Invading other countries to kidnapp head of states?
They said QUIETLY annoying. Things you wouldn’t speak up about. I feel like kidnapping world leaders doesn’t qualify as that. I’m American, and it’s been about a full day now, and it’s just now setting in just how insane it is that we just kidnapped a world leader. Just…took him. Meanwhile, here in the states, we’re also kidnapping random people off the street in unmarked cars for committing the crime of being not white.
These are things that should be screamed about, not silent.
Some people are screaming. Most are not. And the words, from those screaming, are cheap. The silence of actions continues to be, and likely will continue to be, deafening.
Oh yeah that’s definitely representative of the majority of us, got us figured out you have
Alright, here’s another one. Americans bragging about their democracy until all of a sudden it’s more convenient to blame the politicians for bad behaviour rather than the electorate that put them in power.
Take some responsibility for your government, does it represent you or not?
Schrodinger’s American Citizenship
“If the country is successful, I’m an American. If it’s falling apart, I’m digging through my ancestry¹.”
¹To find out if they qualify for other country’s Citizenship through Ancestry
Do you understand how voting works? Each person gets one vote. Do you think I, or anyone else, could have somehow forced the 30% who didn’t vote to vote, and not only that but to vote the way we wanted them to? How am I responsible for the choices of people 2,000 miles across the country that I’ve never interacted with? Do I have any control over the propaganda these people are exposed to?
At any given time, only 30-40% of the US is actually represented by the government. At least 30% of us directly voted against all this. Comments like yours make me feel like you’re trying to erase our existence… but I’m sure that’s helpful for somebody.
The assumption that the American legal, political, and cultural context is the “default.” They say “X is illegal” without specifying jurisdiction. They assume a “right wing” or “left wing” party must be like their Republicans or Democrats. And so forth.
Oh how I love these messages about American companies doing illegal stuff and think they can get away with it just because it isn’t illegal in the US, only for the government to come down hard on them.
Even more funny if they have to leave Europe afterwards.
Sorry you can’t bust unions over here.
The big dumb cars that seem to be infecting the world.
Shooting children.
I haven’t heard of a school shooting in a long time. I can’t tell if that’s because they stopped happening, or if it’s because they happen so often that it’s not even considered newsworthy anymore.
… yeah it’s the second one. The US does not go a week without one really, you’ll find reports of them on local channels along with the traffic reports, weather forecast and car accidents. It rarely makes national news.
I want off the ride. To be sure.
There are multiple mass shootings per day in the United States. This page keeps track as they come in.
Hey, 2 January was clean! Give 'em some credit!
They did the shooting in Venezuela that day.
They waited till the third to do the attack, so that it would be the anniversary of us capturing Noreaga.
Ah yes. I was still awake after midnight on the 2nd when I saw the news, so it went down on that date in my mind.
They absolutely aren’t as widely reported; but not because of desensitization, it’s for the same reason suicides aren’t reported. Theres been studies showing it’s “contagious” and that reducing coverage helps suppress further occurences.
Then the action of reporting less should be combined with actively dissuading gun owners from mass shootings. So it has a noticeable impact and doesn’t just feel like people sticking their heads in the sand. It’s a human enough response, but USA has hard coded into their legislation and that can’t ever be challenged, apparently.
Okay? Don’t think I disagree, but that’s also not relevant to explaining the specific reason it’s being reported less.
Thread went from 0 to 100 real quick
Just like the number of fatalities in the school
their obsession with genome analysis / where one of their great-great-grandfathers came from.
“i am italian, german, polish, chinese and cree!” “no, you are us-citizen and don’t speak any language but english.”
The whole ethnic identity is mostly to identify where in the world you ethnically originated from to other Americans. Because almost every single person in the US is either an immigrant, or a descendent of one. So we identify to each other where we came from as Americans.
Where people go wrong with this is if they happen to be traveling internationally and take this US centric identity with them. If traveling internationally, you could be ethnically from the place you are traveling. But in that context, you’d be American. This is a part of that whole well traveled awareness thing.
