Comments by "Cottidae" (@CottidaeSEA) on "Asian Boss"
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I feel like the problem with sexual harassment is that it's both vague and difficult to prove.
In the case of rape, even if it can be proven that sexual intercourse happened, proving that it was rape can be quite difficult in many cases.
Then there's the things people say, and while I get it, I've experienced some even as a guy, I don't think it's bad enough to report someone for it most of the time. If someone is really vicious and maybe even threatens or poses a threat in general, then it's much more relevant, but that's more a case of crime prevention rather than anything else.
Basically, there are no right answers a lot of the time. While you can trust that the offended is right the majority of the time, you still can't blindly trust someone. That'd cause more false reports to pop up, and as a result, even more cases would be questionable, effectively hurting the real victims.
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In terms of varied cast, I think it's about as varied as the actual population in USA, possibly even favoring minorities. However, considering the global market, they are still lacking Asian people. I don't think it's that bad, but I do wish they'd pick Asian cast for Asian characters, black cast for black characters and so on.
Even looking at history, I don't think that things have been that unfair from a business standpoint. White characters have been popular because white people have been the main market. You don't see many white people in Chinese fiction, which makes sense. There haven't been many white people in China throughout history after all. The thing is, Chinese fiction has in general not become globally popular while the "whitewashed" stuff has. Why? Probably marketing and through English becoming more used through colonization and such, making the products easier to sell in other countries.
The people behind Hollywood are businessmen, they do it for the money. Therefore they'll obviously move to where the money is. If Asian countries become a bigger market, then they'll have more Asian characters when possible. People might be hurt by their decisions, but there's no racism involved there at the very least. Only cold and objective business.
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Not only that, but there are influences from other languages as well, such as Spanish. I'm used to multiple languages as I'm from Sweden. We have 5 minority languages and our main language obviously being Swedish. However, loads of people can speak English as well, to the point where it's quite difficult to find someone who doesn't. So if they decided to make English a national language, it wouldn't make much of a difference. We learn English as soon as we start going to school, and the exposure to English is big even before that, so it's not uncommon for kids to know simple words even before that.
Besides, I just read the subtitles and didn't really care much for anything else. I don't speak Tagalog, so it's not like it'd matter to me whether they switch between languages. As you say, it's common in multilingual countries.
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Honestly, preferring white skin to black skin is kind of obvious. Even if you aren't racist, you tend to look for similarities, and white people have more in common with them than black people do. Even animals do that.
As you say though, the racism is more widespread toward black people, which is a shame. To some extent, I think you should expect there to be racism, but when you can't function as normal people in society, that's when I think racism becomes a real issue. As Sam mentioned, being on the subway or trying to get a ride in a taxi, when you're being discriminated in such circumstances, then the racism is problematic. Just some person being rude once in a while isn't an issue.
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cmq23 what you're saying is not wrong, but the thing is, age is kind of irrelevant once you get to a certain point. Anyone who is within 3-5 years of your own age is basically the same as you once you've reached 25 or so. Politeness is one thing, but I don't get why it's such a big deal. You'd generally use formalities with strangers either way, and when it comes to people who are close to you, you kind of relax a bit more. That stays true no matter where in the world you get. Yet South Korea has this seemingly forced system. That's what I don't understand. Why is it such a big deal to treat someone who is just a few years older than you like someone who is the same age as you? Why is that so wrong?
Based on what they are saying, it's about experience, skills, etc. It makes sense. However, you'll find that a lot of people have different experiences. Not many people can say they've received death threats, I can. That's an experience that others might not have. How should we value that? Can we value it? Some people have worked at 10 jobs at the age of 25, some have worked at 1 job, some are still looking for a job. Which of these are of the highest value? Technically, the one who has worked at 10 jobs has the most varied experiences, but the one who has worked at 1 job might be the most skilled, while the one who hasn't found a job might be studying something extremely important for the society. Who do we value highest?
It's a system based on arbitrary factors. I can accept the system and use the system, but that does not mean I agree with it. Something like superiority at a workplace, that makes more sense, because there you actually have somewhat defined borders. Age though? Unless there's a large gap, it makes little to no difference. Oh, and another thing regarding age, since they count it based on the year, there can be a really large difference, simply because of that.
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As a pale Swedish man who totally matters a lot (I don't, but don't tell anyone) I have something to say about this. There are black people with as light skin as she does. There are white people with darker skin. The labels are messed up, and so is the concept of labels as well, a person isn't black, their skin tone might be called black. Yet people identify themselves as black, even if they don't have a particularly dark skin tone, merely because of background. I just think it's stupid and unnecessary.
As for what she said, I honestly didn't care all that much. I get what she means, and considering what I've said, it's hard to say she's wrong. Doesn't mean she's right, but I'd have a hard time refuting it considering how vague the label is.
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Zt D, are you from an urban or rural area? Because the way you see things if you're from an urban area may differ a lot. Of course money matters, but two people living in one place is cheaper than living separately. So income is more important when wanting children. However, in rural areas, it might be possible to also have a small farm, or at least a gardening plot which if used properly can provide some food.
Besides this, there's also family. In a lot of Asian countries, China included, it's much more common to live with your parents, meaning personal income is even less important.
Kids are expensive, living together is not. A marriage can be expensive, but it doesn't have to be. Dating can be expensive, but it doesn't have to be. If someone spends more than they can afford on a man or woman, that's not being kind or considerate, that's being stupid. I wouldn't marry a person like that, as it merely shows the person can't handle their own money properly. It's doing a disservice for the relationship. Besides, a huge gift could instead be a lot of smaller experiences together. What do you think is worth more?
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While I agree with you that no one deserves to be bullied, no bullies will reflect on this, and bullies will keep popping up. Because it's more intricate than that. Two of the people who bullied me merely used me as an escape from their own lives, which were way worse than my own at the time. How do I know? Because they've told me all about it after they apologized some years later, and both of them were on the verge of crying. For example, one of them had a suicidal parent, the other one screamed at the kids constantly and threatened to hit them every single day. He decided to pull pranks on me, mostly innocent ones, because it was a stress relief. I honestly didn't mind that much at first, it was kind of fun, but the pranks escalated, and when I asked him to tone things down or stop, he didn't listen, and it kept escalating. It eventually led to the case that I had to report, and then he also realized that he had gone too far. The other guy had somewhat similar circumstances, but mostly followed the previously mentioned person.
You see, there are so many variables going on here that just making a blanket statement does very little for anyone. Nobody will be helped by it. Most people agree with your statement, but few of them are willing to do anything themselves. They just want things to work themselves out, very non-committal. Most people are too afraid of getting involved, being negatively affected by events unrelated to themselves.
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I'd love to hear about the opinions on Sweden, as I'm from Sweden, but I doubt a large portion of the subscribers would be especially interested. If you combined Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden and possibly Finland, it'd cover a larger viewerbase, and would be more interesting, but at the same time, it'd be more difficult to answer, and chances are that they don't know much about any of the countries either way.
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Ilse Arias. Japanese culture being different or not is not really the issue. They don't speak up because there's no point most of the time. They basically think that if you can't make a change, don't try to. If the possibility of making a change actually existed, more of them would speak up. That's essentially the big problem here. Since the definition is vague and there's next to no proof most of the time, it's as Ozarazil said, just a clash of words. Who are you supposed to believe? False convictions happen even in cases where potential evidence exists, what's to stop it from happening in these cases? In fact, the risk is even higher when it comes to these cases. That's why they can't just say "you raped this woman, go to jail" because unless there's actual proof, it's just one person accusing the other, no matter if it did happen or not.
As I also said, in some cases, there's the possibility of proving sexual intercourse, or sex as it's commonly called, proving that it was rape is a different story entirely. Let's make up something just as an example. Let's say I have a girlfriend, our relationship works well, then I decide to have sex with her. She doesn't want to but doesn't really struggle. She then accuses me of rape. While yes, she would be entirely correct per definition, who is going to believe her in court? She has no injuries, there's no sign of struggle, and we're even in a successful relationship. There are no indications that a rape would ever occur.
That's the big problem. Rape is more often than not by people close to the victim, not just some random stranger. Those cases tend to be fairly easy to prove either way, as there tends to be more signs. However, the majority will have close to 0 proof, and the proof that does exist is even questionable. Then there are the party people, a woman follows a man to his hotel room, home or whatever, then gets raped. Unless there's visible proof of struggle, signs rather point toward consent.
I really don't envy those who have to judge these cases, because it's extremely difficult. Then there's random acts of groping, those are just impossible to prove unless caught on camera and will basically end up with "sorry, it was an accident" at best if they weren't. Sigh... it's quite sad that people do these things to begin with.
