TBF the British Monarchy would eat tomatoes on their pewter plates, because of the acidity the tomatoes would begin to dissolve the plates, Injecting various poisonous elements into them.
Also, tomatoes ARE poisonous as they are a nightshade and contain solaire. Same with potatoes. The modern concentration of solanine is negligible, though, so unless you have a sensitivity or allergy to nightshades you should be fine consuming large quantities.
Another fun fact: Since both potatoes and tomatoes are nightshades, you can graft them together and have a plant that produces both potatoes and tomatoes.
I was at work in a UK shop when it happened. Was about half 8 or 9 in the morning here and a customer came in for something to drink and told us. We put the radio on and heard the news and just stood around in disbelief. America was seen as untouchable in our eyes over here.
Not sure why the downvotes on this? Am I not allowed to share history like this? I’m sure many people were reacting the same at the time around the world if they werent directly affected.
Personally I love reading novels of worlds that have no basis in reality. I also love authors that repeat themselves over and over because I have memory issues and can’t remember the last sentence I’ve read.
Oh, and I also love reading novels of worlds that have no basis in reality.
I don’t know. She sucks you in with the atrocious writing and two dimensional characters who are all just stand-ins for an opinionated author, but she really seals the deal with the fetishization of rape culture and how it inexorably ties in with hyper-capitalist American culture. It’s really the whole package.
I can’t defend any of that, and I’m ashamed to say, that crap worked on me for a bit as a man barely a boy, in the 90s. What helped me was looking at other movements like scientology and Charles Manson.
Just trying to say, don’t throw someone in the trash just because they read trash.
There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."
Fountainhead worked on me a bit. I still think integrity and innovation are important, but I bet I would have gotten that way even if I hadn’t read it.
I don’t make weapons, I don’t work for Twatter or Faceboot, I do make an effort to keep refining and upgrading designs instead of endlessly recycling the old, I do pull out dead useless code. I don’t win every battle and I don’t even fight every battle. And very generally speaking I do think if you do work you are proud of you will be happier.
At the same time you should not assume you are the smartest person and if everyone is doing X you need to at least consider that they are on to something.
See? You don’t need a 400 page novel. A paragraph works.
I struggle to see how anyone could have written the Turner Diaries and not have either been trolling or gotten some serious “Are we the baddies?” Energy in the process…
Yeah, honestly, I don’t mind reading novels that argue points I disagree with, but the repetitiveness is unbelievable. One of the reasons John Galt’s 60 page speech is so tedious is that all of the points he makes in it had already been made two or three times before by other characters.
“Children with full fetal alcohol syndrome also have distinctive facial features – their eyes are close together and the area beneath their nose is flat.”
I wonder if they’re old enough to have been there. For people within a pretty narrow age range, it could be interesting to react the way they saw adults react around them, except they’re adults now.
I wouldn’t have much to contribute, i just remember people talking about something i didn’t undersatnd but retrospectively seems to have been 9/11
I don’t blame anyone for being scared of specifically american cities. They are genuinely a nightmare. That’s why I live in a town of about 15k people.
Not cities in general, just american ones because they are so car centric, yet they all still somehow suck at driving and nearly kill me at every turn.
I haven’t been to every city, but if it doesn’t have a good alternative to cars, its probably not a pleasant place to be. The reason I say american cities is because I’ve been to a lot of cities here so I have personal experience with them.
You’re suffering from a problem of perception, because the car accident fatality rate is almost universally higher in rural areas than in cities. In rural areas, people drive faster for longer distances, so when accidents happen they’re more likely to be immediately fatal. They also happen further away from other people who can assist and from competent medical care
I’m not talking about a rural area, I’m talking about a town. You don’t go high speeds inside a town regardless of the size of the town. Its not like every building is miles away from the next one. This isn’t the middle of nowhere, we have a hospital.
Your town of 15K is the literal definition of rural. What do you think rural means it not a town of 15K, and where did you get that definition?
Unfortunately, I bet the car accident fatality rate in your town is higher than most cities, but we won’t know that for sure unless you reveal where you live. Also your hospital is not able to handle traumas or other serious medical events, so you will be transported to the nearest city via ambulance or helicopter after they do their best to stabilize you, delaying your treatment by hours
You clearly have no frame of reference for the infrastructure in a town of this size. You can’t just tell me what’s in my town, I’m the one that lives here, I know what’s in it. My hospital is more than capable of handling serious injuries. It is exceedingly rare that anyone needs to travel to a city for medical care.
