Little coward is probably afraid of getting the Brock Allen Turner treatment.

At press time, several states had introduced legislation that would require the turtle-apartment theory to be included in high school biology textbooks.

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry

There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.’

-Isaac Asimov, 1980

It’s actually down in most areas.

Broader claims about trends in retail theft have not panned out. Walgreens, for example, cited spikes in shoplifting as an explanation for falling profits and store closures. The claim has since been retracted. Target blamed theft for a rash of store closures. But an analysis by researcher Jeff Asher showed that, according to the limited data available, the stores Target closed in Portland and Seattle had less crime than stores that were not closing. Reporting by CNBC in September 2023 also cast doubt on retailer claims about the impact of theft, noting that “certain retailers” have “pulled back” from blaming organized theft as “a primary cause of losses.” In fact, to the extent it can be relied upon, industry data cuts against the idea of a recent national spike in retail theft.

It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone’s fault. If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I’m one of Us. I must be. I’ve certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We’re always one of Us. It’s Them that do the bad things.

-Sir Terry Pratchett

Nothing like being treated like a criminal when I go into a store to give them money.

Do you rub their noses in it at all? Because I know I would.

I mean, I get that it’s a metaphor.

The answer to the MAGA thing is simply that you build, not for them, but in spite of them. You build for everyone. If you want to exclude people who aren’t willing to follow the rules of society and only cause trouble you can, but that’s different than refusing to build anything because they might use it.

The people like MAGA that only seek to tear down what others build, or who refuse to build at all because there’s a chance someone who they don’t approve of (ie PoC) will use it hurt not only themselves, but everyone around them. They are destroying the future by refusing to help build the present, and I think it’s really sad that they would rather a terrible future than one that has things they don’t like in it.

We must build despite those attitudes, or we will simply end up following them into a bad future.

They meant the question showed a viewpoint that seemed to center entirely around you (also a rather libertarian thing, honestly).

‘Someone who would never build something for you’ sounds a bit like you’re expecting a tit-for-tat, I-do-this-for-you-so-you-have-to-do-something-for-me in everything, and that’s just not how societies work.

I’m curious; are you using that phrase to refer to, say, rich assholes who just take and take, or Nazi assholes that would rather cut off their own hands than build something a black person might use? Or are you using it to refer to people like severely disabled folks, or say, low-functioning autistic people, who society supports but who don’t have much capacity to ‘return the favor’?

Or are you just referring to future generations, who will be around after you’re gone?

I think it’s just your question comes off as nihilistic and a little bit libertarian, and neither of those is mentally healthy really