The genealogy thing is their curiosity in tracing that ethnic origin with greater detail. I personally don’t find it too interesting myself, but different strokes.
Edit: I’d like to add, this is mostly in case other people reading this thread are wondering why this is even a thing. It’s truly an annoying behavior.
Really, I think a far more charitable (and common) instance of this is an american, say, travelling to Ireland and noting that they actually have Irish heritage. And then some nice local appreciates their interest and they have something to talk about. American tourists these days don’t seem any more annoying or tone deaf than, say German, Israeli, or UK tourists. If you encounter a tourist off the beaten path, then they are almost always polite, curious, and a very nice person. And if you are hanging out where the big bus tourists congregate… well, what did you expect? They are dumbasses fishing for selfies - the lowest common denominator doesnt differentiate based on nationality.
Potentially annoying American here with a point of clarification: is it annoying just to be interested in one’s heritage, or is it Americans that make that heritage their entire personality?
the identity thing. as far as i see it’s usually white people who do this. to gain ethnic distinction?
sure its fun to find out more abt what your granparents did (unless you are german).
I think a lot of it stems from living in a relatively young, immigration heavy, multicultural country and the little conversations that arise from that.
At least in the city I grew up and still live in I have met a lot of people who either immigrated or whose parents immigrated from other countries. In high school human geography I learned it takes a couple generations for an immigrant family to fully assimilate into a new culture, so a lot of these first/second generation immigrants still have connections and traditions from their family’s old country. The history of those countries (or at least the regions modern countries occupy) stretch back hundreds to thousands of years. I think many caucasian Americans, often raised to be competitive, want that sense of history when comparing to their own family but American culture has “only” developed over the past 300-400 years. To get an older/deeper sense of heritage they have to ask where their ancestors that immigrated to the US immigrated from, and because a sense of superiority is at least some part of American culture that older heritage has to be better than the other older heritages and therefore something to be loud and proud about. Even if it isn’t actually a big part of one’s life.
All that to say yes I think you’re right about it being a matter of ethnic distinction, which I think is brought about by the circumstances of US history. I definitely get how it’s annoying.
I’m an immigrant in the U.S. When my accent gives me away, I’m often asked where I’m from, which somehow leads to the discovery that the other person is also Irish. Or Scottish. Usually Irish.
I’m not offended so much as confused. “I am Irish” carries an expectation of shared culture and experience. When that’s clearly not what’s being offered, it lands less as connection and more hollow. Offense arises when clichés or affected accents appear. That’s no longer about identity; it’s just being an eejit.
“English, Scotch, Welch and Irish” always drives me nuts. You can’t even pronounce one of them correctly; how is that honouring your “heritage”?
no, they’re literally 25% grape juice
They’re Americans so grape jelly.
In America, juice and jelly have the same sugar and fake ingredient contents.
I also find it maddening, not only because it’s silly, but because the analysis is largely crap anyhow.
My mother’s family touted their “Irish heritage for three generations”, then quickly shut up when their genome analysis “proved” they were instead largely English. I’ve had to point out Ireland and England’s relative positions and ask them if they thought anyone in our ancestry might have ever moved from island to island. Maybe consider that they were from somewhere else in Europe even earlier? Now they’re “Irish” again.
Point entirely missed, JFC. They were Irish, their ancestors were maybe English, and way back, their ancestors were definitely African, but I don’t see them getting into African cultural heritage. Thankfully.
You’re United Statesians. I get the draw: they’re looking for genuine but effort-free connection, identity, and belonging in a country whose dominant culture is homogenization, commoditization, and exploitation, but their search for culture through tenuous connections to long-dead ancestors instead of family, friends, and neighbors is just as hollow and unfulfilling.
