/int/ - certified time wasters

I came up with the following topics. You're welcome to add yours.
1. Everyday life in USA. Our (foreigners') perception of America skews toward people who leave a trail in the internet: terminally online weirdos and professional talking heads. A lot is left behind.
2. Terminally online people are also important because they're the active minorities who make changes.
3. Silicon valley, academia, Hollywood, military, churches and other societal structures.
4. American art: from mass consumption slop to something more elitist. I'm personally fan of sci-fi books, comedy cartoons and rock music.
5. I'll try to restrain myself from Z-funposting about imminent collapse and so on, but I promise nothing.

Good idea I support this.
Actually I have been talking a lot about life in the US with an American online. Genuinely fascinating place.

Hot Dogs, Cheerios & Cheetos. America is a corporate landscape in my mind.

What's is to add is US literature. I think literature is a very good way to look at the US.
Also, photography is a very good way to grapple with the US.

I discovered that american women generally speak in a higher pitch than non-american women. This is antiproportional to their bodyweight though. You can always identify a fat chick by her voice.

t. has been in contact with americans rather frequently lately

>>22026
> people who can afford to leave cities do
This sounds counter-intuitive. Why people "afford to leave cities" instead of "affording to live in cities". It's an arbitrary and unusual decision to maintain law and order in suburbs but not in cities. And to spend public money on maintaining automobile based infrastructure instead of cleaning cities from trash. IIRC term "Broken windows approach" comes from the attempt to make New York safer and cleaner. Conservative chuds on x.com praise former NY mayor Rudy Giuliani for that.

BTW while reading "Disappearing city" I started to watch travel show about America (I watched the show already, but about another countries) and after watching - to browse google street views on the cowered places.
So far I watched episodes about Salt Lake City, Chicago and Detroit. The towns' layouts match my stereotype: small downtown with high rising buildings surrounded by mcmansions.
Mormons glow really hard. For example, do you know that they keep huge genealogical database for the whole world? It's because their religion allows baptism for dead people.
Detroit is better than I imagined, it seems to be recovering.
Didn't know that Chicago has underground layer populated by hobos. So cyberpunk... While otherwise city has retro wibes.

Watchlist for future:
Dallas, Seattle, Arizona, Boston, Savannah, Reno, Sacramento, Colorado (south park!), Atlanta.

>>22077
Law and order is the suburbs is easy- they simply filter out poverty with a high barrier to entry: a car, home ownership(or increasingly home rental) and time to commute. The only law enforcement I ever see are patrol cars montoring traffic speed. Cities- with their increased human friction- are significantly harder to police. When politicians try- as Giuliani infamously did, they overstep and violate citizen rights with things like Terry Stops:

https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_stop

Yes, they are technically legal and not a violation of rights, but- having been personally stopped multiple times (in the city) they are a poor tool which is too easy for lazy cops to abuse.

>>22080
>SQF tactics did not seem to actually address crime either, as only 6% of stops yielded an arrest
>only 6%
I don't mean to justify this approach, but six percent is more than I'd expect.
>Items that are discovered during pat-downs that are incriminating, like clean needles, condoms, and other harm reduction tools, are used less to prevent arrest
>condoms
I don't understand if Wikipedia means condoms are incriminating by some unspoken cultural bias that lumps concealed condom carrying together with crime in the mindsets of some law enforcers, or whether citizens fear the condoms might explicitly be used against them as a pretext of some sort, or none of the above. Please offer your mansplainings and (un)informed guesses.

>>22066
>You can always identify a fat chick by her voice.
I never realised this till now…

>>22083
Carrying condoms can be used as evidence of prostition. The wikipedia source article doesn't mention a quantity, but I assume more than 1 or 2. To avoid the risk of being caught carrying them, and thus incriminating themselves, prostitutes will not use them.

>>22087
>prostition.
Prostitution. Mobile chrome doesn't spell-check.

>>22087
Thank you, I see.
I had followed the link to the source before asking, but it threw a "please enable JS", and since I didn't want to find out where that would end ("Please enable cookies"? "Please solve this Captcha™ to prove you're human"? "Please register"?), I didn't bother.

>>22086
Don't believe the German.

>>22080
>they simply filter out poverty with a high barrier to entry
I had not previously thought of that, except on a larger scale about affluent remote islands like Iceland and New Zealand.
So there's not much hope for some less environmentally destructive alternative to urban sprawl and motorized individual commuting to gain acceptance unless richer people also find a similarly convenient way to control the movement of poorer people to keep them away.

