Yeah, I think we’re mostly on agreement with the food.
So, let’s go to #2 on your list: “Better Culture”. I’ll give you “different culture”, but better is a big lift. For all it’s flaws “American Culture”, such as it is, is pretty great. Lots of diversity and the benefits that flow from that. We’ve got a ton of racists and religious zealots, but there tons of such people everywhere. US is legit one of the less racist places I’ve experienced.
Also “culture” is a pretty big category and it depends on what you include in it. If we’re talking stuff like art and music (or cuisine, which we have covered), again plenty of places have different culture, but better? I don’t know about that.
I guess you could include things like “gun culture”. I don’t personally file that under a culture issue as much as a legal one. But whatever it is, that’s not great.
I’d be interested in places you think have “better culture”.
If you go to a city in Spain on Sunday morning the entire community is out at the various patio places in their neighborhood drinking coffee, beer, etc. or eating a light lunch and talking to their neighbors. In the US we either go to church or wake up hungover to watch redzone by ourselves in our living room.
If we are definining culture by blockbuster movies and music then sure the US wins.
Just on this, I agree that mass desertification (and even worse bushfires than we already get) probably is the future in Australia but right now we are having historically horrific flooding despite it being almost summer. La Nina weather pattern is happening right now (heavier rain on east coast of Australia and dryer on west coast of south america) but it seems so so so much worse than it ever was before (climate change has to be the contributor).
Fair enough. I guess when I say better culture I mean better lifestyle culture although obviously there is an argument Europe could more than hold their own with a more traditional culture definiton that was stuff like art and music imo.
I guess to me culture is a mishmash of what most people do on a weekend or something. I don’t think the US wins on that imo.
This would be out for me because of the weather and the fact that 6 months of the year it is dark when you start the working day and dark when you stop.
Only because they didn’t realize giving air time to the circus act was all he needed. It wasn’t their intent. I’m remembering his campaign written off even after early primary wins. He was portrayed as the offensive clown that he is. Then the likes of Graham, Romney, Cruz, et al giving interviews disparaging him, then the 99% HRC win punditry.
Ah, well, nevertheless…
The same thing. Or something new. Doesn’t matter.
Keep in mind he’s running in a primary first. The last primary results we have show Trumpy candidates still running strong. He may even get a similar assist from the DNC! He doesn’t need to win over reasonable people and it’s not clear yet that he’s lost significant support from his base. Losing the media, yes, but he’s lost them before, and unless they’ve learned to be more effective in swaying public opinion against him it won’t be different this time. Then they’ll be back on his side.
Things are objectively different this time, in 2016 after he won the world was still full of GIVE HIM A CHANCE! morons that thought people were being too critical of him before he even got a chance to govern. And for about a year we kept getting those stupid Today Trump Truly Became President comments from the media when he, like, completed a full sentence. There are no more delusions out there about his competency or potential.
Having lived in Europe for years I can confirm a couple things: The more developed the country, the more restaurants are just dominated by different, equally bad corporations. with less diversity and a similar mix of good and terrible mom and pop spots. W/r/t culture, once you speak the language and really get to know the locals, you’ll find they’re every bit as dumb and bigoted as Americans. We’re really not that special.
big reason I like the particular dumpster of a city I live in is there is a big food culture - people support local restaurants and we have about 2-3 choices for any type of cuisine you can think of, and that’s not an exaggeration.
I get infuriated when hole in the wall burger joints close and another chipotle pops up. Why the fuck do we need so many chipotles?
I was shocked in Paris at how many completely terrible chains there were. There is a Pret a Manger (basically Panera) on every corner and it sucks! And the actual French people went there!
wait, is that your issue? you just want to live somewhere that doens’t have applebees? You realize you don’t have to eat at applebees just because there’s one near you, right?
I would support local restaurants more if I could order carryout online without going through a third party app that either charges their own fees or inflates menu prices. When I choose Chipotle over a local Mexican place it’s because it’s just easier to order. I don’t have a solution, just pointing out that the scale of chains can offer convenience.