Don’t obsess about great³-Grandpa Pádraig’s life harvesting peat from the bogs; he’s long dead and probably would have hated you. Embrace what and where you are and utilize and improve what you actually have.
maybe clearing this up: germany has a hereditary citizenship. i. e. children of germans can get a german passport.
being “german” means owning german citizenship (or citizenship of the one of the former constructs the federal republic sees as its precursors), not owning a set of genes. you can have no ‘distinct european genes’ (e.g. be ainu?) at all and get citizenship for your kids, as long as you have it. you can be “genetically german” and still don’t have a passport.
jus sanguinis usually isn’t genetically defined
Jay parlay Francsays trey beein. Jaytude on laycole quart ans.
if i had the power to do so, i’d give you a french passport right away.
If it means we can get citizenship somewhere else and get out… you’re offended by us figuring out our options? Oh how inconsiderate of us
It typically doesn’t. Most countries don’t care about where your ancestors came from. Being fluent in the local language and culture will generally give you a leg up if you already qualify for immigration so I hope your family kept those alive (and not Americanized versions like Irish-Americans wearing green on St. Patrick’s Day). But your ancestry is usually completely irrelevant.
Those genetic test results absolutely don’t mean anything. If you’re culturally American with an American passport, you’re American and that’s it.
Kind of funny you specifically call out Irish-Americans, because Ireland does actually have some options for citizenship-by-descent. It’s not quite as simple as anyone with Irish ancestry can become a citizen, but it is a thing.
If you have a grandparent who was born in Ireland you’re eligible
Or if your parent was an Irish citizen at the time of your birth
So hypothetically if you have a great grandparent born in Ireland, your parent could apply for Irish citizenship, even though their parents (your grandparents) weren’t citizens and had never set foot in Ireland
And if they did that before you were born you would also be eligible
And so on down the line to your children, and their children, etc. if everyone keeps on top of it.
There’s actually a decent handful of countries with some sort of citizenship-by-descent, not a majority by a longshot, and of course every country that does offer it has different requirements and restrictions, but for some people it can potentially be a viable pathway to another citizenship.
i am not going to verify what you said, but regardless of if it is true, if your grandparents have the citizenship, you probably don’t need dna test to find that out…
It’s absolutely an edge case, but there are still a lot of wonky family situations out there, people who are estranged from their family for any number of reasons, adoption, people raised by their grandparents under the impression that they were their parents to hide the fact that their sister is really their mom and they were hiding a teen pregnancy, your mom cheated and your dad isn’t actually your father, etc.
And sometimes that all stays under wraps until someone in the family takes a DNA test.
I have a friend with a big family who just recently discovered that most of her aunts and uncles aren’t actually her grandfather’s biological children. She and her siblings haven’t done a test themselves and her father’s dead so the jury is still out on whether she’s blood related to him or not.
But if she’s not, and she finds out who her actual biological grandfather is, it’s not impossible that that may open up a new pathway to citizenship through him.
And laws change, as a hypothetical, let’s say Poland starts getting antsy (well, antsyer) about Russia doing Russia stuff and really wants more people to feed the war machine in case of WWII breaking out, they already have a citizenship by descent option but the proper documentation to qualify can be tricky, but if they decide they really want to increase immigration I don’t think it would be out of the question for them to open up a pathway for someone who can show a DNA test with X% polish ancestry. In that hypothetical it might be kind of an out-of-the-frying-pan-into-the-fire situation, but maybe it would still be preferable to the situation in someone’s home country.
It’s just one more tool in the box that can open up new avenues for people to explore. It may not pan out for everyone or even most people who look into it, but in some small handful of cases it may save their lives.
but in some small handful of cases it may save their lives.
in some small number of cases you may get hit by a meteorite during that search, so be careful.
In some small number of cases you may die in a house fire, and I’ll bet you have smoke detectors and fire extinguishers around just in case
We’re not talking to you in this thread, we’re talking about you. You don’t need to jump in with “but that’s not annoying!” After people answer the question OP posed, that’s not useful.
This is ironically another annoying behaviour.