>>22095
God, what a disgustingly leftshit post. And what a disgustingly leftshit person.

Do you honestly expect people to move to voluntarily move to crime-ridden shitholes in the name of social reform? Or would you just like to deport everyone?

The criminal is a socially friendly element, he must be treated with care and compassion! Abolish the prisons, let the criminals roam free, they will establish terror against the bourgeoisie and further the socialist revolution!

>>22092
>I didn't want to find out where that would end
An academic journal which wanted me to pay $12 to read the referenced paper. Nope. Libgen.

>>22095
>So there's not much hope for some less environmentally destructive alternative to urban sprawl and motorized individual commuting to gain acceptance
Afraid not. Cheap and convenient public transit from the suburbs into the city would seem an easy solution but, as I mentioned earlier, those routes are controversial. There was even a local movement against building sidewalks on a certain road. As you likely know from our history, America does not have a good track record when it comes to integration.

I kinda wanna travel the US. Go on a road trip. Shoot a gun, eat a burger oe whatever. But it's quite expensive (tho flights aren't too bad actually) and I don't have any friends there I could visit. Still gotta happen in the next few years, I need to demystify the country for myself.

>>22105
Interesting, thanks.
>America does not have a good track record when it comes to integration
I don't know if I've been thinking of it as worse than any random society of the human race.

I want to be an American so much it's unreal.

Imagine being able to save via 401k, having a highly paid white collar jerb at some dam power station somewhere in the LCOL-Midwest and bam, you're able to retire anywhere in the world at 40 with 2-3 million in the bank.
The example is just so specific because I saw some documentary about such a power plant and the work happening there some time ago.

And if you dislike your job or location fuck it, move across the whole country somewhere between both coasts.
This borderline nomadic flexibility that Americans have is something great.

Just remembered that, while it doesn't alleviate the sprawl, perhaps the advent of remote work and remote education allows for generation of more wealth at the same amount of commuting traffic if not less. It enables some white people to work from the safety of their burbs, and possibly some city dwellers to work from the relative safety of their homes at any time of the day. It's not specifically American though, and I wonder how much of an impact it has on a wider scale. I know many people are glad to have the option, for example because they can look after their baby while remotely doing something that would've otherwise been out of reach. For myself, I had mostly just considered how I wouldn't have to endure the occasional bad breath of some customers and fellow mass transit commuters, not to mention infections.

>>22125
Starting over somewhere else is every American's Plan B.

If you'll ever happen to visit USA, what will be the first thing you do?

I'll go to a megachurch.
Search on youtube stuffs me with didactic videos about how "cringe" and "disturbing" they are instead of videos of actual sermons. I disagree.
> it's cringe
Well, maybe, but not for their parishioners. They just have different tastes compared to art hoes with blogs on youtube.
> why can't they spend money to feed the poor instead of spending it on performances
Same could be applied to any church. Why are there musical organs in Lutheran churches? Why have gargoyles and stained glasses in Notre Dame? Maybe demolish it and build a commieblock on its place to house the poor? Well, because that's how psychology works. To deliver a message effectively, you need a special presentation.


https://www.youtube.com/shorts/_xNVVHSkozs - ebin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLt4yXOaqzU - basically, just a theater piece
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ueZhvUBI2s - ok, that was too much, this time really disturbing
https://youtu.be/aZkQIB0to-8?t=77 - flying
https://youtu.be/aZkQIB0to-8?t=357 - roller coaster
https://youtu.be/aZkQIB0to-8?t=380 - roller coaster pt.2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--FLPQmdasc - tank

>>25055
Why not go to Rome and hear a pope sermon? Same kind of event, and now you even get the annoying american accent on top.

>>25055
>what will be the first thing you do?
Attend a barbecue, or visit the most pleb burger chain in town and order an XXL size meal. I want to experience the freedom for myself, even when there's no chance of finishing such a meal. However, megachurches are also a valid choice. Anything that is mega is a good choice I'd say. I mean, why even go there, if you don't plan to see something colossal?
>Same could be applied to any church.
True. They say mocking religion is a sign of the edgy and inexperienced youth, and when you get older, you make your peace with the whole topic. I'm still waiting for that to happen, though. Everyone: Feel free to post fatguy_with_fedora.tiff now. Aw screw it, I'll do it myself.