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Pix P, damn, that's a long post. I'll try not to miss anything. As for being polite, we should all try to be polite even if we don't agree with each other. Besides, I don't think there's any right or wrong in these cases. People are different, so things will work differently for everyone. What works for your family might not work for my family for example. That's a reason why I kind of dislike the SJWs, they want everyone to be like them. Even if I agree with them on certain points, forcing others is no different than tyranny.
So, to start off, I am fully aware of the things you are talking of. I usually sum it up as "people being trash" since they can't be rational about things. As for why this matters, it's because if we don't have preset roles for ourselves, the situation becomes more complex, which leads to people having to take responsibility and make choices for themselves. People don't actually want choices, that's the primary issue. They either only want one thing, or they want two (or more) things at the same time which is impossible, which means it'd be better if several options weren't presented to begin with. Yet in a society like the one we live in, people do have to make choices. I'd argue that having choices is better, despite me thinking that people are irresponsible and irrational. It's really a quite simple reason as well. I think that people have the ability of improving. The problem is that there's a lack of preparation for that when we are growing up, because everything is decided for us most of the time.
As for women being manipulative, that's not something new. There's also more men than women, so women have more to choose between. Men on the other hand have to be more competitive and please the woman. If the woman is so irrational that you can't even explain why it's her job, assuming you work that much harder, then she isn't much different from a piece of meat that you have sex with. What you're saying is true though, there is a lack of respect. Still, this is in a scenario where the man works more. Then what you're saying makes a lot more sense, because then the work allocation is simply more reasonable. In a scenario where both work just as much, it suddenly doesn't.
When it comes to work vs housewife, let me start this off by saying that my mother has been a housewife for most of her married life, due to an unfortunate injury that prevented her from working. I have great respect for housewives who do that job properly. My father does still do some chores at home at times, not because he has to, but because he wants to make it easier for my mother. My parents show great respect for each other, and they work together. I've only seen them argue with each other once, and even that ended quickly. My grandparents (on my father's side) were the same, although they both worked. My grandfather did most of the work outside and some cleaning, while my grandmother was in charge of the kitchen, clothes and the remainder of the cleaning. No issues anywhere.
As for one of my uncles, he and his wife both do housework, and there are no major issues. They both work, and they both have about as long work hours. While they they've had more arguments with each other than my parents, it's still a functional relationship where both of them take responsibility.
Another uncle got divorced, but that was due to drugs as far as I'm aware, but they still contact each other, partially due to their daughter, but they kept at least a reasonable relationship even after the divorce.
I've been surrounded with various kinds of relationships throughout my entire life, some have worked, some have not, but none of them have been problematic no matter how the work allocation has been. It has only been due to other factors. So my conclusion is, and probably will always be that we need to have respect for each other and take responsibility. We need to actually work with each other, not against each other. Disrespectful people are trash, that's my opinion. Sometimes it's fine to be trash, but one shouldn't make it a habit.
As for the wage gap, the 75 cent to 1 dollar has been debunked and for good reason, but the actual number is more like 98 cents to 1 dollar, which still means there's some difference. Although this can certainly be something other than discrimination, it doesn't exclude it either. For the most part, there's little discrimination, but the problem is that it still exists. This doesn't only apply to discrimination against women, but against men as well. I don't think women deserve some honorary victim badge just because of it, but issues shouldn't be ignored no matter what they are.
What you're saying regarding supporting female superiority rather than equality, that's the reason why I have a hard time actually agreeing with feminists. Even if my own personal values are similar to them, I simply don't agree to their methods. Their methods are vile and disgusting at times. They are also overly emotional which doesn't help. If an issue exists, it doesn't go away by crying and telling the men to fix it. That's again a sign of irresponsibility and disrespect. People need to learn how to respect others and work together, but just about everything these days is about clashing against each other.
I'm sorry if I couldn't respond to everything, but I hope I could at least express my own point of view reasonably enough.
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Stereotypes exist because of common traits or actions made by those people, not necessarily by the overall group, but by the visible group. If you only see black people committing crimes, you'll come to the conclusion that only black people commit crimes, consciously or not. It'll be a stereotype that you've made in your head. Then those stereotypes might spread because you interact with others who have experienced the same thing, and therefore since there's more people with the same experiences, the stereotype holds more credit even if it might be completely wrong.
However, there are both positive and negative stereotypes. I wouldn't call them good or bad, as I don't think any is neither. They merely have positive or negative feelings attached to them. I personally think that it's good that stereotypes exist, because if you know about a negative stereotype, you can avoid being like that stereotype, while if it's a positive stereotype, you can try to act that way. Assuming a stereotype is correct is stupid though. Even assuming the stereotype applies for most of a population such as the kimchi one, you're still dealing with an individual, so you need to learn the quirks of that individual.
I have a fairly positive mindset to a lot of things (that aren't just straight up bad) so it's possible that many might disagree with me due to practical reasons, but to me those practical reasons are more along the lines of; some people simply act like idiots. So just like how every person is an individual, each individual also has to take responsibility.
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金泰宇 "your brain will reconize and process the pecific image much faster than alphabet letters like NIKE"
Not necessarily true, people see something like NIKE like an image rather than reading the word letter by letter. Even if it were written NKIE people would likely read it as NIKE if it were on shoes or whatever even if just seeing it for a brief moment. In fact, some research have shown that many don't even read entire words.
However, when it comes to something like that brand, what you say holds some merit, but when you have compound words in Chinese with fairly advanced symbols, it isn't as easy anymore. Then it comes down to habit. What you're more used to. I read Greek just as fast as I read English, despite a different alphabet. The same goes for Russian. Although I might have no clue what the words mean, I can at the very least read them.
Let me show an example with Japanese, probably the same in Chinese. 門, gate. 問, question. 間, between. I can understand gate, I can somewhat understand between, but question? How is that a question? How is putting a square between gates a question? It's only questionable why the square is there, but then you can go into details such as why have additional strokes for the gate? Why have a bend on the right side and not the left?
It's just the way it is, that's the answer. People are concerned about homophones, words that sound the same, but you can figure out which word people mean when it's spoken. If it were written, you would as well. I'll show you an example.
Anden är vit. The mallard is white. (This is Swedish by the way)
Anden är vit. The spirit is white.
Some people pronounce these things the exact same way, but chances are that people would automatically assume that it's a mallard. First of all, a white spirit? People rarely talk about spirits to begin with, seeing a spirit even less so, and the chances of the spirit being white instead of translucent, quite low I'd say.
There is nobody who would misunderstand me if I were to say or write that, even if I don't actually say that I'm talking about a bird. As for if that misunderstanding actually being common, what stops me from making the sentence more advanced? Nothing but laziness.
Languages are mostly memorization, but think about it, the Chinese writing says nothing about pronunciation, yet what we use language the most for is speech. If the speech can be described at the same time, it gets easier, both writing words you've never written before, and saying words you've never said before. While some words are spelled and pronounced fairly differently, it's more often than not a minor thing.
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Elias Junior The grammar is built around their hierarchy system, not the other way around though. They didn't make the language, then decide that "it'd be great if we had a hierarchy system to match this" after all.
As I said though, while I understand the concept, I don't understand why it's suddenly okay to drop honorifics as soon as someone is younger, why you're considered superior, etc. When talking about different positions, such as your boss, that makes sense to me. Not when it comes to age though, at least not when the age isn't that different. That's what I want to know.
I've clearly not grown up with the culture, but that simply makes it that much more difficult to understand. Nobody I've asked has a good answer other than "that's the way it is" which to me is just a lazy excuse. If you can't explain it, you don't understand it well enough. That's what I've been taught throughout my life. Therefore, I have a hard time accepting "that's how it is" as an explanation.
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瑩 瑄 Where to draw the line? Well, in this case there was someone who essentially recorded porn as ASMR. They have a ban on pornographic content. Mildly inappropriate things are mildly inappropriate things. As for overreaction, yes and no. We all know why yes, but why no? That's because it's mostly due to ignorance, lack of knowledge. If their only knowledge is of the inappropriate, they'll assume it's inappropriate.
However, from what it seems like, it's more that they put a ban on ASMR until sites can properly regulate the content. That's what I've understood from articles on this subject. So that also means that they are not really putting a permanent ban on ASMR. Of course, whether it becomes permanent or not remains to see, but I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with the ban. It's a simple temporary solution, and it's effective.
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Pix P, if you believe the logic works like that, you didn't understand me. The logic I use is that the one who is better or more suitable for something should do most of it. If the woman is better at cooking, she should do most of the cooking, otherwise the man should do it. As for being polite, respectful and loyal, shouldn't both be?