Oh, pardon me, I forgot you’re allowed to find someone seeking a path forward in life as dreadfully inconvenient, because where you were born grants you superiority, m’lord
Yes, we see it, you can stop demonstrating the annoying behaviour now.
by all means do. but don’t put that on facebook?
Why wouldn’t we give our family members a tip on how they can also get out, on a platform where they would see it?
did anyone ever get a passport because some lab result said they were 10% “genetically slovakian”?
I don’t know about Slovakian, but such places exist, yes.
great, another american immigrant. we need to build a wall and make america pay for it.
Great attitude you got there
You don’t get citizenship just because you had ancestors there once.
Otherwise everyone is an African citizen.
Germany will give you citizenship for having had a single Great Great Grandfather from Bavaria. Ask me how I know…
There are such places.
There is only one country that gives a flying shit about where your great-grandma allegedly came from, and that’s Israel. For every other country you’re not figuring out any options, you’re cosplaying.
Edit: There are actually more countries that care about where your grandma was from. 17 to be exact, but some are more equal than others, some of those have more conditions put upon, and some just need you to be descendant of emigrants.It’s not quite the same, but I know someone who acquired Italian citizenship because their grandparents were Italian/had Italian citizenship. They don’t even speak Italian.
Italy has recently changed their requirements and now language proficiency and residency are required. But yes, up until very recently heritage was mostly enough.
They did not get citizenship because of their grandparents.
They got a foot in the door because they knew someone living in Italy (if that even is the case), and then went through everything a normal migrant needs to go through.
You don’t need to have ancestors there in order to live somewhere.
What are you even talking about? They both acquired it over Jure Sanguinis, both of them barely understand any Italian. They have dual Italian citizenship.
Nobody said anything about needing ancestors to live somewhere else.
Asking “so what do you do for a living?” when meeting someone new as if their job defines them. It’s one of the first questions Americans will ask someone when meeting them for the first time. I am American, but as I understand it, this question is far less common elsewhere in the world.
I feel it’s a bit tacky as a first question, but if I’m not asking it at some point I personally feel like I’m not making a real effort to know someone.
For a lot of people I think it’s just their go-to ice breaker since most people have a job or some kind of education they are involved in.
I personally really enjoy hearing about many people jobs since they really open my eyes to a different lifestyles and working environments out there, or I might get the scoop on workplace drama stories.
I usually wait for the other person to bring up work. There’s no reason to assume, because idk, maybe they’re a stay at home parent, maybe they’re in between jobs or just got laid off, maybe they do work but it’s shitty. There are all sorts of reasons someone wouldn’t want to talk about it.
Also, “where do you go to church?”
I just try not to be around people that would ask that
Depends on where in America, too. It literally is question #1 in D.C., but has been less so elsewhere, in my experience.
I ask, “So what do you do?”
If they answer with hobbies and interests, they’re more my kind of person. If they answer with their job stuff, well that’s just their main life thing.
If you ask an American they will assume you MEAN their job, whether it’s their “main life thing” or not, because that’s how people talk here
My default answer to that is ‘As little as possible.’
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Well aren’t you just a barrel of laughs :)
I just ask, in a screaming tone, WHO DOES NUMBER TWO WORK FOR???
They usually just look at me, and assume there’s been some kind of language barrier. Nope. I’m just referencing an obscure scene that nobody remembers from Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. A film that came out in 1997. So a lot of people these days weren’t even BORN when that movie came out.
You show that turd who’s boss!
Can we get a courtesy flush?
This has always gotten under my skin as well. I generally downplay it to make my job sound as common as possible, and I do not return the question. What I do for money has very little influence on who I am or what I enjoy.
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Their support of pedos.
Saying “I could care less” instead of “I couldn’t care less”. Annoyingly incorrect but not exactly a critical issue.
Oh we non-idiot Americans find the doofuses who do that annoying too
I think the best response, because it amuses me greatly, is to reply simply with “as if”
I wait to see if they figure out that I’m just pointing out 2 words they missed saying at the beginning of that phrase to make it resemble what they intended.
