what? when was a hamburger ever 7 bucks?

i remember going to Chili’s in the 1998 and it was still like $10-12.

depending on where you are, tax and tip can be up to 40% yeah.

in USA taxes are by state, and some cities/towns have local taxes on restaurant meals. Where I like it’s a 1% local tax and a 6% state tax, and that is relatively low.

Most restaurants expend 20% minimum tip, but really expect 25-30%, so where i live yeah, 37% extra on the price is standard.

what is higher order thinking?

do you mean academic specialization?

renters are second class citizens in the USA, for sure.

not owning a home is considered a failure, like not going to college, or not being rich.

yes, almost everyday. would not be here if otherwise.

i have also had many of these threads removed by mods, or end up in harassment/insults from other users who didn’t like the content of the discussion being discussed. lots of people want to derail or silence productive discussion because it makes them uncomfortable or doesn’t support their preexisting biases. especially about social or political problems.

the problem is certain users just HATE anyone who says anything they disagree with, and need to paint everyone who doesn’t agree with them as irredeemably evil. I’ve seen people write fan-fictions about me personally, based on a few comments I’ve made. and further, they are OUTRAGED that anyone upvotes my comments or anyone agrees with them, and usually start reporting such comments to get me banned from that community. and these folks… are convinced they aren’t the problem. It’s me and my views that are the problem, and been to be silenced, rather than discussed.

I like discussion and asking questions and interactions… a lot of folks in life in general are incredibly threatened and hostile to this type of socialization. but it’s cool when folks also share that mentality and share their insights and experiences or thoughtful speculations.

I have a Garmin Forerunner. I have had it for 3 years, but I only really unlocked it’s usefulness when I got a power meter and a heart rate strap. It’s amazingly useful for training and it is almost always right about my energy levels and other metrics. I am getting older and it’s important to not over-train and fatigue myself which I would totally do w/o my garmin and I still occasionally do even when it’s telling me to take it easy or rest.

I also use the maps a ton when in the woods, as well as the weather.

I have used the coaching feature but it’s not really for me, I’d rather do my own training plan.

You really have to invest in the features and learn about them. My first year of use I really didn’t know what the hell I was doing with it or what anything meant on it and a lot of metrics and programs were not useful to me since w/o the data senors it was very broad estimates of my energy outputs. My max HR was set wrong for 1.5 years before I figured it out.

Bingo. He’s not the tall brown/blonde well-built masculine jaw type of ‘leader’ people expect, that looks like every other CEO. There is a distinct phenotype that the public expects from such people. Elon is far more ‘normal’ in this regard.

people pretend otherwise, but most folks are highly judgemental of physical appearances and slot you into ‘who you are’ based on your facial shape, hair color, skin pigment, etc. His lack of classic masculinity in body and face is a huge part of it too.

people have very clear expectations about what certain jobs/roles are supposed to look like, and get upset when people don’t ‘fit’ the expectations. a lot of ‘professional’ life is defined by ‘looking the part’ and Mark Z does not ‘look the part’ of a CEO, or even your typical programmer nerd these days. He looks like a stereotypical ‘ginger’, if he was an actor and played comedy roles as a ‘ginger’ people would love him for it.

same. my optimistic comes from contextualizing things… which almost nobody does anymore and the media purposefully does not.

i also remember a time when not everyone thought their life was a personal tragedy of epic proportions or who personalized every world event as some deep personal trauma. life doesn’t have to be this way… folks just choose to live it this way.

i agree, but for most folks doing this won’t necessarily make their lives better or make them feel better.

speak for yourself. i fine way more negatively, that is way more intense, in person than I do online.

at least online I can find a diversity of opinions, references to facts, and can ignore/block people without consequence.

and i largely share most of my political beliefs with my fellow IRL, I just don’t… share their vitriolic hate of people who are different than themselves. or their incessant need to ‘correct’ other people of their ‘ignorance’

god i can’t even like go to a cafe or a bar for a drink anymore without people around me incessantly going on about stuff like this, even if I’m not directly involved. the narcissism and nastiness is just everywhere in my community, but I do live in a very affluent place full of folks who have zero humility.

yeah well Swiss all have guns. clearly the solution to american male sperm counts is for us to all get military training and guns.

no no no, you don’t understand. when I GENERALIZE THE PEOPLE IT’S GOOD BECAUSE THEY ARE BAD. when they generalize me and mine or people I like, IT’S BAD.

see, how perfectly logical and correct it is? and how smart and superior and moral I am for thinking this way?

And if anyone on ‘MY SIDE’ ever does anything bad, it’s because they were never truly on my side, or it’s a false flag! Because me and mine can never be wrong or bad, because we are good. That includes discrimination, harassment, and violence. If we do it it’s GOOD.

being very topic specific generally works out better for most online spaces. it’s just easier all around.

it’s the more generalist stuff that is impossible. i used to do well on reddit int he 2010s because i was a part of small communities that were very specific… and anytime anything got front-paged it went to shit for DAYS as we got influxed by outsiders who had no experience or interest, but just wanted to tell people off, or think the community itself was horrible for existing. the community got used in a few academic research papers and painted as entirely negative, based on like a handful of bad posts by bad actors too… gotta love that. that 'outsider looking in and judging everyone based on ‘most controversial’ posts… type of thing.

I go on threads sometimes here that seem really cool and thoughtful replies, that’s what keeps me coming back. It’s like 1-2 times a day at most, sure, but usually encouraging. I have been reading books and it’s nice to be reminded there are still thoughtful and interesting folks out there doing good work, even if so many others are trying to derail the very possibility of it.

My workplace is also great, people just do their jobs well and make little fuss and I love that and I wish I could have more of that type of experience… everywhere in my life. It is really rewarding to just work with people and do stuff without petty interpersonal drama making it miserable.

I also still volunteer and those are mostly good experiences of people just doing shit together and being nice to each other. Sadly that occasionally gets ruined by some folks who want to stink it up that it doesn’t 'do ‘enough’ but it’s relatively rare. I used to do it more and run my own volunteer org, but I gave up because too many preachy political people joined and derailed it and I miss that a lot. I like helping people and making things better, but it’s hard to find people who think that’s even possible these days, because they think you have to help the ‘right’ people only, and by that they mean ‘help people like me exclusively’.

makes sense. they are financially invested so they don’t want to shit where they eat, so to speak, also probably a lot of similarities as you are all willing to pay for this service.

they also probably don’t feel they ‘own’ the space. this is what i notice a lot with lemmy at least seems to be the undercurrent, tons of folks here want this to be a space exclusively for themselves, and they go around with the ‘get off my lawn’ attitude. but the problem is lemmy is like doing that in times square, and it is not your lawn.

it is not a moral issue.

it’s a mistake they made.

just because you feel it is a big deal, doesn’t mean it is.

No.

People have all sorts of political beliefs that don’t neatly fit into your categories for them.

i live in a blue state, and my votes count. weird that yours don’t?

or are you just saying your vote doesn’t count unless you don’t win? that’s just sour grapes.

Trump ran and objectively better campaign, and he won the most votes, both popular and electoral college.

No, I’m just not a paranoid idiot and I’ve been studying politics and public policy for 30 years and actively worked in the area for over 5.

Sure, if you live in a bubble of paranoid news media, you think the sky is falling. If you don’t, you realize we have been doing this shit for 50 years now, and it’s nothing really new.

Tried to vote? did you fail or something?