I don't think that the woman being like the traditional woman is a bad thing, it works if the man earns enough. The thing is that there are women who are fine with being housewives, and there are those who aren't. However, there are those who would rather become housewives and at best have a part time job, but those have a much harder time these days than the ones who simply want to work.
I do kind of agree with you that these days it's more about how the female can benefit, but at the same time, there is still discrimination in favor of men going on. I don't really see a huge problem with that personally, not because discrimination is okay, but because I believe it's just one of those things that will slowly improve over time. SJWs and feminists want immediate change, which is why so many people are opposed to them. Forcing people into doing things is a sure-fire way of being disliked.
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Honestly, some of these people just sound like cultists.
So, regarding sexuality. Looking at things objectively, heterosexuality is the obvious intended way, as that is without medical assistance the only way of reproduction. Anything else is an exception. Homosexuality, bisexuality, queer, whatever it may be, those are exceptions and should be regarded as such. However, in regards to whether it's wrong or not, why would it be? I dislike salt while a friend of mine loves salt. That doesn't mean anything. Likewise, a homosexual will have a hard time getting the partner pregnant due to physical limitations, but is that necessarily wrong? My answer to that would be no. Even if I think heterosexuality is the way we should be and back it up with quite obvious evidence, I'd honestly have a hard time justifying denying others the right to love simply because they are deviants, exceptions from the norm. Truthfully though, unless I'm interested in someone, I simply don't give a damn about their sexuality.
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Dressing up like Bruno Mars and dressing up like Blackface with a headdress are very different. Dressing up like Bruno Mars, skin color and everything, then performing a song of his is more of a homage while dressing up like Blackface wearing a headdress is racist in many ways.
You could argue that both are racist, but to that I'd make the claim that one is a reasonable representation of a single person while another is an unreasonable stereotype. You can't be racist toward one person, you're racist toward a group of people based on ethnical or genetical reasons. As such, dressing up like Bruno Mars isn't racist.
While I'm on the whole racism page, some claim you can't be racist toward white people, but people of European ethnicity (where white people actually come from, counting those in America too) is not a majority in the world. Of course, saying that racism toward white people is a big problem while being in France, Germany or the UK for example is laughable, but to say that it doesn't exist or that it can't exist is even more so. Of course it exists, it's just not as big of a problem as the racism toward other ethnicities is, unless you actually go to a country in Asia or Africa, South Africa not included due to there being a lot of white people there. Sure, it's not as if people will throw rocks at you for no discernable reason, but that doesn't happen toward other groups either for the most part. Some exceptions exist, but generally speaking it just doesn't happen.
Basically, my main point here is that idiots exist everywhere, racism exists everywhere, but can't we all just get along? You are who you make yourself into, not who you are born as. So don't make yourself a racist.
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Higher taxes doesn't mean you'll eventually run out of money. What kind of bullshit is that? Running out of money happens when you overspend. Having LESS money increases the risk of that, meaning lower taxes increases that risk. I'm not sure how you even thought when you wrote your reply, because no matter how I think about it, you're simply wrong. Please do explain, because higher taxes means higher income for the country, meaning it's possible to spend that much more. If they get 1 million more, they can spend 1 million more than previously.
As for wealthy people, they are doing a service for the country, that should be an honor. Is there no patriotism among wealthy people? Do wealthy people not care about the state of the country or the inhabitants? Do wealthy people only care about getting richer?
You might not want to pay taxes for immigrants, universal health care or whatever else. However, you might think it's perfectly acceptable to pay for road maintenance. Then think of it like this; your money was spent on the roads, not health care or immigrants. Because essentially, you don't know exactly where the money went, and what you paid is hardly enough to cover the full expenses of anything either way.
So, if we think of it like that, rich people often have companies. Their companies require people who work for them. They need to make sure they are healthy to work. They need to be able to get to work. So if someone has a company, paying taxes is like investing in the company. The only difference is that a lot of people benefit from it.
Still, this is just me getting sidetracked because you simply make no sense to me. So again, please explain how a country would somehow spend more money than they have simply because taxes increase.
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General Neck Beard, you should look into gun statistics a bit. Regulation doesn't mean there'll be few weapons. I'm from Sweden, and we are one of the countries with most firearms. Mostly hunting rifles. Yet there are some things we have to do, such as a mental assessment, etc. To use the weapon for hunting or whatever, we also need a hunting license. Besides this, weapon lockers are required, which weigh a lot and have some pretty sturdy locks, in order to ensure that a burglar won't be able to take the weapons.
As for crimes, some people point at Sweden for having high sexual assault statistics, which obviously include rape, but the problem with that is how our laws are written. Basically any crime related to anything sexual goes under sexual assault, and people tend to report just about anything. It basically feels like the country of SJWs at times as a result. I don't particularly mind, but the statistics do go up a lot compared to other countries. We also have high immigration, and while most don't commit serious crimes, there are those who add up minor sexual offenses, which go under the same category.
Despite all of this, our crime rates are similar. Not the sexual assault one, but if looking at the statistics, there's like a jump from 25 to 45 in a year, and those things more often than not are due to changes in legislation. I mean, come on, I doubt Serbia and Armenia have a 1 in 100,000 rate. It's more likely that things go unreported because the police don't do anything about it, so people don't even bother.
Essentially, more weapons increase weapon related violence. A person who isn't out to harm people is often less inclined to use violence to resolve issues. Therefore, even if that person has a gun, that person is less likely to use it. Meanwhile, the same person is at higher risk of getting shot. I don't know if it's just me, but assuming I'd overpower someone in order to rape, I would first of all ensure that I'm safe, which includes searching for firearms or hidden weapons in general. It's not like I'd go up to someone and say "I'm going to rape you" and let that person get ready and take out a pistol. If that's how you think reality works, you're delusional. Of course, you don't think that way though. Yet you still somehow think people having firearms would help against an unexpected attack. Not to mention, assuming there's assault involved, the victim will probably be busy defending and won't be able to reach for a weapon either way. Of course, the possibility exists that it'd work, but I just don't think it's reasonable.
All of this said though, removing weapon ownership wouldn't exactly do much in USA, as there are just too many weapons on the market. The black market is already providing weapons to criminals, and it'd just get worse. The statistics wouldn't though. Still, even assuming you'd have regulations like in Sweden, as long as you're not considered unsuitable, which fairly few are, nobody will stop you from getting a weapon, or even several.
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While I don't think you should be overly affectionate in public, I think hugs or a quick kiss should be perfectly fine. I can understand how these people think, but when it comes to the lighter PDA, it seems like it's mostly jealousy. One thing that I see as problematic however is that they don't see their parents be affectionate toward each other. Of course, it might be uncomfortable at an older age, but to not see it at all simply means you don't get used to such things. It probably contributes to the extremely low birth rates in South Korea.
When it comes to me and my family, we are extremely open when it comes to just about anything except negative feelings. It's not that we don't listen, it's that we don't want to talk about them most of the time. So displays of affection and such aren't uncommon, and we've even talked about shaving vs. not shaving pubic hair during dinner... when the girlfriend I had at the time was present. She even joined in on the conversation. She grew up in Sweden, and while her mother is from the Philippines, she seems really open about most things as well. Well, her mother seems open about most things as well, she even told me about her dating younger guys the first time I ever met her, so I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
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Okay, this has nothing to do with what was said in the video, but damn, you found good looking people this time around.
Now, when it comes to what was said, I can agree that women can be careful about what they wear, but to say that they are partly to blame is wrong. If they were pretty much leading somebody into doing it, that's one thing, but that's not what they were saying. It's also extremely uncommon, and pretty much only used when women want to frame someone for sexual harassment.
Of course, this is only true when women are the victims, but the point is, the victim shouldn't be blamed. The perpetrator is always to blame. When it comes to mistakes such as your hand accidentally touching the butt of somebody, that shouldn't really be an issue.
I accidentally touched a classmate's boobs once, and it was extremely embarrassing for me, but since it was only an accident, she just laughed it off. Of course we were closer than strangers, but it's not like we were friends. We had talked once or twice. Still, an accident is an accident, and you should apologize. It shouldn't become a huge deal.
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Toni Magz, the Old Testament is the foundation of both Christianity and Islam. Besides, the Old Testament prohibits, yet as far as I know doesn't have any punishments for eating predatory birds, pork, shellfish and so on. The supposed punishment would be diseases. If we're looking at the societies they lived in, undercooked food or raw food was common, and all of those commonly have parasites and bacteria. However, due to cooking the food properly, those would die and the food would be safe to eat.
