38
votes
What is your 'Subway Take'?
For those who are unfamiliar, Subway Takes is a popular short form internet talk show "in which the interviewees present and defend a unique or controversial opinion, called a 'take'" Takes are usually halfbaked and/or tongue-in-cheek. Some popular examples include:
There are too many states in America
Everybody in New York has rich parents or is selling drugs
Spirit Airlines does not deserve the hate
Italians became white after 9/11
So what's your take?
Three on similar topics, all intertwined.
1- The rapid decline and loss of the term "Equality" in exchange for the separation of marginalized communities is a large reason the equality rights of today (In the US) are being dismantled and the public becoming less supportive.
The shifting to terms such as women's rights, black lives matter, and especially the alphabet soup of LGBTQIA2S+ as the only way to talk about any of this is 1) too much for someone not directly included to keep track of and 2) dropping the usage of equality in exchange for having to list your allegiances, and not say, "Equality" as a full statement, is detrimental to the movement, as its easy to say and understand "Do you support X? I support equality', if someone needs to make up their mind on supporting X or Y, its much easier for them to just ask the question "Do I support equality?". I wrote about it, gasp, on Tumblr a short bit ago.
If you don't support equality, you're automatically a supremacist by definition, and even supremacists hate bring known as a supremacist. No one likes anyone who thinks they are better.
2 - LGBTQ+ is a horrible acronym, it's designed in such a way that does help exclude many different identities, allows infighting, and allows for pointed statements to exclude others (Example: LGB without the T). Additionally for a animal-based society that loves everything sex, we hate talking about it. It makes most of the populace uncomfortable in any dynamic, and the acronym itself is inherently sexual by focusing on sexual preference, and then you just so happens to tack on individualistic gender identity parameters to the end of it. If we had to use an all encompassing (non historical stigmatized verbiage, such as Queer) then I believe GSM (Gender & Sexual Minorities) is profoundly more open and immutably mutable, not perfect, but doable.
3 - The rainbow flag as an icon is bad. Full stop. Aesthetically its derivative (literally, figuratively,) and allows for virtually no personalization without altering the structure and meaning of it. The general imagery of it is rather childish, and demeaning to the entire population that has to be enveloped in it + the "meaning" of each color is so useless and tacked on that it feels, well, tacky.
3a - The equality symbol, =, is vastly better as a signifier than the rainbow flag. Easy to understand with little pre-knowledge, all encompassing, easily recognizable (and known on first approach), and personalizable, fits on anything and everything in any style, just as the term "Equality" is effective.
Oh I love this. I have a similar enough one that I'll just put it below yours.
"Cultural Appropriation" is a net negative to any efforts to promote diversity and inclusion. The best part about multiculturalism is sharing and learning about each other's cultures, and the concept of Cultural Appropriation works directly against that and makes people feel defensive and uneasy about engaging with other cultures for fear of doing it "wrong".
"But Aerrol, that's just misunderstanding the term! It means taking other cultures things and MISUSING them!" Yeah? And how is that different than being a racist asshole? What benefit is there in specifying this very specific fault that is constantly misunderstood, conflated, and used as ammunition by actual fucking racists for how supposedly unhinged and unappeasable the Left is?
As someone who's spent my entire life fighting for better representation for minorities and more equality, I DETEST the words Cultural Appropriation.
Mostly because people get even more pissed when you call them a racist asshole for their Native American Halloween costume/other red face. Also it's from like 1945 academic literature. You don't have to call it that but it's frustrating to have a game of "you're using the wrong words to point out a problem" over and over again just because other people don't like them. (Ala critical race theory or DEI or whatever.)
I practically wrote the exact same thing repeatedly on tumblr back around 2012 - horrible idea, so many death threats - but I still concur.
Cultural exchange is the only way culture can change, grow, and innovate. It is the best way unique things can be made. There is no culture in a vacuum.
Plus, I think dreads are cool, and anyone who wants them should have them without cultural appropriation being used as an argument against them.
Sorry to be such a hater, but my Subway Take is that dreads are gross and I don’t want to see more people adopt them. I can understand when someone’s hair is such that many other hairstyles aren’t an option. But for someone else… I’ll pull out a tongue in cheek claim of cultural appropriation.
There are definitely times when misuse of a cultural artifact is wrong. But tying in the concept of cultural appropriation gives people a debate tool which itself will be misused more often than not. There are people in both the conservative and liberal camps that do not want to understand anything about racism and find simple solutions instead. One plugs its ears and the other mindlessly yells.
Let me defend the concept - this can be my subway take.
Imagine a young, wealthy aristocrat from an empire. He just doesn't fit in, and wants to break out of the old ways. For his summer holiday, he visits one of the colonies. It's been years since the brutal war, so things have settled down. He visits one village, and participates in a beautiful religious ceremony. This is exactly what he needed, and he heads home feeling new and fresh. At home, he tells all his friends about the experience. At parties he brings up "well you know, when I was in the colonies...". He uses the experience for analogies in his writings. One day he recalls a flute that was used in the ceremony. He builds a factory to sell them, with an instruction manual on how to play both local and exotic tunes. Half the profits go to build wells.
Imagine an upper middle class white American. On the internet he reads about the black lives matter protest. He goes out to join several events, and is enthralled by the energy. He tells all his friends about it. At parties he brings up "well you know, African Americans are struggling with..." He decides to start a website selling black lives matter goods, using some cleaned up exotic designs he saw at the protests. Half the profits go to the cause.
