Jake

Idle Weekend November 20, 2016: Electing Better

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@xchen

 

I don't think "I don't believe he will continue with his bad policies that he has already garnered public and party support for" is a great counterargument, I'm afraid.

 

Besides the proposed database of Muslims (which has so many parallels to Nazi Germany that prominent Jewish people have said they'd put themselves on it for solidarity and support), we have commitments to repealing transgender protections (put in place by Obama's adminstration), foreign policy that allows Russian criminal acts to go less-challenged (by pulling back from NATO and supporting Putin, Trump emboldens Putin's categorical inarguable action of invading sovereign countries in peacetime, with no provocation), repealing Obamacare (and talks of replacements set to exclude hereditary or otherwise genetic conditions) and the inclusion of former Goldman Sachs employees on his team . . . there is a long list of things based on campaign promises that movement is already being made on.

 

I'm from the UK, I've been through Brexit (the referendum and associated political manouvres, to clarify). We saw a lot of rhetoric about it being better for the economy.

 

It wasn't. It isn't, and it will continue not to be even as we actually move to invoke Article 50. It will cost us billions, and in preparation for that the Government is cutting spending to education, local government and medical institutions like the NHS.

 

I have very little faith the US will manage a reversal of this considering the sorry state things like your healthcare are and were in. The moves Trump have been making do not inspire confidence in a platform that can invigourate the American economy. He's a multi-million dollar businessman (I'm being charitable here) with links to former Presidents (remember when he met Bill Clinton, years back?) and other political bodies. He is not an "outsider". He might not be a Republican, but that's hardly a qualification you need to shout about.

 

3 hours ago, Athis said:

Thanks you for replies guys

I just present my perceptions and opinions

 

At the moment people are so shocked by the election, and their perceptions are so completely distorted by the intense media propaganda that accompanied it

that almost no one is capable of making a clear rational estimation of Trump.

(I include myself in that)

 

Most of the outpourings in media reports and opinion pieces and the population are expressions of a sort of mass hysteria

It seems to me to be a mirror image of the mass hysteria in the media and the population that accompanied Obama's election eight years ago

Obama turned out not to be the agent of the hope & change he promised to be

I dont think Trump will turn out to be the monster many seem to think he is

But I may be mistaken; only time will tell

 

Meanwhile I dont believe the hysteria and fear mongering in the media

I will wait and watch and see what he will actually do

 

Speak for yourself, and only yourself.

 

There are plenty of facts available for people to be able to be worried about the man and the platform he represents. Do not dismiss peoples' fears and concerns by suggesting their view of reality is warped in some way. This isn't to say that this is an impossible notion, but this is not the generalisation that you want to be making.

 

The difference between your repeated criticisms of Obama and your repeated defense of Trump is simple: Obama not achieving all he aimed for (against a Senate that was controlled by an opposing party in a two-party system) does not lead to as bad an outcome as Trump turning out to be as bad as people are saying. Assuming you're right about Obama does not bring peoples' worst fears to pass. Assuming I (or other poster) are right about Trump brings them to pass.

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"He didn't really mean it" is maybe the least defensible position in why you would vote for someone that I've ever heard, even if it's only part of the justification. This does confirm many of my suspicions about why he won though. One of them being that Fox's decade long campaign about how we need a political outsider worked.

Mike Pence is a horrible person who is just as scary as Donald Trump. My life is going to be worse, demonstrably, under a Trump presidency than under Obama or Clinton.

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If you legitimately believe that voting for a man who actively and willingly attracted the support of literal Nazis doesn't mean you are complicit in that kind of behavior, then, I dunno my dude, that seems ridiculous to me. It's true that there are a lot of ignorant people who fell for his rhetoric and didn't or don't realize what was actually happening. You don't seem like one of those people. That's scary.

 

You say Hillary has done gross stuff, and that's true, but she doesn't represent and welcome the worst portions of this country in an open and gleeful manner. If she got into office and then started appointing white supremacists, I would feel betrayed, not guilty. Thus far with Trump, we've gotten exactly what was advertised. This is who he is. You no longer have the freedom to say "well he's probably not as bad as you think we'll just have to wait and see". We are already seeing it. Welcome to hell.

 

Also, in particular, this is just not true: "By this logic everyone who votes for anyone would be complicit in all of the candidates past behaviors."

