Sticker price isn’t the price you pay at the till. Why? Why do you do that.
Massive gaps between the walls and doors of public lavatory cubicles. This is not some mystical, advanced technology. Get it together.
I think the toilet wall thing is because we have an expectation that every public building must have public toilets available. Places don’t want you to fuck or shoot up in the bathrooms, so they make them un-private so you hurry the hell up and leave. It’s a bit of hostile architecture, like making park benches that you can’t lie down on to keep people from trying to sleep on them. Make the “undesirables” uncomfortable enough and maybe they’ll go be undesirable somewhere else. Meanwhile it’s just a little bit less nice for everyone else as well.
This is a thoughtful reply. I will just say that the UK also has public toilets all over the place, and a desire for people to not screw & get high in the cubicles. Ditto many other countries. But I’ve never been anywhere else with this door gap problem, where no-one gets privacy.
I did once use a UK bathroom in a supermarket where the lighting was all blue, which makes it hard to find a vein to inject. But the doors still closed properly.
American here. I like your response and the one you responded to. Thanks for this insight. ^^
Pleasant interaction ^ Thank you.
I’m still not sure why there’s a regional difference, my guess is that it’s a quirk of history. We’re more used to it in the US, and there are benefits for the owners of the public toilets, so they don’t change.
How did we get so used to it? I’m no toilet historian but it could be a (horrible, evil) company had a near monopoly on stall design during a formative part of our architectural history. Could just be the newness and utilitarianism of a lot of American architecture in general. We kind of sprung up overnight and so sometimes bad ideas got caught up in that wave of “progress” and became the norm due to being in the right place at the right time, and not really because they were good ideas or ideas that worked. Tipping culture, tax added at the till, and other weird Americanisms could all have similar root causes! Once you’ve gone down the route of something pro-business and anti-consumer, and gotten most people to accept it as normal, there’s no going back in a capitalist society.
We do that because our country is founded on the “right” for moneymakers to put as much onto the customer as they can get away with. Hence things like tipping culture.
I’ve seen this conversation many times on Reddit, and from what people say I assume there is a regional thing going on on. I’m from a part of the US where toilet stalls do not have massive gaps. There is a big gap at the bottom but too low for anyone to be seeing under unless they are crawling on the floor. Gaps along the sides are quite narrow. 1 cm at most, and nothing anyone is going to be seeing you through unless they are some kind of freak putting their eye right up to it. These stalls are prefab panels you can easily put into a room. The gaps mean ventilation for the room takes care the stalls too.
I assume stalls started this way and became normalized, and in some parts of the country they’ve gotten sloppier, and sloppier, and normalized these huge gaps I hear people describe but never see.
This might be my bias, but I assume these are the places where everything is a suburban stripmall wasteland, where there are no sidewalks, and where it seems to me the whole environment is increasingly dehumanized.
Thank you for your comment. I can’t speak for the entire world, but in the UK a 1 cm" gap in the door of a public toilet would be massive and unacceptable. It’s not enough that someone can only see into a stall through a gap in the door if they are “right up to it”; they should not be able to see in at all. Public toilets in other countries have doors with gaps you can’t leer through at all.
Re. the “gaps meaning ventilation”, surely the “big gap at the bottom” and the fact that the whole top is open will be contributing more to ventilation?
You say you think this might be a regional thing in the US. Okay, could be. I have personally encountered this issue in Washington, California, North Carolina, DC, Massachusetts, Georgia, Texas, Oregon, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Maryland.
I can understand that to someone not used to this, any gap at all might be troubling and one might tend to exaggerate it as “massive”.
However note that these walls are fairly thick which narrows any visibility angles considerably. So to really see someone through the gap you would have to be at exactly the right angle and looking straight at them. Sitting on the toilet in one of these you can see some really narrow strip of the sinks area which also reflects the areas in which someone would have to be and looking straight at you to see you. People at the sink area have their back to you. People walking past them to another stall, are not looking to the side.
I’m not trying to convince you that they are ideal, or that your should like them, just that when the gaps are pretty narrow it is not as big a deal as you might think to get used to.
