Tell me about living in the US

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Tell me about living in the US

Jeb Bush 2012: Apr 4, 2007; A mathematician, like a painter or poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas.

Scudworth posted:

I've spent many months in America staying at friends houses all over the map, getting more of a feel for day to day stuff than a usual tourist does, and I will tell you the #1 craziest poo poo about the USA -

They wear shoes indoors.
In houses.

No not all of them do, not 100%, and the small percentage that doesn't will be quick to say so, but most of America does, they don't think it's weird or repulsive. When I come back home (to Canada) each time no one believes me. They can't conceive of it. My friends in other countries go nuts when I post photos of this poo poo on facebook as proof.
I will never get used to it no matter how long I'm down there.

This is pretty standard in the UK too! (with the exceptions being about as common as they in the US, in my experience)

# ¿ Jan 31, 2017 18:54

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 22:50

Jeb Bush 2012: Apr 4, 2007; A mathematician, like a painter or poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas.

Tar_Squid posted:

-What is great about being American?

I can go to my job and openly complain about how stupid my President is and I won't get fired for it (yet anyway). Also less tacit approval of murdering people because they decided to change religion. Finally, there's plenty of reasonably priced food around, no famine or artificial shortages caused by extreme corruption/crappy economic system planning.

None of those are really things about being American? The first in particular is much less the case in America than in other rich countries.

e: As a US citizen who lives here now but grew up elsewhere, one of the weirdest things about America is the tendency for people to describe banal stuff like "the peaceful transfer of power" and "social mobility is not 100% absent" as if they were particularly American things

Jeb Bush 2012 fucked around with this message at 03:54 on Feb 2, 2017

# ¿ Feb 2, 2017 03:49

Jeb Bush 2012: Apr 4, 2007; A mathematician, like a painter or poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas.

Tiggum posted:

I'm pretty sure every country is like that. Not always the same thing, but it'll be something that's far from unique that is held up as being particularly of that country.

Not really to the same extent, no. I lived most of my life in the UK and you can get all kinds of dumb nationalist crap but America's the only place I've been where people will talk as if they were living in the world's only wealthy democracy. (And, like, people who definitely know better - until the recent mess every inauguration would feature a dozen pundits rhapsodising about how uniquely American it was to have an election and then give power to the winner of that election)

# ¿ Feb 2, 2017 04:31

Jeb Bush 2012: Apr 4, 2007; A mathematician, like a painter or poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas.

OP the actual greatest thing about being american is the ubiquity of garbage disposals in sinks, those things own

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang posted:

5. What is great about being American?
Besides the hamburgers, cars, and guns? Everything? They say the American Dream is dead, but I'm of the opinion that there are many dreams and many ways to achieve it. Can we, as Americans, do better by our own citizens? Absolutely. And I think with passionate people (like the ones in this thread) we can and will do better. As Americans we have that option to dynamically change things, through activism or through more humble means. We don't have centuries of custom or caste or class we have to cut through first, we can just do it.

America literally has centuries of all of those things

# ¿ Feb 2, 2017 05:56

Jeb Bush 2012: Apr 4, 2007; A mathematician, like a painter or poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas.

Tiggum posted:

Having never seen one of those in real life, they seem like a really weird idea to me. I'm assuming that they don't actually work like in movies/TV and turn your sink into a deathtrap, but what are they for? What are you putting down your sink that needs to be mulched?

Mostly it's for when you're washing stuff, as it atomises small chunks of food etc. that normally couldn't go down the drain

it totally will gently caress up your hand if you stick it in there and then turn the disposal on, but that's a pretty straightforward thing to avoid doing in my experience

# ¿ Feb 2, 2017 06:51

Jeb Bush 2012: Apr 4, 2007; A mathematician, like a painter or poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas.

spacetoaster posted:

This is a dumb derail and not what this thread is about. Shut the gently caress up about your idiot religious beliefs.

actually along with "explanations for why having the worst healthcare system in the first world is actually good" this is about as close to what this thread is about as you can get

# ¿ Feb 8, 2017 18:00

Jeb Bush 2012: Apr 4, 2007; A mathematician, like a painter or poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas.

spacetoaster posted:

Religion can be secular. It's whatever you believe. If a person believes that guns are bad and that people who want them are psychopaths and bad people (what the guy I responded to said) that sounds pretty religious to me.