I mean, I could care less, but calculating exactly how little I care would take more effort than I care to give.
Having to answer constant questions about Americans.
Not using indoor voice.
And pretending to be anything but american.
Pretending they’re well travelled by bragging about how many states they’ve visited.
I certainly wouldn’t call that “well-traveled” and bragging is kinda dumb in general, but it is worth pointing out that the US does have a huge diversity of different cultures, demographics, and environs in different states (so much so that they can often feel like different countries), so it’s perhaps not as quaint as it sounds. It’s not like traveling within a European country. Much closer to traveling within the EU.
Still would never call that being “well-traveled”, though.
Yo, I went to South Korea once¹
¹been at airport waiting for a transfer flight to the US
But okay for real, I’ve been to China.² I’m a legit international traveller! 😏
²Was born there lol. Does immigration to the US technically count as “travelling”?
If you made it out of the airport, I’d say that counts. I’ve connected in South Korea and Taiwan several times since i was a kid, but never long enough of a layover to make it out of the airport.
No we just waited in the building for like idk 10 hours it felt like.
It must’ve been so boring since I don’t remember much if it.
But I do remember being at a store in the airport and saw something cost like 10,000 and kid-me was like: “omg why is it so expensive? is every foreign country this rich?” (keep in mind, I think I was literally the only one in my entire school and out of everyone I know, that was emigrating, at least to my knowledge, so it felt like a sort of “privilage” to kid-me)
Then my dad was like: “That Korean money, its like [$5-$10 USD]” that’s the moment I learned of the existence of other currencies, mind… blown… not everyone uses the same money.
Lol, naïve young me was so funny.
Idk why but I think I felt a bit anxious.
My mom told me to not share the fact that I was about to immigrating to the US to any of my peers, to keep it a secret because “people might get jealous”.
So in my mind I immediately thought like some “bad guy” is gonna assassinate my family if it got leaked. (I was like 7, my thoughts went wild okay lol)
I’m not sure how long I keep it in me, I think I might’ve told classmates like the last month or so… right before we left… don’t remember
So yea…
I always dwell on the past and think of alt-timelines… like what if that never happened and I was still in China… would I have found out about the internet outside of the wall?
Would I have made more friends? (since I would’ve never got the language barrier issue that damaged my self-esteem)
Would there be no bullying? I mean no racial differences… so might’ve been less conflicts…
But then again, this current timeline… this unique experience allowed me to understand multiculturalism and be more accepting of people of different national origins and different skin colors, and I understand LGBT stuff more.
So yea… this is an interesting timeline, my story has been kinda interesting… hopefully the future and ending is just as interesting if not more interesting.
Then my dad was like: “That Korean money, its like [$5-$10 USD]” that’s the moment I learned of the existence of other currencies, mind… blown… not everyone uses the same money.
I remember my experience with that. Doing the math in my head and realizing how much more expensive things were at the airport in Tokyo-Narita than the electronics shops around Bangkok.
Would I have made more friends? (since I would’ve never got the language barrier issue that damaged my self-esteem)
Do you mean learning English later than your peers? If so, I had a similar experience. I didn’t learn English until kindergarten and it made it harder to make friends. Though there were other factors (big one being my dad was paranoid about me being kidnapped by the parents of other students, so I never got to hang out with any of them outside of school), I think they outcome is largely the same. Especially if the other kids were the type to let that be a dealbreaker for engaging with you. I found it easier to get to know other students to whom English was a second language.
Would there be no bullying? I mean no racial differences… so might’ve been less conflicts…
Somehow in my case, I saw more white kids getting bullied by other white kids than I ever experienced of myself or other people of color I went to school with. Though I suppose I was one of the few in my graduating class. Also somehow I managed to gain a reputation for being one of “the least Asian” kids at the school. Of which there were maybe 10 during any given school year.
didn’t learn English until kindergarten
I went through all the way to 2nd grade in China.