Again this is assuming these gaps are pretty narrow. I get the impression from what some Americans have said in other discussion that in some places they are quite a bit wider than I am used to, and what I said above may no longer apply.
Oh, I absolutely believe that people in America can accept it’s “not as big a deal as you might think”.
This is a thread about things about America that make no sense. So: I don’t understand why America, seemingly uniquely, accepts this as “not a big deal”.
It’s weird. Land of the free, home of the public toilets strangers can see inside. So odd.
The US doesn’t have a VAT, but a sales tax on final sale of a good. Not only that, but states, counties, and cities can issue their own sales tax on sales within their borders. There are also cases where sales tax isn’t charged at the register. In the end, it is easier for companies to just charge the tax at the end, so they do.
There are these mystical things called computers, that are very good at computing things. So when printing the price you can automatically compute it into the labels.
Nowadays, yes. However, that wasn’t always the case. People got used to tax not being included and there has never been a big push to change that.
So instead of calculating the price once and putting it on the sign, they calculate it every time a customer shows up at the register. Sure sounds way easier.
Or they print out consistent signs across a region, advertise to it, and take care of the sales tax to handle it.
Again, they calculated the price at the checkout, so they could also have done it for the price tag. It is not a valid excuse in the slightest. Its only purpose is to obfuscate the actual price of an item and confuse the customer about the actual price of an item.
And what is I’m tax exempt? Now the price isn’t right for me…
That is a nonsensical excuse. If they can calculate the price at the checkout then they can calculate it when they are putting up the price tags.
Many cities and counties often put a SPLOST (Special Purpose Local Option Tax) on the ballot. Usually for roads or schools, usually voted for, usually a penny. They are for a limited time, then they may expire or be put on the ballot again. If they expire, then every price tag for every item, in every store is now wrong. And if both city and county expire at different times, you could get a nightmare of changes.
Easier to change the software at checkout for the changes rather than every price tag.
It’s not that it’s easier it’s that it allows the companies to gouge you. If the store said the bottle of coke was 2.15 instead of 1.99 you might realize that it’s not a good price for acidic sugar water and pick something else. Like the free water out of the faucet. This also means public water would be higher quality because people would actually use it and demand cleaner water.
They glorify soldiers way too much and teachers way too little
As an American, it confuses me as well
Between the two there is a big difference:
One is a profession that can be a particularly dangerous way of life. Orders from above put you into place far from support, with limited resources, often in contact with hostiles on a daily basis. You’re often left to fend for yourself with only what you have on you against overwhelming odds. Command structures often pit you against your peers in petty internal politics around rank. The pay isn’t great, and those that stick with it for the long haul to make a lifetime of it often leave scared and mentally injured. It can be a thankless job in putting your life and health on the line to achieve the overall goal.
The other profession usually involves wearing a uniform and enforcing USA’s geopolitical interests in other countries.
U got me in the first half not gonna lie
Your comment made read the other comment.
Worth it.
Ah, the old
RedditLemmy switcharooHold my bulletprove backpack. I am going in.
Hello, future people!
It was good but I saw it coming right away lol.
Soldiers and patriotism…
While travelling in the states, I was so perplexed to see that in some car parks where you’d expect to see disabled parking that there were parking spots for veterans.
id argue that that’s not true but my roommate and his friend made me watch 30+ minutes of commentated (by my friends) WW2 footage. i had to be like “hey man with all due respect i get the appeal I think but im not really interested in the glorification of something this horrific im sorry.” they were understanding but that level of interest in something so bleek was crazy.
also they were using WW2 japenese slurs and saying id walk up to that if i were there. and im like NO THE FUCK YOU WOULDNT you wouldnt even make it out of the armored car that took you there bud. people are not as badass as they think they are and soldiers arent badass they just want to see their families again we dont have to cheer them on like the opposing side doesnt also just wanna go home to their families.
ugh
Tipping
Also, losing their shit over nudity
While having a huge porn industry.
Huh, the US and Japan aren’t so different.