For me, cultural appropriation contains these key elements: 1) Local cache from viewing other cultural as primitively enlightened. 2) Power imbalance. 3) Capitalism. It's a criticism of liberals by liberals, which is why the online discourse (left vs right) is missing the point. Actually, I'm surprised conservatives don't love the concept as a way to critique (1). In general, I like it as a criticism of the first three as ideas, and not of an individual person.
Now for a more controversial example. An American anime fan buys a Kimono and uploads photos of themselves wearing it to Instagram. That's good, I like that they're enjoying expanding their world view. Almost no Japanese person you ask would have any problem with it. And yet, the use of Instagram shows they're clearly in it to signal to their community how exotic their tastes are. America bombed Japan to the ground, and to this day maintains military bases all over the country to keep them in line (I mean, "for protection"). And that Kimono was probably maybe in a sweat shop in South East Asia. These are good uncomfortable critiques.
I thought the rest of your post was pretty well argued, but this surprised me. It's not 1946 anymore - Japan is an active and eager partner in the US-Japan alliance.
I'd change that to 'the Japanese national government'.
Many prefectural governments, especially Okinawa, are extremely unhappy with the alliance and its footprint of military bases. Large portions of the population of places that have a large US military footprint actively hate America and Americans, they just don't express it in an American way.
I'm honestly not trying to be a 'well, ackshually' person, but many historical and current issues of US soldiers, sailors, and marines committing severe crimes and avoiding Japanese punishment contribute to these feelings. As well as simply everyday things like annoyance from aircraft and exercises.
If you were to ask someone in Tokyo, they would probably say they were an eager partner. If you were to ask someone in Yokusuka or Naha who deal with it day-to-day, they may very well express strong anti-American sentiment. And like entitled-entilde says, they might link it to occupation and colonialism, if they're particularly politically engaged.
Whenever I used to try and politely make this point to Americans in Japan when asked how they were perceived, I would commonly hear 'well if they don't like it they are a democracy, they should get rid of it.' But that is a very severe misunderstanding of Japan's essential one-party rule (also bolstered by the occupation and subsequent Cold War). Even the centre-left coalitions that have briefly ruled have only offered to do things like not allow expansion of existing bases, not tell the Americans 'Guam is enough' and renogotiate the alliance to be less of a vassal state.
I suppose to put it simply, I'm being what I fear is pedantic (I'm sorry about that) because it is like saying 'America is an active an eager and eager ally to Israel.'
It's not a great analogy sorry, but I think it gets across that that's the position of the national-level government, and the citizens have never been presented with an alternative, even if they vehemently disagree.
To add to this, there have been a number of rapes committed by Americans stationed at Okinawa bases. At least one is notable enough to have its own Wikipedia page.
I feel like this is more about the Philadelphia and Progress flags (and other similar deriviatives). My understanding was that the rainbow (the basic six color format of the flag) was to be taken as the whole thing, not individual colors. To your point about a more generic (and less divisible) acronym with GSM, one could leave a color or subflag component out to say "Yes, but not these groups," whereas you can't have a rainbow without the full spectrum (ROYGBP in this case). I hadn't considered the idea of using a less mutable acronym to be more inclusive but think it's a cool idea.
Which is the point! The usage of "LGBTQ+ (oh and women's rights, and BLM, and asian rights, and disability rights, etcetera, etc, &c)" is that it is a term that requires modifiers to extend your stated belief sets (there's a reason its so long and has a "+" sign now...). Whereas Equality/GSM, is far more encompassing as you then have to subtract from the statement, inherently destroying the meaning in the process.
"Ah, yes, I support GSM/Equality, but not the [blank] and [blank] and [blank] people. " So, I mean, do you really support equality then? So you're saying some are better than others?
Versus: "I support the LGB/GLB/LGQ/LG" ah, so you do support some, but do you really support all of them? Now let me ask and really nail it down to determine if you actually support, forgot some letters, or just trying to hide your disdain for equal rights to only a small subset.
The original pride flag had a meaning for each color.
Rainbow flag (LGBTQ) - Wikipedia
Then pink was hard to get and people forgot. But it wasn't about communities just parts of life.
Oops, I knew it wasn't each community, but also didn't know the rest, and even had that article up as I was checking things IIRC, so that's on me. Thank you!
I agree with all these except the rainbow. I think it’s a lovely symbol, even though I agree that the meanings for each color feel forced and contrived. My biggest complaint is just that they stole it from Fred Hampton/Jesse Jackson. (No I haven’t actually checked the timeline on which came first.)
That said, the insistence on adding little things for each subgroup to the flag, even though the rainbow is already a metaphor for all the beautiful colors at once starts to make the flag look and feel like /r/Place. It comes from the same issue you mention with Take #1.
At some point culture seemed to shift towards people getting insistent about finding ever more precise and specific labels to categorize themselves into self-segregating groups and I think this is very unhealthy as it both denies individuality (relating your identity to a prepackaged label instead of discovering your authentic self in all its ineffable and inarticulable glory) while also masking the ways in which individual experiences are universal and generalizable. Thankfully I think this trend has actually stalled out by the early 2020s, if not reversed.
I kind of blame the rise of marketing and consulting think for this. The way you’re trained to operate there is to identify discrete groups that you can tailor outreach to. But the point of marketing is to sell shit, not to create community. No surprise it coincides with NGOs turning into fundraising machines instead of organizations that actually do anything but just raise funds to raise more funds. Also not surprising that it gets popular as people shift their social engagement to social media, which is designed from the jump to serve ads and forces people to format their socializing according to the logic of an advertiser.
I have a few thoughts/corallarys to this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSp8IyaKCs0 is required viewing in my eyes because all this language policing is, to me, literally the opposite of what people want to do if they want effective change. To me it looks like an entire generation of people who have been trained wrong and are now their enemies best weapon because they're literally doing the wrong things.
