true true. good point

Yeah, no. The Middle East, for example, is heading leftwards by leaps and bounds. It just seems slow from the standpoint of a single human lifetime. Remember, they were, with a few exceptions, warring desert bands on horses only a bit over 100 years ago. Not saying there aren’t exceptions (Iran, which, is sort of Middle-East-adjacent, would be an example).

The same trend is true all over the world. The thing is people get too emotional that they lose sight of secular trends for the ups and down of individual months and years. Just compare the culture now to 30 or 40 years ago. It very well might be a good strategy in getting what they want, it might even be necessary to keep cultural momentum going in the direction they want it to go, so, in that sense, it might be necessary. Seeing the truth is not necessarily a “good” or even advantageous thing.

But this attitude doesn’t reflect reality.

As I said, America is a cultural hegemony at the moment. It does export a lot of its culture, but far from all of it’s culture.

I think the direction the world is moving is a bit of a mixed bag. With LGBT stuff, it is moving far to the left very quickly. With things like workers rights it has stagnated or moved rightwards somewhat. It’s true that the Western world has seen the emergence of the alt-right in the past decade. But there is an alt-left or far left that has also been gaining in prominence. Generally just deviation from the political center in both directions.

I’m an American who has lived in Spain for the past 11 years. I’ve grown up in the States, worked in the States as a young person, still visit frequently, but my professional, personal, and cultural life has not been primarily there for some time.

I am telling you, both cultures have their dumb preoccupations, their misconceptions, and their morons.

The idea of “America is so bad, Americans are so dumb” is exactly the same ideology as American exceptionalism. It is just as wrong.

The US is a cultural hegemon so it is often picked on. There are tons of idiotic peoole and cultural practices here in Spain. But the rest of the world isn’t really aware… I mean I don’t blame them. One cannot keep up with everything.

But believe me, stupidity and insular thinking is just as endemic here as it is in the States. It just annoys me when “enlightened” Americans habitually paint other Americans as somehow dumber than dumb people elsewhere.

You mean “in Western Europe.”

Stupid. I hate these “America dumb tehehe” memes.

They seem to be mostly loved by left of center Americans that enjoy stereotyping their fellow countrymen by saying “Merica” a lot. 🙄

Lol. They’re all obsessed with Rust too. Like most people who are all into Rust online are like that.

(Don’t mean to bash the language, generally a fan)

Yes agreed. I know a few of these types of people in real life. They are by all accounts religious zealots, albeit secular ones.

The whole Marxist idea of thr progression of history is just profoundly stupid and wrong even if Marx was right about some things.

I think the endpoint of a good welfare state in a non corrupt free market is far far better than whatever totalitarian BS they are for.

Mali but yeah. I thought it stood for machine learning too.

Just a tinsy tiny one.

But look, I will happily state my true opinions on here. Let them downvote me. My skin isn’t paper thin.

I’m a fan. It’s not perfect but I try to look there first before I go to YouTube.

One thing that’s tricky with alternatives is just the massive bandwidth needed. You don’t need nearly as much for lemmy or mastodon

Yeah they’ll have to wait a couple decades before they’d have a chance of being let back in.

Or if you like gardening.

Ich spreche ein bisschen. Ich kann es lesen aber langsam und mit einem Wörterbuch. 😅

The kilometers have been on a long decline. That is sad. You are the wealthiest country in Europe. There is more than enough resources to make an excellent rail system.

Hahaha. Don’t worry I appreciate it. That is very funny about Switzerland!

Here in Spain they are finally opening high-speed rail to some northern cities along the Atlantic coast. However, because the line had to cross the Cantabrian Mountains, they needed to construct a tunnel, one of thr largest in the world in fact. This was supposed to be finished in 2002, but because this is Spain it is finally opening 21 years later in 2023 😂

In Madrid our commuter trains are horrible. But that’s just because of the current conservative government. They cut back on the number of trains per hour and then claim public transport doesn’t work and that it needs to be privatized. Horrible.

Oh, excuse me. I thought you were being sarcastic! I apologize. I’m oo used to online political fights. 😅

Alright from where to where is this train you so frequently take?

I wouldn’t say madness. But it is certainly very unfair to the rail industry. They should both be exempt or neither.

I know a lot of people are big fans of trains, but I’m not taking a train from Madrid to Copenhagen for business. It’s not gonna happen. Madrid->Paris maybe. They’re opening a new line that’ll cover the distance in 5 hours.

But within countries trains are absolutely the way to go. At least here in Spain Even if you are on the train longer than the plane, there is no security-state bullshit to deal with at the stations and the experience is much nicer.