We have tipping in Europe, but that’s mostly only done if you have a very good experience, not because you are expected to. Just pay your employees.
They will say of themselves as being Irish/Italian/other-european-nationality because their great-grandfather or great-grandmother came from there.
A “politics” channel on a site called Lemmy.World that is specifically only for US politics, because America is the world.
The obsession with mutilating baby boy’s penises.
Vote for people who actively oppose universal healthcare, mandatory PTO policies, universal family leave policies, universal college-level education, etc.
City zoning.
Oh, i have to drive from single family zone to commercial district to pick up a loaf of bread. Then drive to education district to drop kids at kindergarten, and finally to business district to work. At the end of the day i hang out at bar/entertainment district with the guys from work to have a beer, but there’s no public transport so I have to drink alcohol free so I can drive back home. That’s only 120 miles in a day!
City design and suburbs. Like if I had to drive 40 minutes to get groceries I would prefer to starve and those suburbs look like death would be the better alternative. Also driving to go for a walk, wtf?
No one in a real city or suburb is driving 40 minutes to get groceries in the US.
I was being somewhat hyperbolic, the point was you guys have to drive everywhere to do anything which is so alien to me. Or I guess take public transit which always sounds horrible when Americans describe it, which is also something that sounds so weird to me about the US.
You’re right, we do have to drive to get anywhere outside of major cities. The funny thing is that even the most rural area has a fleet of busses and routes that cover every home. The problem is that they only come through twice a day on weekdays during the school year. Other than that these busses just sit around forcing old folks who can’t to drive anyway.
I’m in America and I’ve always lived a 10 to 15 minute walk away from the store. It’s that a long walk compared to Europeans? I think I was further from a store when I was in Germany for a week. Like 30 minute walk.
Are you saying that’s the norm in the US?
I have always been about 5 minutes walk from the grocery store in Estonia.
Yeah for the majority that live in the cities. Less people live in the country and most of the country towns still have a food mart. So most Americans don’t live that far from a store.
“most Americans” don’t live in a city that dense and certainly drive to the store for groceries. But when I say “to the store” it’s not the same as what Europeans think. It’s not a little corner store where you get your groceries for the day. It’s a giant Walmart/Kroger where you load up for the whole week so you don’t have to go as often.
“most Americans” don’t live in a city that dense and certainly drive to the store for groceries.
Nah, they certainly do.
this is half America’s population and each of those places is centered around major cities in the area.
when I say “to the store” it’s not the same as what Europeans think. It’s not a little corner store where you get your groceries for the day. It’s a giant Walmart/Kroger where you load up for the whole week so you don’t have to go as often.
Sure, that’s what the bulk of Americans do because it’s easier but it’s certainly possible for them to walk to the store. Everyone drives because they are lazy. I’m American, you can’t tell me we are lazy and fat and thus only want to go to the store once a week or less. Also compared to European stores, our stores are huge and purposely confusing. So they can get you to walk around the store more. So your fat lazy ass will get hungry and impulse buy a bunch of stuff. Also, the things at eye level have the most markup which tend to be the most processed foods.
I guess it’s a misconception then that living in the US without a car is very difficult.
That is not a misconception at all with the exception of a few very densely packed cities like New York City.
A lot of my coworkers live 30-50m from work. It would drive me nuts.
Grocery is always 5 minutes away in the suburbs. I think you underestimate the amount of stores
5 Minute by car if your suburb is not completely fucked.
But that is also kinda the point, how long do you have to walk to get groceries?
I mean you don’t walk…
If you were to walk it could literally be an hour walk or more for some people.
Why would I want to walk? Then I have to carry all my shit home. I’m a 5 min walk from my nearest store. I still drive there, every time.
