Ask Lemmy

What made you not realize the decades of Israeli aggression that caused October 7?

no school sports - this is the most radical take I've ever seen on lemmy.

and i like it. I and I like sports. FWIW the town my brother in has no school sports... the sports are run by an independent volunteer org. Nobody gets paid. but i'm not sure it's a good 'model' because their sports program is mediocre and their teams are average at best.

he's actually trying to move his family to another town with better sports because he expects his kids to go to college on sports scholarship like him and his wife both did. and there is no way that will happen if his kids are bad sports teams.

That’s like saying the arts are a waste, it’s a “I don’t like it or see the benefit so it shouldn’t exist” scenario

i do think sports have educational value, teaching teamwork and discipline and health. i learned more from cross country and marching band versus everything else combined. but i definitely agree about the ridiculous funding disparity, though, no extracurricular should be getting more funding than core classes

my hot take is that sports and bathrooms shouldn't be gendered. i understand the "seperate but equal" clause doesn't include gender, but it should, given the better funding and accomodation boys sports get over all but the best girls teams. siloing off genders has catastrophic cultural consequences- "locker room talk" shouldn't and wouldn't exist otherwise, plus the whole trans rights thing that shouldn't and wouldn't be an issue

Personal story: Ages ago I was in marching band in TX, so we had to visit multiple other schools to play against them.

Some of those stadiums, even 20ish years ago, were ridiculous. So much money that could have gone to much better programs, or even a publicly available stadium that aren't locked to a specific school district. I left band before graduating.

That noise is awful. We're in the fucking future, I want my car to sound like the Jetsons'

I watched a YouTube video from a blind creator. She mentioned how scary EVs were in parking lots. She just had much less time to react to them compared to ICE cars. I don't mind the spooky hum my car makes so much since then

People and animals walk out in front of my noise-making EV all the time. It really needs a bicycle bell or pedestrian horn or something. Maybe it’s the frequency of the sound. People just don’t seem to realize it’s a car right there the way they do with ICE.

same tbh. the correct answer is no cars. i still think evs are better to have around than ice cars, but an oversized murder machine shouldn't be the primary mode of transport, and it will always need to announce its presence.

road noise along major roads is mostly tire noise anyway, and evs still have tires

every society is like that.

It's the fact that so much in this country is about money. We can't have basic infrastructure or maintenance because the money it would take to build and maintain it means the guy at the top earns less, and we can't have that. I fucking hate it here and wish that I had any hope of living elsewhere, where people are treated like people instead of numbers and a paycheck.

Yeah it's really noticable as an australian too. The bottom is allowed to fall out in ways that feel scandalous. So many things are just shabby. So many systems are just bafflingly, solvably dysfunctional.

The US isnt that beautiful if you're looking at this from a European perspective.

HOWEVER, if you're from a place even worse, the US could look like paradise to you.

Don't forget that if you have regular access to a relatively uncensored internet and can drink water straight from the tap, you have it better than half of the world, which is not to say you shouldn't strive for better, you definitely should protest, contact your congressperson, vote, all that stuff (as best as you can mentally handle), but sometimes you have to pause and appreciate what you do have.

Context: I was born in the People's Republic of China circa 2000 and now resides in the US. I mean yes China's public transit looks better but everything besides that isnt all that nice really. I lived in a part of a city that looks absolutely filthy and deteriorated

(And yes, NYC is dirty, especially Manhattan, but some places in Brooklyn look quite okay, if you could afford living there lol.)

I also took a 180 on marriage but not when I met my wife.

When my (now) wife and I started dating, we both were anti marriage. Several years later, we considered marriage for certain benefits that the legal status would have had for us, and because our relationship was solid and we were already committed to it on the long term, we decided to go ahead with it.

I actually started to like the thought of it as soon as we started planning the wedding. We didn’t want to spend much on it (after all, we didn’t really believe in marriage), so we DIYd the whole thing, it was a nice bonding experience with each other and with friends who helped.

It really started to make me feel different about my relationship after a couple years. It does feel different to think “I have a girlfriend” vs ”I’m married. I’m someone’s husband.”

There was a certain warmth to it. We both liked being married and calling each other husband and wife. This warmth or security worked quietly in the background for years to further strengthen our relationship. And I do think it helped too at low points and conflicts to remind us that we want to fix our problems, not walk away from them (the latter sometimes seems easier on the short term when one is exhausted or desperate, it’s not a bad thing to add some friction to that process).

So while marriage on the surface is just words, rituals, and legal status; in experience I found that it’s also commitment, belonging and warmth.

Next time I will tell about how we both agreed we never want kids until one day…