Blame America For Everything You Hate About "Internet Culture" 376
An anonymous reader writes If you hate cat videos, personality quizzes, and endless list stories about a specific school or region, then you should blame the USA according to this story. From the article: "'In France, articles about cats do not work,' Buzzfeed's Scott Lamb told Le Figaro, a leading Parisian paper. Instead, he explained, Buzzfeed's first year in the country has shown it that 'the French love sharing news and politics on social networks – in short, pretty serious stuff.' This is interesting for two reasons: first, as conclusive proof that the French are irredeemable snobs; second, as a crack in the glossy, understudied facade of what we commonly call 'Internet culture.'....American audiences love animals and 'light content,' Lamb said, but readers in other countries have reacted differently. Germans were skeptical of the site's feel-good frivolity, he said, and some Australians were outright 'hostile.' Meanwhile, in France — land of la mode and le Michelin — critics immediately complained, right at Buzzfeed's French launch, that the articles were too fluffy and poorly translated. Instead, Buzzfeed quickly found that readers were more likely to share articles about news, politics and regional identity, particularly in relation to the loved/hated Paris, than they were to share the site's other fare."
Caring about news and politics instead of trivial (Score:5, Funny)
How incredibly snobby to give a shit about what's going on in the world and how your country's being run rather than hur hur look at da crazy cat. The human race is filed.
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How incredibly snobby to give a shit about what's going on in the world and how your country's being run rather than hur hur look at da crazy cat. The human race is filed.
Snobbery isn't about what you're interested in. Snobbery is about refusing to accept others may have different interests.
I don't find cat videos interesting. I prefer the news. --- Not Snobby
If you like cat videos you're clearly a moron! --- Snobby
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i thought buzzfeed was a non-straight dating website
I always thought it was a scam website. The story headlines are always so baited they have to be 'click to be infected' scams. I never dared click one.
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That's because you never discovered the one weird trick, discovered by a single mom, to reading Buzzfeed!
Re: Caring about news and politics instead of triv (Score:2, Insightful)
To educate yourself.
To get a better general picture of the world.
To be able to make educated statements.
To be able to adjust your behaviour (boycotts, donations) in a proper way.
Your comment is the most stupid thing I read this entire year. The entire audience is now dumber. I reward you zero points.
What ever will we do (Score:2)
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I hate imperative headlines that address "you" (Score:5, Funny)
Blame America For Everything You Hate About "Internet Culture"
This Simple Trick For Blaming America Will Change Your Life!
You Won't Believe What America Did Next
obvious reasons (Score:3)
lately, US news and politics are more vapid and transparent than grumpy cat's take on things. the reality is that our political system is really because voters are gullible enough to thing they have a choice about what happens when it's really a one party system. the news spews lies about everything like it's DEFCON 1 everyday when they are speaking of meaninal bullshit. meanwhile there are serious matters that has caused a massive schism in the middle class and shit is hitting the fan. if you protest you are either cordoned off and ignored and/or abused by the police which are not help accountable for their actions. can you blame us for wanting an escape? (psst, the answer is here [quickmeme.com])
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I'm not really pleased by a lot of what goes on here. A trip over to Europe back when I was in the Air Force made me a lot happier with my country though. I'll take our culture with all it's problems over those of the European Union. If France hates me, well I guess I'll just have to bear it.
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So... US news is "more vapid... than grumpy cat" and your answer is... an internet meme jpg?
Uhm, yeah. About that. "D'oh!"
Hey, I can shorten it for you... (Score:4, Funny)
Period... There, fixed that for ya...
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Yes, I'm sure they'd all be happier if we just left them alone. I'm feeling kind of isolationist lately anyway. We should just leave them all alone. I think if we cut military spending to about a quarter of what it is now we could maybe stop going in a hole financially. Let Europe deal with Putin and the Caliphate. I'm kind of curious to see how that would all turn out.
Oh bull. (Score:2)
Those who prétend that France is in any way different than the U.S. in stupid internet memes are liars, and I say that as someone who has lived here for 30+ years & tries to ignore as much of these idiotic stories as possible. However, the French "journalists" being in their great majority left of Ché Guevarra have an automatic knee-jerk reaction to everything in modern life that they do not like: Call it American &/or "ultra liberal" so that they can blame it on the USA or the UK.