I think you underestimate the sprawl of suburbs.
lol that’s fair. But also, the there’s a cyclical relationship between suburbs and grocers. If you build suburbs, the grocers arrive. Where there are grocers, people might live and form suburbs. You really only have to “drive 40 minutes to get groceries” if you’re waaaaaaaaaaaaay out in the sticks. Or, and I’m sorry to say it, what’s more likely, is you live in a dense, urban area and are very near groceries, but can’t afford a vehicle to get there directly, and so you’ve got to walk to the bus stop and wait for the bus to come around. This could definitely total 40 minutes to go get some eggs and milk. It’s a fucking tragedy.
There a certain ironic cycle there. The cycle you describe of building the suburbs, stores moving in, and people moving in is one part of the cycle. This leads to over-development (in that fucked up car-centric way we have, which leads to traffic congestion etc), and people start moving further out to get away from it. They end up on the edges of it “in the country” with maybe a 40 minute drive for groceries. But then often, the sprawl follows them and their bit of “the country” gets more and more like what they fled.
American here. I hate this too. I am a proponent of convenient walking locations and far better public transportation, and it doesn’t look like America’s gonna give a damn about those in my lifetime.
Not Just Bikes (YouTube channel talking about this) basically said they’ve given up on any hope for north america.
At-will employment makes no sense to me. You go to work every day knowing you could be fired without any possibility of taking the time to find another job. It would drive me crazy.
Oh it’s terrifying.
The flip side is we can quit at anytime.
Yeah, that really doesn’t make up for it.
I mean, I’ll take the months notice period and knowing I get redundancy if my job goes over being able to quit a bit faster.
I mean, I don’t live in an at-will state and I can quit at any time too.
So you live in Montana?
… because that’s the only one.
I guess that also makes it somewhat easier to get hired though? You can give your employees a chance without thinking too much about it, and if they suck just fire them.
We have this in Germany - for the first six months of employment. Ok, it’s still two weeks notice because that’s the right thing to do, but still, it’s less than the 1/2/3/4/5/6/7 months of notice required after working at a place for 0.5/5/8/10/12/15/20 years. (BGB §622 for the curious)
There is no reason to keep the possibility for such a short notice indefinitely.
For the most part, in my experience, don’t be a fuck up and you won’t get fired. Every company I’ve ever worked for has had very strict rules about firing people, It can take months for someone to get fired for anything short of violence, theft, or sexual harassment.
Thanks for the answer. It’s clearer now.
Some companies having strict rules isn’t a stand-in for decent workers protections.
Employers don’t have protections from employees flaking out either. It goes both ways.
Yeah, there’s quite a power imbalance there …
Only if you’re easily replaceable.
No, then there’s still a power imbalance, only slightly less egregious.
This is true. No idea why you’re being downvoted. There are tons of protections in place for workers in at-will states.
Nope. You can just get laid off for “no reason.”
No you can’t.
Labor laws are a very real thing.Yes, that’s the entire point of “at-will” employment.
There are protected classes, but “for no reason” is quite legal in most states, which is the terrible reality. US labor laws suck.
That depends on where you’re working. If you’re working for a company in an industry that tends to lay people off at certain times, then yeah you’re probably to be laid off in the future. Most companies aren’t like that though.
The whole Guns thing
Keeping your gun accessible when driving your car. Needing or wanting to open carry when you go shopping. Needing to pose with your family all holding powerful guns for a Christmas photo. I don’t get it.
Most of America doesn’t do it, just the people who are afraid of violence - which also happens to the same people who would quickly resort to violence. At this point, seeing a person wearing a gun is the same as seeing warning colors on other species like insects. If you see it, turn and go the other way. There is literally nothing worth the inconvenience of dealing with those people. (And hospitals don’t allow open carry so matters of life and death can be attend to without worry.)
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Totally, except regulating encryption makes much more sense because of al those encryption-violence deaths that happen daily in the US. All those kids with easy access to encryption going to school and encrypting their classmates, the policemen not intervening because they are afraid to get encrypted by the kids armed with military grade AES-512 routines.
It is a modern analog, but with its limits - all this stuff doesn’t happen in countries where encryption is much more regulated and you can’t buy encryption routines in malls.
Your comment comes off as shallow and dismissive. I’d be happy to discuss this further, but not under those conditions.