That is not actually what any of those words mean, no

# ¿ Feb 9, 2017 23:00

Jeb Bush 2012: Apr 4, 2007; A mathematician, like a painter or poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas.

spacetoaster posted:

You mean the word religion? I think you're confusing the term theism with the term religion. In the United States atheist's beliefs (and the expression of) are protected by the 1st amendment of the constitution because those beliefs fall under the freedom of religion.

"religion" and "theism" are different terms, neither of which means "whatever you believe"

(this is separate from whether atheism is a religion. it's not, although it's possible for a religion to have atheism as a tenet. being an atheist or non-religious in general is protected under the first amendment because "freedom of religion" encompasses the freedom to not have one)

# ¿ Feb 10, 2017 05:07

Jeb Bush 2012: Apr 4, 2007; A mathematician, like a painter or poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas.

To paraphrase someone else, red states and blue states have all the same kinds of people (politically speaking), just in different ratios

# ¿ Feb 12, 2017 03:33

Jeb Bush 2012: Apr 4, 2007; A mathematician, like a painter or poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas.

reagan posted:

There's a protest about a pipeline that you may have heard of. People here don't really care. They don't have love for the oil companies, but they don't have love for Native Americans either. Part of it is because they view many of the protesters as tourists from the coasts who are just here to have one big party and pretend like they give a poo poo about these poor bastards living on the Res. It's the flavor of the month for these people.

jesus christ

for non-americans, this is about an oil pipeline that was deliberately re-routed away from a predominantly white community (because they were afraid of spills) and through native american land instead

so this is a good illustration of how someone can see their government do some horrendous racist poo poo and then feel smugly superior to... the people protesting it

# ¿ Feb 12, 2017 17:24

Jeb Bush 2012: Apr 4, 2007; A mathematician, like a painter or poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas.

reagan posted:

You missed my point. Just lol if you don't think that these pathetic liberals will abandon this cause as soon as the next trendy one pops up.

As for concerns about re-routing the pipeline, going to the south is going to impact more than just native Americans downstream in the Missouri river, but I suppose it's always easier to reduce things to RACISM rather than think about them in a critical manner.

No, I got your point. You're trying to defend "we don't care, because we don't care about native americans", which is pretty hard given how obviously wrong it is! So the only option you have is to pretend that actually no-one cares, and they're just pretending to be care so people will think they're cool or w/e

# ¿ Feb 13, 2017 08:11

Jeb Bush 2012: Apr 4, 2007; A mathematician, like a painter or poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas.

LogisticEarth posted:

RE: DAPL pipeline outrage. I'm inclined to side with the folks who think it's only a national issue because it's trendy and has a good narrative around it. What makes this particular pipeline construction notable is largely because there was a very organized protest by the local native population, and the police response.

And because of the particularly indefensible circumstances surrounding the choice of route. The campaign is not about "pipelines should be banned in general", although I'm sure there are people involved who feel that way.

And no amount of speculation about why the protestors really care makes "People here don't really care. They don't have love for the oil companies, but they don't have love for Native Americans either." any less vile.

Ein cooler Typ posted:

Why are Europeans so afraid of guns?

It's 99% likely that I will never need a gun to protect myself, but I have one anyway just for emergency protection. It's just another preparedness tool like flashlights, radio, bottled water, batteries. I hope I will never need them in a real life or death situation, but nothing wrong with being prepared.

Because your attempt to "prepare" for this incredibly unlikely scenario (in which, more likely than not, a gun would just increase the chance you get hurt) is much more dangerous than the scenario itself. You are much more likely to kill a) yourself b) a family member than you are to use it to actually defend yourself.