Oh bull. (Score:2)
Those who prÃf©tend that France is in any way different than the U.S. in stupid internet memes are liars, and I say that as someone who has lived here for 30+ years & tries to ignore as much of these idiotic stories as possible. However, the French "journalists" being in their great majority left of Che Guevarra have an automatic knee-jerk reaction to everything in modern life that they do not like: Call it American &/or "ultra liberal" so that they can blame it on the USA or the UK.
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Or perhaps you are deluded about the France you are living in, or you are deliberately misrepresenting the truth to pass your opinion as fact. 30 years vs 50 years is not a large enough magnitude to use as justification as either offers ample opportunity to acquire this knowledge.
Oh boy! (Score:2)
It's hilarious reading a bunch of French people arguing about who is more French! Just a Monty Python moment...
Market size effects (Score:2)
Russia. China. Former Soviet Block Crapholes (Score:2)
Most of what I hate about the internet originates in my subject line; LOLcats won't reach through your computer and steal your credit card.
The French can be just as silly... (Score:2)
The French also obsess about silly and ridiculous stuff, they just do it in a different way. It's not all politics and news, that just happens to be what gets shared on social networks.
Re:The French can be just as Clownish... (Score:2)
Who can worry about Kitty Cat Memes, with all the Evil Clown crime? http://www.theatlantic.com/int... [theatlantic.com]
My friends in Denmark and Norway tell me that the word "Friend" in the north is much more reserved, and it has held Facebook back. But like Halloween, differences in culture have a way of being only a generation deep. My mother in law, in southern France, is no slouch with the LOLs.
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https://twitter.com/PKFCx/stat... [twitter.com]
I'll just leave this here :P
Serious != smart (Score:2)
Do I want to read political rants and endless arguments filled with fallacies, bigotry and name-calling?
I'll have the vapid pictures of pets and hot chicks, please.
Things aren't perfect for Buzzfeed here either (Score:2)
Probably some truth to that ... (Score:2)
There's probably some truth to that.
Three possible explainations:
1) I could imagine that overall presence of higher education is more dense in Europe than in the US.
2) Right now, life in general probalby sucks more in the US than in central/western Europe, hence the need for more distraction.
3) The US is used to quick sensations in media due to their TV history. In Europe the viewing habits are more ... 'sophisticated' ... although they have degenerated massively since the 80ies. Even prime news today is un
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Alternatively, European TV sucks just as bad, it is just more of a meme to say it is sophisticated. ;)
Also, in 1) you might want to reconsider. What exactly are you measuring; the density of higher education, or its presence? Those are different measures. We know it is wrong because it is not self-consistent. But I don't think any of the things you might have meant are going to prove true. I'm sure many smaller European countries can put out high numbers on education, for mostly historical reasons. But Euro
Not really sure why this means they're not snobs (Score:2)
They simply foolishly don't fear our feline overlords. While Americans practice, training themselves to recognize the enemy.
Seriously, having lived in both France and the USA: most people in France will ignore the critics but yes, books and culture are seen as more important to people then they are in the USA. Being a public intellectual is considered a reasonable and high profile job.
Note I said "seen as more important" -- don't forget we're talking about the country that invented celebrity culture and "
Blame America! How PC! (Score:2)
Yes, blame America!
How politically correct!
Hate the creators.
Losers.
Hmpf (Score:2)
Can others corroborate this? (Score:2)
blah, blah ... (Score:2)
... yes, whatever, Euros good, Americans bad. And nobody loves chanting that more than a certain type of neighbor-hating American.
On the topic itself: maybe we don't want to be obsessed with politics all the time, and don't want to politicize everything. That's bad?
No, blame Canada (Score:2)
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Don't blame the cats at least.
If anything - you can't be upset at cats doing cat stuff. It's a relief.
French idea of relief is a bottle of wine and watching women walking by the café.
Re:that's because (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not about countries, it's about cultures.
