«12. . .2,1432,1442,1452,1462,1472,1482,149. . .2,6512,652»
Welcome back and good luck with college! Am I right in assuming you're going into ichthyology to further improve that trout fishing score?
I'm going into my second year now, and it's been pretty alright. However, everything except some labs has been online, so I'll basically be getting my first year experience, except all my classes are second year. I will say that it's been harder than retail imo, procrastination aside.
Speaking of which, I have an assignment I should probably do.
Frieden-und Freudenland, Kyratistani, Jutsa, Mount Seymour, and 7 othersAtsvea, Ruinenlust, Lord Dominator, Terrabod, Lura, Middle Barael, and Nation of ecologists
Looks like we're all going to college (I'm starting in the fall too)! Regretfully, I don't have the retail experience to compare it against. :P
I'm really glad that it looks like my university will be back in person for almost everything by the end of the summer. I feel like I'd find it hard enough just to get oriented, let alone with the isolation of doing everything online. Would be interested to hear others' experiences, though.
Sacara, Frieden-und Freudenland, Kyratistani, Jutsa, and 9 othersAtsvea, Ruinenlust, Lord Dominator, Uan aa Boa, Canaltia, Terrabod, Middle Barael, Nation of ecologists, and Kurdislavic algharbistan
Hello comrades! Who wants a potato? :)
I just graduated from college. College is going to be tough so staying on top of assignments as they're assigned is important especially in your upper division courses. College classes quality will vary depending on professors but good college classes are fun to attend. I really encourage you guys to join some activities or clubs to make some friends and make your college experience more enjoyable. I got myself deep into marching band where I made a lot of my friends and made my college experience enjoyable.
Einswenn, Frieden-und Freudenland, Kyratistani, Jutsa, and 9 othersMount Seymour, Atsvea, Ruinenlust, Lord Dominator, Canaltia, Terrabod, New ladavia, Middle Barael, and Nation of ecologists
probably better for me then my favorite form of dietary starch,
which is a bowl full of thick roapy udon, intermixed with bits of dead animals and edible fungus.
Kyratistani, Atsvea, Ruinenlust, Lord Dominator, and 5 othersUan aa Boa, Terrabod, New ladavia, Middle Barael, and Nation of ecologists
If all goes right (and from the looks of it it will) I'll be getting my Bachelor's degree in a few weeks :o I remember when I started college, gosh that was six years ago already (I did a different bachelor before the one I'm doing now). I wish you all good luck and happy days! Enjoy this period of your life c:
Felinetopia, Frieden-und Freudenland, Kyratistani, Mount Seymour, and 8 othersAtsvea, Lord Dominator, Uan aa Boa, Terrabod, New ladavia, Simbolon, Middle Barael, and Nation of ecologists
Well, now you have me not liking the guy either. And herself too, in a way. I don’t like when random people cross boundaries and invade personal space, especially in such sensitive, intimate topics as you shared even if we lived together as roommates.
Also I don’t get those people who see their partners as a tool for sexual satisfaction without considering partners’ will and desires as well. Like in this case I deeply believe using condoms is way more rational and heathy rather than taking pills that mess with hormones and human organism in general. Besides, being extremely egocentric & egoistic person myself, I still do care about those I choose to date/be with. And, finally, if one wants to have completely submissive partners who’d do everything one says there are plenty of other options than regular rather classic dating with equally respected person.
Frieden-und Freudenland, Kyratistani, Daarwyrth, Ruinenlust, and 6 othersLord Dominator, Terrabod, New ladavia, Middle Barael, Nation of ecologists, and Difinbelk
Oh boy, I completely and totally get you. And what a complete ***hole of a douchebag, seriously. The story you told has like a gazillion red flags that he's a very toxic influence (in anyone's life probably) and honestly I don't get why she's still with him. But it's absolutely not your duty or responsibility to try to get her to see reason or motivate her to change her life. It's super nice and incredibly kind of you that you listened to her and heared her out, but she absolutely did cross a number of boundaries by oversharing. The problem is just that when people start talking in a situation like that there's really no way to get them to stop talking, really.
The way you handled it though is very honourable in my opinion. In a very awkward situation you responded to the best of your abilities and from what you told us you handled it well. I hope she'll come to understand that she overshared and that she'll return to the state of previous boundaries, but I understand that the knowledge you learned can't be undone.