I hated locker room talk. It has been weird to me to watch a bunch of people decide to champion their rights based on them wanting to have the same level of hyper sexual discussion in public as was traditionally associated with high school boys. I know this is not everybody, but it's a very loud portion of the group, and I don't think it does them favors. Again I am reminded of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3h6es6zh1c
I recognize that these issues are VASTLY more complicated than my little blurbs, but as someone who 100% agrees with the goal, it's hard to not be demoralized when I see people divide themselves and drive away potential allies over the strangest things.
Maybe not controversial, but:
HOAs should be abolished, immediately disbanded, and funds should be disbursed to homeowners.
Everything that HOAs do can be done better through more simple organizing. I have lived in neighborhoods with and without HOAs, and I have observed that the HOA-less neighborhoods did not devolve into chaos. Everyone still cared about the appearance of the neighborhood and kept it looking nice. By contrast, the HOA neighborhoods I've been a part of felt like a police state, and when there were actual problems (like malfunctioning street lamps), the HOA did nothing but give excuses as to why the problem was not fixed.
I agree with this with every atom of my body. HOAs are so slimy it baffles me they are allowed to exist; the fact that they mandatory come with the house is absurd.
I’ve always been anti-HOA, but the Last Week Tonight episode a few years ago about them really radicalized me.
I recently purchased a townhouse style condo which is in an HOA. But it's a particularly weird setup in that there are only 5 members of the HOA because our condo building only has 5 units. One of the units is currently vacant, so on practice only 4 members. No one actually follows any rules -- we presented our "HOA president" with a copy of our keys after we changed the locks, per the bylaws and he was like oh no one has ever done this, it's fine.
So the only purpose it really serves is to provide a way for all neighbors to pitch in for general upkeep and maintenance of the building exterior and roof (and pay premiums for the building insurance master plan).
I think HOA-type arrangements are necessary for any type of buildings with shared structures (walls, roofs, etc). Probably with shared "yards" too, if some type of landscaping service is required and it makes sense to share it.
But beyond that, they're excessive. I was part of one that had a golf course and two fishing lakes (both of which I never used). But if someone wants those, just join a country club?
I also had someone complain about some very slight paint peeling on my backyard patio. Why are you looking at my backyard that close? Had to paint it to avoid a fine.
Very thankful I am no longer part of an HOA. Current city code enforcement is a bit particular about some things but it keeps yards from overgrowing with weeds, pools from growing green, etc. Supposedly they can enforce via drone but I've yet to see that actually happen.
This is basically how HOAs started. Don't get me wrong, most are abhorrent, and the good ones are usually "well at least they stop X but god Y is dumb", but the same group that's not fixing your street lamps isn't going to fix them magically once the HOA goes away.
There's a lot wrong with how we handle housing in the modern age sadly.
To give a bit more context (because this was an actual thing that happened to me):
After going back and forth for months, the HOA finally let me know that this was a grid problem, and the responsibility of the power company. They made it clear that they were not going to do anything about it, and that I should talk to the power company directly. Meanwhile, they had sent me a letter to tell me that my small black lives matter sign in the yard was in violation of some rule and that I had to remove it.
I'm fully aware that abolishing the HOA would not fix the street lamp. My point was that its existence is a net negative for the neighborhood. The few positive things that they actually do (maintaining common areas mostly) could easily be handled directly through informal neighborhood organization.
Why aren't street lamps the municipality's responsibility, even?
In some cases, they are, just paid for by the HOA.
The real reason why HOAs have exploded is that a county government can offload services and taxes onto the HOA, maintaining nominally low taxes and reduced county costs, without having to deal with municipal formation or annexation.
The town I grew up in now requires new developments to have HOAs to bear the cost of what should be city services (trash, road maintenance, snow plowing, pocket parks, etc).
The obvious solution here is to just raise taxes to gain economies of scale and have everyone pay less overall (or better yet, accept that suburban sprawl bankrupts municipalities and mandate more fiscally sustainable patterns like small lot sizes and rowhomes), but the area is too red to even consider that. So if you were to buy in that town, you would be getting a significantly better deal by buying in the non-HOA neighborhoods, because it's not like the taxes are reduced on HOA residents in proportion with the municipal services they receive.
In fact, in this particular case it was the power company's responsibility, and the HOA only served to be an impediment (and enforcer of other bullshit rules).
On one hand, I also feel like some HOAs go too far, so I deliberately avoided HOA properties when house hunting. On the other, I feel like this is one of those ideas that sound good until you try to draw a line, and there's no place to draw it that works for everyone. How would you cap "simple organizing," where all organizations above that line would be abolished, and what would you do if certain communities needed organizing exceeding that cap? Maybe something that could work would be requiring a financial justification for each rule, renewed every few years or so, otherwise that rule gets removed. That would incentivize having very few rules, but I feel like this is also only an ideal that's really hard to enforce in practice.
Why draw a line at all? Why bring some sort of advisory board into a situation that really just involves people agreeing amongst themselves? Need to maintain a common area? Maybe talk to the neighbors and work out a schedule for who mows it and when? Or maybe you find out that a few of the community really like gardening and are willing to do the whole thing themselves. At some scale organization is required, and that's understandable. Municipal government provides important service. But a grouping of 10 or so houses doesn't always need to default to advisory boards and monthly fees.