My mom convince the school in NYC to put me in 2nd grade again, this time in the US in English. She told me she want to give me a better chance at improving my English…
It’s much different, when you’re 2nd grade, you’re expected to already speak the language.
I mean, I don’t think I even knew Mandarin till Kindergarden (I think the media at home was mostly HK-based, dubbed in Cantonese), yet I still managed K - Grade 2 fine
As opposed to 2nd grade with English… that was so foreign to me.
I found it easier to get to know other students to whom English was a second language.
Yea I got along with other Cantonese speakers very well. Don’t really think I had much bullying from other Cantonese speakers. Mandarin speakers were rare and I kinda felt slightly more distant from them, but still feel kinda have a connection.
paranoid about me being kidnapped
Lol my mom went all in on the “stranger danger” teaching.
Every stranger want to kidnap you. Reject candy, they want to drug you and steal organs of little boys and sell little girls into prostitution. Becareful of cars, bad guys are gonna hop out and pull you in.
Jesus chist that shit scared me.
I think Mainland China had a lot of kidnappings for some reason. Authorities didn’t do shit about it.
I kinda developed a habit of looking behind me every so often, make sure no “bad guy” is following.
I think I developed separation anxiety because of this.
I kinda get scared of teachers that would hand out candy because I think it could be poison.
But then again my mom was fine with halloween trick-or-treating? Lol?
I think Mainland China had a lot of kidnappings for some reason. Authorities didn’t do shit about it.
My parents gave me the impression that it was somewhat common in Bangkok too, but I didn’t need to worry as much because I’m not an attractive woman and/or rich looking white tourist.
But then again my mom was fine with halloween trick-or-treating? Lol?
Asian parents are so inconsistent like that. It’s weird how common it is. My parents were worried about me getting poisoned because of that whole Tylenol poisoning thing from the 80’s but didn’t bat an eye whenever the school called about my allergic reactions to peanut exposure. Even before they found out my case wasn’t life threatening. Same thing with peanuts in Halloween candy before I cared enough to read the labels to make sure I had regular M&Ms and not the peanut variety.
that is not exclusively american thing
Americans are mostly super loud. You can hear them from forever away like they’re competing to be the loudest in any space. ~ someone originally from the US that had this pointed out to me.
My friend, I’ll refer you to map #14, which holds true. There’s also a billion people living south of these maps who I can tell you from experience, make most Americans seem demure.
Whomever made that map has never met someone from Amsterdam.
Sure. The post asked specifically about Americans and, perhaps by virtue of living in East Asia, I haven’t run into that many loud Europeans lately.
My point is that there’s a lot of loud people in the world. Really, most of the world is loud and only has an outdoor voice. I can hear my neighbors talking to her grandkids in her yard, 15 meters away, on the other side of a hedge and trees, with all the doors and windows closed in my house. There’s no change when she’s talking to me 1 meter away. I’m convinced it’s that a lot places like parties with deafening loud music and everyone has undiagnosed hearing damage.
Stereotypes sort of rely on the stereotype being at least somewhat unique. Might as well say Americans eat bland food and ignore all the other places that also eat relatively bland food.
However, congratulations on never having been besieged by Russian tourists.
I met one really drunk Russian guy years ago, but the bar was so loud everyone basically had to yell so I can’t really count it
Fair. If you’ve never had a swarm of pasty-pink round noise and smoke machines basically ruin a day at the beach, count yourself lucky.
I just went to a restaurant yesterday and there was a couple from the US sitting behind us and they were so loud, they were even starting conversations with people on the adjacent tables, one of them were German (I think) and pretended not to speak English, and kept bothering everyone next to them.
I’m not that bothered about loud Americans. Italians are worse.
Quietly annoying? I feel like the rest of the world has been making most of their grievances with the US habits/culture heard
Voting. You guys are really bad at voting.
Good thing we have the electoral college to make sure we vote correctly :3