# ¿ Feb 13, 2017 18:56

Jeb Bush 2012: Apr 4, 2007; A mathematician, like a painter or poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas.

LogisticEarth posted:

Again, the whole "white residents shut it down so Dakota Access took a poo poo on Native Americans" is a flashy narrative, but it's also probably bullshit:

http://www.snopes.com/dapl-routed-through-standing-rock-after-bismarck-residents-said-no/

Okay, I stand corrected on that point. It does, however, appear to be the case that the dynamics around the standoff (and in particular the brutal police attacks on protesters) are driven by the North Dakota government's indifference to Native American interests.

LogisticEarth posted:

Obviously it is the (partially deserved) stereotype that Americans are ignorant of geography and countries beyond the border, but on the flip side I've had some hilarious experiences talking to Europeans about American geography and culture as well. Trying to describe where I was from (New Jersey) resulted in a hell of a lot of confusion, with some people having learned anything they know about the region from Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen songs, or thinking that it was one of the boroughs of NYC. People also thought I was from Canada based on my (real) accent, but thought that I should sound like Fran Drescher or Tony Soprano since I was from NJ. It's a really odd feeling that so many non-US folks "know" a lot about the country, but through the lens of entertainment media. Hence this thread, of course.

In my experience Europeans are often confused or ill-informed about America, but it's not at all symmetrical - the average European knows *way* more about America than the average American knows about Europe.

Ein cooler Typ posted:

I personally don't believe that

lol

# ¿ Feb 13, 2017 23:42

Jeb Bush 2012: Apr 4, 2007; A mathematician, like a painter or poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas.

reagan posted:

I'm not trying to defend people's attitude re: native americans, I am just stating a fact. People in this state do not care about them.

As for the snopes link: I lived in Bismarck last year - I can assure you I never heard of any meetings where us whites told them to move the pipeline south specifically to gently caress over natives. Give me a loving break, dude.

No-one said you are specifically trying to gently caress over native americans. But you, yourself, in the loving post I am responding to right now, said that [white] people in your state don't mind if they do get hosed over. Which is not much better!

And the claim that you're just making an impartial observation about public opinion would be more plausible if not for, like, every other sentence in your posts

# ¿ Feb 14, 2017 02:58

Jeb Bush 2012: Apr 4, 2007; A mathematician, like a painter or poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas.

Tar_Squid posted:

To contribute to the current discussion- I've always found it weird that Europeans actually had laws against them having guns. Well not all of Europe I'd guess but the point is I guess we all just view that differently. You guys may think we're all strapped 24/7, I might think you're afraid of being arrested if you try to fight back against a mugger and injure them. Both are not true ( I, uh, hope? ).

uh, even america has laws restricting gun ownership, dude

and while owning a gun for self-defence is generally a bad idea, that's not the main reason countries restrict gun ownership. it's because the only effective way to prevent criminals getting guns is to make it harder for people in general to get guns

I don't really see why you think banning guns means you'll go to prison for self-defence. it does mean you're much less likely to get away with killing someone in "self-defence", since if no guns are involved it's less likely you can plausibly claim that you had no choice but to kill someone. that seems pretty obviously good though?

# ¿ Feb 15, 2017 01:49

Jeb Bush 2012: Apr 4, 2007; A mathematician, like a painter or poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas.

Tar_Squid posted:

Oh I'm aware we can't buy certain sorts of guns, and others you need some papers for. I was under the impression that getting anything that wasn't obviously a gun meant for hunting was either impossible or nearly so in a lot of Europe, and its just kind of weird to me. Its like people that put milk in their tea- Its just not something I'm used to. I don't own any guns, for the record, if that matters any.

And my other question would be the part about it being about preventing criminals from getting guns. At least here in the US that would never work just because there's so many people that already have guns ( and also the NRA sorts would absolutely go berzerk ). If its illegal to have them what would stop someone that owned one from selling it to some shady criminal anyway? I should probably google how they managed to get all the guns that people already owned pre-ban. Or more likely Europeans don't have as many gun nuts as we do, stockpiling them and all.