You have to draw a line to define what you are abolishing. What scale of organization is considered required and understandable, and what scale of organization is not? For a row of townhouses that share a roof and have a shared yard, can a community designate someone to handle the maintenance? Surely, the residents of all ten units won't simultaneously engage with the roofer and gardener, will they? What if the expenses are high enough that no one really wants to take on the financial responsibility personally, and people want to pool their funds in a consistent and secure way that ensures that people will contribute what they agreed to and doesn't rely on one person's honesty to hold the money? Bam, you have the definition of an HOA.
Sure, a lot of HOAs seem overly restrictive. I rejected the idea of buying one house under HOA in part because the agreement forbade things like hanging up laundry to dry, even in the back yard. However, there clearly is a use for some community agreements which vary based on need. It's easy to point to some agreement that should obviously be allowed and some agreement that seems entirely frivolous, but deciding what is considered an overly intrusive agreement requires drawing a line somewhere in between.
I don't disagree on principal, but it seems like overly restrictive HOAs have become far more common in recent years. Clearly we swung too far in the "definition of rules" direction. I'd like to push pack against the notion that we need these hundred page rule-books and monthly fees in order to have functioning communities. Also this is by definition a tongue in cheek thread, so I stand by my assertions. 😝
Fair enough. I think we're on the same side. I'm just a nerd who likes to argue about technicalities. I hung up some dog leashes and harnesses to dry outside this past weekend and felt grateful I wasn't living under that awful HOA agreement.
Yeah hang on to it if you can. I had a place with no HOA for a while and it was so nice.
Ultimately, it’s a freedom of association question. While you could probably prohibit mandatory HOAs, you’d likely run into constitutional (and possibly federal statutory) issues if you tried to ban them period.
I can dream. Regardless, I believe I adhered to the spirit of the "Subway Take" 😉
The root of almost all our political problems is the Reapportionment Act of 1929.
A larger house and representative districts sized to match the original intent in the constitution -- approximately 1/10 the size they are now -- would make lobbying and gerrymandering and party-based politics much more difficult, and it would practically eliminate the small-state bias in the Electoral College.
That law was a blatant act of self-protection by the sitting members of congress and should have been challenged and overturned as an unconstitutional restraint on states and citizen's rights immediately.
Similar US govt-related take: the 17th Amendment was a grave mistake and should be repealed. If we're going to have a senate to represent the governments of each state, then those governments should decide who their senators are (ideally by a top-two vote in each state legislature in my opinion, but that's another take).
I believe, deep in my heart of hearts, that if the 17th Amendment had never been ratified, we would never have learned the name "Ted Cruz".
1000% agree, and I think states like California should sue the federal government on the grounds that their representation has been unfairly diluted.
California is almost perfectly represented though? We have 11.6% of the population and 12.0% of the house reps. The states that are underrepresented in the house are Delaware, Idaho, South Dakota, and the Virginias. California is solidly in the middle of house reps per resident. We should definitely increase the number of house reps for other reasons, but California would actually lose representation in the house if we did.
The idea that the purpose of the left lane on a 4-lane US Highway is for passing only is ridiculous. I understand that in certain states it's the law, but in my 20 years of driving I've:
A) Seen countless drivers ignore this rule and
B) Never seen or heard of anyone getting a ticket for ignoring it.
And if most people don't abide by a rule and in turn nobody enforces it, it's not much of a rule. Generally speaking I think most folks treat left as the "break the speed limit" lane and the right as the "go the speed limit" lane.
I've also seen the left lane used as the "I'm travelling between states and don't want to be bothered by cars entering/exiting the highway for the next several hundred miles" lane.
I saw someone do this while being (eye)balls deep into their phone. When thinking about how they were driving and the observed behavior, I was pretty sure they intentionally got in the left-most lane so they could use their phone with the least amount of interaction of other cars on the road. They were going about the speed limit which for the left lane is slow so everyone was passing them. It was 3 lanes in this direction so the right lane is both the slower lane and also the lane where everyone gets onto the highway, and the middle lane is the one people shift to to let others onto the highway without issue as well as going faster than the speed limit but not catch a ticket faster, so there's still a lot of action going on in the middle lane. The left lane has the least amount of interaction and if you're someone who is holding the phone up with one hand and staring at it which is what the woman was doing when I saw her, you don't even really have to look ahead if you want to be careless, you just assume everyone else will work around you.
This made me think of another take: We need some sort of authoritative body to bring back and enforce the use of tactile controls in motor vehicles. Actual knobs and sliders with feedback! Touchscreens are dangerous and have no business being put in front of drivers.
Hard disagree.
When you have a great idea but nobody is abiding by it, you have a culture problem, not an idea problem.
I live in a place where people respect "left is only for passing, then you come back in front of the car you just passed" and it's wonderful. Mind, I don't know how good culture can be passed to bad, but I disagree with just doing away with good to call grey white.
Mixed feelings, but I definitely think it should be enforced that you shouldn’t be going slow in the left lane.
I knew somebody that got pulled over in Michigan for not moving over while in the left lane. It’s one of the most satisfying things to hear that actually happened. I doubt it happens often, but I know it happened at least once.
I'm from California and was driving through Colorado two weeks ago where this happened. They had the "Left is for passing" but everybody else was just going down that faster than the right lane.
I wish people around here respected that, instead we get 20 cars stacked up in the left lane and 2 or 3 in the right. The ones on the right are where they should be, everyone in the left is "passing" or "not slow traffic". Inevitably, some people end up mindlessly pacing the car next to them and we get rolling roadblocks. I need to actively control my anxiety.
My take: Everybody should play an instrument.