 

You'll notice I never once mentioned Trump's past actions. I only mentioned his behavior during (and since) the election cycle. This is important, because you seem to believe I'm talking about everything he's ever done. Everything I mentioned is stuff that is happening now. Hell, I didn't even mention the many rape accusations levied at him, as much as I think that does make him a despicable human being. That's stuff from his past. He doesn't have a past as a politician. THIS is his political career. One that embraces disgusting behaviors just because it benefits him. One that thinks nuking Syria is a real option.

 

And you voted for him.

 

Why?

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1 hour ago, jennegatron said:

"He didn't really mean it" is maybe the least defensible position in why you would vote for someone that I've ever heard, even if it's only part of the justification. This does confirm many of my suspicions about why he won though. One of them being that Fox's decade long campaign about how we need a political outsider worked.

Mike Pence is a horrible person who is just as scary as Donald Trump. My life is going to be worse, demonstrably, under a Trump presidency than under Obama or Clinton.

 

Yo. This.

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For a guy that contradicts himself as often as he does, "he didn't mean it" makes sense. That's where a lot of the fear stems from - no-one knows what he's going to do, and from some of what he's said, it could be bad news for minorities. Certainly the party backing him wants to roll back Obama's changes.

 

Athis, as an outsider looking in, you've got no problem if Trump does half of what he says he's going to do, but some of the posters on here have targets painted on their backs now. It's not suprising they're afraid and angry.

 

Personal opinion:

I don't think a majority of Trump voters are racist (beyond supporting the status quo) - key swing states previously voted for Obama, who is not on any racist's Christmas card list. Trump won partly because of the two-party system where 40% of the population votes based on wherether there's an (R) or (D) by the name ("you gotta hold your nose and vote for the least worst candidate, so even if he is a racist, sexist, fascist, it's better than socialism, amirite?") and partly because of promises to bring prosperity back to neglected regions - anyone see him in Michigan, promising to bring the car industry back? Those jobs are gone forever, but it sounds good, doesn't it? Especially if you're a dirt-poor blue-collar worker.

 

Let's not forget Trump lost over 3 million votes to Johnson, either, and he still won. Hillary was just about the worst choice. All you hear about her being crooked and so on? Part of a decades-long campaign going back to when Bill was in White House.

Also, why the hell haven't the Democrats got their shit together enough to win Congress? Trump couldn't do shit against an organised opposition, but nope, it's Republicans all the way down...

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39 minutes ago, Beasteh said:

I don't think a majority of Trump voters are racist (beyond supporting the status quo) - key swing states previously voted for Obama, who is not on any racist's Christmas card list. Trump won partly because of the two-party system where 40% of the population votes based on wherether there's an (R) or (D) by the name ("you gotta hold your nose and vote for the least worst candidate, so even if he is a racist, sexist, fascist, it's better than socialism, amirite?") and partly because of promises to bring prosperity back to neglected regions - anyone see him in Michigan, promising to bring the car industry back? Those jobs are gone forever, but it sounds good, doesn't it? Especially if you're a dirt-poor blue-collar worker.

 

This NYTimes piece on the post-racial myth explains a lot of how "not racist" people who voted for Obama voted for Trump because of or regardless of racist dogwhistles, at least to me.

 

Also, the blue-collar working class who've lost their jobs to automation and changing market demands fill me with pessimism. It's not just that they want jobs: they want their old jobs, exactly how they were when coal and the American automobile were king. Obama put into place job-retraining programs for out-of-work coal miners. Only 0.5% of those individuals invited to participate in those programs actually did, because they've all been raised from birth to think that coal-mining is the noblest profession. The government actually looks bad to them for trying to get them other work.

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Also, the idea that "he's not really a politician" scares the hell out of a lot of people because that just means he's likely to hand the reigns off to Pence (who is a fucking terrifying individual for a lot of people) and let the Republican majority House and Congress do whatever the fuck they want. Not to mention whoever he appoints to SCOTUS.

 

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3 minutes ago, Twig said:

Also, the idea that "he's not really a politician" scares the hell out of a lot of people because that just means he's likely to hand the reigns off to Pence (who is a fucking terrifying individual for a lot of people) and let the Republican majority House and Congress do whatever the fuck they want. Not to mention whoever he appoints to SCOTUS.

