uziq
Member
+492|3422
i'm sure most americans have nice days. most people all over the world have days without incidents. that's what crime statistics are for.

america's homicide rate is very, very high, relative to other western and first-world nations.

a culture of violence permeates ordinary environments and interactions there unlike other places. we don't have armed guards in our schools, regular school shooter drills, ex-military guys coming into schools as 'wardens' and choking out students, etc. why is the ante so high all the fucking time? i'm willing to bet even students brawling and fighting is way more a facet of american high-schools than it is elsewhere.

every dispute and disagreement seems to rapidly follow a logic of escalation, not de-escalation, with even calling the authorities/police sometimes being the ultimate escalation rather than solution, i.e. someone is going to end up tased, wounded, or shot to death.

you can hit back with stabbing stats and terror attack stats if you want, sure. you'll see that the numbers are not comparable. how many 'mass shooting' events are there per year in the USA? mass stabbings are not as frequent. and with regards to my being defensive about SK: i'm not affronted on their behalf when someone accuses them of racism – of course, especially in the older war-weary generations, there is racism and xenophobia and ignorance, like anywhere – i'm offended when someone applies a 2-bit resolution understanding of the place as some hermetic 'monoculture', when it's hilariously not the case, like to the point where SK's culture/cross-cultural interaction is seen everywhere as one of the most prominent nations in movies, music, television, etc. to insist they're a highly protective culture and are not interested in 'diluting' their ethnic identity is hilarious when their western-styled groomed boybands and hollywood-feted movies are everywhere in the global marketplace.

Last edited by uziq (2021-11-21 22:42:53)

Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6075|eXtreme to the maX
With so much in America hand to mouth and unstable everyone is antsy at the best of times.

Say the wrong word at work and get fired from your zero-notice job? Now your family has no healthcare, congrats.
Of course people are going to be on edge.

From the outside, and the inside as my sister experienced it, US high school culture looks gruesome - not a popular kid? KYS - how many times did you tell people that?

SK might be adopting western music and films, are they letting in ethnically wrong migrants or refugees? Nope.

LOL

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigrati … outh_Korea
Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6741|PNW

uziq wrote:

you can hit back with stabbing stats and terror attack stats if you want, sure.
Nah, because like I said it's stupid.

you'll see that the numbers are not comparable.
Right.

I'm not that interested in getting into a which place is more awful death battle between the US and UK. I'd feel safer in some places in either country than I would in other places in the other. My point is that besides the obvious problems the US does have with violence, I think that it's sometimes overrepresented from an international perspective. And mainstream press here does seem to have a preference for covering the negative.

I do think better social safety nets would do much to curb issues over generations. Research into the effects of malnutrition, for instance, on developing brains should bin most arguments against free breakfast/lunch programs.
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6741|PNW

Heavy punctuation on the tragedies in America stuff today as a Christmas parade in Wisconsin gets run into by an SUV. AFAIK still in speculative stages as to intent/motive, as commenters rush to offer their foregone conclusions ahead of that. Already seen some rather Red Dawn stuff in those sections.

Last edited by unnamednewbie13 (2021-11-22 03:28:56)

uziq
Member
+492|3422

Dilbert_X wrote:

SK might be adopting western music and films, are they letting in ethnically wrong migrants or refugees? Nope.

LOL

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigrati … outh_Korea
SK has huge numbers of 'ethnically wrong' migrants. it's called the grey economy.

https://pulsenews.co.kr/view.php?year=2 … ;no=102558
S. Korea’s underground economy accounts for 19.8% of GDP: IMF paper

https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/01/28/so … t-workers/
There are currently 248,000 EPS migrant workers and approximately 398,000 undocumented migrant workers in South Korea. Many undocumented migrant workers initially enter South Korea on tourist visas or overstay previously issued work visas. Others hire brokers in their home countries who exploit them by charging high fees to make employment and living arrangements that often do not meet broker promises. If caught, their employers face few consequences.

These flaws have created a migrant workforce that is mostly undocumented and extremely vulnerable. The system encourages the use of undocumented migrant workers by SMEs, empowers SME employers, and disenfranchises both documented and undocumented migrant workers.
there are hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrant workers here, often living in huge chicken coops, 6 to a room, and being exploited by local employers for their cheap labour. ethnic chinese-koreans, cambodians, vietnamese, filipinos, turks, mongols, etc. – there's literally entire satellite cities full of them here. the korean government 'look the other way' because they know that most working-age koreans now would not do the factory work, construction work, farm work, etc. and cultural conservatives can crow about how they're 'keeping out the tide of mass immigration', just because it doesn't appear on census data or citizenship stats. neat! i guess that means it doesn't exist, and a country with a shrinking, ageing population is somehow simultaneously also having a building boom, continued cheap farm produce, supports a huge manufacturing sector of carmakers, shipbuilders, household electronics, etc. etc. hahah.