Einswenn, Frieden-und Freudenland, Kyratistani, Mount Seymour, and 9 othersAtsvea, Ruinenlust, Lord Dominator, Uan aa Boa, Terrabod, New ladavia, Middle Barael, Nation of ecologists, and Difinbelk
Thanks Daarwyrth, I was in desperate need to double post and you saved me from this severe crime.
* * *
Let me share my other outrage after recent news from my city spread across the entire country. A teenage boy got assaulted and beaten by adult man on street for wearing… an earring. This made the man believe the guy is gay so he started to insult the guy first (along with his friend) and then attacked. Having many injures, the victim is under the risk of getting blind.
The guy wasn’t alone. He had several friends with him, some of them tried to stop the fight but the other attacker intercepted it. Frankly speaking, the victim group could unite and attack back to defend themselves, they had all the chances (outnumber + the attackers were possibly drunk according to some reports). Although I do understand the teens were scared first of all, and under stress situation which didn’t let them analyse everting quick and sober. It’s easy to judge from the outer side as the one who only seen the surveillance footage of the attack.
The story doesn’t end here. The victim’s family now shared the conversation with prosecutor who is supposed to defend the guy by default but instead openly said following (literal translation): “The process will be long. If you want to make everything by and according to the law, you need to give more”. “Give” here means “to pay”, tricks of words. To pay more? Excuse me? This insane, mad state machine of injustice doesn’t even hide these things anymore.
The story spread as fire. I’ll be following it but am pretty sure it won’t end as good for the victim as it has to by all the laws of legality and sanity. I don’t think prosecutor expected the conversation leak. They would either deny it or accuse the victim family of illegal speech share or such :)
Octopus islands, Frieden-und Freudenland, Kyratistani, Mount Seymour, and 10 othersDaarwyrth, Atsvea, Lord Dominator, Uan aa Boa, Terrabod, New ladavia, Middle Barael, Nation of ecologists, Arklanda, and Difinbelk
i've lost count of how many times i've dropped out of college, usually for financial reasons (i refuse to indenture myself for loans)
(and started back with a different major every time i did. usually some kind of engineering/science major with a visual arts minor)
(my first major was geology, though i'm crappy at math and never got further then quadratics and slope intersects, and no longer remember how to do either of them either)
if they were set up so i could do so though, i'd have taken one course per semester, every or almost every semester, for my entire life.
always interested in anything to do with the intersection between infrastructure and environment, and designing the technologies of infrastructure to respect the diversity of environment and the dependency of sapient species on that diversity.
Effazio, Frieden-und Freudenland, Kyratistani, Mount Seymour, and 7 othersAtsvea, Ruinenlust, Lord Dominator, Terrabod, The void territories, Middle Barael, and Difinbelk
Glad to have been of service, but that sounds absolutely horrible. It sickens me that there are people who think that they have the right to beat someone up like that, and then the authorities don't care about getting justice done, but about lining their own pockets with as much money as they can get. I recall stories from my parents about the socialist regime in Poland and what you spoke of sounds very reminiscent of those stories. The worst part is that apparently where you live it still hasn't gone away.
At the same time, I recall some of the people who I went to law school with before my English Language and Literature BA. The only thing that seemed to motivate them seemed money, and some of them even went "of course I would defend a murderer or rapist if they paid well" and I just couldn't believe what I was hearing. Yet as it seems, those people do get through to important positions in the justice system and apparently need to be "given" more to try to see that justice done. It's absolutely ludicrous.
It also saddens me to see LGBTQ+ hate is on the rise in some countries. I just can't wrap my head around why they hate us so much, like... why can't they let us just live and be? We don't harm them, we don't harm anyone... and yet they treat us like we're trying to kill their babies and murder them in their sleep. Like what the heck?! (Sorry, rant) (
Einswenn, Kyratistani, Mount Seymour, Atsvea, and 5 othersLord Dominator, Terrabod, Middle Barael, Nation of ecologists, and Difinbelk
Not intending to flame anything, but the largest investor in such hate is religion. Abrahamic ones, to be precise, including this case I shared. I personally separate terms “religion” and “faith” while being unable to tolerate the former. Faith leads to connection between an individual and their god while religion defines “right” and “wrong” sides of society, labelling certain groups violence-worthy. Obviously homophobes don’t consist of religious people only, however, many cases I’ve seen and heard of were directly or indirectly linked to religious demagoguery and its aftertaste.
