11/21/24 - Schools have a ”lunch loan”. If kids don’t pay, they’ll automatically take out a loan for you.
“America’s broken my worldview. Do you guys have anything to add?
Collecting rain water is illegal.
Digging in the trash is illegal. You can’t search for food in the trash, but, you can starve to death if you have no money. I guess they really care about people’s health!
Schools have a ”lunch loan”. If kids don’t pay, they’ll automatically take out a loan for you, or just take away the food that’s in front of your kid. How could human beings do this!?
You have to pay for fire services. Now I understand why the wild fires just keep going in America.
Prisons are actually privately-owned and even publicly traded. If it’s publicly traded, that means it’s a for profit organisation. This explains why American prisons are always full. If I owned a prison, I would stuff it full too.
You can’t just join a union because you want to, you have to pay a fee. And based on the information I’ve seen, only about 15% of Americans are in one. I’ve seen media reports before about American unions leading workers in some big strike, and I thought they represented all of the proletariats of America and I used to really look up to them. Now I’ve found out that they’re the biggest profit mongers of them all.
The loans you take out to go to college will follow you for the rest of your life until you go to meet God. Then you can tell God, “Sorry, I still have student loans I need to pay off. Could you let me back down there to finish my payments?”
American women don’t sit the month when they have kids. I used to be taught that this was because they don’t have this habit and they don’t want to sit the month. But they just don’t dare to sit the month and don’t have the time to, or else they might starve to death, or get kicked out of their houses and become homeless.
If you get sick, you have to wait, sometimes for a whole month. If it’s a really severe illness, forget waiting, I would just be dead. I wouldn’t even need hospitals anymore.
If you cry in front of a doctor, you have to pay them for causing emotional distress, because you gave the doctor anxiety by crying in front of him.
It’s legal to sell your blood for money. Does the American government never consider why people would sell blood? Are they just blood bags? Oh, I guess it’s only American capitalists thinking about this.
People have to work 2-3 jobs a day, or even more. This isn’t the America in my memories at all. In my memory, you only work 8 hours a day in America, and you spend the rest of your time taking walks with your family, playing with your kids, or brew yourself some coffee, and sit in front of your bay window at dusk and read a book or take a nap.
There are people who can’t afford food. Like, at all. I’m speechless.
I don’t want to write more. I’m gonna get depressed. Your turn!”
Comments say, “1. You gotta pay the fire department every year so that your house shows up on their fire service maps. If you don’t pay, then they won’t come save you even if your house is on fire. 2. You have to pay rent even if you’re serving in the military or in prison. 3. There’s a fee they charge you when you have a baby called “skin-on-skin” fee where they let the baby touch you after it’s born. 4. Having a baby costs tens of thousands of USD. If you can’t pay this money back, then the government will take your baby away and give it to someone else to foster. (I was so shocked I felt like I was going crazy). 5. If you cry in front of a doctor, they’ll charge you for emotional damages. 6. You have to pay back three times what you took out in student loans. Some people say they owed 80K, and after doing payments for 10 years, they’ve paid back 120K and still have 76K to go.”
“But, I have relatives in America and it’s not like that there at all.”
“I’m not saying America is great or anything, but it’s not nearly as bad as you’r summarising. I hate America too, but we gotta be objective here, right?”
“Is it possible that your relative is just rich and he never interacts with normal people in America and can’t feel their hardships?”
[American IP] “I don’t even dare to say anything. I guess I’m living in a fake America and Chinese people know more about America than me.”
“The fact that you can go to America means you’re from a well-off family. Without some spare change on hand, you wouldn’t even be able to get a visa. Maybe all the people around you are just rich.”
“Right now at least, it’s a bit extreme. Looks like it’s not just Chinese people that understand the algorithm, white people are figuring out the secret to wealth here too.”
“You’re just in a different socioeconomic class so you can’t see it. Rich people in America have no idea how poor people spend their days.”
“I’ve seen a guy sell blood. He was underweight, and to qualify, he’d “cheat” by put bags of rice in his pocket. So he got qualified to get blood drawn and very quickly, he went into a seizure and passed out.”
“Yes, we have a book called Das Kapital all about how capitalists exploit the people.”
“That book is from Germany.”
“Honestly, I want to donate to normal people in America now.”
“A couple of years ago, I remember at an American store called “Target”, there was this openwork knitted sweater that was selling really well, and it was around 30USD or so…
And then it suddenly disappeared. It turned out, someone studied this sweater and found out it had to be handmade. Machines couldn’t do it. And making a sweater took several hours of work. So it you worked out the cost, the hourly pay was way too low, and a lot of people thought it was inhumane and demanded the store take down the sweaters…
Sigh, how do I put this. America is a country with a lot of different people and a lot of different views. It’s not that easy to find someone who shares a frequency with you.”
Comments say, “Same in New Zealand. Most people would rather spend a little more money to support local small businesses. They aren’t happy about the cheap stores that Chinese people are opening up, because they think it’s robbing locals of opportunity.”
“Yeah, I’ve recommended cheap stuff on Temu to Americans and she said, “I don’t like to exploit people so I don’t buy there.” Or something like that. I was speechless.”
“If you work backwards, if you don’t respect people’s labour, then exploitation will just endlessly continue until you reach saturation and everything is over. Respecting cost and respecting profit is what helps sustainable growth.”
A compilation of life in the rural countryside:
“I say taking a shower is a pain in the ass. You say isn’t it just a matter of turning on the water heater and heat lamp? That’s when I knew we weren’t the same sort of people at all.”
“He said he’d get me some takeout. I said it was fine, save your money. He thought I was being nice, but it’s just because my village has no takeout.”
“We have a bullfight today so I took a random photo. You asked me what celebrity is holding a concert out in the boondocks that that many people showed up. Whatever, you city folk will never get it.”
“How would I dare to bring you home? The bathroom in my house comes with a safety belt. I’m so worried you’ll fall in!”
“Have you ever been on a toilet like this? The two straight plants are wooden boards that you have to step on, and this is what it looks like from a bird’s eye view.”
[It’s two wooden boards over a hold in the ground with shit piled up in it. The squiggles in the upper left corner is a cobweb.]
“I said I was heading out on a shopping trip. You asked me which mall I was in. Whatever, you city folk will never get it.”
“Insisted on getting me takeout, so I had to set my location to the local town. In the middle of winter, the delivery driver is on his way, so I’m on my way too.”
“I said it was exhausting to go home. You said I could get a cab. Whatever, you city folk will never get it.”
“I said I was cold. You told me to turn up the heat. That’s when I knew we weren’t the same sort of people.”
“I just randomly took a picture, and you asked me where I’d gone on vacation. Whatever, you city filk will never get it.”
I'm surprised that they don't pay union fees. In the Soviet Union participation in unions was mandatory and the fee was 1% of a person's salary.
Bullfights in China? How french of them.
Roman legionary camps had nicer latrines than that.