I also think most people haven’t tried and would be pleasantly surprised if they did. Even in the US, almost half of all trips are bikable or walkable distances. It doesn’t have to replace your main commute, just some of your trips.

We’ve all met those people who get in their car to drive two blocks instead of walking, even in good weather. Cars are so dominant that there’s a lack of imagination around using anything except cars.

That’s definitely a big part, but it’s both. Like white flight out of cities and insisting on a detached suburban home, the other part of the story is that cars represent “social worth” for many in North America.

It’s why car people become so angrily defensive, and fight even modest changes. Cars aren’t just functional. They represent a cherished value system. Their worth as a person is tied up with their car.

That said, just like diamond rings and smoking, even this weird cultural norm was bought by industry advertising. We’re social apes, who do things to feel important and valued, even when it otherwise makes no sense.

But that’s not what you wrote. You claimed that it doesn’t show new information because you can see the favicon and title. It does show new information.

When I shop online, I have many tabs from the same site open. The tab title is the store name + the item name, so the item name never fits. A bunch of identical ebay icons is way worse than this.

It’s not objectively better or worse. Some people will prefer it and some people won’t.

You’ve misunderstood so many of my points, this is exhausting.

You insist on gatekeeping the term “raceswap”. Fine. Call it “reimagining an existing character as another race”, if you want. You would have to be delusional to deny that Miles Morales is a Black-Latino version of Spider-Man.

The article I linked to mentions the backlash and controversy about political correctness and Morales. I’m a little surprised you missed the point there.

I’m not sure what specifically you’re on about with the “usual crowd” paragraph. I know that lots of non-racists are also against “reimagining an existing character as another race”. I agree that race swaps can go wrong a lot.

Please read this carefully: The specific claim I am contesting is OP’s strong thesis that raceswapping is always bad. I gave examples of it sometimes being good. Miles Morales is certainly an example, down to the criticisms of too much political correctness, racists complaining, fan “controversy”, claims that it’s a cash grab, etc.

My point was not that the multiverse is bad like elf slavery is bad. I am saying that your explanation gets things backwards: the multiverse doesn’t show how it’s not a race swap. On the contrary, the race swap is the reason why they needed to use the multiverse as a narrative tool. Forget the analogy to elf slavery if you don’t get it. The point is that some writer wrote a multiverse storyline in order to justify the existence of a Spider-Man of a different race.

Everyone likes him because the storytelling is good, which proves my point: Race/gender swaps are fine when done right. But when Miles Morales was first introduced, it was considered a race swap, and the usual crowd definitely moaned about it.

The multiverse explanation reminds me of people saying “But the elves liked being slaves!” in Harry Potter. Yeah, they were written that way, and they could have been written another way. The multiverse is being used to narratively justify a black Puerto Rican Spider-Man.

Kind of. Excerpt from this article by Ridley Scott:

“I think the idea actually came from Alan Ladd, Jr. I think it was Alan Ladd who said, ‘Why can’t Ripley be a woman?’ And there was a long pause that, at that moment, I never thought about it. I thought, why not? It’s a fresh direction, the ways I thought about that. And away we went.”

This was the late 70s. “Man” was still so powerfully default that Ridley Scott had not even thought of the possibility of casting a leading woman action hero before a meeting with an exec. That, to me, is clearly a gender swap moment, because until that moment, it was a given that Ripley would be a man. The gender-neutral script just allowed for the possibility.

It’s hard to do well, but I disagree that it’s a slap in the face or a low blow. The gender swap of Starbuck from Battlestar Galactic was seen as sacrilege by fans, but she became one of the highlights of the show. Miles Morales was a creative way to do a race swap for Spider Man, and the narrative is richer for it. Jason Mamoa turned Aquaman from white to Polynesian, and the depiction was better than ever. Would Nick Fury be better as a white guy, as he was originally for decades, instead of Samuel L Jackson?

And then there are all the “swaps” that happen before the first day of filming, like Ellen Ripley, Sigourney Weaver’s character in Alien, who was originally (edit) going to be cast as a man. This was “controversial” at the time, with people decrying “political correctness”. I would not take “causing controversy” as a reliable indicator for whether something sucks.

Edit: point taken about gender neutral script. See discussion below.

Why are you getting downvoted? Why is Lemmy defending rich corporations and not consumers??

You opened dry pasta in a dry room and got less than the advertised amount. If there’s residual moisture in the factory that evaporates, that is their problem, not ours. Yes it’s a small variation, but that reasoning works both ways: they should include a few extra strands to make sure the consumer gets the right amount.

This was my thought as well. A lot of these games are never made, even when the ads do very well (as evidenced by the ad continuing for years). Someone actually made the bait game for real, in recognition of the fact that the games have been advertised for many years and never made.

Even if OP’s explanation is sometimes correct, it doesn’t seem typically correct. In fact, it seems like a rare edge case, at best.

Americans pay more in taxes towards healthcare than any other country, and then pay for private healthcare on top of that.

I agree, it’s definitely not just house size. But still, I’m not sure that your one data point anecdote is very meaningful. Desirable areas were more expensive in the 1950s too.

Yes that’s the point. We’re wealthier and more productive now and can consume some of that extra wealth. I am pointing out that we’re not comparing like for like.

House sizes have also ballooned. The average home size in 1949 was ~900 sq ft, whereas a new home now is ~2500 sq ft. It was still cheaper, but those homes prices are for a lot less house than people are imagining.

I agree, but just to clarify a minor point: small rural towns are actually some of the most walkable and bikable because they were built before cars. If you’re staying within a rural town, you don’t need a car.

As an interesting side note: I have heard multiple times that Gen X is the Trumpiest and most conservative leaning generation, even more than Boomers or Silver. I find it plausible. The silver generation has old progressive labor movement diehards, and boomers have hippies. But Gen X never really had a progressive culture movement. They came of age during Reagan and Clinton.

As an American who moved to Canada, there are similarities but Canada is still one million times better than the US.

The CRA (Canadian IRS) allows digital access to all tax info. Whatever software or service you use, just log into your CRA account and everything auto-fills. Done in a few minutes. My US taxes have never taken less than an hour, and often multiple hours if there’s anything remotely complicated.

Can’t follow directions?

What is this, tax advice from Stack Overflow? I don’t understand why people like you don’t save your criticism for the system, instead of at the people using the system.

Yes, the system is fucked up… because the instructions are intentionally designed to be complicated to follow. I don’t know a single person stupid enough to waste their time doing their own taxes by following the directions on the IRS documentation. Horrible advice. Not even professional tax accountants do that.

The IRS free tax-filing service is in limited trial in a few states, eligible only to simple returns within limited income ranges. Most people, including 1099 people like OP, can’t use it.

Your response is tone deaf. The American tax code is intentionally complicated to protect tax filing companies and to allow the rich to take advantage of loop holes. I can’t believe how housebroken some people are that they defend the shitty tax system instead of sharing in OP’s anger.