In fact, halal is for similar reasons. The prayer is a nice touch, totally ineffective, but showing respect to the god you believe in isn't bad I suppose. So, halal was simply the safest way of handling food. The most hygienic, and the meat is cleaner that way. Besides, removal of the blood as soon as possible is something hunters do as well, because that's simply the best to do.
So while I can safely say that today all of those things are irrelevant, it is a tradition. As long as that tradition isn't harmful to people, I don't think anyone should be against it, just because it's different from what they are used to. I can only speak for myself though.
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"The problem with high taxes is that you eventually run out of other people's money."
You should say that in the first place then. As for what you're saying, it's basically that people who don't work get money, well, why change that simply because of a tax increase? I know from experience that no matter how much or little money I receive from the government when unemployed, it doesn't really change my chances of getting a job.
As for privatization, I'd say it's both good and bad. As you say, competition is good. However, higher quality and lower prices don't necessarily follow. Companies first and foremost want profit, especially in a country driven by greed. On that note, tax money can provide help for smaller companies, meaning there'll be more companies able to compete, and according to you, competition is a good thing. I live in Sweden, and we have fairly high taxes, and tax money is exactly what has saved a lot of companies. A lot of cleaning and building companies wouldn't even be able to exist without help from the government. The money the government spends on these companies is less than what they get out of it. So if we treat the government as a company, that means it's a good investment. Again, this fits perfectly into your arguments.
So, why would higher taxes be a bad thing? I'm not talking about something insane like 10%, I'm talking about anything from 0.5% - 2% increase. Although as I've already mentioned, I'm from Sweden, and we actually have lower taxes than USA, contrary to popular belief. While you'd get more money in your hand after taxes, other taxes make up for it. Yet people still have to pay massive sums for health care, education and so on. I just find it to be quite absurd.
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There are many people in the US who work that much though. Many people who have several jobs. That's not something that's expected of them, it's something that is required of them in order to earn enough to make a living.
I'm a bit curious though, are they contractually obligated to work 10 hours every day of the week, or 12 hours all days but Sunday, or 14 hours all days but Sunday and Saturday? Because honestly, that to me sounds like overtime rather than anything else. As for overtime, that is either because there's too much work, which is likely the fault of the boss, or it's because of social reasons such as not leaving before the boss. That happens in Japan as well.
Think of it this way; the boss is the person who is supposed to make sure there's enough people working in order to solve a problem, do a job or whatever. If people are constantly forced to work overtime, there's not enough people. The boss is therefore at fault. In case it's too expensive to get more people working due to additional fees besides salary, that's something politicians might want to look into.
Honestly, while I think that 70h+ is absurd, if it's so widespread, that just says a lot about the people. They aren't willing to disturb the harmony in order to solve a problem. In other words, it's something they've indirectly caused themselves. In Europe, we're taught to stand up for ourselves, that's our culture. That's why working conditions are better. It's not because we somehow have more benevolent superiors.
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@thorrex Yeah, it's all about fixing interpersonal relationships. Things like racism, while often irrational, do at least have some kind of reason behind it.
If media portrays black people as "gangsta" and the black people do nothing to work against that image, how can they expect change?
The BLM stuff does have some worth, but it also puts an awful lot of blame on others, while not taking responsibility for their own actions. It's easy to blame others for your own problems.
A similar thing happened with a guy I know who never seemed to find a girl that things worked out with, and everything about them was awful. However, it's much more reasonable to look at the common denominator, himself. If all his experiences are bad, it's likely due to himself, not others.
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I'm kind of a workaholic, I can't stand not working, but at the same time I value my own time. I work as hard as I can throughout the day, but as soon as it's time to go off work, that's what I do. Unless there's something I really have to do, I won't work overtime. If I work efficiently during the day but job keeps piling up, then that means my employer is giving me too much work, not that I'm not efficient. Working overtime frequently would merely make me too tired. One time is no big deal, but several times in a week is unreasonable. I do think that 68 hours a week is way too much though. They'd be better off lowering working hours and politicians finding a way to make it cheaper to have employees, to instead have more employees instead of longer working hours. However, the expenses go further than just salaries, so it makes sense for them to rather make people work for longer instead of getting more employees.
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WD S YouTube was created by a few individuals. If you want to take credit for YouTube just because you live in the US, that's just laughable. That's like me taking credit for the Celsius system, the Systema naturae, dynamite and so on, just because I'm Swedish. That just doesn't make any sense. If you don't actually take part in doing something, you can't take credit for it either. Likewise, unless it's a governmental institution that creates something, it's very hard to say that the country made something.
Besides, it's not like YouTube uses some super advanced technology that is some hocus pocus nobody can figure out. It just happened to become a popular streaming site unlike many others, and as such they earned more money and could hire people from all over the world to work on the project. The current YouTube is made by people from all over the world, so one country taking the credit for that would just be stupid to begin with.
So as I said, don't take credit for something you didn't take part in. You also seem to forget how many people come from other countries into the US in order to study at the universities, where they hire professors from all over the world, and that many of the people from those universities are the people who create the newest technology. But I guess you just conveniently forgot that.
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@thepriceofsalt9003 You see, what is normal is what is the most common. Therefore, anything that isn't the most common is a deviation from the norm. Is that a bad thing? Of course not. Being smart is a deviation from the norm, but you probably don't see people complaining about it.
As for sexuality being a choice, it's not really much more choice than liking pineapple on pizza or not. Either you do, or you don't.
Of course, what you say is valid, for people who are against them, it sounding more like a choice does make it easier to berate them, and that's obviously a problem. However, the problem is with the people, not what I said.
As for how I can call someone stupid? If someone is stupid, they are stupid, not much more to it. Sometimes I'm the stupid person, sometimes you're the stupid person. It's really just showing a lack of intelligence. Sometimes we aren't intelligent enough to understand a particular thing, which is a lack of intelligence. Of course, it's in reality mostly a lack of knowledge, but being stupid can also refer to poor common sense. Greater intelligence also means we can learn things more easily and use more advanced thinking patterns.
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James No, they didn't. The statistics have been fairly stable, with a spike at 2013, but it went down immediately to just slightly above normal levels in 2014.
As for whether or not they have increased, sure, the visible number has increased, but the actual number is different. Reporting sexual related crimes is simply way more common now than it was before, even if something actually happened. That's because of a shift in culture, not the population.
As for immigrants being dead weight, some are, some aren't. As for debt, our country has a lower debt than many others, so you can't pull that card. During the economy crash, Sweden was one of the countries that handled it the best.
If you simply want me to agree with the Quran saying terrible things, sure, I can do that. If you want me to agree with your statement that some immigrants are or become terrible criminals, sure. But those are individuals, it's not the entire group. Just because a person from Poland stole our boat doesn't mean all people from Poland steal boats.
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James The same report says that Serbia had a rape count of 0.9 per 100k. It's not that I doubt the numbers in Sweden, I doubt the numbers from other countries. People in Sweden report pretty much every single thing. Other countries don't seem to do that. That makes the numbers shift.
There's also the question of how the law is written. The sexual assault laws in Sweden are fairly open ended, so you can basically report whatever. It's not the country of rape, it's the country of weak little shits who get offended at anything.
I've reported a crime once before. I was slammed head first into a concrete wall, and they said they would kill me, so I found that to be quite severe. I've also been reported for punching a dude who hit me first, with the back of a book, straight in the face.
As far as I know, the no-go zones are the same as they were 20 years ago. The thing is, people walk around with more valuable things these days, so there is a bigger incentive to mug them. And as I've already said, a growing lower class doesn't help.
When it comes to crime statistics, they have increased, but when looking at the specifics, fraud is the one which has greatly increased the total amount.
I even checked the statistics before replying to you.
Christianity consists of both the OT and NT. Do you know where the Ten Commandments are from? The Old Testament. However, they have been rewritten once in a while, and they have changed them as time went on. Technically, Christianity is Judaism, but when their Messiah has arrived. The New Testament follows his story. However, the teachings mostly come from the Old Testament.
Now, finally, the debt. I wouldn't be too concerned. Do you know how debt works? You can either borrow from other countries, or from the people in the country. In the case of Sweden, most of it is from the population itself.
http://www.nationaldebtclocks.org/debtclock/japan
If we look at Japan, that's a massive debt, but their debt to other countries is negligible.
Since you were kind enough to link that page, I want to recommend the same page.
http://www.nationaldebtclocks.org/
Go there, scroll down and get to "DEBT EXPLAINED" then watch the video, and also read what they have written. Educate yourself, because you're sounding very ignorant.
