I know plenty of “white” Americans speaking perfectly fine American English, but with a last name like Garcia

This is me. I’m a latina, and even my first name is white-passing, and not a single person would know until I explicitly tell them or they meet my parents or something. It really goes to show how arbitrary race is, and how much of our perceptions based on race is also built on a base of ignorance

Now open borders can mean from anywhere, but this is largely about Mexico. Them’s the people that cross our borders. It’s so incredibly strange to me that western civilization is in such peril from immigration from a *check’s notes Catholic country that speaks a European language. The realization I had that Latin America isn’t actually considered part of “The west” was the last piece that clicked into place on just how meaningless that term is. They are geographically western, the primary religions are European, and the primary languages are European. For fuck’s sake, it’s called Latin America, and it’s not because they were the site of the former Roman Empire

When you realize that Latin America is not part of Western civilization, you can see how plainly there isn’t even an iota of thought behind the idea of a common collective European heritage; It is only race; It is only white

“Good thing could happen unless GOP” is pretty much American politics since at least Reagan

It’s funny because my phone battery is fucked because my ADHD doesn’t let me remember to put it to charge

Floridian here confirming that 0%

I’m pretty sure the US IS considered meritocratic. There are just countless other factors that also impact your ability to succeed

That’s too vague a definition. Like, if person A is an accomplished athlete, the best basketball player ever, I do not think his position of power or success should be, say, president. I think this is actually a very dangerous mindset derived from the capitalistic notion that success determines your–I’ll call it value. If you’re successful, you must be smart; If you’re smart, you can be anything, even the president. Success is equal to wealth in these talking circles, and it sort of ends up as a backwards meritocracy. You gain merit measured by your success (wealth) instead of the other way around

But if you define it as a place in which positions of authority are given to people who have proven themselves knowledgeable and capable in the field in which the position of authority is being granted, I do believe in it in principle. I say that because principle and practice are rarely the same in politics and sociology. There are countless other factors that will impact your “success” that are not actually based on your expertise in the field. Better people have designed public transport, electric cars, social media, and spaceships than Elon Musk, yet the man sits in a position of tremendous influence. In a just meritocracy, we would never have heard his name

Which brings about the point that we have certain ideas as a culture (or maybe system) that awards some merits disproportionately more than others. Some will say his merit is in being a ruthless business man. He’s good at that, I guess, so he should be the leader of the company. His “merit” of being a bad human being is being disproportionately rewarded compared to the merit of the scientists that actually design his spaceships, and the engineers that make them work. Meritocracy only really works in a closed system. The most capable archaeologist will be the head of the expedition. If you let the ideas go beyond that, and start comparing apples to oranges, you start seeing instead a system’s idea of what’s important, and by extension that of the society built in that system

Or Florida

there also tends to be an expectation that men (even those of us that are submissive) be dominant to some degree

This is an important point to make, for sure. Things like this will be greatly impacted by things such as cultural norms and expectations, so any statement that says “There are more D men than D women” needs to come with the caveat that there are likely biases in these observations, and that culture and upbringing have an impact, either deciding the ratio, or skewing it

I do tend to default thinking of men as Dominant, and that is in no small part due to culture, but I’ll add that this assumption is specifically outside of the kink community. In BDSM spaces specifically, I expect most men to be subs, but my own experiences could also be because I attract the guys who are looking for their “goth mommy dommy” 😅

I like submissive men, and generally am downright turned-off by dominant men. Am I the norm? Probably not. I think there are more subs than Doms just in general, but especially among women

But I’m just answering your question as presented. Another has already commented some decent love advice if you’re asking about this stuff as pertaining to you

I will add, though, that while strictly in a D/s dynamic, women are subs more often than Dommes, in any dynamic that strays from BDSM, the submissive tendencies are just sort of a spice when they come up, and that, if you’re using the word submissive to describe a man who isn’t conventionally masculine (Or maybe toxic masculine), you’re probably better off. We wanna feel safe with who we’re with, and outside of BDSM, you’ll probably have better luck as a gentle, emotionally intelligent, confident person. Some people might describe that as submissive

“Snitches will find themselves in a situation in which stitches would be desirable”

“Pretty much nothing” is an exaggeration, but they aren’t wrong in stating that it isn’t the ideal solution. You’ve pobably already seen them talk about how shitty the Lithium mines are for the environment, and if you’re still getting your electricity from, like, coal plants or other environmentally unsustainable places, well, you’re not emitting CEO2, but the plant that outputs the electricity that fuels the car is now outputting more. It’s still better than nothing, though

My personal issue with EVs isn’t so much that they aren’t perfectly ecofriendly, but that the biggest pushers of EVs are still capitalists with an industry to make money. The best we have in terms of solutions is better civil engineering for walkable cities and a robust and efficient public transport system. 5 EV buses is better than 50 EV cars. Thing is, companies making EV cars still want to make money. They have no incentive to actually push for public transport (Some like Tesla seem actively hostile towards the idea), as they would make more money on 50 electric cars than 5 electric buses. Considering how much power companies have in politics, especially in the US (which is from where I’m speaking), things don’t look good

I’m certain that EVs are less of an issue in, like, the Netherlands, where public transport is better, and people can just bike everywhere. Again, though, I am speaking as an ignorant American, seeing how things are playing out here. Either way, EVs are generally preferable to ICE cars, but they are a far-cry from the actual solution they are being marketed as

It’s either my best or my worst: I bought a house with my SO that we got for about half of the value

How do I cope? Poorly

Almost like that’s what his supporters wanted anyway

Both are the right target. Sony has 0 problem with this. They’re not some victim in this only working with this model of digital distribution because they were strong-armed. Sony doesn’t really give a shit that we don’t own the things we buy

If they delete a users ability to use something they paid for, you can still absolutely blame Sony, unless it comes with a refund

Aside from panic at what the fuck just happened, walk to the bedroom, and grab some new clothes

As someone who works the later shifts, it took me a while to figure out what was wrong with “afternoon”. It’s been so long since someone has said good morning to me at work

And I bet the AI training data is gonna make the robots racist, too.