Americans have to learn to live with each other, one way or another.

Honestly, I often think Americans need to learn to live apart from each other these days. I'm very skeptical of the notion that the US can ever function as a coherent political unit again, and it might be better for all to just cut bait and move to an EU-esque free movement regime. Let New England, the South, the Midwest, the West Coast and whatever Alaska and Hawaii want to be each be their own independent countries, but any citizen of one has the right to move to any if the others and work immediately. If Republicans want to enact their own little Handmaid's Tales in the deep South, they can go for it, but no moaning when women and POC decide to move elsewhere. The non-GOP hellscape regions can implement social safety net programs to allow anyone who wants to leave the conservative regions to do so, regardless of financial means, knowing they will have housing, food and healthcare when they get to a civilized country.

It really feels like some backwards regions are holding the whole country hostage at this point.

Beating your wife? I could not see as a cultural thing.

That's kind of exactly my point, though. I see claiming being loud and inconsiderate to others as people practicing their culture to be just as disingenuous an argument as saying wife-beating is a part of Irish culture that just has to be accepted. It's just brought out to defend bad behavior, often with the implication that if you continue to criticize said behavior, you're automatically in the wrong, having revealed yourself as bigoted against whatever group you're criticizing.

its people practicing their culture.

Personally, I hate this line, because I only ever hear it trotted out to excuse bad behavior that people know they shouldn't. Saying that being a loud nuisance in public is people practicing their culture is just as absurd as saying Irish men getting drunk and beating their wives is practicing Irish culture. It might be a negative cultural stereotype some of them actually live up to, be it doesn't mean it should be tolerated.

Even if you want to accept that it's a valid argument, one's right to practice their culture ends where it limits the rights of others to do the same. People don't get carte blanche to make everyone else change their lives to accommodate a culture with no sense of appropriate volume or consideration for others.

A lot of the things they name aren't inherently city noises, either, though. I don't live near any concert venues or airports, so I don't hear noise from either of those sources. You could live in the middle of nowhere, but if you live above the local bar, it shouldn't come as a surprise that it's loud on Friday and Saturday nights. Dogs and birds aren't exactly uniquely urban phenomena, and the sound of peoples' shoes on the sidewalk being a major source of noise just strikes me as absurd.

I don't mind interacting with others in public, but I very much dislike inconsiderate people who decide to monopolize public spaces at the expense of others being able to enjoy them in their own way. I don't care about someone listening to the radio with their friends at a reasonable volume while they chill and talk. The reality is more often rival clusters of people with massive speakers, each turning their stuff higher because they can't hear their crappy music over the other people doing the same thing up and down the block. Me being unable to sleep at 4AM on a Wednesday because I can hear your terrible choice in Dembow and Rap that you choose to accompany your domino games and hookah sessions from my apartment on the seventh floor isn't us having an interaction, it's you being a nuisance.

They may be idealists that don't reflect a use case I think is reasonable to expect of the average user, but I would also say that it's very important to have them there, constantly agitating for more and better. They certainly don't manage to land on achieving all their goals, but they also prevent a more compromising, "I just need to use my stuff now, not in 10 years when you figure out a FOSS implementation" stance from being used to slowly bring even more things further away from FOSS principles in the name of pragmatism.

Yes, you used to be able to walk into a role that took anyone who could turn up and learn, but technological and economic demands mean that its no longer viable.

Economic demands, sure, but I would argue that is more a result of policy than anything insurmountable. Technologically, not at all. I'm guessing you're in NZ, based on your username, and I won't pretend to be able to speak for conditions there, but I would say a great many of the jobs in the US demanding a degree do not actually require them. I'm not saying that we should completely eliminate degree requirements, but companies should be expected to pay the costs of training. There are so many jobs out there that require little more than basic computer skills, learning to use whatever specialty software they make use of, and the workflows of the particular job site. A university education is overkill to teach basic computer literacy, and the other two often wind up things that you will only learn upon beginning the job. For many others, an associate's or some form of professional certification is probably enough to really get you up to speed on the essential knowledge to work in many industries.

Proper apprenticeships are not terribly common here, and along with trades as career paths, have suffered from decades of anti-union agitation. Outside of areas with strong unions, trades can be shockingly poorly paid. I see more people just not going to university because they don't see much point to it, as degree inflation essentially means they need to get a Masters or PhD to even stand out now, and they don't see themselves doing that. If I wind up working with the same people who got degrees in the fields I have any interest or proficiency in, what's the point of taking on that debt and doing all that work, only to find myself in the same situation I'm in without a degree?

Meanwhile, universities here will implement austerity measures that result in even more tenuous employment and abysmal pay for professors, yet they seem to have no end of money for ballooning administrative costs, sports teams/facilities and insanely overpaid executives. They always have money for everything except education and research, and reveal their priorities in how they spend their money and where they cut back. Making job training and profit the focus of higher education has simply undermined the institution as a whole, here.