 

Yeah, the "outsider" thing fills me with pessimism, too. Expertise has been under siege for the past twenty years in American culture, but politics is the one profession where people have rejected expertise outright. You don't want an outsider doing your plumbing or defending you in court, but an outsider making your laws? Sure. It's gotten to the point where political expertise is synonymous with corruption, regardless of the politician's actual record.

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25 minutes ago, Gormongous said:

 

This NYTimes piece on the post-racial myth explains a lot of how "not racist" people who voted for Obama voted for Trump because of or regardless of racist dogwhistles, at least to me.

 

Also, the blue-collar working class who've lost their jobs to automation and changing market demands fill me with pessimism. It's not just that they want jobs: they want their old jobs, exactly how they were when coal and the American automobile were king. Obama put into place job-retraining programs for out-of-work coal miners. Only 0.5% of those individuals invited to participate in those programs actually did, because they've all been raised from birth to think that coal-mining is the noblest profession. The government actually looks bad to them for trying to get them other work.

 

This is a real problem because it doesn't matter who is President, those jobs are not coming back. The story is all about the natural gas boom that happened in the U.S. in the last decade. The cost of energy production in the natural gas field is half what coal is. Coal is an industry on its death bed as a simple matter of production cost. Any politician that takes the concerns of those workers seriously won't have any great answers, and that makes them vulnerable to grifters like Trump who will happily lie to them about bringing those jobs back. It's unclear how to combat that sort of false hope effectively.

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10 hours ago, Gorbles said:

@xchen

 

I don't think "I don't believe he will continue with his bad policies that he has already garnered public and party support for" is a great counterargument, I'm afraid.

 

Besides the proposed database of Muslims (which has so many parallels to Nazi Germany that prominent Jewish people have said they'd put themselves on it for solidarity and support), we have commitments to repealing transgender protections (put in place by Obama's adminstration), foreign policy that allows Russian criminal acts to go less-challenged (by pulling back from NATO and supporting Putin, Trump emboldens Putin's categorical inarguable action of invading sovereign countries in peacetime, with no provocation), repealing Obamacare (and talks of replacements set to exclude hereditary or otherwise genetic conditions) and the inclusion of former Goldman Sachs employees on his team . . . there is a long list of things based on campaign promises that movement is already being made on.

 

I'm from the UK, I've been through Brexit (the referendum and associated political manouvres, to clarify). We saw a lot of rhetoric about it being better for the economy.

 

It wasn't. It isn't, and it will continue not to be even as we actually move to invoke Article 50. It will cost us billions, and in preparation for that the Government is cutting spending to education, local government and medical institutions like the NHS.

 

I have very little faith the US will manage a reversal of this considering the sorry state things like your healthcare are and were in. The moves Trump have been making do not inspire confidence in a platform that can invigourate the American economy. He's a multi-million dollar businessman (I'm being charitable here) with links to former Presidents (remember when he met Bill Clinton, years back?) and other political bodies. He is not an "outsider". He might not be a Republican, but that's hardly a qualification you need to shout about.

 

 

Speak for yourself, and only yourself.

 

There are plenty of facts available for people to be able to be worried about the man and the platform he represents. Do not dismiss peoples' fears and concerns by suggesting their view of reality is warped in some way. This isn't to say that this is an impossible notion, but this is not the generalisation that you want to be making.

 

The difference between your repeated criticisms of Obama and your repeated defense of Trump is simple: Obama not achieving all he aimed for (against a Senate that was controlled by an opposing party in a two-party system) does not lead to as bad an outcome as Trump turning out to be as bad as people are saying. Assuming you're right about Obama does not bring peoples' worst fears to pass. Assuming I (or other poster) are right about Trump brings them to pass.

 

I do stand by my generalisation

Which is my perception and opinion

You of course are free to exempt yourself

I have many friends reporting a veritable firestorm on their social media accounts

People are in shock; but things will settle down in time

 

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12 hours ago, xchen said:

 

I'm going to keep with your bullet format! I want to give a bit of my background too as it might make the context of my replies even weirded! I'm in the metro Atlanta area in a county that wen't blue for the first time, and many friends and co-workers would openly tell me they couldn't believe anyone would vote for Trump and that they were openly voting for Hillary with varying degrees of support ranging from enthusiastic to lukewarm or minimal. I was raised in a Republican household but in my formative years became much more libertarian and socially liberal while remaining pretty fiscally conservative. After 2012 I completely left the Republican party as I felt the party no longer represented me and career politicians on all sides were ruining the country. I was supportive of some of the primary candidates, and completely unsupportive of others this cycle, and was pretty turned off by the long primary campaign.

