What makes it truly Facebook boomer slop isn’t that the story is implausible (because such a misunderstanding and then correction is perfectly likely) but the lack of sources, the anecdotal and vague nature of the post, and the slightly misguided message of “motherly experience will always beat studies and expertise” which is only pandering to the mothers who read this stuff.

If this actually happened, give that woman a name and tell us who she was, don’t just call her “a mother”.

I mean, this is kind of faulty logic to begin with. Why do politicians steal anything if their needs are being met? Do all thieves steal only out of necessity?

Yes but it’s also perfectly valid to want your social media experience to be exclusively for easy non political entertainment.

I don’t need to think about that stuff during the five minutes of free time I have between other stuff. I want to see crafts or animals or learn about geography or languages. An apolitical social media experience does not make an apolitical life or individual.

That’s also a good point. Personally I just don’t enjoy red meat as much as other food. It’s okay, but nowhere near my top priorities. I far prefer vegan or vegetarian alternatives, but I still crave meat sometimes, so I don’t commit to either veganism or even vegetarianism.

I also like fish quite a lot.

I mean, I can afford it (I’m not American or anything) but I just don’t find it essential. There are other things I eat far more often and that I enjoy more as well.

Hell, I’m not vegan (or vegetarian), but I’m almost 100% sure I eat much less meat than Millennials and Boomers did when they were in my wage and age bracket.

I just finished my one week intensive Italian course for these couple of months and I learned way more than I expected (as a native Spanish speaker, it makes sense). I do this every few months with a local program to me.

It’s quite interesting to see how many false grammatical cognates we have. Mainly the uses of the “congiuntivo / subjuntivo” and the “condizionale” being sometimes exchanged between both languages.

But yeah, it’s good to finally have some time for language learning.

This also varies widely from country to country. You’re not going to see the same level and type of corruption in a place like Liberia compared to for example Thailand, Colombia or Morocco.

Some countries have corruption so deep, it’s almost impossible to live without engaging somehow, and the State acts almost like a paramilitary group that beyond taxes, charges for protection from themselves, while other countries have flawed systems that still guarantee a certain degree of protections and due process to as many people as possible. And yet other countries are only poor but still have functional systems and institutions.

The term “developing country” is, in my opinion, quite misguided because it lumps together countries like Venezuela, Haiti, Belarus, Somalia or Eritrea, which are totally royally fucked, with countries like Argentina, Botswana, Thailand or Colombia, which have big problems but are in no way close to the other group.

You fill those with water to pour on your head. It’s super nice and allows you to have different temperature water for your hair than the rest of your body.

These bath houses are the best. I go every now and then here in Japan.

Oh the “I made it the fuck up” is actually a very popular meme, so although it’s aggressive, it was more a tongue-in-cheek reference than a direct attack to you as a person. The meme for reference

Anyway, the lab theory isn’t the most insane theory as it stands, and as you say, it’s not crazy at all to think of technicians being irresponsible. However, it does tend to share a lot of room with the actual conspiracy that COVID was a coordinated man-made attack, and in fact, the two were almost completely undistinguishable for a good chunk of the pandemic. To the point where I thought you definitely meant COVID being lab-grown as a coordinated attack, and not an accident, which I do believe is far more likely.

So yeah, Wikipedia is written by humans who do either have biases or who are too quick to judge situations. But overall, it is still one of the most impartial and reputable sources we have online.

As for Gaza, I definitely don’t think most people who feel icky calling it a genocide would be so hesitant if Israel weren’t a US ally, or allied with western values in general. Like I said, there is virtually no world where other non-allied governments doing the same thing wouldn’t be almost unanimously called a genocide, as shown by the Rohingya genocide, which is almost never questioned as such.

I think you replied to the wrong person (or at least I got the notification for your message), because yeah, I absolutely think Gaza meets the definition of a genocide.

“the source is that I made it the fuck up” for the COVID thing. Not a single reputable source says that.

I actually agree with the Gaza thing though. It’s fair to say that they should have added that as part of the first paragraph and not as the title of the article. At least initially.

But it’s also true that the only reason the Gaza genocide has become politicised is because of Israel’s status as a key US ally. If the exact same actions had been taken by a wildly unpopular government in the west like Iran, I’m sure no one would be complaining about it being called a genocide after so many reputable organisations have called it such as well.

Which begs the question: is the politisation really coming from those calling it a genocide or from those who don’t want to do so?

But… Literally the Gaza thing follows the definition of genocide, and has been called genocide by international governing bodies. What else do you want? I’m sure if there are other opinions, they can be added under a “controversy” tab, but the accepted definition of the Gaza issue was a genocide. Genocides don’t need to succeed in exterminating all members of a group to be considered such, they need to destroy the social fabric of a community either via forced displacement, mass murder or widespread violence. This is what happened in Gaza.

But I agree, debating Gaza in depth is not worth it here. I also agree many people were jumping the gun prematurely in pushing for a “genocide” tag before there was any official source claiming it, but after two years, the genocide tag was the most substantial and officially supported position, which means it’s the responsible way to frame the situation. You can add all nuance and opposing views later. For the record, if there had been no major international consensus reached on the use of the word “genocide”, I wouldn’t agree with including it as the main descriptor for this conflict.

Facts are difficult to measure, but the responsible thing is leaving the definitions to actual experts on the matter, even if experts can get it wrong. Because non-experts are prone to manipulating and misunderstanding key facts that then snowball into entire myths and belief systems.

You say the COVID lab leak theory is no longer a conspiracy theory, but I haven’t found a single reputable journal that supports that claim, so… What are your sources?

They break guitars, for one. That’s literally their company policy.

-ko for physical items, -tsu for abstract things.

Hell, I’d argue most Japanese just use -ko in every day life except for the important counters. 羽、匹、本、冊、日、月、年、枚、円、人/名、戸、階。 Those are the ones I believe are necessary. Almost everything else can be replaced by -ko or -tsu.

That’s ALL of Reddit. Go to soccercirclejerk? It’s thinly linking anything in football to American politics. Go to pics? It’s pictures of American politics. Go to whoadude? It’s videos of Americans being political in impressive ways.

Everywhere you go, the American politics are unavoidable. And I’m not American, and I already know that country is almost entering a civil war, and I don’t want that to be the only thing I see all day and night.

Their minds explode the moment they visit Japan, one of the least vegan friendly countries and simultaneously one of the most tofu loving ones

Is that how it is in the US? It has been super hard to find even one in Japan. Everywhere I go they seem to be sold out. I’m not looking to buy right now, but even then, all stores have big SOLD OUT signs for it.

Depends on when the leader dies and how the movement splinters.