Oh, and the debt Sweden has is pretty much in line with what most other countries have, except for a few who either have really low debt such as Norway, or really high debt such as Japan or USA, who by the way have 3 times as high debt per capita. If Sweden is in a shitty state, the US is basically doomed already.
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James There are no statistics proving that muslims have the highest frequency, come back once you do have them. As for why you think all of this matters when I'm only defending the law abiding citizens and not the criminals, I don't know.
They thought the journalist was out to get them. Of course, acting that way isn't reasonable, but that was filmed, and I've seen the video. There were other people from Sweden who walked past, and no stones were thrown at them.
It doesn't justify the stone throwing, but it explains why it happened. When they are used to the media and police always being out to get them, of course they become paranoid.
You first call me naïve because I point out that Judaism is the foundation for Christianity, then you confirm what I say and still call me an idiot. What are you, bipolar? What you've written is basically what I already said. Before you get all hot and bothered, read and reflect.
As for the hypothetical situation you've given, the same would happen to every other country as well. Completely worthless.
As for decreased population, Sweden's population is growing, you're talking out of your ass.
Then when it comes to savings, maybe you should check your beloved statistics before you smear shit all over the wall and call it a painting?
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDS.TOTL.ZS
If it's too much effort, let me break it down to you. Sweden is better off than Japan.
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***** If one of them happened to be poisonous, I would inspect the others more closely. Throwing them out would be a waste. It's the same with immigrants. That's why we do background checks. That's why the papers are important for immigrants.
In Sweden, we have a lot of immigrants from Finland. Their accent is obvious, and some of them have lived here for almost their whole lives.
We also have a few Norwegian immigrants, and we can hear that they are from Norway as well. The same with the Danish, German, English, French, Spanish, Thai, Japanese, Chinese. They have an accent whether they like it or not. Some have a stronger accent than others, and you can certainly reduce it, but completely removing it is almost impossible.
As for covering their hair, I don't see the problem with it. It's a piece of clothing. As long as it doesn't get in the way, it shouldn't be a problem.
It's not legal to slaughter animals without anaesthesia in Sweden. I'm pretty sure there are no exceptions to that law either, although it might change.
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Nami Rubie I can kind of understand what you mean. The closest thing I can relate to is a feeling of belonging though. When I feel like my family truly is my family. I guess it's something similar.
One thing I don't really like is the thing called destiny though. If there is such a thing, everybody could be doing whatever they want to and calling it part of destiny as an excuse. It'd be terrible. It's kind of how it was during the Medieval times with the Catholic church, people could pay to forgive their sins. As long as the church saw the payment as suitable, almost anything would be forgiven.
Still, you probably think about destiny in a different way than I do, and then it might make much more sense. In terms of creation and destruction, it's more reasonable though. If there is a set time that the world will come to an end, then that's part of a grander thing than what would in comparison only be some petty squabbles between people.
All of that aside though, I like the way you express yourself, it's easy to understand even though I can't relate to it. I can understand that your religion would be a huge source of relief. I probably would be better off if I had one as well, but I'm too much of a skeptic to even be able to, even if I truly wanted to believe in one. Instead, I can only believe in myself and my own abilities, which sometimes aren't good enough.
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+あまてらす Muslims did attack USA, although it was only one attack. I agree that USA is worse, having bombed Japan twice with nuclear weapons, killed a few hundred thousand native Americans, keeps on killing innocent people with robot attacks hitting the wrong targets, etc.
I mean, I wouldn't worry about it since I'm from Sweden, but if you're living in Africa or the Middle East, you have a real reason to fear them.
Oh, and as for ISIS being the creation of CIA, that's up for debate, and I'm not willing to do it. There's a lack of evidence of that statement, even though you can obviously point fingers, especially at things such as USA sending weapons before. As for if it would've been created by CIA, that either means CIA doesn't work for the government or even the country. Conspiracies exist everywhere, doubt them all, even if you want to believe in them. Even if one isn't trustworthy doesn't mean the other one is. People who want control will try to get it, some with underhanded means. However, none of them are to be truly trusted, because that's when you lose.
I don't think muslims as a whole is an issue, even though there are muslims who do cause a lot of problems. Immigrants and so on causing various problems, but I wouldn't blame that on their religion, as we see the same poor behaviour from immigrants who aren't muslims as well. Religion simply doesn't seem relevant in that case.
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+Conan Edogawa I'm not a muslim, and as for what USA did against Japan is terrible, no matter if they attacked a hangar first or not. I'm not saying Islam is good or anything, I'm only saying it isn't as bad as people portray it as. Of course there are questionable things in there, but so is pretty much everything related to stoning within Judaism and Christianity. If we're going to quote everything from the Quran, we might as well quote everything from the Old Testament and New Testament, along with every other scripture.
Basically, what I've been saying this entire time is that there are reasonable people, and reasonable people don't kill others or become terrorists. Most people dislike murderers and terrorists, religion isn't a factor there. If that's difficult to understand, you need to meet more people.
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Electric cars won't help that much, and the reason being that South Korea doesn't have a good solution for electricity. While it sure beats them using diesel cars, there's the cost issue and also the usability issue. If there aren't enough places to charge them at, then it's not a viable solution. You also need batteries that last long enough, which shouldn't be an issue for most people in South Korea, as the country isn't large enough, but there still needs to be charging stations in various places all across the country.
As for trees, they won't be absorbing the fine dust in particular, they'll mostly take the carbon dioxide, and while that's good and all, it won't help with the fine dust. You also have to consider the pollen production. If they plant trees that produce a lot of pollen like Japan did, you'll have way more people having trouble with their pollen allergies.
In principle, what you're saying is great and while achievable, is not as simple as you say. I just wanted to point those things out because I feel like it's important to mention.
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BBkPv "Society is just more lenient with men"
Stop lying please. Look at crime statistics and see how men and women are treated differently. Women get a shorter sentence for the same crime, yet you're here claiming that society is more lenient with men? It's the complete opposite. Of course, a pitiful amount of sex crimes actually lead to anything, but the same rate actually get a sentence out of the ones who go to court. While the following number is a complete fabrication, it's merely to show an example. 10% of the crimes that go to court lead to a sentence. This applies to all violent crime. Including sex crimes. However, a lower ratio of sex crimes go to court, primarily due to lack of evidence which leads to the investigations being cancelled. That is the biggest issue in regards to sex crimes, evidence. If I claim you raped me but I have no evidence, I can't prove that you raped me. In the eyes of the police, it's simply unreasonable for that case to go to court, because it would just be you and me telling our versions of the story. Yet there's nothing to prove either. Even in court, they'd have nothing to go on and you'd go free, regardless if you had done anything or not. That's just the reality of how our justice system works. Innocent until proven guilty. If we are to automatically assume guilt, then the amount of reports would be staggering. Imagine it, just being reported and you're treated like a criminal, regardless of whether you've done it or not.
So in short, no, the society isn't more lenient with men. I'll even add something like military duties into the mix just because that's another thing that women generally don't have to do. Yet men training to protect the country and potentially dying for that cause, that's being lenient on men? Of course, this has probably been said a billion times already, but since it's still relevant, it's still being said.
So, if you want to claim that the society is more lenient on men, then you reeeeeeeeally need to provide examples and even better, actual facts. Whether what you're saying is true or not would depend a lot on the context. Even then, that particular thing would be difficult to actually defend since there are many things speaking against it.
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I'm pretty sure two big reasons as to why Japan has high suicide rates is long working hours (and study hours) along with Japanese people generally being quite introverted. As for who is to blame, I think the person committing suicide is, not because I don't understand, but because that is the person who decided to make the choice. However, there are things that the society can improve in order to reduce the amount of suicides. One of the things mentioned is that companies would rather replace depressed people is one of the things that would have to change. That would merely build up stress, even if someone isn't even very depressed. There's also school education, they should talk about these subjects in school, partly in order to make people aware of it, and also to make talking about it more socially acceptable.
People should also learn how to appreciate themselves. That is difficult, but it really does help. I'm saying this as a person who has been dealing with depression for his entire life, someone who has always felt left outside, and someone who has been bullied. Not severe bullying or anything like that, as I'm not someone who is afraid of biting back.
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One of the main complaints I've seen is that they don't sing in Korean. I personally don't really care, both English and Korean are foreign languages to me, so it makes little difference, but I can understand the Korean audience. However, as they've said, they consider themselves to be Z-Pop idols, not K-Pop idols, so if you look at it that way, it makes sense. I personally think Z-Pop is kind of strange as a classification, since it really only refers to age, but it doesn't make much difference.