Well there's two different things here: Existing guns would be a problem, but not an insurmountable one. There's lots of ways to take guns out of circulation, and over the course of, say, 10 years, it would become much much harder to get your hands on one illegally.

The political issue, on the other hand, is probably insurmountable for the foreseeable future! Politically feasible gun control stuff tends to either target particularly stuff that people use in massacres (which is fine, but most gun violence is handguns), or local, or focused on people with particularly bad backgrounds (neither of which do much about how easy it is to get illegal weapons when so many people get them legally).

That's why, as someone who would, all things considered, prefer a complete ban on handguns, I still don't consider gun control a top political issue.

# ¿ Feb 15, 2017 07:50

Jeb Bush 2012: Apr 4, 2007; A mathematician, like a painter or poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas.

LogisticEarth posted:

I will say that this is the chronic issue with trying to convey what actual every day life is like re: guns. Suffice to say that there are rules of basic safety that if followed will make getting shot by your dog or toddler all but impossible. If I had time and this was a different thread a long, thoughtful discussion would probably make it clear that I don't wish to deflect the issue. But, there's one thing to say about long thoughtful discussions about guns on the internet, and that is: lol good luck

It's weird how you responded to the one not-particularly-important aside (no poo poo, toddlers do not shoot people very often anyway) rather than the actual content about why owning guns for self-defence is insane

System Metternich posted:

Okay, so other topic. I've never been to the States, and with the latest TSA madness the likelihood that I'll be going sometime soon is basically in free fall - no, I won't give you my FB password, thank you very much. But other friends who have been there told me that Americans basically take the car for every distance that's longer than the car itself. That's hyperbole, of course, but which distance would you be ready to walk instead of drive? Every Wednesday I walk to choir practice and back which Google Maps tells me is 1km (~0,6 miles) or about 12 minutes of walking each. Would you take the car for that? And would it even be feasible to walk in your average American town?

It varies a lot! My suburban relatives seem much more inclined to drive ridiculously short distances. In a city, less so. I can't imagine trying to drive to something only half a mile away here unless a) I was going to get some really heavy stuff or b) I was going there on the way to something else.

Like Tar_Squid said, it's also the case that in a lot of places walking sucks even if the distance itself is reasonable.

# ¿ Feb 17, 2017 17:28

Jeb Bush 2012: Apr 4, 2007; A mathematician, like a painter or poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas.

Jenalia posted:

I've actually had someone say "oh right, asian" to me before when taking off shoes and it's just really bizarre to me. Do you just track dirt around and vacuum more? Do you wear your shoes to bed? In the shower? Do you keep the shoerack next to your bed? I just cannot understand why you'd want to keep your shoes on inside. You can wear slippers instead, which are warm and way more comfy. Do you just never buy slippers? "You can have my shoes when you pry them from my cold dead feet" seems to be a way more universally accepted sentiment in the US.

Have you never been to a house where people don't do this? It just doesn't make that much of a difference, dirt-wise

# ¿ Feb 20, 2017 06:51

Jeb Bush 2012: Apr 4, 2007; A mathematician, like a painter or poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas.

System Metternich posted:

I think this may again be connected to the diving vs. walking question? Like yesterday I was walking to my grandmother's, and because it had rained the day before the wood trails were super muddy, and not removing the shoes at the door would have meant spreading said mud everywhere. Whereas if I would have driven there I could theoretically have left the shoes on without dirtying the whole place up.

No, keeping your shoes on is also the norm in walkable parts of the US, and the generally much more walkable UK. The secret is that if your shoes are super muddy, then you take them off. (or brush them off, or whatever)

# ¿ Feb 20, 2017 08:42

Jeb Bush 2012: Apr 4, 2007; A mathematician, like a painter or poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas.

American elections do tend to have *way* more candidates on the ballot, but which ones there are (and what, if any, referendums and the like are on the ballot) varies from state to state and even county to county.

