Remember the sacred texts:
You all are making me work too hard, so I’m locking this dumpster fire and drinking my coffee.
Sounds like Venezuela and socialism, only difference is that leftism there destroyed the opportunity to have multiple cereal brands.
“Western” from european perspective tho. This is what reactionary-only regulation and fear of everything social got you into. No clue how to get you out of this without blood.
If you think living in a non “western democracy” allows you to shit talk your boss or the government… I invite you to try.
I hope this won’t be banned for wishing death on someone.
You could always speak out against your landlord or boss to a person you can trust not to tell them. Social media is a public forum. It’s the equivalent of taking out an ad in the paper to criticize them. It’s your responsibility to represent yourself as you’d like to be seen by the general public when using an account with your name and photo.
There are 3 cereal companies? I thought there were only 2 that owned them all.
I love this chart but it so out of date. The big companies have consolidated more and bought even more brands in the last t10yrs
Kellogs, General Mills, and Post are the big three and they are all pretty much their own companies.
You could say Quaker, too, and they are owned by PepsiCo.
But most of our food comes from like 5 companies anyway. At least everything in the middle aisles.
Wait until they find out about non-American western countries
Nobody complains
Believe it or not, straight to jail.
Guilty until proven innocent.
Innocent being paying your way out of jail, of course :)
The more you pay, the more freedom you got!
Except they tend to have higher union participation so it’s harder to fire you and more permissible to speak out about your boss.
Everyone knows that democracy is when you vote for President every four years, and Totalitarian Fascism is when you vote for your union contract every five years.
I do not understand why you used the word except here
Not solar.
Not punk.
This is grade 8 social studies.
Oh so baity!
You can remove “western democracy” there I guess.
Also nah, I can speak out against my boss, my eventual landlord and protest in the streets, because I live in France, a western democracy.
YMMW.
eventual landlord
So you’re a child? Lol good luck speaking out against a landlord, don’t you know it’s like a job interview nowadays with references from past landlords and all?
I own my appartement but I have rented over 20 different ones before that.
No need to namecall just because you don’t understand 😊
Oh ok so you haven’t rented in the current market. So actually it’s you who doesn’t understand eh?
Idk what you meant in that case by “eventual landlord”, maybe try actually making sense first and then maybe you won’t get name-called as much.
From what I can tell, France still has essentially no-fault evictions and nowhere near sufficient renter protections, while there is a housing crisis going on. It’s not anywhere near as bad as the UK, but given the regulations as I can see them, I wouldn’t risk speaking out against the landlord in any capacity there either. This doesn’t even touch the fact that France is also fairly centralised, in that job opportunities are richer closer to the city and the bigger the city, and Paris is even worse for living expenses overall than London.
That is totally right. I’m french. Laws protect renters, but not that much, and landlords don’t hesitate to threaten with false pretense. And if you mention anything illegal they’re doing, you simply won’t have the apartment. They ask documents they have no right to see, but if you don’t provide them they won’t even look at your application. Obviously people of colour do have a harder time finding an apartment, but even for engineers it’s hard to find one in a city.
Literally who is downvoting you? Are there landlords on fucking solarpunk memes?
That is completely dependent on country and who you try to rent from. In Norway the most I ever had to do is consent to an automatic check to prove I don’t have any reports of not paying bills.
You ever rent from a private landlord, instead of letting agency?
I’m Finnish, and what you say has been true for me — aside from when my credit got fucked (due to some semiauthoritarian bullshit), when I had to rent from a private landlord.
That was more or less exactly how the earlier commenter describes it; an interview. Luckily I was just over 20 and out of the army as an NCO, so the old couple were really into that and gave me the apartment.
I also used to believe our cops weren’t that bad. Until I was detained and saw how they act behind closed doors.
I’ve only rented from companies as it’s generally safer and you know that they will (most likely) follow the law.
You never know what you get when you rent from people, their professionality and knowledge of the various laws are highly variable. You could get lucky, and you could get very unlucky.
In France you need to earn 3 times the price of the lawn, and you need warrants (garants) : people who will be forced to pay if you ever don’t. To prove you can pay, you need 3 months of salary sheets. You need to prove your job is not a CDD (short determined time). You need to show insurances and prove your identity too of course. Half of those are not legal, but landlords don’t care because you’re in competition : you visit the apartment with a dozen of other people who want a place to sleep too. And the landlord will choose the chosen one as he pleases.
It depends on the place, but Lyon is absolute madness to find an apartment.
