the_common_duck@reddit

“I live about 9 hours from my parents.”

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Personally I have sensitive teeth, and also if a drink is too cold it kind of feels bad on my throat.

For the non Americans. That’s ~40*c for like.. months at a time.

We’re in ny state and it goes from -8F-100f regularly.

That’s -14c-38c…sometimes it’s within the same month.

Right now at 2:3am, it’s 4c and will be 27c in 6 hours. (Which is 40f and 80f..)

People think there’s a stigma against homeschooling, but there literally isn’t. It’s just the worst option. It is a last resort after all other options fail.

In the modern day, ignoring special needs such as physical or learning disabilities, homeschooling is a tool to indoctrinate the next generation with obviously false information, while restricting access to the outside world and differing opinions and viewpoints.

The exceptions to this, are so few and in between they may aswell not exist. If we’re talking purely academics, each individual teacher in school goes through five or more years of training for one specific subject, and to learn how to efficiently and effectively teach children. (MOST) Parents are not qualified to teach several academic subjects as well as help develop social skills.

My teachers were frequently out of the class to update their understanding and material, getting new certificates all the time.

The response to this is always something like:

“Well I don’t want a mentally ill guy that thinks he’s a girl dressed as a cat pooping in a litter box in the classroom teaching my kids.” And I just have to ask myself, have these people ever been to a school?

Or

“I was homeschooled and I’m literally straight up better than everyone at everything!” And it’s just a MAGA bot account with 0 followers and 3,500 post of bible quotes over a white cloudy bachground.

You’ll notice it’s always people selling homeschooling/online courses and planning that are pushing the homeschool narrative.

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MajesticBread9147@reddit

It makes sense honestly. I think a lot of people forget that the barrier to entry to be a teacher is much higher than the barrier to entry to be a parent.

MY SINK DEMON

Every house I've visited in Germany (and the one I lived in) had one.

They're also common in Belgium, if not universal.

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WerwolfSlayr@reddit

Somehow I live in America and have never seen one irl

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WillGrahamsass@reddit

Listen to the Bob and Tom skit on this topic. It's one of the Mr. Obvious episodes. Hilarious!

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Jasmirris@reddit

I thought you were talking about an actual sink demon and I was about to be really jealous.

Actually, I think it has more to due with sewage processing. Here in Germany, in much if not all of the country, we have a brown bin where we put organics. It’s the expectation we don’t throw them out of flush them down the toilet. Therefore the water treatment is geared toward less organic material. At least that’s the reasoning I’ve heard.

Where I grew up in Trenton, NJ they weren’t allowed either due to the age of the sewer system. And this was in the 1970s.

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FishingWorth3068@reddit

That’s fair. I’m the idiot that ruined multiple garbage disposals in my house before realizing you can’t actually just throw everything down there. I need to start a compost pile.

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PAXICHEN@reddit

Potato peels will kill them.

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exsnakecharmer@reddit

I have a garbage disposal. Why do you think that's only an American thing? (From New Zealand).

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Popular-Local8354@reddit

Because the internet constantly prattles on about it.
From what I’ve seen, NZ and Australia are two of the few countries that come close to North America in their ubiquitousness.

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exsnakecharmer@reddit

I didn't realise it was an internet thing. Waste disposal units are pretty popular here and in Australia, but I wouldn't say we're culturally similar to the US at all (lived in all 3).

In any case, not just a US thing, they also use them in Canada and the UK, and in flasher houses in Asia.

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royalhawk345@reddit

I wouldn't say we're culturally similar to the US at all

I doubt there even a handful of counties more culturally similar to the US than Australia.

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exsnakecharmer@reddit

I’m not from Australia, but having lived there, it’s not very culturally similar at all. Have you lived there mate?

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royalhawk345@reddit

Not lived there, but spent time there and have Australian friends. If you disagree with my statement, what countries would you put above it?

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exsnakecharmer@reddit

Canada for one.

Australia and NZ have garbage disposals because we traditionally build large houses on a lot of land so have room in our kitchens for them.
Nothing to do with being culturally like yanks.