this is a similar migration dynamic as with any developed country. the 'wrong' type of immigrants make it into the system somehow, just without the expectation of being given permanent residence, or official papers, and legal protection, or health insurance, etc. keep them off the books so long as they continue to do the unpleasant, underpaid jobs.

if you actually lived here, you would know this, because it's been these giant unacknowledged and carefully ignored migrant groups who have been incubating massive covid clusters. the cities in the outer-lying provinces of seoul where the giant cluster infections take off are well-known 'dormitory towns' for these undocumented workers. the korean government very, very carefully phrase their health notices and public alerts to say that anyone can go and get tested/vaccinated WITHOUT needing to provide documentation. like, they literally say in their messaging 'please come and sort your covid, we won't even ask about your legal status here'.

tell me some more how you know everything from your extensive research and reading into this country, though. i'm sure finding a wikipedia link is about as hard as you've thought about it.

and, erm, even if they're only letting in western influences (which, as i've told you umpteen times, they've been thoroughly rinsed in since the 1960s, duh), why does that matter? it's still hardly a 'racist monoculture' is it, when they've got white people, pakistani people, filipinos, etc, on their most popular tv shows? what the fuck is a monoculture supposed to be if it has burger king, kfc, taco bell and shakeshack on every corner and they all idolise hip-hop, r&b, etc.? you make zero sense.

Last edited by uziq (2021-11-22 03:35:09)

uziq
Member
+492|3422

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

uziq wrote:

you can hit back with stabbing stats and terror attack stats if you want, sure.
Nah, because like I said it's stupid.

you'll see that the numbers are not comparable.
Right.

I'm not that interested in getting into a which place is more awful death battle between the US and UK. I'd feel safer in some places in either country than I would in other places in the other. My point is that besides the obvious problems the US does have with violence, I think that it's sometimes overrepresented from an international perspective. And mainstream press here does seem to have a preference for covering the negative.

I do think better social safety nets would do much to curb issues over generations. Research into the effects of malnutrition, for instance, on developing brains should bin most arguments against free breakfast/lunch programs.
i do agree with you 100% that it's not some deterministic, essential 'lol america is bad' thing and that inequality is probably the biggest driver of poverty and hence crime. there are material things that can be changed in order to reverse the pattern(s) of violence.

as well as inequality, and especially in the case of police forces and the tenor of civic culture, i think the overweening influence of the military and military-industrial complex in everyday life has something to do with it. police depts with armories of hand-me-downs from the iraq–afghan surpluses, and so on.

you need more 'trickle down' economics and less 'trickle down' militarism.
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6741|PNW

I know it's Will Rogers and a lot older than no. 40's time in office, but "trickle down" still does invoke a certain specter of Reagan. As an American, *shudder*.
uziq
Member
+492|3422
i put that in scare quotes for a reason. trickle down is one of the biggest political scams ever perpetrated in the West.
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6741|PNW

Fast forward to 2026. Trump, president for life, signs unlimited tax cut for wealthy. Musk buys South America, smokes receipt. Amazon police drones take over cop shops in Detroit.
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3689
Cutting taxes to prosperity is much older than Reagan.
Coolidge adeptly handled the aftermath of several Harding administration scandals, and by the end of 1924 he had dismissed most officials implicated in the scandals. He presided over a strong economy and sought to shrink the regulatory role of the federal government. Along with Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon, Coolidge won the passage of three major tax cuts. Using powers delegated to him by the 1922 Fordney–McCumber Tariff, Coolidge kept tariff rates high in order to protect American manufacturing. He blocked passage of the McNary–Haugen Farm Relief Bill, which would have involved the federal government in the persistent farm crisis that affected many rural communities. The strong economy combined with restrained government spending to produce consistent government surpluses, and total federal debt shrank by one quarter during Coolidge's presidency.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preside … n_Coolidge

I have no doubt that there were some gilded age presidents who also advocated for low taxes.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
uziq
Member
+492|3422
i don't think anyone is suggesting that low taxes for the rich/corporations is a particularly novel idea. just that the ideology of 'trickle down' was a specific scam sold to the people as an economic solution to a mounting number of social and political problems.

trickle down was the media-friendly soundbite gloss for mass privitization and market deregulation. most crucially of previously state-owned, taxpayer-funded assets to the 'preferential', 'competitive' logic of the private market (another euphemism, much like trickle down, because all of the industries were de facto fucking  supply monopolies).

the whole reagan-thatcher era thing was a way for the West's ruling class to squeeze a few more drops out of an old wrinkled bag. development and growth was slowing, the developing world was undercutting labour and goods prices, so the 1980s and 1990s were all about a vast sell-off to inflate the balance books, plus immense runaway speculation, e.g. the dot-com boom. these were all basically just scams perpetrated by the high-finance class against working rubes. very little actual material value or worth was being added to the US-UK economies during this time. just an immense, wholesale transfer of wealth from previously public assets into the hands of very few. added irony is that the UK sold off most of its energy and transport infrastructure to consortia from mainland europe ... errm, state-owned consortia. so UK commuters have ended up paying high private-market ticket rates to subsidize dutch and french train tickets.

whoooooopeeee.