I suppose we have different definitions of rural, but the way you worded it sounded like you think my town is mostly empty long stretches of road with the occasional gas station. Its unclear to me exactly what you think my town is, but the speed limits here are about the same as any city, and you never have to drive very far to get anywhere in town.
I’ve been to places similar to what you think my town is, and I’m more than willing to admit their faults, but its not like that everywhere and you are clearly demonstrating your ignorance on the subject by acting like you know better than me what’s in my town.
I don’t think scared is the right word but everything about driving in a city sucks. Struggling to find parking or having to pay, taking 30 min to drive 4 miles, shitty beat up roads
Such a nightmare, my wife is taking our kids to a concert at the zoo today. So horrible! They will be taking a bus (pUbLiC tRaNsPoRtAtIoN), horrifying!
Nonexistent, but its easy to drive here even with everyone on the roads, the same doesn’t apply to a city. I definitely could have made my point more clear, so that’s my bad.
You should be scared of traffic btw. It’s made of barely conscious people driving heavy machinery that only works because… Well, it turns out consciousness isn’t actually that important.
Regardless, car accidents are by far the leading cause of early death and permanent injury.
Fun Fact: if you were to drive a mile to a convenience store to buy a lottery ticket, you would be more likely to die on the way than to win the jackpot.
And the public transportation is better in your 15k town? Your criticism is BS. Could it be better? Yes, our governments (federal/state/local) has failed the working class for decades upon decades. That’s not unique to cities and at least there is incentive to build transportation along with dense urban planning, you legit can’t do that in small town America.
My bad I should’ve elaborated more. The problem is that the lack of good public transportation puts more people on the roads that shouldn’t be there. This is a problem in a small town too, but its much less noticeable because of the smaller population in general.
The scariest part of going to the city is driving if you don’t do it often. That’s… All I can think of. I guess getting lost? I can do that in the woods too though
The scary part is that driving is so chaotic in american cities. I drive a lot and its still awful to me. Even if you ignore how much less safe it is than a small town, it takes ages to get anywhere; and of course you can’t walk anywhere either because its all designed for cars. It is absolutely a nightmare compared to where I live.
Meh. I live out in the country, and the only scary thing about cities to me is the traffic. Even NYC was fine outside of Times Square, and I took public transit. The only place I really hated was Orlando, but that was because of the exhausted Disney kids. It was overwhelming for everyone.
The traffic is the main problem to me. It is just so, so much worse than where I live. I was exagerrating which people didn’t seem to understand, but it makes it an unpleasant experience to visit most cities here.
Yeah, you should be aware of the way people talk about cities in frankly bigoted ways if you don’t want to be perceived as a bigot. Talking about cities being dangerous or scary is a coded way to denigrate Black people. Like, when people talk about Chicago being dangerous, they’re specifically referring to neighborhoods with Black majority populations and generalizing it to the entire city. That’s what this meme is about, not traffic.
Oh sorry, I didn’t realize that was much of a thing. Most people I know just complain about traffic but I don’t talk to racists very much so I guess that makes sense.
Like anywhere else, you get used to it. I’m from a smaller town, and there was a lot less traffic, but there was also a lot less to do. I live in a city now, and yes there’s some traffic, but there are also a ton of bars, restaurants, parks, theaters, museums, and interesting, diverse people. Where I came from was 90% white and conservative with a church on every corner, and our restaurant options were Taco Bell and Applebee’s. I can’t emphasize enough how happy I am to live in a city despite the traffic, which only takes up a small part of your day
I know it seems like less of a problem to people in cities, I used to live in one when I was younger and I never noticed it. But now whenever I visit, its extremely jarring to go back to that. I do miss having more stuff to do, but to me its a good trade off. It really just depends on what your priorities are, but my point was that I wouldn’t blame someone for hating cities, not that they are objectively horrible places to live.
As a european I would be scared of America in general, I mean is a heavily armed Redneck neighbor really that much saver than a heavily armed street gang?
Yeah my city went from being the third safest in the US to over 1,400 shooting incidents last year and they don’t even know how many murders, they’re still finding bodies.
Also Trump got a hard-on for our town and decided to make it centerpoint of his campaign for like 2 years and he called us terrorists. Fun stuff.
Lived in downtown Minneapolis the last few years. Still never felt unsafe walking around. Even with the uptick of crime. Safety is dependent on where you go within the city.
As long as you don’t do anything stupid, you’re pretty good.
But I constantly hear from the burbs and rural areas how it’s sO dAnGeRoUs.
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