My point is, you just have to navigate these interactions as you would any social encounter.

If someone asks me to stop whatever I’m doing and go and do whatever thing for them I would politely decline and explain why I’m unavailable.

It’s kind of preposterous to suggest that someone who is asking you for free help would tell you you’re “sand bagging” when you told them you’re unable to. I don’t really have friends or family like that. If I did it would be the same approach though - just having an open and honest conversation about why I can’t help.

LOL.

Why on earth would they want to join the US?

Their sovereignty is an invaluable asset and to give it up would be an atrocity.

Yeah correlation is not causation.

These couples might both work more than the control cohort. Any number of explanations.

Yeah mine takes forever to boot.

There’s a lot of cringey responses in this thread. Just be a nice person and talk to your family and friends in an open and honest way.

Firstly, this happens in any profession. I’m a tax consultant. People always want to talk to me about tax.

Thing is, 100% of the time people will understand if you say “I don’t really know very much about that particular thing I’m sorry.”

When someone says “my wifi isn’t working” they’re not necessarily saying “please will you come over and fix my wifi”, often they’re really saying “what should I do to solve this problem” and the answer is usually “turn it off and on again, update adobe reader, if it’s still not working take it to whatever shop.”

If someone directly asks you “please will you stop what you’re doing and come fix my x”, which never actually happens, then you just deal with it as appropriate. “Sorry nan I have a lot going on right now, you’ll have to take it to the shop”.

Australia’s freedom score is better than the US.

There are a myriad of social issues faced by First Australians (Aboriginals) including police brutality. Any summation I would try to give would be reductive given the complex history and various mitigation strategies that have occurred.

However, as I pointed out earlier it’s the prevalence of misbehavior amongst officers that determines whether it’s possible to be a police officer without passively condoning that sort of behavior.

Perhaps the behavior of Australian Police warrants the ACAB label in your view, it doesn’t in mine.

“Take away a year of your life” is hyperbole.

It’s not like you’re dropped into 70s Vietnamese jungle with a garrot wire and some amphetamines.

It’s more like a year long summer camp. Learn basic soldiering, learn some kind of speciality whether it’s catering, logistics, or mechanics, and earn a good salary.

Most people go backpacking for a few years afterwards to spend the money they earned.

If you’d rather play games instead it’s pretty easy to get an exemption.

The US has ever been a fickle bed fellow.

No, it’s not a “guilty by association” type argument.

I don’t necessarily subscribe to the ACAB argument. It seems that way in the US, but I don’t have any direct experience with that. In Australia I’ve never encountered a bastard cop, nor even heard of an experience like that, aside from a few instances I’ve heard of in the media.

I think it comes down to the prevalence of misconduct.

In some police services there may indeed be just one or two officers who are bastards and in that case you’re obviously not a bastard just because you work in the same service provided you’re not actively covering up their behavior.

In other services where there’s a culture of violence and cronyism et cetera, it would become impossible to serve the community without at least passively condoning the misbehavior of others. This is the situation where one could like at the entire service and say, that all of them are bastards even if they’re not directly perpetrating violence.

Wow, that’s so amazing.

That’s… disingenuous I think.

Biden has a lot to answer for, but this is just hyperbole.

Ideals are worthless if you can’t get elected. Like fracking might be objectively bad, but if banning fracking will block you from getting elected then it’s not a good policy.

Sure, a lot of people don’t want more drilling, but apparently more voters do want more drilling.

I think it’s a response to the common “a few bad apples” excuse.

The assertion being that to be a cop you have to overlook so many bad apples that at best, you’re a bastard for enabling the bad apples.

Perhaps another way to say the same thing, at times in any profession, if you’re unable to improve whatever situation then you’re only recourse is to resign because being involved would compromise you.

I don’t understand why people don’t just choose not to put toxins in their body.

It’s because it’s addictive.

There’s a firefox extension I still don’t care about cookies that deals with these.

Since firefox rolled out total cookie protection the risks to privacy are minimal anyway.

I think everyone everywhere knows the world over is sliding to the right.

… or you know, spend the last 3 years setting up a proper democrat candidate instead of getting in the way till the last minute.

That’s what it says in the summary.

Thing is, it’s not a complete waste of time even if it has no practical impact on oil production. It means that Trump has to make a clear unambiguous statement in support of drilling. In the same way history has recorded the coal / river thing, so it will be for oil.

… bit of a roll of the dice. You don’t want to hear the minutia of wedding planning every day.

Maybe the dog was about to attack a small child.

I’ve seen someone poke a dog in the ass with a stick. They were a hero. Dog was latched on to someone’s leg.

“Anything longer than a sentence deserves a phone call”