>>25055
>instead of videos of actual sermons
If you can overlook their bubblegum theology, the sermons are usually good. These pastors are showmen who have mastered the art of emotionally charging a crowd. John Hagee was among my favorites when I would binge this stuff on TBN. Francis Chan is brilliant. He eventually left his large congregation to return to house churches. Respect the move.

Actually good theology in this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUD4pkTDCJ4

Never been to a mega church in person, though. I hate crowds.

>>25055
>>25061
How are these megachurches like?

Do they do 'faith healings' where some 'cripple' walks onto the stage on crutches, and then the pastor asks 'our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ' to heal the 'cripple', and then, the 'cripple' jumps of stage like a young deer? Do people talk in tongues there? Do they have sermons titled 'the rescuers down under is a satanic movie and you will go to hell for watching it' or 'it is the will of God that women should die from ectopic pregnancies'? Does the crowd yell 'Amen!' and 'so be it!' after every half-sentence of the sermon? Are there special youth groups for pre-teen girls to counteract teen pregnancies? Do astounding numbers of children born to teen mothers share the facial features of church elders and pastors? Is there a pot luck after the service, where people bring jello salad, swedish meatballs, baked spaghetti and cornbread?

That's roughly what my middle-school English teacher taught me about American churches. Of course, he also told us about some big American lady he once met. He said her last name was actually 'Fettarsch'. I suspect that not all of this man's stories were 100% factual.

>>25062
Charasmatic churches do all of the above, but most megachurches shy away from that stuff in favor of uplifting messages. You will get some amens from the crowd though. And some turn to the person on your right and say: this message is for you.

>>25064
> charismatic churches do all of the above
Damn. Completely bonkers.

> You will get some amens from the crowd though.
> And some turn to the person on your right and say: this message is for you.
Is that just megachurches or also regular protestant white people churches? Do regular protestant white people churches still exist?

In the German services I visited as a child, you kept your mouth shut and listened. The congregation spoke as a chorus when the ritual demanded it.

> charismatic
I googled that. Turns out there is a charismatic mega-church in Stuttgart, Germany. It's unironically called 'Gospel-Forum'. This forum seems to be a family business, because everyone who's important there has the same family name, and I bet they make a fuckton of money from it. After all, god bestowes wealth on those who have his grace!

>>25069
>Do regular protestant white people churches still exist?
Yes. There are several walking distance from my house. I can't say what those smaller services are like, though, since they're not widely broadcast.

>The congregation spoke as a chorus when the ritual demanded it.
Sounds Catholic.

>>25070
> Catholic
No, Lutheran. Still, when the pastor greets the congregation formally with 'in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit' and the congregation is supposed to answers with a sung amen, one guy answering with a gloria patri will ruin it.

https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/visualizations-data/ycom-us/

In 2024, 67% of the American population thought fossil fuel companies should pay a carbon tax. 66% supported transitioning the country to clean energy by 2050. 74% supported regulating carbon dioxid as a pollutant.

That's a bit of a surprise, because the same people elected a candidate for president who promised them to 'drill, baby, drill', and promised them to boost 'beautiful, clean coal'. (And kept his promises.)

Maybe the next opinion poll on that topic should include items like
- Do you think coal is a so-called fossil fuel?
- Do you think using fossil fuels will release carbon dioxid into the environment?

>>25074
There's a great, old Southpark episode, maybe it was a Simpsons episode as well, but definitely Southpark tangents it too, it says how the might of America and their population lies within being able to do one thing, while credibly yearning for the opposite yet being content enough how everything plays out.
IIRC it was about the Iraq war.

>>25074
I mean if you ask Germans what should be done most of them also choose the rational options but yet they voted for Merz who does not stand for implementing them, classic voter behavior

>>25078
Are you implying that anyone else but Merz would have done a better job?
Please note that I am not saying at all that he is doing a good job in the first place.

>>25079
My grandma's parrot would have done a better job. My grandma's dead, and her parrot was only a budgy. The budgy's also dead.

>>25080
I mean, of the available politicians. Obviously even a blind, deaf and dumb monkey without arms could do a better job.

>>25083
I wanted to propose a new political system called 'lottocracy'. Entered it in google to not ridicule myself, and it turns out that yep, someone else already had that idea. All the good ideas are taken...