Kyratistani, Daarwyrth, Atsvea, Lord Dominator, and 5 othersUan aa Boa, Terrabod, Middle Barael, Nation of ecologists, and Difinbelk
I missed quite a lot in the past day.
1. Falkland Islands
This is quite the bruh moment for me. Last week I met someone from there for the first time on Discord, and now I get to meet someone from there on NationStates too?! I'm curious if you two know each other...
2. Economy
As others said, ever since I got my economy to the 100 level, it hasn't budged. Even when I recently chose to entirely deindustrialise my nation in one issue (according to the guide this normally decreases economy by like -20 points), it didn't change at all.
3. Tertiary Education
Interesting that so many of us are going to university or college for the first time this year! All of you feel older than 17/18 to me and yet most of you seem to by my age?? Good luck everyone, I'm also starting university in the autumn.
4. The Attack
Very sad and also strange to hear. I guess this is just an isolated crazy because earrings on men are not the most rare thing (though it is rarer in that region of the world yes). Well, just a month ago a woman kissed her boyfriend and then a random lady started physically assaulting her until she had to go to the hospital, because "my children should not see you kissing!" and that was heterosexual. It was Yekaterinburg I think.
5. Religion
I disagree necessarily with that premise. For example, is the largest source of homophobia in the ex-Soviet Union really religion? Because most people are not that religious. The most homophobic times of our former country were under Stalin, who vehemently opposed all religion and banned all of it. He ingrained masculinity and homophobia into the broader Soviet culture. I view it as responsible and not religion.
Einswenn, Octopus islands, Jutsa, Mount Seymour, and 9 othersAtsvea, Ruinenlust, Lord Dominator, Uan aa Boa, Terrabod, Middle Barael, Nation of ecologists, Arklanda, and Difinbelk
My mate has been in such situation for his hairstyle and stylish (yet not gay) outfit while the guy is not gay either. However, he could… ehmmm… resist the attack in time so the attacker surely had some regrets for bothering 😏 all the cases are isolated when you hear them here and there but once you start to list them you can see how terribly common they actually are.
There were longer moralist times before Soviet Union. Soviets just followed what has already been set by their predecessors.
Russian cases are based both on post-Christian propaganda which is getting rapidly restored as you personally know, hehe, and basic ignorance and lack of social education. Central Asian realm is influenced by Muslim religious mindset which has even harsher stance on gays. This also has roots in the times far before soviets (and Russians) came there to “nicely ask” to join the empire.
Kyratistani, Mount Seymour, Atsvea, Ruinenlust, and 6 othersLord Dominator, Terrabod, Bunkaiia, Middle Barael, Nation of ecologists, and Difinbelk
Mental state update: I have been feeling way better lately, probably the best I have in months. I have no idea how, but that depressing fog that's been in my mind for the past 2-3 months has finally gone away, and I can think way more clearly now. Hopefully, I can be done with this soon.
Kyratistani, Jutsa, Daarwyrth, Atsvea, and 9 othersRuinenlust, Lord Dominator, Uniania geeth, Uan aa Boa, Terrabod, The void territories, Northern Wood, Middle Barael, and Difinbelk
I'm in total agreement with you. I have nothing against people having a faith, and even have a last remaining one myself: namely a faith in reincarnation. But religion? Again, not meant to be inflammatory, but to me religion is the cause of most if not all wrongs in the world.
I see what you're saying, and I do think you have a point, but religion is often the primary factor behind LGBTQ+ hate. Poland is an excellent example of that, as the hate against the community is entirely fueled by the Catholic religion there. Bishops that openly call gay people "a disease", the far-right government enforcing religion in schools and all layers of society etc. etc.
Whenever I was met with homophobia, it always came either from someone who was religious, or religious reasons were cited as the cause for that homophobia. Of course, personal anecdote is not a conclusive and irrefutable argument, but because of personal experiences I do believe religion is the primary motivator behind LGBTQ+ hate.
