#Cultural Issues

[wowlookwhosspirallingagain]

the “i wanna go home” never leaves my head even when i’m physically sitting in my bed

[mindfulldsliving]

Challenging Lilith Helstrom's Bigotry: A Defense of Christianity

First, let's get something straight: Christianity is fundamentally about love and acceptance. Yes, like any institution, it's had its missteps but painting it with a broad brush of intolerance ignores the core tenets of the faith.

Introduction In her article, Lilith Helstrom argues that Christianity masquerades as a faith centered on love, while in reality, it’s about bigotry and intolerance. I aim to offer a detailed response to her claims, challenging her perspective. First, let’s get something straight: Christianity is fundamentally about love and acceptance. Yes, like any institution, it’s had its missteps but…

[leam1983]

What I've always found awkward about this is that the whole concept of using Real Estate as an investment is a very Modern-Day Han Chinese idea, and it's rooted in parts of Chinese folklore that aren't inherently toxic. What is is that some unscrupulous investors realized that folklore and economics could undergo a weird shift in China's specific case - and the rest of the world's Real Estate scene more or less caught the bug.

I'll explain: in China, it's considered bad luck for a Real Estate promoter to sell a fully-furnished lot, or a lot that's so much as ready to decorate. It's commonplace for only "demo" flats to be fully finished and for the rest of a complex's units to be left as bare concrete and exposed wires - because the purchaser will want to finish it themselves. Folklore demands that you "finish off" your new house, essentially, so only your energies influence its final form.

Consequently, it isn't unusual for architectural firms in China to erect what effectively looks like gigantic chicken coops, as you're looking at the concrete bones of an unfinished apartment complex that's waiting to be wholly purchased. Immigrants move to Canada, they realize that our Real Estate market, pre-pandemic, was extremely favorable, and so they opt to try and do as close to this as possible, within the limits of Canada's own laws regarding new residential developments. What they can do amounts to buying entire towers and sitting on them as an investment.

That gets you something that's now common well outside of the Han Chinese diaspora, which is someone swiping entire projects off the map and nodding their heads no once the city's administration steps in, demanding lot access for a few Public Housing programs.

The responses are usually infuriating. "Nope, I'm holding onto these units for my family" is a common one, when a little digging makes it obvious that nobody who's close to the promoter has any intention of emigrating to Canada. The groups that started it can at least claim a focus on folklore or good luck or what have you, but the more recent ones are entirely and knowingly treating entire blocks like crypto wallets.

The message is pretty clear: "Fuck your housing crisis, I'm holding out for the whales that're going to give me six million a pop for these units in three to four years."

Under the new rules, homes that are not occupied for at least six months of the year are subject to a tax of one per cent of the property’s assessed value. The deadline to rent out empty dwellings was July 1.

Fazli said many of the people he has talked to are thinking of renting or selling their properties. He recently met with a woman who owns three empty properties in Vancouver — and says one of them is now listed for rent, another will be listed shortly and she is thinking of selling the third.

“This is a scenario of someone who is kind of in a panic now and needs to rent them out,” he said. […]

amazing

[professionallyunstable]

i hate myself a little extra when i open up to someone.

[gildedbearediting]

A Look At: Digging Up the Mountains

A Quick Toe-Dip Digging Up the Mountains was written by Neil Bissoondath in third person, and has three parts. The main character is Hari Beharry. The story deals with fear, corruption, ethnicity, racism, slavery, inequality, and persecution. Rangee and Faizal are both killed with their watch and wallet missing, and shot twice in the head. Hari believes both to be robberies as stated in police…

[littlemizzlinguistics]

Studying linguistics is actually so wonderful because when you explain youth slang to older professors, instead of complaining about how "your generation can't speak right/ you're butchering the language" they light up and go “really? That’s so wonderful! What an innovative construction! Isn't language wonderful?"

[marzipanandminutiae]

what's with the weird glorification of smoking that's come back lately

like

I've seen so many posts that paint opposing smoking as some impossibly Loser-ish or puritanical stance and I really don't get it

it makes you, your house, and your clothing stink, destroys your teeth, and gives you lung cancer. opposing it is. Correct. obviously addiction is very complicated and quitting can be hard, but just saying "smoking is gross and harmful as a practice (including vaping)" is True and Right actually

some of you have never grown up hearing about how some beloved family member died a slow, agonized, wasting death of smoking-induced cancer, or watching it firsthand for yourself, and it shows

[surrah698]

My poor, sensitive nervous system... 😭

Gotta make sure to get plenty of rest!

[borderlineangel222]

and suddenly, again, I feel really tired, as if the world is draining me of everything i ever had

[tsukiyo-7]

Fervent internet "leftists" need to realize that being critical of a government or «cultural» practices beside your own isn't always a way to mask racism. First of all, I'm the first to spit shit about my country so literally be my guest if you feel competent enough to contribute to the conversation, just as much I feel competent to speak out about certain issues that don't involve me directly sometimes. Second of all, hiding behind "it's their country, it's their culture" it's just the cowardly way of looking to the other side without feeling guilty and that doesn't go well in my book, sorry not sorry. If I say that infibulation is an horrendous practice, for example, I'm going to eat everyone who dares to say "it's their culture".

Let the persons concerned speak first and amplify their voices within your power; speak only informed opinions and take a step back when proved wrong but don't fucking dare to call yourself concerned or act like some kind of authority over others when in reality your so called activism or political activity is just to self-feed your superiority complex on having some kind of special moral high ground when, in fact, you can't even begin to truly unpack these issues and probably don't even actually care aside from how it makes you appear from the outside. You're just another radical chic.

[chongoblog]

Being in America is super fun because you get to see Trump going up against Biden in a presidential election with both of them being dogshit options, mass protests against what should very obviously be seen as an injustice that spits in the face of what you were told your country stands for, except the government disagrees, using the power of the militarized state to brutalize protestors, all the while people spread malicious lies regularly with millions believing their every word(a lot of it being thanks to some rich freak on Twitter). Also, the economy is doing pretty damn poor and you see media sources tell you to sacrifice your well-being all while the ultra rich get richer and richer.

And then after you're done with 2020, you get to do it again four years later

[wowlookwhosspirallingagain]

i hate feeling things so deeply and i hate that they get physical like bitch you’re an EMOTION stay in your lane why does my body hurt

[abeautifulblog]

I think what amuses me about Tarik of the Murderbot diaries is that in any other series he'd be the main character - competent, ass-kicking, with his violent-tragic-traumatic backstory, the fish-out-of-water alienation of now being a refugee in a foreign culture, and messy relationship drama.

...But in the Murderbot books it's just like "whatever, we've all been brutalized by capitalism, ur not special" 🤷 lol.

Tarik's not a main character. He's barely a minor character. He exists, he is having sex with one of Murderbot's friends, and Murderbot only knows this against its will. 🤣

[professionallyunstable]

kinda tired fighting for a life i don’t even want

[trouble-de-la-belle-princesse]

having bpd fucking sucks because I'm constantly switching between "I'm the scum of the fucking earth and should be killed on site" to "if I'm not getting constant praise and attention like i deserve then i don't deserve to be a human"