I think music universally enriches lives. The ability to play and perform it, whether it's a tambourine or contrabass flute, there's a method of expression available that transcends the spoken/written word, conventional emotion, or even thought. It divorces the process from your mind and body and turns it into something external, and I think there's sort of a magic to that conversion.
90% agree (but I’m a gigging musician so I’m definitely biased), and think you might get more buy-in if the take was that everyone should have to participate in some form of the arts, or artistic creation. Lot more broad, potentially a lot more appealing, same end result (IMO).
Mind you, I also used to be a HS band director so I had a very vested interest in everybody playing an instrument lol. I just know that it’s a tall order, and just doesn’t click for some. But I DO think that participating in the arts in some way, shape, or form offers the potential to enrich anyone’s life.
Edit: I share this quote way too often, but Kurt Vonnegut is once again apropos:
I agree. Someone who loves to draw might not be interested in music.
But artistic expression should be supported
My bias leans more towards music, I think, because I've done it for the last twenty years of my life (purely hobbyist, but from guitar to bunch of other strings, and electronic music production), but definitely some engagement with creating art as a way of outward expression would check the same box.
Idk this feels like projecting personal preferences across a population. I learned an instrument as part of standard ECs, and it was pretty mid. Nothing mind blowing.
There are certainly many other skills I’ve learned that were more important to me than learning piano.
That's sorta the point of these sorts of takes, but I don't mean to a level too far beyond basic competence at a minimum (play chords on a ukulele, simple tunes on a penny whistle, where people can get that dopamine hit of learning new, easy stuff).
I thought it was pretty much settled that kids who learn to play an instrument do better in other classes. That doesn’t mean all kids will get a chance, though, instruments can be expensive and so are lessons if the school doesn’t provide them.
I have to some a lot of that is learning fractions before they’re taught in school.
People get weird about instruments. You can get a great ukulele for $65 (base Kalas were like $50 before this whole US inflation shebang recently), for example, even though any enthusiast will say "Don't spend less than $200 bro." And harmonicas, recorders, and other similar flutes for less than $10, and occasionally interesting instruments for surprisingly low prices like certain flute type instruments in the US, all of which come with basic instruction manuals.
Not trying to be combative, but my first years with music were learning things from my dad with a cheap pennywhistle, and he wasn't particularly skilled, and was very poor when I was growing up.
Traffic lights should act as stop signs late at night.
It seems wasteful — for both fuel and time — being the only car at the intersection waiting for the light to turn green late at night.
There was a power outage in the area a few weeks ago and the lights stopped working — they'd blink red until they were fixed. You're supposed to treat them as stop signs when that happens.
I was able to get home so much faster that night.
That should be the case for all street lights from 10 PM to 6 AM.
Perhaps even better:
In areas of the Phoenix metro, some intersection lights will turn flashing yellow at late night. This indicates you can drive through with caution. No need to stop unless there's something in the road, etc.
Timer based lights should be abolished altogether. It's such a waste to be waiting for over a minute while absolutely nobody is crossing the intersection.
Most small intersections should be roundabouts instead of using lights.
I actually have seen lights do this automatically in some areas at night. I can't recall where exactly, but they do the exact same thing as in a power outage.
I feel like I saw that happen in some rural areas a couple of decades back, during a period at night they'd switch to either blink red in all directions if they're about equal traffic or yellow just for the busier road as a caution but not stop.
Happens at certain intersections in cities too, or on the weekends. They are thoughtful about it; there are some places it doesn't make sense to stop all cars going one way just in case a car comes but red flashing with yellows on the cross isn't super safe due to visibility or speed or something.
But I love it. I currently have zero traffic lights in my small town though so I'm unimpacted at home.
I would also settle for smarter timing on lights. The city I used to live in would automatically have longer left turn advance green lights during rush hour and change to unlimited green lights past 11pm I believe. Basically, the light would stay green until someone pulled up at the cross street and stayed there. You would see the walk sign start counting down and eventually the lights would change. However, if the person turned right then the countdown would stop and the walk sign would go back to saying okay to walk.
It must be expensive, because my new city has replaced lights and not put the same thing in.
100% agree
Way too many people enjoy being a bully and use whatever excuse they can to be one. I don't take seriously people who won't call out their own team because they think it's ok. It's probably why i'm more irked when leftists/progressives/dems/whatever do it because their supposed ideology is "be inclusive" and then they use that exact stance to bludgeon and attack people for being ignorant.
If your stance is you want to help poor ignorant people who've been let down by society, and then you spend your time calling huge swaths of people dumb people who deserve what happens to them, you're not actually helping.
The EU should federalise
As a non-euro, the EU seems to be at the point where it doesn’t have enough power to be fully effective, but it has enough power to piss people off.
I’ve got a couple:
There’s definitely others I have, but I can’t remember them right now, or I’ve already talked about them.
Whew, that second one is certainly a hot take.
I've thought before that mandatory national service could do all of the things that you mentioned, but I really would not want to see that be mandatory military service. I (think) I would be okay with it being an option, especially if we reduced our standing military force to account for it, but I don't really think the US needs a bigger military. What I'd really like to see is something like the Civilian Conservation Corps, but expanded to also cover things like public infrastructure and other types of public service. I like the idea of citizens being expected to spend a little time contributing to the public good after graduation, and CCC-like programs could also serve to train some basic job skills and get kids out of the areas they grew up in, potentially exposing them to people and places who are different than what they're used to.
But I don't really have skin in the game when it comes to this, so it's easy for me to say "young people should be required to spend a year or two serving the public good" when I know I'm too old for that to be expected of me, regardless of the good I think it could do our young people and the country.
My issue with mere National Service is that it would still Balkanize along political lines - liberals would do CCC work, conservatives would be in the military. The desired effects would be significantly weakened.