Einswenn, Kyratistani, Atsvea, Ruinenlust, and 4 othersLord Dominator, Terrabod, Middle Barael, and Nation of ecologists
To be fair, a) these are my beginning courses, b) I'm not also working while doing college, and c) my retail experience was a fun nightmare. Academics miraculously come much easier to me; any amount of physical activity and prolonged standing do not. Spending 8 hours (separated by an hour lunch) on a concrete floor in retail, during the height of a pandemic especially, when there're absolutely no employees and absolutely every customer in the world is a stressful situation that makes 2 accelerated courses half a month feel like a mild tisk of breeze. Granted - again - procrastination adds a few mph (kph if you're not American) to that tisk, but still a tisk - just a more aggressive tisk. Where was I? Oh yeah. I'm glad I'm out of there.
That's a tough one to tell. For the longest time, economy was maxed at 100. Now it's gone up a bit, but I firmly believe that the economy scale is something along the lines of logarithmic. After a certain point (about 97 it already begins), any positive or negative change affects your economy very little. It's all about those decimal points after that, and each massive change that'd have plummeted your economy at 95 doesn't even bare a dent at 100.[/quote]
I'm extremely glad to read this. Now if only someone will lift the general mind fog out of my head.
(I'd make a pun about lifting irl fog but today I've been given sunlight.)
Kyratistani, Mount Seymour, Atsvea, Ruinenlust, and 4 othersLord Dominator, Middle Barael, Nation of ecologists, and Difinbelk
It makes sense to me though, as I always imagine that as the point where the economy is so strong and stable that large scale changes don't affect it that much anymore. If you have a bad economy, then of course changes will hit harder (either positive or negative). At least, that's how I always explained it to myself :)
Kyratistani, Jutsa, Atsvea, Ruinenlust, and 4 othersLord Dominator, Canaltia, Middle Barael, and Nation of ecologists
Alright, since I'm in the social-issues-sharing mood today, I'd like to share another question of the LGBTQ+ matter. More rhetorically rather than for real and deep research.
I've been reading through comment section under one of pro-LGBTQ+ community posts and saw insane toxicity and mutual irritation among the members themselves (basically concerning trans topic and how it is tolerated/intolerated within the queer world). One of the threads started with a lesbian girl "fixing" the lesbian flag removing transgender colours from it. She claims she has attraction to cisgender women only and cannot be physically attracted to trans*woman. This sparked quite non-civilised debate where the defenders of transgenders acted really bad, unintentionally ruining fragile reputation of t*community. That was the thread where I learned about this intolerance towards T in LGB acronym for the first time.
So I scrolled further down and saw many gays claiming they are attracted to cisgender men only too, sparking, again, new debate rounds with transgenders and their advocates. Some of the most vocal of the latter were claiming ideas bordering to "you have to love t*men because they're men too" and the fight goes over again. Any, literally any phrase against it, including natural "I am personally attracted by cis people only but I still respect trans community" was labeled as transphobia. The word was used so many times that it creates negative image of t*community at a whole, especially for someone unfamiliar with this part of the LGBT niche.
This escalated further to dividing sexual orientation and social human-made genders, and the community split again. Some of the most neutral members who called for peace because "there is a lot of hate in the outer world, we can't afford being divided from the inside too, let's not hate each other" went unheard.
Frieden-und Freudenland, Kyratistani, Mount Seymour, Atsvea, and 6 othersRuinenlust, Lord Dominator, Terrabod, New ladavia, Middle Barael, and Nation of ecologists
Hello comrades!