Yeah, but it’s way harder to kill someone accidentally (or in a fit of rage) with high grade digital encryption than with a firearm.
Guns are the only reliable way to deal with tyrants. And while its not everytime, look at what happens to disarmed populations usually.
Also gun control started as and still is racist.
You had a tyrant that tried to overthrow a legitimate election through violence.
Where were all gun nuts then? Those who weren’t attempting said coup, that is. Doesn’t sound reliable to me.
As for what happens to disarmed populations, most of Europe has gun control laws that would make any American have a heart attack, and yet here we are, no dictators to be seen up to GMT+3. Do say, what is it that happens to disarmed populations? What is happening to us that I somehow didn’t notice?
And gun control being racist… I’m sorry, what? This right here, this is the thing I’ll never understand about Americans. Everything is racist. You can’t talk about anything, somebody will play the “racist” card before you can get any deeper than slogans. Absolutely every single thing turns out to be a race issue. Sure, you guys had very big issues with racism until very recently (learning about sundown towns for me was a huge WTF moment) and it’s very hard to deal with a past so ugly - but still, maybe not everything is about race.
In America, gun control started as a way to disarm black people. Worked out well when the Klan wanted to lynch someone. Thats what was racist about it.
Sounds like the usual American retcon… you have a race obsession now so everything all the time was about race. A bit like Marx, who was obsessed with class struggle so literally every single event in history was actually a class struggle.
Also if you search online you’ll find plenty of articles they say they gun control is perceived as a racial issue, because gun control damages the rights of whites - with similarly flimsy arguments and mental gymnastics.
It’s almost as if it’s all bullshit.
Then why did the NRA start to get more “senesable gun control and not all gun owners are trustworthy” after the black panthers started to carry guns in the open
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King George is the funny answer.
The Taliban insurgency is a much more recent one.
The viet cong fought the USA and won.
The IRA fought well.
I can keep going, but its easier to just link a wiki page. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_revolutions_and_rebellions
That rascally rabbit isn’t a tyrant just because he keeps tricking you. I know you’re traumatized but he doesn’t actually have power over you. It’s all in your head.
I don’t know about the racism thing, but I doubt it. As far as the other thing, it doesn’t have to be a choice between no guns or no restrictions. In the UK we have a ban on handguns and some hoops you have to jump through to own a rifle. Nothing too onerous I believe (though I’ve never tried to own a gun.)
I’m not afraid of our government becoming tyrannical. If it did, though, and guns are really the only reliable way to deal with them (I’m not convinced but anyway) then we still have plenty going around.
If youre in the UK, what did the IRA use to fight the British in the Troubles?
The ones that won, they used diplomacy. The armed conflict only ruined and made peoples lives miserable. Here’s a doc you can listen to first hand accounts from members of the IRA. https://www.pbs.org/show/once-upon-time-northern-ireland/
Not disagreeing with you, but - you’ll have to admit, it’s a lot easier to have diplomatic talks when your side has a credible threat behind it. Do you think the Brits would have listened if the IRA had just done peaceful sit-ins?
The way politicians and the political system nakedly serves the needs and interests of corporations and the wealthy, and not the average individual.
The way that the price you’re quoted invariably gets bumped up by various taxes.
The insane system that is tipping, including the fact that a lot of workers are so underpaid that they rely on tips to get by.
The incessant adverts on TV for medical products, particularly prescription drugs.
Voting registration. I get a letter that I can vote and what the options are. Then on voting day, which is on a Sunday, because why would it be on any other day, I just walk into my town hall with that letter and my ID card, put down my crosses and leave. It’s like a walk in the park, often quite literally.
I think the thing is, in America people aren’t required to register their residence with the government. At least here in Austria, we are, and that doubles as voter registration if we are eligible to vote. So there is voter registration here too, but it is compulsory.
Ah, if that’s the case, then I can get on board with a separate voting registration. Not sure, I’d prefer it, but at least it’s not just arbitrarily making democracy harder.
