DankOfAmerica

A European man at his favorite vacation/holiday destination on the Mediterranean goes into a bar and says, "One pint of beer." The bartender brings him the pint, and the man pays him the price of the beer without leaving a tip. The man drinks the beer. He falls into alcoholism again. When he returns home, he discusses with his doctor options for treating alcoholism. The man is sent to a rehabilitation facility for a few months and recovers. When he returns home, he still has his job. lmaooooo Europe is so much better than USA 🤣🤣🤣

What's the joke? Are there slow falling trees in Hungary?

Did you read the disclaimer before you chose to get offended?

That's because the whole thing is about geopolitics. Israel is practically a US military base. The Arabic countries are aligned more with Russia and China. This is why Biden didn't stop Israel and instead gave them more weapons. It was a show of force to neighboring Arabic countries while weakening their positions. While of course getting the ceasefire going is great for humanity, it's also good for Putin.

Disclaimer: I'm a conspiracy theorist that doesn't know anything about politics, so stop listening to me.

But the thing is that here in Europe, we are more relaxed than USians because we have government mandated vacation days. It's even better when I get sick at the same time because I can catch a free ambulance ride to the hospital near the beach since there is no "out of network" medical care (whatever that means) here. I can then take mass transit from the hospital to the beach and make university-educated friends with everyone because tuition here is free. Because I didn't die in a mass shooting when leaving the beach, I can order a reasonably-sized meal that doesn't cause instant cardiovascular disease and not leave a tip because our servers are paid a living wage. I can't imagine the horror of living in such an underdeveloped country as USA. I am so glad I am in the EU.

• Sent from my phone without concern of being doxxed or tracked thanks to EU privacy laws

Exactly. I knew people that pretended to have a great life on social media and in person. I looked up to them. But when I spent enough time around them, I realized it was an act. They were actually miserable, hated each other, hated their jobs, had no real friends, were dependent on substances, and focused their efforts on what others thought about them. It was all a show.

In my experience, people that have awesome lives don't spend their time showing it off on social media. They're relatively quiet there because they're busy living their awesome lives and don't have time to spend on making sure others know it. People that are showy and care too much what others think also don't tend to have awesome lives because they waste their efforts on useless matters rather than building an awesome life. It's a self-sustaining trap.

I'm thin, but I have only once cared how much food another person orders or eats. If someone eats 4 times what I would, I would be impressed. The one time I was surprised by someone's overeating was a morbidly obese woman that was easy over 500 lbs. She was stuck living at home and people would care for her. She took up a 3-person couch to eat lunch. She had a mountain of fried chicken wings, and she was going at them like something I had never seen before. It wasn't enjoyment. She ate them desperately and would cry. She had a bucket next to her in which she vomited several times throughout the meal. The poor woman wasn't not eating just because it tasted good. She was meeting a deep personal need that had gotten terribly out of control. Even then, I didn't think to judge and shame her like she was bad. I felt confused but bad for her. She was obviously unwell. Still, I doubt you're eating like that.

I think that if someone is judging you for your intake amount, that's their problem. I have my own things that others like to judge and shame. If someone does, then I know they're an asshole and I stay away from them. I am not going to concern myself with the opinions of someone whose values I dislike. I'm going to concern myself with me and people I like. Here's a quote from Game of Thrones that I embrace:

Tyrion: Let me give you some advice bastard. Never forget what you are. The rest of the world will not. Wear it like armor, and it can never be used to hurt you.

Wasn't one of the first groups that Hitler went after when he gained power were the communists? I'm pretty sure I remember that communists were sent to concentration camps along with Jews, disabled people, and LGBT.

The Red Army along with the Western Allies defeated the Nazis. It is true that the Red Army a magnitude more of losses and were responsible for 3/4 of Nazis killed in battle, so they objectively lost more of their own and took more Nazi lives. However, that is not the only factor that won the war. The Red Army received a considerable amount of military equipment from the West. Additionally, one can argue that the Red Army lost so many lives in part to their military strategy in which deserters and dissenters where killed. Shoot. Their leader was Stalin. Often times, Red Army soldiers would be ordered to rush a Nazi position knowing it would be certain death, but if they disobeyed, they would be killed by other Red Army soldiers. Plus, the Western allies, especially the UK, the USA, and Canada fought the Nazis on another front, forcing the Nazis to split their military units, equipment, and supplies. The Americans also were the main force fighting against the Japanese Empire, which reduced the strain on the Soviet Union allowing it to focus more on the Nazis eastern front, though technically, that has nothing to do with the war between the Nazis and the Red Army. And in the beginning, it was the UK that took the brunt of the Nazi war machine. Civilians in London were taking shelter in the subway during Nazi bombing missions. I would also like to give a shout out to the French resistance that terrorized Nazi occupation.

The Red Army definitely took the heaviest human toll against the Nazis. Estimates for Red Army losses vary immensely since they were so high and the war was so chaotic. Their losses were so much, that some of the ranges of casualty estimates I have seen on Wikipedia are as large as the rest of the lives lost by everyone else. According to a quick search on Perplexity, the Red Army loss ~8.7 million soldiers, while the rest of the allies lost ~1 million. So if there is an estimate that the Red Army suffered between 8.2 & 9.2 million, the range would be as wide as the losses of Allied military forces. Furthermore, many major battles were on Soviet ground, so they also suffered immense civilian casualties. Perplexity gives an estimate of 13.7 million Soviet civilian deaths. That's over twice the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust which was a systematic genocide carried out to be as efficient as possible by a people known for efficiency.

Despite all of that, the Soviet Union did not defeat the Nazis on their own. They had considerable and decisive help from Western allies, both in battle and supplies. The Soviets took the brunt of the losses, and without WWII, the world would be an unrecognizable political landscape in which communism may have been more popular or prominent, whether you would prefer that or not. However, it is disingenuous to say the Red Army defeated the Nazis on their own.

We could have utopia tomorrow. The path to change worldwide is to effect change where you live. If we all started there, then the local changes would spread. People would want what they have locally to work in larger scales. We don't have to call it socialism, capitalism, communism, conservative , liberal, freedom, whatever. Terms are proxy enemies used to make us fear or love based on heuristics. We inherently know what a just world would feel and look like. It's in our nature. If someone has to convince you to override your intuition, then it's shit. Don't look for answers elsewhere. Don't blindly follow anyone. Build the world you want in your heart at home. It will grow out from there. Also, I used to love orange juice as a kid. I drank it from a silly clown cup I got at a performance on ice one time when my parents took me.

Since this comment section turned into an arena discussing how to rule, here's an interesting relevant CGP Grey video title The Rules for Rulers.

Stop it! Stop it! STOP IT!