You wouldn’t understand Australian culture in Australia any more than you’d get Irish or Welsh culture right away. You’re acting like you’d fit right in right away which you wouldn’t. When something has developed in isolation it becomes its own thing.

Aussie isn’t just Texas with a tan. It’s why immigrants have so much trouble making friends with Australians in Australia, they just see things from the surface.

The outlook on life, the humour, the idea around the meaning of life itself, values, race, even the interests and sports they play etc are all very different down there.

(The EU is down on disposals due to water wastage btw, Asia tends to have smaller kitchens.)

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BigBaws92@reddit

What is so different about the Australian outlook on life, the humor, and the idea around the meaning of life itself that is so insanely different from Americans?

OP said other countries don’t have garbage disposals. That is untrue, I’m not American and I have one. I never said everyone has one.

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ellski@reddit

Rentals in NZ don't come with those either. They don't even usually come with house appliances like fridge or washing machine, whereas I understand in the US they typically do even when you sell the house.

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FunTricky903@reddit

because of posts like this

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smarmiebastard@reddit

The brand of the garbage disposal at my house is Bone Crusher, and it really sums up why I’m so scared to ever put my hand down the sink when I drop something.

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KnowOneHere@reddit

I tried to explain to a European that our health insurance has to approve our care - you don't just receive care bc your doctors say you need it.

Al-Pastor@reddit

Tipping at sit down restaurants is not exclusively a US thing though. For instance, you also tip in Canada and Mexico and other countries. Just not necessarily at the same rate (e.g., in Mexico the norm is to tip 15%).

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wouldbejane@reddit

This. I spent a long night once trying to explain both tipping (and the need for it) and sales tax to a couple of Irish women. We all ended up agreeing that sales tax feels like a bait and switch and paying a living wage would make more sense.

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No_Walk_Town@reddit

We all ended up agreeing that sales tax feels like a bait and switch

Not really. I work in international sales, and calculating taxes/customs separately from product price is actually the international norm.

The concept is perfectly normal and comprehensible to people around the world - people just play dumb and pretend they don't get it for the AmericaBad vibes.

It's not a bait and switch unless you're a literal child first learning about sales tax. I have literally never had a customer accuse me of bait and switch for giving them an EXW price.

and paying a living wage would make more sense.

Waitstaff don't make a living wage anywhere in the world. I can guarantee you they don't in Ireland, and those women were either taking the piss or completely delusional.

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saplith@reddit

You mean tips? A sales tax is just... well taxes and has nothing to do with income. Tips should be banished, I agree, but sales tax has some valid reasons to exist. Mostly to keep city and especially county governments going.

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wouldbejane@reddit

I think their beef with the sales tax is that it's not included in the price of the item. We are all expected to know the local tax rate and calculate how much it will be before we go to pay so we know if we have enough. We're used to it. But from an outside perspective it felt to them like being told one price and then charged another, hence the bait and switch.

I understand what sales taxes do for us. But I think they have a point about the way the tax is communicated to the consumer.

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IHaveBoxerDogs@reddit

Don’t visit DC. There’s a 10% tax on meals (including takeout) that’s completely separate from sales taxes.

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Biscuit_bell@reddit

It’s even worse for the last year or two. Restaurants are now adding a 10-20% “service fee” to the check to cover increases to the tipped minimum wage. This service fee is NOT a tip and doesn’t necessarily go directly to the service staff, so you’re still expected to tip on top of that. AND it is frequently added to your check pre-tax, which means you pay the 10% meals tax on that service fee as well.

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NixMaritimus@reddit

Fun fact: American tipping has its roots in people not wanting to pay freed slaves after the civil war, so the burden of pay was passed from the employer to the customer.

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FerricDonkey@reddit

I mean, the customer always pays the employees. Where do we think the employers money that they would use to pay the employee comes from?

That's not to deny the roots - I've read that it was to keep people acting subservient because if racist people were tipping them, standing up for yourself would result in not getting paid.