This strikes me more as a result of the push for everyone to attend university, and the perversion of higher education's function to be almost purely vocational at the undergrad level. Now, companies no longer seem to offer any proper internal training for the majority of roles, preferring to just require a college degree, any degree, and say, "Eh, this person got a BA in Medieval Tibetan science fiction, they should be able to figure it out." Positions that my father was hired for in the 80s and 90s that he excelled in offered 3-6 month training periods, and were accepting pretty much any candidate who showed an interest in learning and could pass an interview. These same positions now want a BA, internships and multiple references to be considered, and have eliminated the training programs offered, assuming new hires will either know how to do the role already, or figure it out as they go.

While I think that anyone who in interested in doing so should have the right to pursue higher education, I think the push for everyone to do so is probably misguided, ultimately doing a disservice to most students, and to the idea of tertiary education as a whole. There are many people who don't have any particular interest in pursuing further studies beyond, "I would like to get a job and not die starving in a gutter, please." They aren't really going to benefit from a university education aimed at pursuing knowledge for its own sake, and this sort of curriculum also doesn't necessarily serve the increasing demand of universities to be fancy vocational institutes, so the course work gets dumbed down and everyone gets a subpar experience. Of course, students are going to be disengaged if they didn't really have any interest in rigorous study of a field to begin with, but have arrived at their chosen major by function of either how easy it is to get a degree (and thus, tick another box in HR software), or what the expected return on their investment in tuition will be.

In my opinion, rather than pushing for everyone to attend university, we ought to demand more of our primary and secondary educational institutes (though, in the US, we should probably have them properly functioning at their currently inadequate level first, I suppose), and stop letting companies off load the costs of job training upon applicants. Bring back more paid apprenticeships, in-house training, and stop stigmatizing anything but white-collar employment in an office or high-prestige fields, such as medicine and law. I'd also like to see companies required to list specific degree requirements, rather than simply having an exclusionary requirement for a degree, any degree, in their job postings. If a job requires advanced mathematics, sure, require a BS in Maths, or science fields that have a heavy emphasis on the same. If the degree requirement can be met with a BS in Zoology, a BA in Criminal Justice, or an "Oh, shit, this guy knows this ancient software our business relies on!" without any degree, I think it should be eliminated as a requirement. And that's not a hypothetical situation, but reflects my coworker, my boss and myself respectively, in my previous job at a pharmaceutical plant.

Pipe dreams, I know, but we should hardly be surprised that students are not as engaged when society has fundamentally altered the meaning of obtaining a degree at the university level, obliging many who otherwise had little interest, if any, to sign up for tertiary education as a bare minimum to possibly live somewhat comfortable lives.

One thing worth taking into account is that the Diplomat will be a much heavier pen than the Sailor. Whether that's a good or a bad thing will come down to your preferences, but searching around reveals the body of the Diplomat weighs 21g alone, versus 10g for the Sailor.

Not every opinion you disagree with can just be dismissed as bots. The idea of blue MAGA is a perfectly legit criticism of the same dumbasses who months ago were screaming "VOTE BLUE NO MATTER WHO! BIDEN IS PERFECTLY MENTALLY COMPETENT AND THE GREATEST CANDIDATE TO EVER RUN, AND IF YOU SAY OTHERWISE, YOU'RE A CRYPTO-REPUBLICAN WHO REALLY WANTS TRUMP TO WIN!" whenever anyone expressed even the mildest criticism of the Democratic platform or reservations about Biden's ability to win the election.

Lemmy, particularly lemmy.world, is full of blue MAGA nonces who read a post saying, "I'll hold my nose and vote for Harris, but I really wish she would change her stance on X" and reply, "Now isn't the time for this divisive rhetoric, I can tell you're a Russian shill who wants Trump to win."

Eh, non-voters in some states could help Trump win, but it's hardly a universal thing. My bigger issue with this sort of rhetoric is that criticizing absolutely reprehensible policies advanced by the Democrats does not equal endorsing Trump, as many Zionist shills here like to claim. I want to be able to unreservedly back Democratic candidates in the upcoming elections, but "enables and supports genocide and the massacre of civilian men, women and children," is one hell of a reservation to make your voters have.

Outdoors, where you can put some distance between yourself and them?

Sure, if it's one person. Where I used to live, the nearest park would have multiple groups engaged in loudness wars, each upping their volume in response to the others, so nobody could enjoy the park. Public spaces shouldn't be held hostage by assholes who don't understand how to behave in public, to the detriment of everyone else.

As far as what to do, it would be nice if the existing rules would be enforced that prohibit this behavior, but people cry racism for being told off for bringing a massive speaker to blast merengue and dembow in the park and somehow find support, rather than people asking why they're blasting any type of music in the park to begin with.