The former's a big problem, though, because Americans have the same ability to pay attention to politics as everyone else, so those lower-tier elections can elect some real weirdos even in areas with comparatively sane politics

# ¿ Feb 22, 2017 07:03

Jeb Bush 2012: Apr 4, 2007; A mathematician, like a painter or poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas.

LogisticEarth posted:

There's some basic, de facto standardization in that each state has a governor with an executive branch, two legislative houses, and a judiciary.

Nebraska has only one legislative branch! (This is the correct number of legislative branches to have so good for them.)

# ¿ Feb 22, 2017 18:01

Jeb Bush 2012: Apr 4, 2007; A mathematician, like a painter or poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas.

LogisticEarth posted:

Glad to see some insight into why New Yorkers are annoying dickheads, and confirmation that the cause does in fact seem to be some kind of endemic regional narcissism.

calling them "narcissists" here is what really makes this post sing

feeling entitled to the attention of every random stranger you meet is not narcissism apparently?

# ¿ Feb 28, 2017 16:44

Jeb Bush 2012: Apr 4, 2007; A mathematician, like a painter or poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas.

I remember one catholic church I used to go to had a little guide in the back for different flavours of christians (+ one thing for non-christians) about which parts of the mass they could participate in. there were like 6 different gradations!

# ¿ Apr 3, 2017 18:32

Jeb Bush 2012: Apr 4, 2007; A mathematician, like a painter or poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas.

chitoryu12 posted:

As you've probably figured out from the wide variety of answers from everyone here, the United States has about as many differences in it as Europe. Our country is bigger than all of Europe minus Russia, without even including Alaska and Hawaii. Texas alone is the size of several countries, and has a pretty big dichotomy in culture and moral beliefs between a major city like Austin and a small town like Marfa. Georgia, Massachusetts, Oregon, Alaska, California, Florida, and North Dakota are so different in culture, climate, and history that they may as well be separate countries.

I have to wonder if people who say this kind of stuff have ever been to an actual foreign country (especially a non-anglophone one). it's a hell of a lot more different than going from US state to another!

Jeb Bush 2012 fucked around with this message at 16:33 on Apr 24, 2017

# ¿ Apr 24, 2017 16:29

Jeb Bush 2012: Apr 4, 2007; A mathematician, like a painter or poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas.

chitoryu12 posted:

America has a ridiculous amount of space, so it gets taken advantage of. Supermarkets take up multiple city blocks and have parking lots with a footprint the size of a medieval village.

Now your first instinct will probably be "Australia has a ton of space too and they don't do that!" But remember that most of Australia is an uninhabited wasteland.

Nah, it's not just Australia, every country that isn't a city-state has plenty of land in this kind of rural area. They don't do this kind of development because it doesn't make sense (in particular, it's comically hostile to pedestrians, who American development tends to poo poo on outside of urban areas and sometimes even in them).

# ¿ May 2, 2017 17:11

Jeb Bush 2012: Apr 4, 2007; A mathematician, like a painter or poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas.

UltraRed posted:

That's suburbia, not rural. You can even see the housing divisions in the background.

yeah I should've said "non-urban". the point remains though, the physical size of a country isn't really relevant to this kind of stuff because except for the tiniest countries urban space is still a tiny proportion of land area even if they house a large proportion of the population

# ¿ May 2, 2017 20:28

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 22:50

Jeb Bush 2012: Apr 4, 2007; A mathematician, like a painter or poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas.

MF_James posted:

Do you have car insurance? Most (all?) car insurance companies will also do renter's insurance and it will be cheaper typically since you're getting all the insurance through them, I'd look into doing that if possible.

Also, that poo poo sounds shady as gently caress, I would definitely not work with people that want you to email CC numbers, SSN, or anything important.

he might be legit but you still don't want to deal with a legit person if they're also an idiot who's going to get your CC information stolen

# ¿ Aug 2, 2017 04:46

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Tell me about living in the US