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hawffield@reddit

Yeah, alot kind of just seems like just people say online that “shocks” them about the United States.

When I was in Uganda, my community members truly thought we do EVERYTHING with machines. Like, to the point they thought I didn’t know how to use a backhoe or how to use a pump. I think what really shocked them was how we usually don’t repeat a meal from the day before. Like, we might tacos one day, then spaghetti the next, then fish the next. Most people who I lived near in Uganda would eat basically the same thing every day.

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Opening-Bandicoot859@reddit

Baseball

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GurProfessional9534@reddit

This won’t apply to all the different countries, but I had a coworker from Uzbekistan once who was culture shocked because she didn’t have to pay small bribes to everyone for routine government functions like getting an ID card. She also didn’t trust banks and insisted on keeping money in cash. She said it was because, in her country, they were not trustworthy. She also casually talked about people catching tuberculosis and hep B.

Listening to her talk about these things that absolutely did not cross my mind before was pretty eye opening.

I know many other countries also don’t deal with these concerns, so don’t misinterpret what I’m describing as a US-only attribute.

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FlyingCupcake68@reddit

I have heard that bribes are a common part of Chinese culture as well.

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Uhhh_what555476384@reddit

They tend to be a common part of lots of authoritarian systems. Lots of countries actually figure the bribe into what they pay their civil servants. (Western countries generally have extremely well paid civil servants on a global scale.)

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_fenwoods@reddit

Yeah, my brother dated a girl from Russia and any time they traveled there they’d have to set aside cash for bribes.

Tipping culture looks civilized in comparison.

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bhale2017@reddit

I am curious where they traveled to and what they were doing. Also, what they looked like. I lived in Moscow for over a couple years and only got extorted by officials once. Maybe twice, depending on how you look at it. If she were dealing with government officials a lot, looked less white than Snegoruchka, or was traveling through certain parts of Russia, the bribery/extortion would probably be much greater.

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_fenwoods@reddit

Train from Berlin. Bribes were for customs officials. Their ultimate destination was Petersburg.

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Tejanisima@reddit

One thing that has been a problem in El Salvador for quite a while is local government offices deliberately putting down a detail incorrectly on a required form, then the clerk charging you to fix it. I have multiple family members by marriage whose documents have the wrong birthdate because they didn't see the point in paying some asshole 10 bucks to put the correct day in March when they could just shrug their shoulders and have a different birthday on their papers than the day they actually celebrate with the family. Which works just great until your SIL is trying to find you in the immigration system and it takes three days of fruitless searching because nobody's ever thought to tell her that (a) your official DOB is off by 11 days and (b) you have a first name that your brother completely forgot to mention to her no matter how many times she commented that it seemed weird you were the only one out of 10 kids with just one name. (Yes, I realize that second point isn't an example of government malfeasance, but it still frustrates me a decade later that if it hadn't taken so long to find him, the outcome might have been different. 🤬 )

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Consistent_Post_2558@reddit

I have a friend from Brazil who attempted to give the police cash the first time she was pulled over for a traffic violation in the US. It’s common practice in the part of Brazil she’s from.

Also, the difference in pay and quality control at the police departments is shocking to the inexperienced. When I was a public defender in a rural community I often found myself scrutinizing the Staties on the highway, making 80k to 130k a year, a lot less then the local municipal departments making 30k to 60k per year. We even had a local department rehire someone they fired for stalking his ex on the clock, in uniform, and out of jurisdiction!

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We get it. We’re just infuriated by it.

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brettyrocks@reddit

Sales tax.

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Squirrel179@reddit

How different everyone looks. Americans have every different phenotype and a ton of genetic diversity. There's no way to "look American." We eat cuisine from a different culture almost every day of the week.

One country, could be even more than 51 systems.

Drinking laws can be like this especially. They can change from county to city and be different than state overall depending on stuff. And day of the week or time.

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Fingersmith30@reddit

Trying to get a cocktail with dinner in Gettysburg, PA and having everyone look at me like I was insane was a really frustrating experience.