  • What were your main reasons for voting Trump?
    • Because he's not a career politician (and I would argue not really even a Republican)
    • Because I think he'll be better on economic issues affecting me, my friends and family, and you!
    • Because I think he truly thinks America is the greatest country on Earth and wants it to succeed again where it's been stagnant for many years
  • What are your thoughts and feelings with regards to Trump's campaign rhetoric?
    • I thought it was largely a tool used to great effect as proven by the outcome. I don't think he actually holds many of the positions he claimed to, which is fine by me as I don't hold them either. In many ways I think quiet Trump supporters like myself - in a way it's like a silent understanding between him and the voter where you realize he's making a ludicrous claim just to have the left get outraged and distracted, and in the end he ends up softening the position considerably. In the previous post I replied to there were lots of questions about Trumps comments with regards to Muslims and how we could be OK with someone threatening to create a Muslim registry. The answer is I'm not OK with that, but I also don't think there's any way that happens. If you want to continue on with this conversation, PM me.
  • Which of his campaign promises do you think are the most important ones?
    • Economic issues
    • Doing something about undocumented immigration (but not necessarily the Great Wall of America(tm))
    • Combatting the spread of ISIS and radical ideas to Western society
  • Do you expect Trump to follow through on his campaign promises? By the follow through I mean a reasonable attempt at getting the thing done.
    • I'm not sure, as I have never really considered this something we can reasonably expect - I'm pretty used to feeling screwed over by politicians. Is this a thing for the left, and if not, why? Obama had a ton of unfulfilled promises. Do you feel the last 8 years have been successful, and did you see Hillary as four more years, the natural selection, or a way to make right on things Obama left undone?

 

We grew up in the same area, roughly! Though the county I grew up in went blue in 76 for Carter.

 

I'll address some of this in bullet points too, mostly with follow-up questions.

  • Outsider status has some understandable draw when our system of governance is so fundamentally broken, but I believe that some experience is necessary. I also believe that Trump's experience is largely a net negative, especially in matters of foreign policy. Having operated in a purely self-interested way for so long, Trump is accustomed to transactional relationships. You give someone this service or object, and you receive something you perceive as being greater or equal in value in return. I think this transactional basis for relationships with foreign governments is dangerous. For instance, we're training Afghani soldiers in an effort to bring stability to the region. We get very little from this effort -- in part because of our methods, and in part because that's just the nature of the relationship. It's not terribly transactional. We naturally don't get much out of it. We just do it. How do you believe that Trump's disruptive, outsider status-based transactional foreign relationship paradigm will benefit the nation? Put more broadly, how do you believe his business experience has prepared him for public service?
  • Trump is poised to destroy labor unions, both through judicial appointments and through administrative and legislative means. The Rust Belt labor forces that he whipped into a torpor with rhetoric about NAFTA (justifiably, since that was when Democrats ceased to be the party that represented them) were in the best shape because of labor unions. How do you believe his anti-union stance will help workers? To further the calamity his economic plans have, we have his tax plans and his seeming willingness to default on American debt. His tax plans won't provide meaningful immediate benefit to most of America, instead favoring large tax cuts on the highest earners. How do you believe his tax plan will benefit the common worker in a way that past similar efforts at trickle-down economics have failed? Alternatively, how do you believe his tax plan is meaningfully different from trickle-down economics? How do you believe that a default on American debt, which would be the natural end to Trump's stated intentions of not paying back certain debtors under certain conditions, would be beneficial?
  • Why is America the greatest country on Earth?
  • What is the material benefit of disbelieving Trump's rhetoric?
  • Georgia's economy relies on undocumented immigrants. In the early 2010s, Georgia adopted HB87, which created a hostile environment for undocumented immigrants resulting in an economic loss for the state of upwards of $100M (if I'm remembering right). In this way and through similar stories nationwide, undocumented immigrants have been shown to be vital to the operation of many industries and the continued functioning of essential infrastructure. Why do you consider undocumented immigration to be such a calamitous problem that must be addressed? Put another way, what net harm do you believe there is that outweighs the benefits of undocumented immigrants?
  • What radical ideas do you fear spreading to Western society, and in what way do you expect those ideas to impact your life?