Yeah, I mean if I had my way military service wouldn't be part of it, or would be limited to a very small force. I don't like how militarized our society already is, I don't particularly want to increase that anyway.
As someone living in a small rural community, I gotta disagree with this. Local governments are the only way folks out here can get things done. The local government has the means and personnel to fight for the resources we need from the state. Without that, we'd be completely overlooked. Even a well-meaning centralized government would find itself making decisions without personal knowledge, or focusing on the bigger areas because they are louder and more obvious.
As someone from a country with forced conscription, all I have to say is:
lol. lmao, even
Care to elaborate on which one and your experiences?
Literally none of those is happening with conscription 'round here unless you're one of the few people who get a hard-on for the army. All that usually happens is you wasted 1-2 years of your youth/life running chores for a(n often shitty) lieutenant or sergeant and the only good thing you got out of it was maybe that you made a couple of friends at best
Nordics, Baltics, Alpine, or Greece?
I could also see Korea on that list
I always feel alone when I tell people this, but I think we are on the cusp of (and arguably, partially in support of) the return of the city state.
This kind of interferes with me being an anti-military pacifist. Since I was very young, maybe 10, my parents told me to flee to Canada if I got drafted. You need to register for the draft to get a federal student loan, so I even signed my name as with the addition of “I am a conscientious objector to war” in the signature box (I’m told this part gets scanned into the system).
I wish we didn’t need any military, but I don’t think that’s true. We certainly don’t need any more than what we have.
"You guys" is gender neutral and the only people who are allowed to say "y'all" are either Black or from the south. White Yankees saying "y'all" is cultural appropriation and is unpleasant to the ears. It's like hearing an American say "cheers" or "mate" or "lads" - it's not right! It requires a specific accent if you're going to pull it off. And if you think you can be cute and substitute "yous" without being from the northeast, you're wrong. If for some reason "you guys" isn't your style, go with "folks" or "friends" or anything else, just stop saying y'all.
sure thing babygirl
To be clear, no, "you guys" is absolutely not truly gender neutral. As a trans woman, it makes me extremely uncomfortable to be referred to with male terms such as "dude" and "you guys", and it's basic decency to not keep using such terms towards after I make the above explicitly clear to you. If someone keeps doing that intentionally, on a good day I'm going to think they're an asshole.
First of all, this babygirl was almost baby of the year, missy. Be careful who you mess with.
Now that that's out of the way, can I ask where you're from? I've lived in the western US for most of my life and have family in the south and midwest and I feel like its a regional thing. Throughout my life I've heard women greeting other groups of women with "you guys." Though that was mostly in the West/Midwest.
Kenan and Kel fought valiantly to make "dude" a gender neutral term, but sadly they were unsuccessful. I agree with you on that one.
I understand that not everyone has the same elevated cultural knowledge as me, so I recommend and regularly use "folks" and "everyone" when addressing a group for the first time. The important thing is that we need to get white people w/o southern accents to stop fucking saying "y'all."
People insist "guys" is neutral until you ask them how many "guys" they've fucked. And all of a sudden it's clearly not.
I've gotten very good with folks/folx and y'all (no I'm not southern, my Illinois friends with family from the south use it and I've long since picked it up) especially in written communication. "You guys" slips out when I'm presenting to large groups and I'm still working on it. But your reasoning is exactly why I'm attentive to it and keep trying.
It's a context thing. "Guys" on its own is NOT gender neutral. Nor is "that guy/this guy/those guys" etc. "You guys" is something entirely different and people regularly use to address a group, regardless of their gender.
Spanish has a pretty simple rule where one male in the group makes the group male and you use the feminine form only when the whole group is female.
That’s basically the subconscious use of “you guys” that I see used. Similar to phrases like “all men are created equal” when it’s meant generically it’s presumed to be gender neutral and only becomes masculine when the intended gender is relevant to the statement.
After I was apprehended by the fun police I started to put a little more thought into it and my working hypothesis is that English has gendered terms that become gender neutral once the subject and speaker reach a certain level of familiarity.
Some examples: Dude, bro, girl, bitch (the friendly version).
We use informal language with strangers and acquaintances all the time, but if someone were to use one of those terms with an unfamiliar person of the opposite gender, it could easily be seen as insulting. It only becomes acceptable once you reach a certain level of familiarity. Would I call my female colleague "dude" or "bro"? No. But have I done that with my friends? Yes. I've seen two women call each other "dude" and "bro" countless times.
Unsurprisingly, it's mostly a one-way track, with typically masculine terms being more likely to become gender neutral. That's either another W for the patriarchy or another L for the male ego, you decide. There are, however, a few people in my life who have casually called me [cis het male] girl and bitch (the friendly version) in conversation, but they were gay. That's either another W for the gays or another L for the straights, you decide.
So I can see where people are coming from when it comes to their opposition to "you guys" as an informal greeting in an unfamiliar setting. But where I'm from it's always used as a gender neutral term regardless, and I think we should drop the familiarity requirements for it.
Lmao want you to know you're not the only one who feels this way
I mean, they (the signers generally and Jefferson specifically) definitely didn't think that all men were created equal, and they didn't include women when it came down to laws or religion, so I do question whether "men" is actually universal there as written.
This isn’t really a topic of debate. “Men” in generic usage was assumed to include everyone. Now the reason it evolved that way is because people’s mental pictures of who mattered only included males, so they didn’t feel the need to get picky about differentiating. If I had to guess it probably happened as society got more complicated and administrative and lines between “who you are at home/with family” and “who you are in society” started to get more and more attenuated, which coincided with a lot of hardening and formalization of traditional roles.