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I don't get why people would be so delusional about living in another country. I could move to any English speaking country and basically live as if I were still living here in Sweden, although I'd speak English instead. If I move to South Korea, I'd first and foremost learn Korean, but I'd get by with the little Korean I know along with English until the point that I'd gotten better at Korean. The main difference is what I'd see in stores basically. I'd have to adjust a bit to that, but after that my life would be like just about anywhere else.
People are people, no matter where you go. While cultures are different, they aren't so different that you can't just adapt. Either way, those cultural differences only really matter in social situations. There will be differences, some countries have different benefits, but also different drawbacks. Sweden has free education, but higher taxes to compensate. The US has lower taxes, but health care will cost you a bit in case you get sick. Comparing it to various strategies, Sweden is a low risk-low reward strategy while the US is a high risk-high reward strategy. That doesn't mean either is better or worse, they are just different.
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"So South Korea has the same issues with feminism as a lot of other countries. Things are done in a way that favors women rather than trying to make things equal. I realize that women overall are in a worse position, but you don't fix that by discriminating men within certain areas."
I wrote that in a different comment. I think it applies very well here. Feminism is supposedly for equality, yet they don't make decisions that promote equality. It's like having a scale and taking weights from one side to the other until they both weigh the same, disregarding whether or not it's equal in reality. This means women are favored at times and men at others. If equality means equal opportunities and mutual respect, then they clearly fail. Even looking at something like the military, if men are 95% of the people working there, then it's clearly a disadvantage for those who would rather work or study.
So, in the spirit of feminism, I say the military should have a 50/50 gender ratio, not counting whatever genders that people claim to be, I only care about the chromosomes. All workplaces should have a 50/50 ratio, or at least as close as possible. Salaries should not be affected by gender. Everybody should have the same responsibilities and the same rights.
I sincerely think this is impossible to achieve, but at least it should be a goal.
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James That's not what I wrote, you clearly don't read what I write, so I'll just block you now. However, I'll do you a favor and answer what you wrote.
They aren't, but I also don't know why you named those in particular. You simply brought it up for no reason. The country I'm from is considered a Christian country, so obviously the risk of Christian terrorism is drastically lowered. They have no reason to do anything, because everything more or less works with their religion, and they have no intent on making their own country like ISIS.
As for what you're saying about what they did in Persia, etc. I don't know the specifics. Still, I've never said anything about the terrorist acts or war being a good thing. I've said the opposite, so you're still just rambling on.
IRA isn't a terrorist groups, but they did perform terrorist acts. It's a big difference. I've also already said that I only compare the acts, not the groups. However, you're not reading what I write, but seeing as I've blocked you and you can no longer reply to me, you can read and reflect a bit.
Their ideologies aren't the same, I've never claimed that. They aren't the same, I've never claimed that. You've put words in my mouth, words I've never said. Stop trying to twist things to your favor and take things for what they are, not what they could be.
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Anataro I want the source for that, because I can't find anything about it. Still, assuming what you've said is true, if they are muslims, and let's suppose they are. In that case, they aren't exactly following their religion. Therefore, one can also assume that it isn't a religious issue.
If you call it an ethnic issue, I'm completely fine with that. However, ethnicity and religion aren't the same. A person born in Syria isn't automatically a muslim, just because the majority are muslims. In fact, roughly 10% of the population are Christians.
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Anataro I see! Well, not sure where you got Afghanistan from, but fair enough. Still doesn't really change what I wrote. At most, it's an ethnical issue, not a religious one.
I also want to point out this quote. "Aftonbladet skriver att åklagaren yrkar på att de misstänkta, utöver straff, även ska utvisas."
The prosecutor says that the suspects should be expelled from the country. If they are, I'd say the system is working properly. Honestly, I'd say that it's a bit weak though. They should be expelled and then get the punishment according to the law of their country. Now, looking at their law, it's punishable by death.
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/10/08/afghan-official-authorities-hang-5-men-convicted-gang-rape-in-case-that.html
I assume my thinking is a bit inhumane, but honestly, I don't care that much. I don't like criminals no matter who they are. I just don't like involving religion into the matter, unless it's actually relevant to the issue itself, which it isn't in this case.
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Mhaster i You forgot that there are loads of replies after that, and you didn't specify exactly what you were replying to?
As for why I reject Islam, it's because I simply don't like religions in general. Sure, there are reasonable things said in them, but when every single religion has something reasonable, who are you supposed to believe? Instead of choosing to believe one, I choose to believe none. As for why I know a lot about religion, it's because I'm interested in them, on a scientific level. Social science you know. Many of the religions largely reflect the society people lived in when they were written down, even more recent ones. This pattern is shown throughout history, and in that case, I might as well believe in Odin and Thor, as I'm from Sweden. Now, believing that the world is part of a big tree and that there's a squirrel running up and down as some kind of messenger seems a bit silly, don't you think?
After all, there is no proof of any such thing. However, there are a lot of stones with runes that describe some things, and there are some old stories that have been written down.
Now, let's compare, to avoid making you upset, this religion and Judaism. It is highly relevant as it's also an Abrahamic religion. They believe in an almighty entity that is the creator of everything, both living and dead. There's no proof of it, but there's a book and some stories written down.
How does it make sense for me to believe one and not the other, when both have the same amount of proof, and they all claim to be true? Are all true, or is only one true?
Islam claims it's the true way, while Christianity does the same. At the same time, we've got things like Hinduism and Shinto, both of which have several gods. They both revolve a lot around the notion of karma. Hinduism on a more personal level, and Shinto like an interpersonal relationship between humans, gods and other deities.
Then there's also the fact that religion creates borders between people. Not all religions are on good terms with each other, and they also have fixed rules, making understanding others more difficult. As a legal guidance, religion can be a good thing, and it can certainly be used as some kind of lifestyle guidance as well, although I find that laws in general can do that just fine.
So, besides being afraid of what happens once you die, or that you'll somehow make your death come sooner than it otherwise would have, is there truly a reason to believe in a religion? Also, how do you choose said religion? You're most likely a muslim because your parents are muslims. You didn't make the choice in that case.
I'm not saying all of this to be disrespectful, I merely wish for you to understand my way of thinking. You don't have to agree with it, but in that case, you should at least try to explain why. Otherwise this won't be a discussion, and I'm not willing to continue speaking with you.
Sorry for the long reply, I hope it's somewhat worth reading at least.
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I wouldn't say it's terrible, but it's not good. The biggest feminist wave seems to have passed though. The same thing will likely happen in South Korea, it's just really bad for a while, then it gets better. The problem I see immediately in South Korea is that it had more differences to begin with, while Sweden made changes progressively, followed by this huge wave of feminists seemingly out of nowhere.
Currently people seem more concerned about the immigrants and crimes rather than feminist issues though. We've gone from 3 dangerous areas in the 90's to slightly above 100. Basically, if you walk around with a camera in any of those areas, you're very likely to get hit by rocks thrown at you.
If you didn't know, Sweden is one of the countries that has taken in the most immigrants per capita (person) in the EU, and our government didn't realize that it'd become an issue until it became one, and now they are in the denial phase. What happened was that immigrants, refugees mostly, ended up in the poor areas, and learning Swedish became increasingly difficult as more immigrants had to learn it. Therefore, unemployment rates in those areas increased, and as such, the crime rates also increased. In some areas, there's at least one car fire every week, and in some areas it's even more frequent. It's basically a third world country inside of Sweden. Many of the car fires happen for insurance reasons though, but some are to distract police while others do drug deals and so on.
In other words, nobody got time to worry about feminism, there are bigger issues.
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I am not following my dream. I don't have one. However, I have a passion, and that's helping others. I am therefore going to work with pharmacy. I know how much they can help others, so I want to make sure people get proper medicine.
As for curiosity, I've got plenty. I've got opinions, I've got questions, I'm not scared of confronting others. I want to know more, I want to share my opinion and hear the opinions of others, even if I don't always agree with them.
The last time I shared my opinion, people were upset. I said that a girl should open her mouth more when singing a particular song, because it suits the song better. A simple thing as that was attacked, because the girl was only 7 years old. They said I shouldn't judge her because of the age, but others judged her as well. The difference is that they were only saying kind words and praising her.
I think that is something especially common nowadays, not accepting critique and negative opinions. Of course, if I was being rude about it, I could understand why, but constructive criticism is more often than not helpful. Instead, they say harmful things to anybody who dares say something different.
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Valeria Vagapova Of course. From what I've heard, China has somewhat of a culture where you're supposed to prove yourself. That's probably the cause.
