astreus

@astreus@lemmy.ml

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astreus, (edited )

Man in 30s married to a half-Filipina woman here. When we went to visit for our honeymoon it was really gross. LOTS of very, very old men with teenage girls.

I had women falling out of their chairs to look at me.

I had a woman literally fall over while trying to ogle me while walking down the street.

For our goodbye dinner, her Ate toasted us by saying “You have fulfilled all our dreams: you’ve married a white man.”

I had several people say how ugly they were because they were Filipino.

EVERY convenience store and super market had skin whitening creams.

It was my first experience of the Philippines and the first experience I had of racial fetishism. My wife got preferential treatment for being Mestizos.

The Spanish did a real number over there with their racial hierarchy bullshit.

astreus,

The big thing I will say from my experience there: the people are AMAZING. I didn’t get ripped off, everyone was so friendly, got to play basketball with a group of kids and had a blast. And the nature is incredible.

It also had some of the most downtrodden areas I’ve ever seen, some of the biggest displays of wealth disparity, and after a few weeks on different islands, Manilla felt more like a theme park for the rich than any kind of city.

Overall, really recommend it, but try going off the beaten path!

astreus,

Your title made me wonder: would NASA get more funding if they strapped AR-15s onto the rovers and called it a liberation mission…

astreus,

We have to learn from Germany’s mistakes: armed resistance is legitimate in the face of fascism.

astreus,

Considering how much of the web is AI-generated now (with it predicted to rise to 90% by the end of 2026) we’ve managed to turn a tool for connecting people to a tool for chatbots to talk to one another.

astreus,

Me with time blindness: so about the same?

astreus,

And in Europe we’re charged 50c a sachet 😞

astreus,

As an immigrant living in Spain: Vox make election day terrifying. I just don’t leave the house (immigrants can’t vote in Spain).

I’m not a small guy, ex-competitve weight lifter and 6’2, but those people are nuts and it isn’t worth the risk.

astreus,

I live in north Barcelona (don’t want to say exactly where as I’m one of like…a dozen immigrants in the district) but last election got:

  1. Spat at repeatedly
  2. Had someone scream “Muerte de turistas” in my face (as well as others just shouting it as they went through the streets)
  3. Had to console a poor British lass, no more than 18, after someone punched her in the face

Nearly all of the perpetrators were wearing bright green.

astreus,

I mean…I’m about half a foot taller than anyone else around and hope my physique does my Saxon ancestor’s proud. It’s not hard to tell I don’t come from Spain! I speak Castilian, but my accent is not great and very limited Catalonian so if I open my mouth it’s worse.

astreus, (edited )

Unfortunately here in Barcelona the police are very, very anti-immigrant. The less attention I get from the police the better! A good example is there’s been a recent “trend” of spiking foreigner’s drinks in Barcelona bars. Women (and men, but mostly women) collapsing and throwing up and when police are asked for help they have the bright idea to suggest they take an Uber to the hospital or go home.

I’m seriously considering moving to Madrid at this stage.

EDIT: The reason I haven’t so far is a) I have a genuine sympathy for the Catalonian movement (even if a large minority make it tough at times) b) it is the most beautiful city I’ve ever lived in and c) it’s where my job is 😅

astreus,

Not for foreigners!

astreus,

Making $60k in Quabec your take home is: $44,428

Making $140k your take home is: $91,713

Using this example, all they’re going to feel is their take home pay more than doubling.

EDIT: Source: …intuit.ca/…/quebec-income-tax-calculator.jsp#

astreus,

People who earn more contribute more? They still take home more because it’s tax banded. No one goes “up a tax bracket” and earns less. It’s a nonsense statement.

18+ Can we have a conversation about indie authors and "smut"?

When did written pornography become the norm for indie authors? I remember when Amazon was first taking off for indie authors and, yes, there was a lot of smut, a lot of Christian romance, but also a ton of cyberpunk, crime, and even some literary fiction. Now, every time I see an indie author on Threads or X, they exclusively...

astreus,

The entire discourse is like this. Seriously, there was a great threads where someone asked to spend money on anything that was literary and indie. Crickets, despite indie authors attacking her a few days earlier for not reading indie.

I’m not searching this out, I’m searching out indie authors. On instagram yesterday, I checked out the indie author hashtags and every single one was porn.

astreus,

And then I checked out a competition for unpublished authors looking to break into self publishing.

Seven judges. ONE wasn’t porn.

astreus,

I wonder if there’s a clear marker pre-50 shades of grey and post-50 shades of grey…that book seems to have done a number on people.

astreus,

Now go watch some “problematic consent” porn next to her and see what happens!

astreus,

Just because I don’t have a solution doesn’t mean the problem isn’t worth highlighting imo

astreus,

Sometimes monthly, sometimes quarterly, sometimes bi-annually. Depends on the magazine.

People that have never felt at home anywhere tend to write from a very different perspective (the BoJack episode where Diane goes to Vietnam comes to mind) so I really recommend it (even though my family seem to have stuck completely to about a 50 square mile radius in south England for 600 years until I came along and moved overseas).

astreus,

Can you share some sources of small shops getting looted? During the London riots it was Barclays Bank, PC World, Argos, and Tesco that were looted, not the boutique coffee shop or hand-made jewelry stores. Even the pictures on Wikipedia of the riots are just of these stores.

Though there are some criminals we could never forgive.

astreus,

Fun fact: this actually happened during the 2011 London Riots. BBM was used to organise the rioting and looting (and then used as evidence against the organisers)

If Trump Is Not an Insurrectionist, What Is He? (www.nytimes.com)

Trump sought and actively tried to subvert constitutional government and overturn the results of the presidential election. And what he could not do through the arcane rules and procedures of the Electoral College, he tried to do through the threat of brute force, carried out by an actual mob.

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