Identifying with the term “carbrain” is a choice.

One can have no choice due to lack of walkable, bikeable, or public transit infrastructure and also be annoyed about it. The would not make one a carbrain, but someone who is probably going to advocate for change.

Carbrain means you are so indoctrinated by the private vehicle industry that you can’t consider other options, get annoyed by bicyclists and pedestrians, and can’t possibly fathom taking public transit. That’s the entire argument.

Fuckcars also doesn’t mean we are literally sticking our dicks in tailpipes, but since you’re not big on reading between the lines I guess I’ll clarify that for you as well.

I certainly love hearing their speaker systems and modified exhausts from thousands of feet away.

Maybe don’t identify with the demographic the term applies to since it’s entirely by choice and such a stupid thing to base your identity around.

Fuck man. I’m coming to Germany next year because it’s not the USA. Can you fucking not?

I think it’s a start. I’ve seen more and more from the feds and local governments about the infrastructure/walkability issue. It moves at a snail’s pace but that’s the government in general. My guess is that if you can align the people making federal policy to allocate federal money for public transit projects and high speed trains and such, you can incentivize local governments to use more dense mixed-use zoning laws and drum up local support for public transit projects where people aren’t stuck in a car all day.

I lived in Nashville when Barry proposed and mulled over their now doomed spoke and hub suburban train project between bang sessions with her security detail at the graveyard. It was frustrating that local businesses bitched and moaned and doomed the city to be another shitty Atlanta, so we have to understand the hurdles and the politics involved. Fortunately I have some faith that Buttigieg does but it’s admittedly frustrating when everything related to climate change is already too little too late and it’s moving so slowly to the point that we are only in the early stages.

So many cultural things have to change too. Penalizing big truck and SUV manufacturers is a start. Nobody needs one of those damn things.

We do.

“If something goes down over the weekend, fewer people see it” - my leadership team.

I guess Asia can report the problem on Sunday and I’ll get a nastygram and fix it that afternoon.

And what happens if Joe dies in his sleep before election day? No one is talking about this as a liability but given the speed of his cognitive decline and the stress of the job and schedule, why is it outside the realm of possibility? Trump will of course live to be 180 years old since he’s literally a conglomerate of McDonalds microplastics and literally one of the worst pieces of shit to walk the earth in the post modern era. Why would anyone want Trump over Kamala outside of being an impotent right wing Russia cuck?

Kamala sucks but she’s the contingency plan. She’s part of his admin that passed the IRA, CHIPS, etc. and trying to put forth executive action that would seemingly be beneficial for the American people. Presumably she’d continue many of the same policies as her predecessor. There is no perfect candidate in a FPTP two-party system.

So because I’m in a first past the post system over here, how does that work? You will still have other parties that can form a coalition against the right at that point? Assuming they don’t get 50+% of the vote, correct? The courts here are already fascist and preparing for the takeover due to Trump’s judge appointments during his term. Congress is deadlocked and useless as usual, and Biden is circling the drain figuratively and literally. There is no run off here. No coalitions to be had. Trump gets 47%, Biden 46%, and Kennedy 7%? Trump becomes president even though over half the country doesn’t want him. What’s worse is that he only needs percentages of the electoral college and not actual votes.

Germany, at least from my outsider perspective, seems to understand its history enough to be minimizing the right wing to its true proportions. But yeah, I’m well aware the developed world is going to shit. I’m not really sure what to do about it or where to go. The USA feels like ground zero for this shit due to Trump being in Russia’s pocket. That propaganda op worked better than anything they’ve ever done in the past. Even they probably can’t believe how successful they’ve been.

We looked at Spain, but ultimately the salaries are so low that we wouldn’t be able to afford to fly home to visit relatives and friends assuming we can still do that post Trump. I guess I’m not writing off the US entirely just yet but it’s not looking too great.

Thanks for your advice and well wishes. I hope to vote against AfD if/when I get there.

I’ve been saving for a down payment for a house for two years. It would appear my money is not wanted in the USA. I also have dual EU citizenship. My plan is to improve my spoken German and take my family overseas.

As an atheist married to a Salvadoran woman with whom I have two hispanic children, I feel like after they run out of illegal immigrants we’ll not be far down the “committing suicide with two bullets to the back of the head” list. Or maybe we’ll just get sent to a camp that treats ADHD if you catch my drift.

I visited Germany in 2022 and was very impressed with the walkable/bikeable infrastructure and ICE trains even if they were late on occasion. The food wasn’t my favorite but the culture and people were kind and they still seem to value rule of law and societal decorum to a certain degree. The idea that making a nazi salute in public is jailable/fineable is really how it should be everywhere but “free speech” yadda yadda…

I have wanted to leave the US since 2003. Just didn’t have skills or money until now. I’m still going to struggle with a language barrier and finding a job with A2 level German. That’s my biggest issue right now I think.

My mom moved to the US not knowing English. How the turntables have turned.

I am a German born American who worked for the post office. Still fighting my alcoholic demons but I’ll have something to write about when I’m done.

Appreciate the kind words. Been in and out of therapy as needed for a decade or more now. Finally accepting things as they are.

Still alive last I checked but dead to me if that means anything.

My dad used to say “your ass is grass and I’m the lawnmower” as a joke sometimes, but then he would beat the ever living fuck out of me with whatever was in reach and it didn’t seem like he was joking at all.

I was confused by what this meme meant, but it reminded me of that.

You’re probably pretty young so enjoy it while it lasts.

I’m 5’10”, 200 lbs with 15% body fat and so not a particularly thin guy. I’m primarily a vegetarian/occasional pescatarian. My cholesterol/blood pressure numbers were terrible until I started eating this diet. You don’t need to eat meat (especially sausage) in 2024. Take a supplement for B6 if you’re concerned about it.

People eat different things. It’s fine and probably better for you than what you seem to think is good.

Fuck reddit.

Feeding user data to an LLM. Jacking up API costs. Being generally unusable on mobile. Usurping old.reddit.com to try and force me to the official app on “unmoderated” and NSFW threads.

Now with their IPO and a need to deliver ever increasing subscriber numbers and improved metrics for shareholders every quarter, the writing is on the wall.

I hope it goes to zero. The only sad thing is all the knowledge that will be lost due to the sky high API pricing when the site eventually does sunset. I’m guilty myself of trying to de-enshittify google somewhat by adding reddit to just about every search. Hopefully people smarter than me have ways to archive that info.