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NatAttack50932@reddit

The point isn't the delegation of laws but the delegation of systems themselves. The idea is that the governments are separate from eschother, rather than one government being derived from the powers of another. I'm not an expert in state constitutions, but in most cases state governments are supreme to their municipalities and can create or dissolve municipalities at will - while there are still local laws and municipal governments, they are at the mercy of their state capital.

This is contrasted against US states and the federal government. US states have inherent powers to legislate -- their authority isn't derived from Washington, and Washington has no ability to dissolve or disincorporate a state in the Union.

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Decade1771@reddit

Damn well put!

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Spiel_Foss@reddit

Amen, my brother.

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TempAcct724@reddit

Yeah I once went to a frog jumping contest in California and tried to eat one of the frogs that died.

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Decade1771@reddit

Bet they will try though. At some point. I am, hopefully, be factitious. Wouldn't put it past any administration at this point. Especially not this one.

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ThePickleConnoisseur@reddit

Imagine the EU but it was one country. That’s what it’s like. And all the competing interests along with funding “federal” things like military and infrastructure

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JtotheC23@reddit

With certain individual exceptions, I think it's for the best because of how our population is spread. I would hate if an law or tax that was really only necessary for, say Texas or California, had to apply to me in Illinois just because the system wasn't set up to account for us having completely different needs. People in Illinois get upset enough when a state-wide tax is proposed to fund a Chicago-specific endeavour (like recent proposed taxes to fund the CTA). I can't imagine how much worse it would be if that were a nationwide issue.

Just no other country has our combination of land size and density, so it's a need that is pretty unique to us. The closest is China, but in about the same amount of land area as we can put a line of 50/50, they can put a line that divides the population 95% to 5%.

In Korea my coworker sneezed and I said “bless you!”. Well I NEVER lived that down. “Oh Americans think so highly of themselves they bless people like the pope when they want without asking?!”.

Felt weird to just have people sneeze and not acknowledge it.

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praxistheory@reddit

Our family just says “godzilla” when someone sneezes.

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IWantALargeFarva@reddit

Your culture is strange to me, but I respect it.

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goblin_hipster@reddit

Gesundheit! À tes souhaits!

I’m rural, on any random day I might hear gunfire. It doesn’t concern me in the slightest. It’s just someone target shooting or hunting.

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Unsure-Snake-666@reddit

Everyone knows about the healthcare situation but a lot of the side effects of our system aren’t super widely considered.

For example, needing a doctor’s note for school or work can be a huge issue because a doctor’s note requires a significant out of pocket expense. People come in to work sick, not because they need the money from that day’s work, but because they can’t afford the doctor’s note required yo keep the job if they slip a day.

I can walk to my local grocery store; it's 1/2 a mile away. But its also uphill on the way back, which limits what I can carry, its often cold and windy, and there's three crosswalks on the way.

Matt-of-Burbank@reddit

Check out Prisma in Finland. Massive.

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exsnakecharmer@reddit

Korea has the multi-level massive Emart stores, New Zealand has The Warehouse, Australia has massive stores (K mart etc), Japan has Aeon and Don Quijote, UK has Asda...

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Professional-Pungo@reddit

Sure, where each floor of the store is basically a small room of an American house that sells a specific thing.

...Please rise for the national anthem.

WillGrahamsass@reddit

My bestie got called and had to sit despite having breast feeding twins.

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punkass_book_jockey8@reddit

I could pump and said so and said I just needed a break every 2-3 hours but at the time the very old court house under renovations did not have any space to put me. The law has since changed and it’s not under major renovations so I think it’s not an issue now.

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gujwdhufj_ijjpo@reddit

I got chosen once. We convicted. It was animal abuse.

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panicnarwhal@reddit

the only time i got called for jury duty, it ended up being my PCP (who also happens to be my oldest daughter’s best friend’s dad)

The unhinged level of Air conditioning in places. I am in Florida and I own so many cardigans because while it is 95 and humid outside, most places are crazy cold indoors.

You've heard about the US police arresting people for walking? Where at?