Kyratistani, Atsvea, Lord Dominator, New ladavia, and 1 otherNation of ecologists
Hello, European neighbour. One greeting per 12h was quite enough, this RMB, unlike it is in Europe, is not the best place for such tripling. Thanks for understanding :)
Frieden-und Freudenland, Kyratistani, Mount Seymour, Atsvea, and 5 othersRuinenlust, Lord Dominator, Terrabod, Middle Barael, and Nation of ecologists
Sorry! I just like saying hello! :D
Sacara, Frieden-und Freudenland, Kyratistani, Jutsa, and 5 othersAtsvea, Lord Dominator, Middle Barael, Nation of ecologists, and Arklanda
Speaking only from my personal experience, I can say that as a gay man, I have not knowingly felt sexual attraction for a transgender man. Now, to be clear, there are not exactly loads of transgender people around, so it's kind of an esoteric, mostly theoretical question. I don't see why I would in principle not be attracted to a transgender man, but in my own experience, I tend to have the strongest movement towards men who are stereotypically "masculine." It's not a statement of whom I support, whom I don't support, whom I would or would not advocate for, etc. etc. etc., but just a description of what I have thus far found to be true of my own inclinations and feelings on the level of sexual attraction. In other words, I don't there's anything wrong with someone who finds, say, women to be attractive but comes to find out that transgender women simply do not create the feeling of arousal/attraction/etc. with transgender women. What I would find odd is if someone, while not having knowingly encountered many (or any) transgender people, were to categorically state that they could never be attracted to a transgender person. It's one thing if someone worked or lived in a setting where they were exposed enough to transgender people to recognize some kind of systematic pattern, but it would be odd (read: forced, and from preconceived ideas) to have a strong opinion without having the lived experience to substantiate that.
So for me, while I can't say that I've never been knowingly attracted to a man who is transgender, nevertheless given my abysmally low level of exposure to such people, I could not categorically say that I simply would not be attracted to any transgender men, either.
I think that such categorical statements can only be made with enough experience. So for instance, I have encountered thousands and thousands of women in my life, and yet I have not felt sexual attraction for any of them. I have also encountered thousands and thousands of men, and have found a sizable number of them to be sexually attractive, regardless of whether I have known them for years, see them in a store or on the street, encounter them on television or Youtube or whatever, etc. etc. So it seems to reasonable to me that I conclude that I'm simply gay, and attracted to men exclusively. My experience has yet to indicate anything other than that. Now, have there been a tiny fraction of those men who were also transgender? I imagine so, although I have yet to find someone with a sign that says, "Hi, I'm Transgender, what's your name?", so not only do I not know if I have found those particular transgender men to be attractive, and nor can I say with a shred of substantial evidence whether or not that would be the case if I somehow knew that in advance.
~~~
In a broader sense, I think people often overestimate the numbers of people involved in LGBT+ categories, in terms of how many people the average person encounters in a given day. Sure, there are exceptions: you can live in a heavily-LGBT+ town, or work in an environment where there are many such people, but for the average person in the average living situation, the vast majority of people whom one encounters are straight and are not transgender. And even within the LGBT+ universe, many of the categories are vanishingly small as compared with the overall population. Even for someone in a "basic" situation like mine (a non-transgender gay man), the pool of people is quite, quite small (just ask my on-life-support dating life, haha!). And for other categories, the numbers seem to only go downhill. Complicating all of this is that many of these categories are not eternally obvious, at least unless the person wants them to be. I don't know that people see me and think, "oh, that gay guy" when I go out. I'm not hiding, but I'm not "out" in that sense, either. And many of the LGBT+ people are still under a greater or lesser degree of pressure to be subtle or private about that aspect of themselves.
I guess my point (in far too many words) is that it seems like a lot of these online arguments and discussions are borne out of the artificial aggregating mechanism of the internet itself. Perhaps if there were an LGBT+ Tinder, in which I could swipe left or right on a few dozen transgender men, I might get a better sense of exactly where and how the territory of my sexual attraction extends, but that's something that I just don't know, in practice, if that makes sense. These arguments about whether or not there's something wrong with a gay guy or a lesbian who does not find transgender members of their own gender to be attractive or not is, in many case, something being argued in the abstract and not in terms of lived experience.
Einswenn, Frieden-und Freudenland, Kyratistani, Mount Seymour, and 8 othersAtsvea, Lord Dominator, Uan aa Boa, Terrabod, Middle Barael, Nation of ecologists, Difinbelk, and Kurdislavic algharbistan
Good afternoon/morning/evening/night!
Frieden-und Freudenland, Kyratistani, Atsvea, Lord Dominator, and 4 othersNew ladavia, Middle Barael, Nation of ecologists, and East skirsburg
Oh yeah I also finally managed to buy bottled Pibb Zero lmao, so my flag is full circle now
Frieden-und Freudenland, Kyratistani, Jutsa, Atsvea, and 5 othersRuinenlust, Lord Dominator, Middle Barael, Nation of ecologists, and Kurdislavic algharbistan
«12. . .2,1432,1442,1452,1462,1472,1482,149. . .2,6512,652»
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