Oh for sure. I’m not french but I’m relatively familiar with the rental laws there as I considered them in depth when I considered moving and they’re not much better than the UK, where it is utter dogshit.
lol ever heard of renter’s rights? it’s incredibly fucking difficult to kick out a renter here in sweden, they have to repeatedly be a massive nuisance to everyone around.
In Sweden yes, maybe, idk, not Swedish. In Europe no, we have heard of renters’ rights, but as a renter I can tell you we have practically none.
And I can do all this in America. Mind you I work somewhere that struggles to keep people and more selective jobs do pull this shit, same with my landlord. And yeah protesting does often go that way if you’re left wing
And yet most of the political forces in France are advocating to remove all these rights. Sindicalists are arrested under terrorist laws, as are eco-activists. And maires trying to enforce price ceiling for lawns in cities are considered like Staline.
Sure and that is bad.
What does it have to do with the discussion though? Or is it “west bad” whatever happens?
So as long as the litteral nazis are not in charge genociding people it’s fine and there’s nothing to worry about? Syndicalistes and ecoactivists being arrested for terrorism is fine already?
So “west bad” it is then.
I mean if the above things are what defines the west then yeah. But I don’t think they do, or at least they don’t have to - I believe we stand for better things than that - for liberty, for democracy and welfare of all and I believe in progress, not complacency and decay thinly veiled by whataboutism.
The French are smart enough to burn cars and loot when their government tries to pull some bullshit. I wish Germans were that smart.
Doesn’t matter whether you consider the US a western democracy, they consider themselves one and what OOP says is that that can’t possibly be right for the reasons following. It seems you are in agreement after all.
The US wasn’t even mentioned in the post, implying this as generic problems which is not the case.
I bet OP hasn’t actually done any of the things they listed. Reads like an edgy teenager.
Well surely they haven’t under threat of all things listed
I like the 1 comma in that whole paragraph…
Nothing infuriates me more than missing punctuation
.
At least they didn’t write “brand’s”, so there’s that.
Yeah there is a point to this, things got measurably worse, but we’re also still measurably better than in non western democracies.
Good luck complaining about the government in China, for example. At least here I can complain whilst standing next to a 8th floor window, something you shouldn’t try in Russia
if I speak out online I could be muted or banned
Do you have any idea what social platforms look like when this is not the case?
Hint: it starts with a number
The random board on 4chan is a good indicator for how that would look like (very NSFW and depending on your location illegal content there)
Believe it or not, even 4chan has some standards. The 8 variants, on the other hand…
Hmm, I’ve done all of these things and haven’t suffered the consequences you describe. Yes, in the US.
Yeah but if we don’t get mad at made up situations then we’ll be forced to deal with real issues and that’s hard.
Sure, but have you tried any of these while being black?
I remember when online interactions didn’t make me paranoid… But it seems power-tripping banhappy idiots exist everywhere, at least they do on reddit.
Took me awhile to realize Lemmy isn’t like that.
Eh they still are here, it’s just easier to avoid them by leaving their instance or finding different communities. I’ve noticed Lemmy still has a lot of the same type of drama Reddit has but instead it’s focused on defederation and beefs between instances instead of stuff like splinter subreddits.
Yeah totally should do that in an autocratic country, lets go with Russia and lets see how long it would take before the original poster is on their way to a Siberian gulag
Whataboutism isn’t necessary
Fuck borders, everyone deserves freedom, not just people on my side of a line on the map
And they can vote for a better future. Last UK election we got a labour victory but 8% fewer people voted. Thats crazy.
Of topic, i agree with that, country borders are what making people xenophobic
That’s the “in Africa kids are starving and you’re refusing to eat your broccoli” level of argument. Yes, it’s bad in Russia, but that doesn’t mean everything is perfect in their country. And that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t strive to make the situation better. Moreover, without any push back it can only get worse.
While I do see your point, I think the main idea behind this post is that we’re told that we live in civilized free western world, but once we rebel, speak ill or become in any way a ‘threat’ to people on top (while staying within the rules of society of course), that’s when you get punished for it.
Something I’ll give to autocratic countries is that even though you have no freedom, at least you’re fully aware of it. In western countries, you have some freedom but are led to believe you actually have more, if not full, freedom.
Except only the last point really has anything to do with the government. It’s freedom from government control, not freedom to do anything you want with no consequences.
If that is the bar we have to pass humanity isn’t doing too well now is it? I myself would like to hold a modern country to even a little bit higher standards.
Or in China, I’m sure they could at least say their concerns once before they’re social credit is shit and they get disappeared.
Hey, my house has a lot things that need repaired. I should probably bring up these issues with my family, and get to work on fixing them.
Oh, the house down the road is on fire? Guess I should be fine my house is only falling into disrepair.