Making democracy harder is definitely part of it. Elections are super regional in the US, so states have a ton of control. If a state elects a state government controlled by Party A, that party has a lot of incentive to make it harder for members of Party B to vote next time. So if Party B is mostly young and working class, you make it so elections take place when those people are stuck at work. If Party A is super religious, you make sure that voting spots are near (or inside) churches. If Party B is less likely to have access to a stable address or a driver’s license, you make registering to vote without those difficult, and you maybe wipe the voter rolls occasionally and require re-registration.
The goal is retaining power and not on strengthening democracy. It’s fucked up, and it’s going to get worse as each party is forced to continue escalating. You can’t fix the system without power, and you can’t get power without undermining the system. We all know something in this country is deeply broken, but we hate and distrust each other too much to work together to fix it.
Wow. Over here, we thankfully have more than two parties, so if one party attempts such a thing, the 5+ other parties will denounce that in unison and it becomes pretty clear that it’s not just one of the usual quarrels.
It also means, you pretty much always have coalitions ruling the country, so not even the ruling parties have a shared interest in pushing anti-democratic horseshit. Many of the smaller parties would in fact really like to see more voters reached, because those are wildcards and not just voting for always the same big parties.
You definitely are required to register your home. Those property taxes aren’t going to pay themselves.
But you don’t need a home to vote. We went through a whole period in our early history where only land owners were allowed to vote, and generally only white men. It would be discriminatory to not allow homeless people to vote.
Homeless people can vote in Austria too. But they do have to register separately as such. For everyone else, the government already knows where they live (because we are required to register our residences) and uses that information to compile a voter registry .
It’s since the elections are state run, so there’s no central db. Once you register though your electoral experience is a state by state crapshoot.
Some will make you stand in line for hours forcing you to miss work, others do mail-in ballots with early voting which is kind of awesome.
Wild idea, states should have a central database of the people permanently living there. The fact that they don’t seem to have one is baffling to me.
oh I know we don’t do it on Sunday. America was so spread out that it took days to get into and kind of town. So you go to church on Sunday then travel on the on Sunday/Monday and and vote on Tuesday.
Yes, they did what was convenient for those times. I don’t think it’s comvenient anymore though, so why not change it? If people start serving a tradition instead of the tradition serving the people… just get rid of it?
Well in the us voting is done on many days. The official election has to held on Tuesday but you have weeks in advance of early voting. You really have to have many days of voting for a population this size.
How about you’d do both? It is possible to have early voting AND vote on a day where more people are home from work by default.
we do early voting happens on the weekend.
ID card? But what about non-white people? /s
Oh, right, isn’t that another oddity with the US, that not everyone has an ID card? Searching the internet tells me there is no such thing as a general ID card in the US. 🙃
Over here, everyone who’s eligible for voting (adult citizens) also has an ID card.
Federal government started verifying identities, allowing people to get Real ID driver’s licenses, which are basically federal IDs
We have ID cards but most people just get their driver’s license.
Nah, it’s the poor people we don’t like.
Canadian here but still, shoes in house? Gross. Obsession with gun culture? Also gross.
German here. The shoe one is worse.
What I really hate is that it seems like American homes are designed for wearing your shoes indoors. Entryways don’t commonly have enough space next to the doors to put shoes or a shoe caddy, or there’s no nearby wall, so you’d have to put your shoes out in the open.
I know that may be a dumb excuse, but it always annoys me
Shoes in the house is very regional. I live in Colorado and everyone takes off their shoes just inside the door when visiting. The only exception would be like if someone came to deliver a piece of furniture or something where they need foot protection. Maybe it’s more common where it doesn’t ever snow, to leave them on?
Canadian too, I wear my shoes inside. I don’t have kids, and I don’t roll around on the floor, so why would I care?
For me, outside is dirty and that’s fine, inside is clean.
If I stepped in chewing gum or dogshit or even just general grime, I don’t want that inside.
Are your walkways made out of dog shit? These are very specific things that you dont step on regularly.
Also Canadian, and never understood it - but in thinking, are there any Canadian shows that show the people in their own house without shoes on?
Imperial unit system.