In fact, “man” originally was gender neutral in Old English. It didn’t start to mean “male” until after people started using the word “woman” (wif-man) to specify they were talking about a female. Only then did “man” take on the implication of being male only.
Yes, I know that. I was speaking to its use in that specific instance where regardless of the assumption the writer and signers did not in fact actually mean everyone. Jefferson didn't think I was created his equal, he just thought it was a nice thing to say to oppose a king.
It is, IMO, demonstrative of why there's a difference in the connotation and denotation of the word "men" and why many women may not feel, regardless of the rhetorical flourish or the dictionary definition, that "all men" is actually inclusive of them.
So yeah I think there is plenty of room to discuss it.
It is to you, it's not to other people. Someone else just told you explicitly it's actively going to make her uncomfortable at best. It doesn't make sense to insist it's gender neutral to me while ignoring her post.
I don't like making people feel uncomfortable, so I try to avoid it.
I addressed her in a separate comment and even explicitly mentioned other alternatives that I regularly use. Hard as it may be to believe, I get it. When you're a nail, a lot of things start to look like hammers and some assholes will use non-hammers to bludgeon you anyway. But this is my silly little take and I'm going to defend it. And all I'm trying to say is that this asshole isn't a hammer and isn't trying to bludgeon anyone...well, unless they say y'all when they're not supposed to.
At the time I replied you hadn't, I saw that you have since but I'm not a time traveler at the moment.
We disagree about "y'all" so eh
Just know that a southerner dies everytime you say it. That might sound good to you on its surface, but there are a lot of good people down there and your odds of hitting Lindsey Graham with one of those are pretty slim.
We're in two different moods about this, so I'm gonna bow out.
I am also making an effort to not use it, but like you said it slips out sometimes.
I try to just use the collective "you" for the most part, because I think "folks" just sounds really weird.
Folks works for me, but idk, because I'm Midwestern maybe? "OK Folks" is up there with "alright everybody" for getting the attention of a big group for me.
I pick up a lot of language from the people I'm around and subconsciously slide into it around them, so I don't usually notice if I've picked up "y'all" or a more country accent until I'm into it. I can't do it on purpose just fall into it.
I try to use "folks", which works in a bunch of ways, but "y'all" just has the nice informality that "you guys" has, without the slight twinge of exclusion. So I'm gonna keep using it.
I'd say we should just invent some new words for plural second person, but you can't force language like that.
Bring back the singular 2nd person, "you" is already plural! (Basically same answer just in the other direction)
I'm hearing that I have permission to say the words if I adopt a British accent.
Will do.Cheers mate! 👍I think "you all" is perfectly fine for me. Pretty cool too have a grandpa who was a "yinzer" though
As long as the ou and a are audible were good.
My personal favorite is "youns" (or "yinz" I guess)
"Utilize" is a word people use when they want to sound fancy, it has no real use over the word "use" otherwise.
Disagree, sort of.
To "use" or "be using" is normally a present tense activity, whereas "to utilize" means to either be in direct present use or to generally use an item at another point in the past or future. Utilize is timeless, whereas use or using is present... well, use.
You can preface "use" with other terms, such as "am using" or "will use" but that immediately excludes present use, and obviously excludes "used" for past tense. You can remove the need for am/will/-ed by utilizing "utilize" to structure your speech to be as timely as needed.
This is one that I think could also be the difference in my mind, one has a possible metaphoric, figurative, or mental bend, as it could be the subtext:
At this point, I have gotten tired of using examples, and will never utilize their power again today.
I mentally flipped back and forth between "use" and "utilize" in all your examples, and both versions seemed to mean the same thing to me for all examples.
Sure, but there's nothing automatically wrong with wanting to sound fancy. In some contexts, utilizing "utilize" might have a more appropriate effect on the text than using "use".
In technical documentation, for example, "utilize" might be used to describe something the software makes use of, while "use" might be used to describe something the user makes use of.
"The software utilizes this function...".
"The user uses this button...".
I like that we can have multiple words that mostly mean the same thing and can mostly be used interchangeably for different effects, or to give reference to different things.
When gardening you use a shovel to dig a hole.
But you utilize a shovel to bang in a stake.
Utilize is supposed to convey a novel, uncommon use.
To play devil's advocate, "use" can sometimes have a negative connotation when used with people, whereas "utilize" is neutral or even positive.
However, people do 100% utilize that word the way you described as well. ;)
If you really want to consider the utility of the word, then you must utilize utilize by utilizing your utility bag of utility tools to utilize the utility of utility, utilaterally!
Utilitze the Utility of Usages of Use!
Utilitze the Utility Usage of Use!
Utilize the Usage of Use!
Utilize Use!
Use Utility!
Usetility?
utiliooze!
U!
u!
We should vote for ideas, not people or parties. Ballots should just have short lists of bullet points describing position on several topics submitted by the candidate themselves, similar to the blurb that is often included in the voter guide. No names or parties or identifying information would be allowed on the ballot. Maybe with some randomization of order and a few variations in wording so people get slightly different ballots, like when the teacher passes out several versions of a test to reduce cheating. Anyone found posting identifying information matching blurb with candidate outside of the ballot is punished severely, let's say something similar to treason. If you're too lazy to read all that shit, then go away, I don't want your vote.
Don't ask how we'd enforce the rules on the text. That's someone else's job.
A Smithsonian institution dedicated to junk* mail would have done the nation some good, especially if it was introduced in an era like the 1970s.
Edit: changed "spam" to "junk"
I like this one. Truly oddball!