Some cultures (e.g. Western European culture) favor more serious subjects versus others. Some others (e.g. Northern American) favor lighter subjects (unwind-type). Asian cultures apparently favor explosive feeling-related and augmentative headlines ("It's SUPER effective!"; "AMAZING performance!").
Nobody's to blame, really, except companies not doing their homeworks and trying to vomit their own culture-specific successes over other cultures and promptly failing.
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Depends where you mean in Asia. East Asian cultures may seem like that, but it's mostly due to really poor translation. Well, that and the fact that merely translating the worlds rarely conveys the full meaning or gives you any kind of cultural context.
For example, Japanese people often refer to things as "sugoi", which is usually translated as "amazing". It can actually mean a whole range of things, from surprising to astounding but the exact meaning is conveyed by the way it is said and context. On top of
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Really? I've seen French culture firsthand. It has some good things, and a lot of bad. So they'd rather talk politics instead of watch cats do stupid crap? That only means they like to argue about bullshit. Plenty of that here on slashdot.
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I've been waiting for the guillotine to make a comeback.
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they keep their government in check
What?!? If we really kept the government in check, the authors of "Responsable but not guilty" would be in jail. If you don't understand the reference, you don't know enough about french politics to be making comments.
and take the streets at the hint of an real or perceived BS coming from it
They? Who is this they? Ahhh, the lucky few life public transport workers who are in guaranteed life long jobs and can go on strike without any repercussions meanwhile forcing millions of others to spend hours more getting to/from work.
Re:that's because (Score:4, Insightful)
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Except it's apparently only more transparent on the English-speaking Internet (actually more specific: English-speaking and not Australian-focused), not on sites in other languages.
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[quote] French idea of relief is a bottle of wine and watching women walking by the café. [/quote]
and what's wrong with that?
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French idea of relief is a bottle of wine and watching women walking by the café.
O'reilly? Even the women?
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>> French idea of relief is a bottle of wine and watching women walking by the café.
That does it: I'm moving to France!
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I don't disagree that hours aren't what counts. If they were, Greece would be bailing out Germany.
However performing more work in fewer hours does not in any way refute the fact that the number of hours worked is, indeed, fewer.
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It is a funny article for a few reasons. Did you even read it? Does it claim to refute the France works a significantly shorter week than the US? The answer to both is clearly "no." You googled for a story that says what you wanted to link to, but linked without really reading it.
It claims to be refuting the "myth" of France having a 35 hour work week. That is a very different thing than you said, because they could have a longer-than-35-hours work week and still be well behind the US work week. And indeed,
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Sorry that life doesn't imitate your nationalist stereotypes.
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpb... [lse.ac.uk] "French workers are ...only marginally less productive than American workers."
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/us... [cbsnews.com]
Re:that's because (Score:4, Insightful)
Incorrect. The french are more productive per hour, but not by much. Americans work a lot more hours and have a higher sum of productivity.
I've worked across the world and the only group that beats americans for "nose to the grindstone" is some groups in asia.
There's also the matter of effectiveness, and americans pretty much have everyone beat.
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I just really hate the part where those durn Americans forced all the bits through those tubes. Forced them! Who asked the bits if they wanted to go through tubes?
And opening up the network to the masses. Who asked the data if it wants the People looking at it all day? What gives them the right?!
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So, in other words, Americans are a bunch of mindless drones who use their spare time posting mindless comments to mindless "news"... Who knew?
You mean, like posting to slashdot?
Cheers,
Dave
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Yep, we just mindlessly build technology for you to adopt. We don't know what it does, or why, we just meditate "Ohm, ohm, ohm," and work 80 hrs a week, and somehow there is a pile of networked computers at the end of the quarter.
I guess it is just an unlikely accident of history that a people so stupid invented so much, and continue to dominate the associated services.
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we just mindlessly build technology
In building the Internet we appear to have created the most effective conceivable means of disseminating "Blame America..." memes.
To do better you'd have to put it in the water.
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I realized that decades ago. Where in Satan's holy name is a self-taught American programmer with no degrees supposed to go? Galt's Gulch? Not fuckin' likely.
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I understand there's money to be made in black-hattery. Observe the 11th commandment, however.