I guess it probably depends on where you're going. I went to the UK earlier this year, and my experience was mostly painless. Landed in Manchester, and they basically had self-checkout customs. I scanned my passport and looked at a camera once, and that was it. It was actually more of a hassle and more invasive coming back home and getting back into the country.

The democrats are currently pressuring Israel and pushing back politically

Saying "Hey, bud, don't do x, is I'll be real mad at you," and then going "Gee, you did what I told you not to. Well, here's a few billion dollars more weapons for you, so you can keep doing what I publicly asked you not to do." is not pressuring them, it's attempting to give plausible deniability to people who feel bad about supporting a blatantly genocidal state, and to fool the folks who take soundbites in the news at face value.

Current Democratic pressure amounts to fuck all outside of a handful of legislators who are demonized by the centrist and right wing factions of the party. To say otherwise is to either deny reality, or else willfully misrepresent it.

At a national level, I think some of it just comes down to resentment at popular policies being blocked, largely because of lawmakers from southern and midwestern states. I'd also wager context plays a part in this. Sure, NY has its share of rural Republican voters, but our dumbfuck GOP voters mostly manage to just mess things up for our own urban areas, appropriating funds from the MTA budget to build bridges to nowhere in their home districts so they can point and cry about those god-damned socialists in NYC not even being able to manage the budget for a single agency (that they actively work to undermine) so they can further gut public services.

Sure, it's not ideal, but at least we're (mostly) only hurting ourselves. GOP Congress-men and -women from southern and midwestern states collectively hold the rest of the nation hostage through their disproportionate impact on the Senate. Whether it's climate change, student loan forgiveness, universal healthcare, packing the Supreme Court, or any of numerous other issues, these states hold others with vastly larger populations hostage, impeding broadly popular policies in a profoundly anti-democratic fashion.

It may not be fair to the non-GOP voters in those states, it may be misdirected resentment, but I don't think it's all that difficult to understand why people from majority Democrat, northern states might be kind of tired of the south and midwest's collective shit at this point. If the GOP-leaning demographics in those states could either be dropped into a volcano, or, failing this, soundly beaten at the ballot, it would go a long way towards addressing this stereotype

Also, not everyone that is good at a job has the personality to be in management. I've found myself in several management roles before I realized I absolutely hate being responsible for other peoples' work and am just not cut out for it.

A combination of factors made it happen. First up, you had low turnout. Only 20.5% of voters actually voted in that election, the lowest of the past 30 years.

Aside from that, Adams had strong support amongst voters of color. For people who don't live and/or work in these communities, it can seem like voting against their interests and be surprising, but non-white voters are not a monolithic block. Quite often, majority black or Hispanic neighborhoods in the Bronx can prove more conservative than many people might expect, for example, particularly on social issues. A lot of my older co-workers from Latin America at the time, along with my mother-in-law, didn't view BLM protests as legitimate actions to begin with, and just thought of them as troublemakers looking to break stuff and loot. The "tough on crime to raise quality of life" message was really powerful for many of the people I know, and they took it completely uncritically. There's also a ton of super religious folks that won't support Democrats over things like LGBTQ+ rights, abortion, and other culture war GOP talking points. I can't really speak to the Black community, but if you learn Spanish, there's also just a ton of casual racism, sexism and homophobia that would probably shock people.

In addition to conservative social inclinations, lots of these folks are not what you would describe as well-informed. My elderly Ecuadorian, Dominican and Peruvian co-workers at that time were constantly buying into totally baseless conspiracies they got sent on WhatsApp. That and the 2020 presidential election cycle was super frustrating at home, as my mother-in-law would religiously watch the news on Univision, where they would trot out "scandals" and conspiracies that had been disproven weeks earlier and abandoned in the English-media, but Univision knew they could get away with airing for the significant portion of their audience with limited or no English. I even remember watching the news with her, my wife and her sister, who are both fluent in English, and the three of us getting upset that an interview in which we could hear the original English statements were being translated entirely inaccurately.

When I have an option not to, I don't. Unfortunately, the way health insurance works here, I often don't have an option. With the insurance I had through my previous job, basically as soon as I requested a second refill, the pharmacy benefits would go "Hey, we won't cover this anymore, unless you switch to 90-day refills via CVS Caremark." At some points last year, that could easily have been $500-$1,000/month more for me to pay for my meds in order to keep getting them at the pharmacy two blocks away, and I just didn't have it. Instead of going there and having pretty much all my prescriptions filled in an hour or less, I got to enjoy Caremark not letting me refill until the last minute, then encountering shipping delays with medications I really shouldn't have been abruptly missing doses of.

Even if English is your first language, it's not always easy to maintain your composure when talking about a topic you're emotionally invested in or under a lot of stress about. I would take a different stance about a driver that drops f bombs every other word, but this prudishness about occasional profanity is silly.

It just says he was injured, which could happen if you were in close proximity to someone wearing one of the pagers. News here showed one of the explosions occurring in a grocery store, with plenty of people nearby, for example.