It's a weird one, but I stand by it. A cultural institution who's mission statement is to explicitly educate the public on advertising could have been the needed "shot in the arm" for the American zeitgeist against anti-intellectualism and hyperconsumerism, especially if it was introduced at a time like the 60's~70's.
After a certain number of years and funds raised, there'd be plenty of ways to move this organization around to keep itself alive and relevant. Start an art collection and a gallery wing, but it's all posters and advertising from acclaimed artists and design firms and whatnot, use that as a further money printer. Expand the gallery to include neon signs, like the "American Sign Museum" in Cincinnati. Have a computer wing, throwing spam mail to accounts, pop ups and banner ads making example websites useless, etc.
Theoretically, American companies would be throwing money at said institution to feature their name and advertising and it could be done in a way that doesn't compromise the original mission statement.
It would be a tough nut for conservatives to try and crack, because on the surface level it totally does celebrate consumerism. Coca Cola and Pepsi both would be pissed at them if they shut it down. It absolutely is celebrating Americana, but at the same time absolutely educating the public on what "FOMO" is, how easily "wants" and "needs" can be conflated, etc.
It'd be really neat.
Gun violence has been done to death, but it apparently never gets solved when we don't ever do anything about it. That's not the subway take.
Gun ownership should be tied to service in the National Guard and getting regular mental health checks. Failing a mental health check or if somebody is flagged for potential mental health issues or is forced out of the National Guard should lose their right to own a gun (until evaluated and given a clean mental health billing). Exceptions should be made for physical handicaps, just because somebody is handicapped shouldn't bar them from gun ownership or being able to serve in some capacity.
People that go on shooting rampages have a tendency to be isolated and fall into weird insanity spirals where they don't interact with anybody and even though they may start showing signs of mental deterioration, nobody does anything about it because everybody assumes it's somebody else's responsibility. Then when something happens, everyone is like, "We should've paid more attention to the red flags." Owning a gun doesn't make you a crazy person, but a crazy person with a gun can do a lot of damage.
Further, requiring people to be in close-knit groups with other people would help to root out mental health issues. If you're required to be around other people for extended periods of time, mentally unwell people are more likely to be found out over time by people close to them, versus just wallowing in their mental health issues in a downward spiral.
The 2nd Amenment states: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." It's pretty clearly talking about a well-regulated militia (it's literally the first thing mentioned) ie The National Guard. The connection it's making is that, "We need to have a well-regulated militia, so therefore people should be able to own guns... so that they can be called upon by these well-regulated militias". Otherwise, what would be the point of mentioning anything about them? People owning guns, but not being involved with the militia doesn't guarantee anybody's safety, if anything, it's the opposite. If they wanted individual gunowners to just haphazardly protect the nation, why even mention "well-regulated militias"?
It's not a "magic bullet", it won't automatically solve every shooting death ever, just because something doesn't magically solve every problem ever doesn't mean it can't help.
Schools should require a gun safety class. Multiple gun safety classes for the different grade levels. We have sex ed, we need gun ed. The only source of information on how to handle a gun should not be Youtube.
Thoughts?
I'll see that and raise - We should bring back shooting as a sport through out school. Marksman, 3 gun, old school, whatever. Teach shooting along with safety.
We should move all the American holidays by one month. Halloween is coming up in just a couple weeks. I'm still wearing a t-shirt outside. Every Christmas I think "wow I sure hope it snows", because it snows in January not December. I should be able to wear white all September. Conversely, I'd much rather be outside grilling on the fourth June. Global warming demands a response.
Not sure how to handle MLK/President's day or where the cutoff is, but I love the idea of late January Xmas and adjusting the schedule based on climate change.
Phenomenal take. 100% agree. You understood the assignment.
The Halloween comment about t-shirts confuses me; Halloween is better when it's warmer so you don't have to wear coats over costumes. (also, I wish I was wearing t-shirts, been hitting freezing where I am)
Agree with you on Christmas though. Feels weird having that at the start of winter.
What people are actually mad about is that they're judged for being racist. (applies to other areas too). They couch it in "you're turning other people away from your cause" or "learn to take a joke" but what they want is an "n-word pass." Because they could say the slur, make the joke, do whatever, they just don't want someone else to disapprove because that makes them feel bad. They don't care about how their words make someone else feel. It's no different than "don't teach slavery as an evil because white kids will feel bad" ignoring how awful those same white kids taking advantage of the teacher approved "pass" to read Huck Finn make black students feel. "It's a classic" they say, "it's canon" they say. "Suck it up" they mean.
Edited to fix a verb conjugation
Its always annoyed me how SO MUCH of the conservative propaganda is centered around making white men feel better about themselves.
Like, its right there, we could teach them how to be good people and then society would make them feel better about themselves, but that fruit is juuuuuust out of reach. Theres a whole subreddit making fun of how theyre SO close, and yet, whoosh.
The fact that nudity is illegal-by-default globally is absurd. If anything, wearing clothing should be illegal. Clothing leads to unhealthy views, negative health outcomes (aside from skin cancer), and fetishization of the body. And the environment and society both would be better off if we were limited to parts of the globe where we can survive without clothing year-round.
I feel like this would almost exclusively punish people who are lawfully using firearms for lawful things. If I'm about to go do suicide-by-cop, what do I care if the ammunition was $100/round?
Not mad at it, but you should probably get rid of four or five just by consolidating within the original 13, not just RI. The full vid touches on it, it's only 6 mins.
My real subway take is that the USA should be at least three countries.
Everybody in Miami has rich parents, is selling drugs, or is on OnlyFans.
Yup.