I'm from Sweden, and we are taught that we are good as we are, but then people are surprised that study results are getting worse. There are many good things about the Swedish culture, but the "accept everyone as they are" culture makes it so that people are less willing to improve themselves, and everyone else is instead blamed. Basically, take the worst out of the feminists and apply it over a country. It's not quite that bad, but you get the idea. It's good that uniqueness is accepted, but it also leads to negative traits being overlooked despite being possible to fix. Apathy is the most convenient way to live in Sweden, because you don't care.
So I honestly think that this particular part about Chinese culture is something more cultures should adopt. It shouldn't be on the level of South Korea though. Good study results are nice and all, but they also have among the highest suicide rates.
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calico, I have little to say about those watching the videos, I just think it's terrible. However, what you're saying about "catching those pervs" is something I'm a bit curious about. Do you mean those who watch the videos, or those who record them? Because I think it's unreasonable to catch all of the people who watch those videos, there's way too much digging for information that would need to be done, and other countries tend to not want to give away personal information on a whim. When it comes to those who record the videos however, those are the core issue here. Catching them would at the very least reduce the amount of videos that'll be uploaded which is a good thing.
While I'm not against porn, I'm against porn that is filmed against the will of the people in the video. Heck, I'm against most things like that. I think privacy is one of our most precious things, and to have that just taken away in that manner, that's just not good.
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Potato Army, yeah, we all have different cultures. Mine cares more about what you do, rather than the minor things like mannerisms, although straight up being rude is obviously never fine. The language is quite neutral, and while there are honorifics, they are rarely used outside of very formal gatherings. One strange thing however is that I can perfectly understand the Japanese honorifics, but not other ones. I can somewhat explain it through those honorifics being more like titles, rather than anything else though. It's like saying Mr. Other languages tend to have more family-oriented honorifics, which to me just feels strange. So I guess the issue would be the family vs non-family thing rather than actually using honorifics, really.
As for replying fast, I'm sitting at my computer while studying, so I take short breaks once in a while. If I see a notification I reply basically. It sometimes takes a bit longer to notice them though.
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I would totally support a company wanting to add filters so that you can remove that stuff from your personal feed, that's a service. Straight up banning content and such is just bad. In regards to this, I'm not from China so I honestly don't have a say on the matter, but my opinion is that homosexuality is bad/wrong. I don't mind it at all however. If a man decides to have sex with a man, that's simply none of my business, and I won't judge them any different for it. Basically, while I think it's wrong, I don't think it's a problem. Since it's not problematic, it's also not something that needs to be remedied. A ban is therefore not necessary.
Then when it comes to the whole parent-child thing, I would support my child even if it were homosexual. That's not even a matter of liking or disliking, that's simply your responsibility as a parent in my opinion. I'd be more concerned about who the partner is, really.
If anyone is upset by my opinions, please do understand that my opinions won't change because of anything you say, and please also understand that I am accepting of homosexuals and whatever sexuality it may be. My opinion is purely based off of reproductional reasons, not ethical reasons.
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Feminism is such a strange topic. On one hand, equality is great, on the other hand, we'll never achieve it without forcing it, and forcing equality is bad. As for why it is bad, that's simply because it will force quotas, it will force women to do things that they generally don't do. Sending women into war is also a great idea if you want to reduce your population, since women are more important than men when it comes to increasing the population.
So there really are jobs where men are more suitable, and there certainly are jobs where women are more suitable. Even disregarding social status, family and everything like that, women simply tend to lean more toward certain professions while men tend to lean toward other professions. That's because we are different. Does that mean we should stop women from participating in war? Of course not. However, forcing a 50/50 ratio of men and women within everything is just a recipe for disaster. It's about equal opportunity, not actual equality.
Another problem regarding quotas is that a man might have better qualifications than the woman, but the woman gets the job simply because of a quota. This can obviously happen the other way around as well. Either way there'll be discrimination based on gender, and not a selection due to skills. If they are equally qualified, it doesn't matter. That just means the next time it'll be a man getting a job. However, people aren't equally qualified no matter how we twist or turn things. I am not as good as a friend of mine at mathematics, but I am better at schematics. That's just a simple example, but it's something that shows itself frequently. Therefore, forcing quotas is simply not a good idea in general. It's too difficult to implement, and the focus should instead lie in removing discrimination and prejudice. Mostly prejudice, because discrimination is often made due to prejudice.
So, with all of this said, some might say "you seem like a feminist" and some might say "you really don't seem like a feminist" and my answer is; I'm not a feminist. Because I simply don't see the need for labels. I want a functioning society, and to me, getting people to work with what they are proficient at and what makes sense is simply the way to go. That naturally leads to removing discrimination as much as we can, because that's a detriment to productivity. I also want discrimination removed because it creates negativity. While discrimination once in a while can be overlooked, if it builds up too much then that'll lead to negative mental health issues. That again, lowers productivity. Because people feel bad. A happy person is an efficient person. Of course, not always, but generally. We always have to speak generally, because we'll find exceptions no matter where we go.
Of course, the main problem with feminism, and most things, is extremism. There are extremists within the feminist movement. There are also a lot of concerns regarding the MeToo thing. Posting names for the world to see can be extremely dangerous. Even if what you're saying is true, it can have consequences that you might have to take the responsibility for later on. Besides, if no proof can be provided, it's basically slander. Yes, the person might be the worst person in the world in your opinion, but that doesn't make it right. Two wrongs doesn't make a right.
I also want to point out that there are actual issues such as the wage gap (which is often exaggerated through various means for impact) that generally favors men. There are some things that explain some parts of it, while other things are unjustified. Such issues don't exactly need feminism in my opinion, at least not where I live. There are already people working to solve such things with or without the current day feminism. This might not be true for other countries however, so please take that into consideration. Some countries genuinely need feminism, some don't, or at least not to any greater extent that wouldn't just naturally occur.
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Regarding the risk of sexual assault being one of the reasons why people wouldn't date, that just seems absurd to me. I can almost assure you that the risk isn't higher now than it has been before, and while it's just speculation, I'd say that the risk is actually lower now compared to 10-20 years ago. More cases being reported doesn't mean it happens more, it just means people dare to report it these days, which is a good thing. Few such cases end up being solved, but merely reporting it is pretty big. Assume the reported person does it again and is reported once again, it'll be considered more serious since it's a potential repeat offender.
As for the whole fear of rejection, people should just man up, for a lack of a better term, because if we never dare to do anything, our lives will become stagnant. Passivity is the greatest poison, so don't be afraid of taking chances. At worst you'll be rejected, but even if you do get rejected, you should know that had you not taken that step, you would've wasted your time entirely. That's not to say that a rejection doesn't hurt, but it is not something you need to be worried of. On the other hand, what if you aren't rejected?
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I don't think it's a trend in Japan. I wish it were a trend in Japan. I don't think this would get that popular in Sweden. First of all, temperature would make it unbearable like... at least 8 months of the year where I live. In southern Sweden, it'd be reasonable, but I doubt even there. Oh, and it looks extreme on Amaki Jun, but people have to understand that she also held the sweater back toward the middle to expose as much as possible. That's not the natural shape of the sweater.
I personally think it's kind of like a dress with an exposed back, but a bit more extreme. I'd certainly look if I saw someone wear it, but whether or not I'd keep looking depends more on the body of the wearer, and let's be real here, a person with big curves will be looked at by both men and women either way, so those people probably wouldn't be too unused to it. Doesn't mean they all feel good about it, but still, you probably get it.
As for people who would wear it... I can think of a few actually. My ex girlfriend would probably like it but not wear it in public, but instead in front of her boyfriend... for reasons.
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I studied Spanish for a little more than 3 years. We went through grammar, (-ar, -o, -as, -a, -an and all of those for verbs for example) but we also did a lot of pronunciation and how to speak in actual conversations. In that sense it was good. The bad thing was that we had teachers leaving all the time, so I ended up having around 6 different teachers during that time. It became extremely inefficient, so I can't speak much. I can understand way more than I can speak. If I hear two people speak Spanish, I'll roughly understand what they are talking about.
I think pronunciation is very important, and should be one of the first things to work on. Grammar and vocabulary is something you'll learn eventually, but with pronunciation, unless you fix that first, you'll get bad habits.
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pijuskri, yeah, it's likely the cause. As for why that is, cultural differences surely can make huge differences. People have tried unions in the US, and they do exist, but people don't seem to pay much attention to them. To me as someone from Sweden, that feels really strange since people will think you're strange if you aren't part of one. People also look down on companies who aren't connected to unions, and while it's not a requirement, it's basically a requirement. Even if nobody is being mistreated, people will basically treat the company as if they are devils. So that's a negative with how things are here. There's little freedom of choice when it comes to some things, for better or worse.
