later moved to tx
and it surprised me how there were no sidewalks in most places, and how several high schools had daycares for the teen moms to use
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Europeans don't, maybe sometimes can't, understand the absolute crushing pressure and gaslighting that most Americans are put through to make us the way we are.
It's a decades long effort to turn most of the population into a money and power pump for a tiny elite class, all while grinding us into dust.
We're crazy and scared all the time, and have no idea what's going on in the rest of the world.
There's a reason dying of opiates seemed like a rational choice to a lot of people.
@quinn - (1/2) I'm a 52-year old American reading this thread for my own benefit. I just want to say I don't think there's any one thing to blame here; it's a syndrome of situations going back as much as 400 years that got us to where we are now. I know that growing up access to any information was limited to our school textbooks, which were written as if the world started in 1620 and planet Earth is the size of the 50 states. Our ability to travel was limited to how far we could drive.
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Europeans don't, maybe sometimes can't, understand the absolute crushing pressure and gaslighting that most Americans are put through to make us the way we are.
It's a decades long effort to turn most of the population into a money and power pump for a tiny elite class, all while grinding us into dust.
We're crazy and scared all the time, and have no idea what's going on in the rest of the world.
There's a reason dying of opiates seemed like a rational choice to a lot of people.
@quinn (2/2) The high crime rates of the 1970s and the Cold War did a lot to warp entire generations' modes of thinking. The TV news used to be rational and balanced, but the advent of 24/7 news has made even the moon in the sky a sensationalist event. The internet opened up the world to us briefly, but by the time it was rolled out to over 300 million people across such a vast continent, the for-profit misinformation machine had taken over. Ergo, the gaslighting you mention, etc, etc, etc...
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Europeans don't, maybe sometimes can't, understand the absolute crushing pressure and gaslighting that most Americans are put through to make us the way we are.
It's a decades long effort to turn most of the population into a money and power pump for a tiny elite class, all while grinding us into dust.
We're crazy and scared all the time, and have no idea what's going on in the rest of the world.
There's a reason dying of opiates seemed like a rational choice to a lot of people.
I don’t know. I don’t think you will get much sympathy for that.
Americans have thrown their weight around and have behaved like bullies for decades. Trump just took it to a different level. The gaslighting is telling the world that you are victims when the world suffers because of your choices and your endless greed.
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The rest of world never sees the poor and desperate America, they mostly stay in the decently rich bits of New York or California, and have no idea what a "food desert" is.
Did people miss the UN Special Rapporteur extreme poverty's report on the USA?
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@quinn I've been saying this forever; the defining characteristic of Americans for a while now has been fear.
It only dawned on me after a conversation between a bunch of photographers talking about equipment when shooting solo at night. Little old English ladies talking about tea flasks and 30 year old ex military in the USA talking about how many guns.
@detachedspork @quinn I've been out of the country for almost forty years. Phrases that have caught my attention on trips back for being cosplay warzone expressions are "good to go" and "situational awareness."
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i'll never forget the time my mother (who grew up in a poor farming community in argentina) told me about traveling in the deep south with my father. she was absolutely shocked at the poverty she saw
The US didn't begin to address the deep poverty in the American South and in Appalachia until LBJ's Great Society efforts beginning about 1965.
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Europeans don't, maybe sometimes can't, understand the absolute crushing pressure and gaslighting that most Americans are put through to make us the way we are.
It's a decades long effort to turn most of the population into a money and power pump for a tiny elite class, all while grinding us into dust.
We're crazy and scared all the time, and have no idea what's going on in the rest of the world.
There's a reason dying of opiates seemed like a rational choice to a lot of people.
Before I visited the USA, I never understood the concept of "walkability", since I just assumed that that was the default. Does a fish think about water?
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@hazelnot @quinn in my experience the average US citizen is either about as selfish as it gets or is too worn out to be able to actually be nice with regularity. What we project online or while abroad is almost nothing like I see day to day. We may have our moments (like the No Kings protests), but they're not even remotely common enough. I agree, Europe isn't too far off in terms of politics, but Europeans, on average (and there are exceptions, obviously), tend to actually get vacations, maternity leave, paternity leave, etc to actually rest. We don't and that lack of rest and constant anxiety is why we're some of the least empathetic people I've ever come across. We haven't given up...we don't even know there is a boot to lick in the first place.
I live in what is universally considered the most "progressive" and LGBTQA positive area of the US. The most hateful, spiteful, racist, bigoted people I've ever met were born and raised here. A lot of it has to do with our awful education system, being over worked (90 hour work weeks aren't rare here), some of the worst roads that we get packed into like sardines, not to mention generational trauma that gets loaded onto the next generation (god forbid you go to therapy like a "coward"). Americans are severely misunderstood, by even ourselves sometimes. And that's the problem. We can't take the time to chill out and have a conversation to break down those barriers.
@jadedtwin I'm still trying to work out No Kings demands. Calls to actions are cool but I can stand on a street corner with a cardboard sign without a goal asking for money without help.
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@quinn I've been saying this forever; the defining characteristic of Americans for a while now has been fear.
It only dawned on me after a conversation between a bunch of photographers talking about equipment when shooting solo at night. Little old English ladies talking about tea flasks and 30 year old ex military in the USA talking about how many guns.
@detachedspork @quinn It's not fear, though, it's... recreational fear? Like they've turned cowardice into a hobby, with discussion forums and conventions and merch. It sometimes amuses me, as I do something utterly boring and normal like walk a few blocks or take a bus, how I (of all people!) have somehow become a reckless badass in comparison. But mostly, ugh, it's just depressing to watch.
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@nicksilkey @GustavinoBevilacqua @quinn
Remove the admiration for the self-made man and the other part is painfully true for any European country I've lived in.
[The long admired idea of the “self-made man” isn't self-made because he's built the strong and loyal social connections that will support him, defend him, and turn to him for wisdom and affection throughout his long and social life.]
Here we just hypocritically pretend it doesn't work this way.
@s1m0n4 @nicksilkey @GustavinoBevilacqua @quinn for the parts of France I know about (basically Paris and a some secluded village in the East and North) I would disagree. The social fabric is very different.
People are less isolated even when going middle class.
But solidarity looks weaker here, even within the poor people.
