Opinionhaver @ Opinionhaver @feddit.uk

A contrarian isn’t one who always objects - that’s a confirmist of a differ

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6 mo. ago

I’m a general contractor, and I think a lot of my customers assume I know everything about construction work - that whenever I’m doing something, it’s something I’ve done dozens of times before. But quite often, that’s not the case. Sometimes, all I know about the task at hand comes from a YouTube video I watched the night before, or I’m just following the manufacturer’s instructions step by step.

People don’t realize how often I’m just winging it and hoping it turns out fine. The fact that someone hires me usually means they know even less about the job than I do, which creates the illusion of much greater expertise. But in reality, the main difference between me and them often just boils down to the fact that I'm not afraid to try.

It's abstract and doesn't sound like anything. I'm not literally hearing anything just like I'm not literally seeing anything either when I'm visualizing things despite my ability to do so.

Independent of what anyone is actually saying, the mere fact that someone is commenting on social media at all makes it highly likely they’re one of the people the article is talking about. As the saying goes, a tiny number of users produce nearly all the content. Most people don’t post comments online. The average person doesn’t. So if someone does, that alone already marks them as unusual in some way.

This becomes especially obvious on Lemmy, where you can see people’s moderation history - and it takes only a few seconds to notice how many users are spouting mean, violent, and extremist views. You might not see those views as extreme because this is an echo chamber and you probably agree with them, but they’re extreme nonetheless when compared to what the average person would say.

Nobody ever thinks of themselves as the problem - we all have some story about how our behavior is justified and how those people over there are the real issue. Nah, you're probably part of the issue as well. I am too.

I can't argue with that.

And what does that have to do with anything? Sweden’s population has grown from 8 million in the '70s to 10.5 million today. That’s 2.5 million more people - and 1.9 million of them are immigrants. The number of immigrants per capita has increased significantly since the '70s, not decreased. It has gone from 3.7% of the total population to 20.8%.

According to wikipedia their support was at around 4% in the 90's, 5.7% in 2010, 17.5% in 2018 and 20% in 2022.

There was a peak in immigration in the '70s, but that was still only half of what it was in 2015. I doubt it’s just a coincidence that their support seems to correlate pretty neatly with the number of immigrants. I never claimed that it’s the gang violence driving the increased support - it’s the immigration itself. The rise in violence just makes it easier for them to say “I told you so.”

I would not eat nor sleep if it wasn't mandatory. I consider both chores and waste of time.

The only strategy to a long term weight loss is a diet you can maintain and only eating bland food is not it. That would work if no other food was available but that is not the case.

That's not what the findings actually say.

The study found that electrifying SUVs does reduce emissions compared to keeping them as gas-powered vehicles, but it’s a less efficient use of limited battery materials.

My parents didn't talk down to me like that.

What I have been told, however, is that I wont stay lean like this all my life and will start gaining weight as I get older. That I'm still waiting for to happen.

Nice to meet you too.

Right there with you. I can't wait to be able to take all my nutrition in a pill form.

You're still doing it. I bring up integration challenges - you hear "brown people." I talk about political backlash - you call it disinformation. At no point have I blamed immigrants for wealth inequality or defended Farage or Trump, yet somehow you've lumped me in with all of it.

You asked by who people get shouted down? You're literally doing it right now. And you don't even realize it. That’s the whole tragedy. You think you're punching up - but all you're doing is making sure no one outside your bubble wants to talk to you, much less vote with you. Keep going. It's clearly working wonders.

What exactly are you suggesting we do about it? They’ve got enough conventional artillery aimed at Seoul to cause millions of casualties the moment it even looks like we’re about to intervene.

Appreciate the live demo of exactly what I was talking about.

Instead of engaging with the argument, you go straight to branding me a racist. This is why the far-right keeps gaining ground - not because people agree with them, but because they’re sick of being shouted down any time they try to talk about real issues. Apparently things still aren’t bad enough for that lesson to sink in.

EDIT: Ironically this just in: Sweden set to rent cells in Estonian jails as it runs out of room for its prisoners

Sweden is not set up to cope with a rise in the numbers being sentenced to jail time as the government grapples with an unprecedented wave of violence brought about by gang crime.

Finland

Massive amounts of refugees and immigrants since 2015, failure to integrate, gang violence, shootings and bombings among the highest per capita in Europe, and the rise of the right-wing nationalist Sweden Democrats.

Sweden basically became the cautionary tale among the Nordic countries of how not to handle mass immigration.

Edit: Sweden set to rent cells in Estonian jails as it runs out of room for its prisoners

What he says might be unpopular on this platform, but I don’t see the racism in it. Integrating large numbers of people from a completely different culture into your society is extremely difficult – if not outright impossible. Exhibit A: Sweden.

This is one of those things where dismissing people who are worried about this stuff as racists or xenophobes just alienates them – and pushes them to vote for the actual racists and xenophobes instead. That’s how you end up where the US is today.

I don't expect things to change much where I live. I haven’t noticed any radical shifts over the past 15 years, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. As for the broader Western world, I think it’ll continue along the trajectory it’s been on for the past decade or so - with the populist right gaining more ground as more people either feel disowned by the left or simply grow fed up with them.

The overall trend will probably still be toward more liberal attitudes, but since the goalposts keep moving, I don’t expect the gap between the two sides to get any narrower.

Beyond that, medicine will improve, technology will improve, and people’s lives will keep improving globally - as they have been, even if it doesn’t always feel that way. I’m not particularly worried about the future. It is what it is, and I’ll deal with it.

50% of people are "low to average"