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I've seen a similar situation happen here in Sweden, but the police officers were male. While I can certainly criticize female officers for their ability to restrain people, I simply don't see it as a huge issue. Generally, they don't even need to restrain anybody and can function well regardless.
So, do I think standards should be changed? Not really. There aren't enough police officers, and while female officers are generally lacking in the physical strength and size department, they generally don't need that. I think the main problem with this case in particular was that they didn't call for police reinforcements in case it was necessary, because let's be fair, you either need overwhelming strength or technique to restrain someone of similar size, let alone someone larger than you. However, I'm pretty sure that in most countries, helping police officers is allowed if necessary. Therefore, getting help from civilians shouldn't be an issue.
Flipping things around a bit, assume there is no lack of people wanting to become police officers, then there'd be no need to force female officers to do physically demanding things. They would be better off talking to people, as people find women less intimidating in general, which means they'd be more open to talking to the female officer. That's a very important job as well and shouldn't be taken for granted.
As many others have pointed out though, this seems more like an issue regarding training rather than strength or size, something I'd be inclined to agree with. She probably needs more training, and it's possible that she needs strength training as well, but police officers should in my opinion have at least two obligatory strength training sessions a week to force them to stay in shape. Of course, that's expensive and people tend to shy away from expenses like those.
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I'll have to agree with Mr. Blue here, but back to the topic at hand. Yes, society shapes us into who we are in one way or another. Even if we don't think that's the case, we are. One example of a trend of sorts, beards. There are loads of men with beards these days, way more than 10 years ago. Even if they saw someone with a beard and thought "that looks cool, I also want a beard" and thus leading to their personal choice, that's still an influence. Then when there are two people with beards, more people will see, and more people make the same decision. Then there's suddenly a society where men have beards. One can also look into things such as feminism. There is no particular reason why there'd suddenly be such a huge amount of feminists, when the world is actually more accepting of women than ever before.
Feminism is a trend like any other. Politics have trends, fashion have trends, relationships have trends. Everything has and will always have trends.
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Regarding a quote one person said. If three people look to the sky, the rest will do the same. It's a herd mentality, but I dare you to try it sometime. It might take a long time, but stay in place for a long time where many people pass by. You might eventually end up making loads of people around you look up to the sky, simply because enough people do it. Never say what you're looking at though. Let people imagine it on their own.
I do think it's quite boring when people blindly follow trends. Everything just ends up being the same. That said, I've been one who has started trends where I live, but it's just a small town, so that's not exactly difficult. Make people interested in what you're doing, wearing or whatever, then some people will do the same. Eventually, more people will do it, and once you've stopped doing that, everyone else will be doing it. Because that's basically how trends work. A person who is ahead of the trend is trendy. The one who follows the trend is a sheep.
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Honestly, it's basically the same thing no matter where you'd ask these questions. People are against it because there are poor people, because there are sometimes criminals among the refugees, because it'll create inconveniences due to the language barrier and so on. It happens everywhere. Once it reaches a certain point, people start to worry about their culture dying off in favor of some other culture, but the same people didn't care at all about their culture before the refugees actually started coming there.
I'm totally in favor of background checks, but considering that it's a civil war, I'm unsure what the situation is like. If it endangers them, then that's obviously not a good option. If it doesn't, then a background check should be mandatory. It doesn't seem like there's a lot of refugees, all things considered. Less than a thousand it seems like.
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Sweden doesn't have a minimum wage, but I'm guessing the lowest salary you'll be able to get is about $10/h. Since there are organizations working for that cause, things work out even without a legislated minimum wage. In regards to raising the minimum wage though, I don't think it should be a huge issue. I can only speak based off of knowledge about how it works in Sweden, but here, the employer needs to pay about 150% of the salary, where 50% are basically taxes and other fees. Efforts have been made to lower that cost, but that is supposedly one of the biggest reasons why more people don't get jobs at smaller companies. I can't say for sure whether or not that's true, since I don't know enough people with their own companies to really know, but that's what I've heard some say.
Assuming there's a similar thing in South Korea, then as the minimum wage is raised, those expenses should be lowered as well. To get some kind of equilibrium.
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@lelechim The population is spread out fairly evenly over a massive area, which makes various services more expensive. That's part of the reason why they need so much tax money.
Also, unlike the US, education and healthcare is mostly free in Sweden. Having the spending on such matters mostly as taxes effectively works as a loan from the country, which is generally beneficial for the individual due to increased financial security. It has drawbacks for sure though, but in my opinion fairly minor. I just wish that the people in charge could be more responsible with the money sometimes.
Also, you shouldn't be disillusioned by a few numbers. The US gets a similar amount of tax money per capita. The taxes are merely hidden away elsewhere so people don't see them as easily. Your government simply spends significantly more money on the military, which is part of why you "can't have nice things." Still, the military is a necessity even though they probably overspend on it in the US.
As for why no minimum wage works, it's because of the organizations, pretty sure they are called trade unions in English. That's what Google Translate tells me as well. How they work may be different from how they work in other countries though, so I don't know if it's a 1:1 comparison. It's not necessarily a good idea to leave it all up to the market by the way. While it usually sorts itself out, having people put pressure on the businesses to not treat their employees like serfs just because they have no other options is generally a bad idea. That does happen unfortunately.
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I've seen Chinese tourists. I've never considered them louder than anyone else, although I've heard loud Chinese tourists. While I've seen it as inappropriate in some cases, such as places which are usually quiet, I experience just as many other tourists and even locals be loud. Besides, it's natural for tourists to be a bit more loud, because chances are that they are excited. Excited people tend to be louder.
I don't think there's anything wrong with reminding people to not be loud, but I don't think people should be upset about it. I know loads of people who go to Spain to party for example. I just shake my head at it, because I just don't get it. Instead of being loud assholes in their own country, they decide to be loud assholes in another country. Meanwhile, when I go to another country, I want to walk around and eat food. Seeing what's around me, examining how people act with each other, eating local food.
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Haven't seen this one before. I think a light tan is better, but it shouldn't be too far off from the normal skin tone. I'm extremely pale (I feel more red than white most of the time) so I obviously shouldn't have much of a tan, but just a normal one that I'd get from outdoor activities once in a while, no problem.
Still, the whole pale vs tan thing has been going on for ages. In Sweden, it was the same too, the whiter, the better. Likewise in England and around there. France as well. The rest... I don't know much about actually. I'd imagine it was the same. Only rich people could afford to not work outside, or that was the idea at least. These days, a lot of work is inside, so that isn't the same. However, in Asian countries, there is more work outdoors, which could be a factor. It's more similar to how it was here. It's a very recent thing. My grandmother told me about what it was like when she grew up. It wasn't until she was an adult that things began to change a bit, so that's around 50 years ago.
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Addiction is a problem, regardless of what you're addicted to. Whether it's working out, dangerous sports, video games, drugs, water, food. Once something has become an addiction (or obsession) then it has become a problem.
By the way, I've been... not so much addicted, but I've had a game be pretty much my only daily activity before. The only other thing I did was look for jobs. So... as you might've guessed, I was unemployed and basically didn't have anything better to do. I did look for jobs each day though, so it wasn't as if my life was consumed by the game. I could stop playing and do something else as well, although I rarely did as well. So it wasn't addiction, but probably could've become one eventually if I didn't have anything else to do.
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"If teens vote, the world will change!"
I do agree with that... but I don't think it'll necessarily be for the better. Here's the thing, teens often think they know everything, they don't need to know more. As I've grown older, I've started to see exactly how little the teens actually know. I encourage being active within politics, I was somewhat active within politics as a teenager as well, but my efforts were in making others vote for the party and doing good things rather than just me voting for the party. If I even got two people to vote for the party I represented with my activities, I would've done at least twice as much for them as if I had simply voted.
This also seems spurred on by recent/upcoming events, and while I think the engagement is great, you should always think about the actions. They might be a year too young to vote for this particular thing, and that might be unfortunate. However, if they lower the voting age, then there'll still be people who are in the same position as they were prior to the change. Unless you allow voting for everybody, there'll always be someone who is locked out. However, I think we can all agree that everybody being allowed to vote would be a terrible idea. So where should the limit be? There is one already, but why is that one lacking somehow? Why would it need to be lowered? What can they provide that isn't just padding the numbers?
I might sound cynical or way too critical, but I simply don't agree with the principle of it. I think doing what these people say without extremely strong and good reasons is just stupid.
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