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The portion of the American population that actually does useful stuff like network computers is a tiny, tiny fraction that is pretty much considered a bunch of "weirdos" by the rest of society (and you know it). New technologies are almost all developed in universities which are mostly made up of immigrants. America is being propped up by immigrants and geeks, the very people everyone else hates. Wake up and realize that the country you're living in hates you and does not deserve your presence.
Yeah, as an American teenager who was repeatedly voted "smartest" in his class, I realized all that decades ago. That's why I've mostly lived in close proximity to academia for most of my life since then, and have associated mostly with a crowd that has a high proportion of "furriners". It also has a lot to do with my migration into the Internet-development field, where my professional connections tend to be the same sort of furriners.
Generalizations about the citizens of a country are generally nonsen
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... Who knew?
Just about everyone else on the planet?
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ITT, complete misunderstanding of history, due to a complete inability to understand history through anything but the lense of memes and pop culture
That makes you a hipster son. You're the hipster. Do you understand? You're the hipster.
Re:The French are the world's Standards Board (Score:5, Funny)
When I was working in the UK at a wireless product design company, the American CEO of the American corporation that just purchased the company flew in to talk to us. We were all gathered in a big room. In his rambling talk, he referred to all the black people in the room as 'African Americans'.
Stupidity is not reserved for one nation alone.
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he referred to all the black people in the room as 'African Americans'.
Stupidity is not reserved for one nation alone.
Years ago I was in Florida, and was chatting with the hotel clerk when an English guy came in and started chatting as well. After a few moments the clerk said "I can't tell you two apart", meaning our accents.
The english guy and I just look at each other and burst out laughing, due to the fact that I'm white and the he was black.
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Welcome to the brainwashing that is political correctness. He might call all black people 'african americans', but that's because that's what the 'multicultural' leftist retards were teaching in school while he was young. If he used the term, it means he was trying to do the right thing. Of course, at least several european countries have the same kinds of stupidity, like refusing to acknowledge differences between the sexes because it offends idiot feminists. For example, sweden recently tried to force
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like banning urinals.
That just makes me sad.
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There has to be at least one!
Maybe set it in the back of the bathroom like so:
|U|T|T|T|T|
| |
|
| |_ _ _ _
|_|T|T|T|T|
This way boys can still test their might and see how far they can peep without hosing a toilet.
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Like I said, it depends largely on what decade he was in school and what terms were in use while he was growing up. How many more times do the 'proper' terms have to be replaced? Perhaps the focus should be on why the terms become pejoratives over time and fix that instead. Of course, this would require a reexamination of ideology, culture, and behavior, which few have the backbone for.
Get uppity or don't. No one implied you had to get anyone's permission. I choose not to. I don't get upset if someone c
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Well, it could be worse [notalwayslearning.com].
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It's not just stupid, it's insulting to the audience. And the video will look just as stupid back in the US because of context.
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As is often the case, it's a little more complicated than that.
The French appreciate standardization and conformity more that Americans. Where Americans would care about getting a job done, the French care about doing the job correctly. Along with that, there is a distaste for frivolity and absurdity when those aren't the matter at hand.
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No. The french care about the enforcement of conformity and standardization than they do about correctness or individual liberty.
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the French care about going on strike
FTFY
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Not sure if you are being sarcastic or not, but I'd say it's true!
The French workforce may strike more (and be particularly obnoxious about it, shutting down highways and city centers), but they also get more vacation, better hours, better pay, full healthcare, and retirement. American workers have lost all of their power, which is why they are increasingly losing all of their benefits and living wages. Welcome to "unfettered capitalism".
Re:The French are the world's Standards Board (Score:4, Funny)
Romanian here: Well... I'm with you fellas.
Re:The French are the world's Standards Board (Score:4, Funny)
The wife and I were standing outside Buckingham Palace one day waiting for the Changing of the Guard and making idle chitchat with a French lady next to us (SWMBO fluently, moi haltingly) when a group of teenagers came by, hooting, catcalling, playing grabass and generally acting like teenagers. She looked down her nose at them at first; then when they got close and she heard them speaking French she blasted them. "VOUS ETES FRANCAIS! HONTE A VOUS!"