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Skithiryx@reddit

Not actually arresting, but stopping them to ask what they were doing / what business did they have there. I saw a lot of stories about it on an Evan Edinger video on youtube, though come to think of it I don’t recall any identifying specifically where. To be fair, that’s extremely weird for the parts of the US I’ve been to, walking is very normal in Seattle for instance.

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L1Zs@reddit

Where I am, I think police only question walker’s if it’s in the middle of the night or something. Especially if you’re in the middle of the suburbs. Though I am from the outskirts of Seattle

Some places cops are just racist

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just_a_wolf@reddit

Super small towns can be weird and suspicious of outsiders I suppose, but surely that's not just an American problem. Pedestrians are completely normal in any normal size city in the US.

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rileyoneill@reddit

The Netherlands made a huge effort to reform their cities starting in the 1990s or so. A lot of urbanists praise these upgrades as being what every city should aspire to to get away from cars. Car sales are far higher in the Netherlands today than they were in the past. The portion of car free households has shrunk.

Driving is really preferred once people can afford it. While many of these European countries built great transit solutions, they had to make driving drastically more expensive to get people to avoid driving. Car registration can easily be $1000 per year and a gallon of of gasoline is $8-$10.

Still, the most popular way for people to get around in the Netherlands is by driving.

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DontRunReds@reddit

And when you live in a place where small scale public transit and pedestrian commuting is possible, it becomes an awful dumping ground for hordes of cruise ship tourists. They then extract the beauty of your small rural location and leave behind scrubber waste to fuck up your fisheries and heat the planet. Then they think everything is hunky dory because it's better than whatever concrete-laden suburban hell they came from. Eventually, walkability becomes a thing of the past due to diesel exhaust and overuse of existing infrastructure.

TrapdoorSolution@reddit

Large pick up trucks as someone’s personal car.

At least in Europe, large pick up trucks (and larger sedans in general) just aren’t around, which logistically in many places makes sense due to the smaller roads

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bananaland420@reddit

Carrying a firearm.

It’s a tool used for safety. It’s no different than a medical kit or a fire extinguisher.

All 3 have the same thing in common. You don’t need it until you need it.

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thegreatpotatogod@reddit

Except that medical kits and fire extinguishers aren't members of the 5 leading causes of death for people under 44 (source: CDC "Fast Facts: Firearm Injury and Death")

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PhilRubdiez@reddit

Drive thru gas stations. Pull on up, grab beer, smokes, or whatever else you need. They’ll hand it to you or toss it in your trunk.

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FlyingCupcake68@reddit

Where is this?

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The US is cheaper than loads of countries

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MajesticBread9147@reddit

Really? Other than Switzerland I've heard from friends flying international that other countries are cheap compared to American cities, like Tokyo, London, and Paris by a good bit compared to New York and Los Angeles.

The only thing that's really cheaper in America that I have heard is gasoline, and luxury goods, which is why malls are filled with tourists buying stuff without VAT.

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exsnakecharmer@reddit

Do NY and LA represent the states though?

Most of the US is way cheaper than other developed countries.

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MajesticBread9147@reddit

I mean, based on some random internet calculator, my hometown is in the middle of those two places COL wise.

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exsnakecharmer@reddit

I live in a shit town 3 hours away from the nearest city. There is no industry, no work, and the average house price is over a million dollars. Petrol is $US11 a gallon here. A block of cheese is $20 a packet of cigarettes is $50.

The average wage here is $28-30 an hour for context.

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MajesticBread9147@reddit

What country is this?

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I mean no one is exactly the same, but I really like chatting and small talk with strangers. I’m not a con artist. I’m not mentally ill. I like smiling my parents spent a fortune on braces.

So many countries and cultures this is just a giant red flag.

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puppy_sneeze@reddit

Low vacation time off and no parental leave unless your company offers it.

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charcoalhibiscus@reddit

Income taxes. “They know (or can easily find out) how much you owe them, but they won’t tell you. They make you calculate it yourself, and if you screw up, you get in trouble.”