Last edited by uziq (2021-11-22 08:25:54)

unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6741|PNW

Just to reiterate a point that I find morbidly amusing, "trickle-down economics" as a turn of the phrase began as a joke. Much like people talking about a Trump presidency much prior to 2016. Recently looked it up again. Aside from the Will Rogers attribution, I'm also seeing Samuel Rosenman and William Jennings Bryan (whether concept or exact words, I didn't see). So now I'm not completely clear on when it was coined some decades before its revival in the Reagan-80s. A project for another day.

You have people now anyway who will sit down and specifically name "trickle-down economics" in a serious argument in favor of it. With straight faces. Where's their balloon? Squeaky shoes?

At least some conservatives remember it in modern terms as a (repurposed) derogatory reference to Reagonomics (alongside HW Bush's own derogatory description "voodoo economics"). I'm not very convinced though that because politicians have wasted money on boondoggles (pretty much name-a-Forbes-editorial) means that the vast majority of the nation's wealth is better off in the hands of a very few. I would rather have some my tax money frittered away on pointless public projects than used to cover for a wealthy man's path towards trillionairehood.
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3689
Uzique had a point about it being pitched as a part of helping solve a wide range post-war social ills. That's probably why it stuck around so much. It is tied up in identity politics.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3689
It is sad that things we must deal with

Last edited by SuperJail Warden (2022-02-23 06:51:09)

https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
Larssen
Member
+99|1857
I hope you can hold on to this brief moment of clarity and compassion macbeth. I wouldn't want to see you boast about watching gore videos in a few hours.
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6741|PNW

SuperJail Warden wrote:

Why is society okay with this happening?
Why are schools OK with this happening? Let me guess, even if she wasn't the/one of the instigators and was otherwise minding her own business, she will be punished too. A suspension for her concussion.

Adults at my junior high: *barely seen outside offices or staff rooms when kids were in the hallways*
Kids: *start random fights in the hallways against kids just trying to go about their day*
Adults: *pikachusurprise.gif*
VP: "Everyone's suspended!"
*2 years later*
High school: "Hmm, says here you've been in a fight."

Imagine getting randomly shot in a drive-by and then getting a criminal record for it.

Larssen wrote:

I hope you can hold on to this brief moment of clarity and compassion macbeth. I wouldn't want to see you boast about watching gore videos in a few hours.

mac wrote:

I'm doing research.

Last edited by unnamednewbie13 (2021-11-30 14:16:34)

SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3689
Give peace a chance

Last edited by SuperJail Warden (2022-02-23 06:51:30)

https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
uziq
Member
+492|3422
why does a person who makes an above-average wage, has several graduate degrees, a good pension, healthcare, etc, live at home with his parents?

between you living in your parents' crawlspace with gundam models and dilbert faffing about with target pistols whilst slowly growing bald and impotent, i think this forum needs a Dr. Phil special.

i'm ribbing you because i find it funny as hell that you have a conscience about school fights whilst being the sole contributor of 'fight porn' to this forum, when literally no one but no one else wants to spend their time watching that stuff.

Last edited by uziq (2021-11-30 19:22:29)

SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3689
Uzique is a bully

Last edited by SuperJail Warden (2022-02-23 06:51:56)

https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3689
Now excuse me while I go watch some people get blown up.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6075|eXtreme to the maX
Say hi to your mum for me, she's doing a great job.
Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
uziq
Member
+492|3422
i've said it before, but the only time in my life where i've been noticeably morbid and taken an interest in gore/violence or internet smut is when i was depressed for a period in my early 20s. i think morbidity is a symptom of unhappiness. you should rent your own place. maybe then you'll stop feeling the need to watch people suffer horrible harms and tortures. just a tip! from personal experience, so you know i'm not being a meanie!
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3689
"Someone stole a school bus and went on a rampage in NYC"

10/10

https://old.reddit.com/r/ActualPublicFr … a_rampage/
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6741|PNW

Doesn't seem like a good time to have your pants around the bottom of your ass.
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3689
I love that the guy with the sagging pants was screaming for the police get into the bus and "shoot that nigga".

Unarmed aspiring bus driver
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg

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