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Trash is trash, wherever it came from.
Re:The French are the world's Standards Board (Score:4, Insightful)
Funny but the Germans aren't tactful either but we generally respect them while we have nothing but contempt for the French. The reason is that most of the German arrogance is actually warranted. The French arrogance isn't.
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Funny but the Germans aren't tactful either but we generally respect them while we have nothing but contempt for the French. The reason is that most of the German arrogance is actually warranted. The French arrogance isn't.
Americans respect Germans because they're very different (but that respect doesn't go very far since they still have bases in Germany 70 years after WW2). The French are very much like the Americans. This is an unconfortable truth, and so the love-hate relationship goes on since the late eighteen hundreds.
A Frenchman is an unrealised American. And the same is true on the other side, an intellectual American (yes yes they do exist) is very frenchlike. Had France kept its empire it would bullying the world as
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I wondered about why we still had so many troops in Germany so long after WW2 and I remember one of my commanders telling me it was because if we pulled out entirely the Germans would take over and we'd have to come back and bail the French out again.
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I always wondered why George Washington had the same hat as Napoleon. It all makes perfect sense now.
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You mean how the 'blame america' people here get their 'anecdotes' about americans from the koolaid flavored media in their home countries?
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I'm not saying either stereotype is correct, but I think the standard stereotype of Americans is the cowboy that draws out a gun and shoots you as his form of complaint, and the Frenchman whines over his cheese and finishes it off with an impolitic insult.
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Yep, here is one now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
You can tell it is a French cat because of the silly floppy-hat color pattern, and it tries to stick its tongue in the German's mouth while still on video.
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Sounds like a typical socialist to me. No solutions, only complaints
Bloody worthless bastards, they've taken everything we had! [youtube.com]
Except for universal health care, higher standards of living, better working conditions, and lower crime rates, what has any socialist government ever done for its people?
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Surprise, you don't represent the entire USA (nor does the average /.er).
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Someone modded that up ?
So who is Henri le chat noir?
An american cat [wikipedia.org], and its french is atrocious.
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Yes, yes, we're known the world over to be blargityblorg by these deep, educated people who have visited us and learned about our culture and history... oh, wait, well, OK so they didn't actually visit... and they don't understand our culture or history... but they're so very educated in their own history, and have deep thoughts about America... well, at least, they have deep feelings about the things that locals say in the local language on the local television about Americans. And those people are all edu
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Only because most of the world lives under socialist regimes disguised as democracy, whether it's the dirty boot heels of dear leader kim, or the 'soft', stagnant, and effeminate, culture that's been grafted onto scandinavia.
As opposed to America where you're living under fascist regimes, state and federal, disguised as democracy.
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Not fascist, but yes, authoritarian to be sure. We have the worst elements of left and right authoritarianism disguised as democracy.
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Only because most of the world lives under socialist regimes disguised as democracy, whether it's the dirty boot heels of dear leader kim, or the 'soft', stagnant, and effeminate, culture that's been grafted onto scandinavia.
As opposed to America where you're living under fascist regimes, state and federal, disguised as democracy.
I'm not, but thanks for your faked concern, I'm sure it makes you feel better about your plight in the world. You can't remove my State's direct democracy by simply believing we don't have it, though you're certainly free to believe whatever you want, and spew it around the internet. That is why we gave you the internet, because we know you're comforted and enriched by your spewing.
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I might believe in it when you vote down the PATRIOT Act, kick the TSA bullshit out of your state, get rid of civil forfeiture... None of these things benefit the people, so why do they exist in a "direct democracy?"
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Only because most of the world lives under socialist regimes disguised as democracy,
Socalism and democracy are orthogonal qualities. You can vote in either left or right wing parties then vote them out again. There is nothing inherently undemocratic about socalism.
and effeminate,
What's wrong with that? You say it like it's a bad thing. If it's neutral, why bring it up at all?
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Pretty sure the word he's going for is "effete".
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because women have never built a civilization worth a shit
Who would want to live in a civilization that's only "worth a sh*t?"
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Is that what they're teaching in liberal arts programs now?
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So a clickbait site in France would have to provide those political stories to get enough clicks.