This is perhaps a little probing, but I've tried to be thorough and precise in my questions so that I could potentially have something to follow up on in further discussion and better understand your point of view.

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9 hours ago, Athis said:

 

I do stand by my generalisation

Which is my perception and opinion

You of course are free to exempt yourself

I have many friends reporting a veritable firestorm on their social media accounts

People are in shock; but things will settle down in time

 

 

People being loud or angry on social media doesn't mean people are being wrong on social media. That's an equivalence that has a history associated with it, and not a good one.

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I just wanted to add one more voice to the chorus here by saying that the claim that an isolationist Trump presidency would cause less turmoil than Clinton's hawkish foreign policies feels like a disingenuous attempt to speak on behalf of the rest of the world. I have seen this claim made by quite a few people from the US, but I have yet to see anybody outside of it voice a similar opinion (a trend that seems to be mirrored in this thread). Around where I live, even the right-wing newssources I avoid like the plague are aghast at the fact that the US has elected a man universally (and rightfully) seen as a bumbling buffoon.

 

Trump explicitly ran on a platform of nuclear proliferation, weakening NATO, and turning the US's long-standing defensive agreements into a racketeering scheme. Even if you somehow don't believe he's going to what he said he was going to do (in which case I struggle to understand the appeal of voting for him), we've already seen him bungle the most basic task of dipomatic phone calls because he's both unprepared and unwilling to prepare. At the moment, his only discernible foreign strategy seems to be to cash in US influence for his own profit, make diplomats stay at his hotels, ask international leaders about permits and tax breaks for his businesses *wink wink nudge nudge*. He says he's going to abandon his businesses, but leaving them with his children is hardly an impartial solution, especially not if he's going to keep bringing them along to diplomatic meetings.

 

So I don't see how anybody in the world is better off with a US president who can't bring himself to care about another country unless he has plans to build a hotel there. Safe for his own opportunistic goals, he is likely going to vacate the global stage and let Putin do as he please. And let's not forget he's a climate change denier, which on its own, is likely to cause untold damage to the entire globe.

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2 hours ago, Gorbles said:

 

People being loud or angry on social media doesn't mean people are being wrong on social media. That's an equivalence that has a history associated with it, and not a good one.

 

Yes when populations are in shock bad things can happen

But I predict this will pass and things will settle down

For a while

Generally I would say we are moving into very uncertain times

Potentially dangerous times

 

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3 hours ago, Athis said:

 

Yes when populations are in shock bad things can happen

But I predict this will pass and things will settle down

For a while

Generally I would say we are moving into very uncertain times

Potentially dangerous times

 

 

Why do you keep formatting your posts this way? Also, never saying anything of substance.

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3 hours ago, tabacco said:

 

Why do you keep formatting your posts this way? Also, never saying anything of substance.

 

You just dont like what I say

Which is perfectly fine; dont worry about it

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Internet Discourse 101: Accuse everyone else of being unreasonable to win.

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43 minutes ago, Athis said:

 

You just dont like what I say

Which is perfectly fine; dont worry about it

 

You sure showed me with that substantive comeback.

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17 hours ago, tabacco said:

 

You sure showed me with that substantive comeback.

 

I have presented my views in a series of posts and with explanations

I know that my views are quite different to many others posting here and that is why some object to what I say and how I say it

If I were standing in front of you, you might dislike my haircut or my accent

But these are not relevant matters; they are ad hominem remarks and I will not deal with them

 

I am relieved Clinton was defeated; but that does not mean I am happy with Trump

Neither candidate was a good choice for the world 

But in my estimation Trump was the lesser evil in terms of world peace

 

I am only giving an opinion; my best estimate of the situation; based on my care for the world

I do not claim omniscience or that my perceptions are reality

They are my perceptions and opinions

I realise time may prove me mistaken - or not

We shall see

 

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7 hours ago, Athis said:

 

I have presented my views in a series of posts and with explanations

I know that my views are quite different to many others posting here and that is why some object to what I say and how I say it

If I were standing in front of you, you might dislike my haircut or my accent

But these are not relevant matters; they are ad hominem remarks and I will not deal with them

 

I am relieved Clinton was defeated; but that does not mean I am happy with Drumpf

Neither candidate was a good choice for the world 

But in my estimation Drumpf was the lesser evil in terms of world peace

 

I am only giving an opinion; my best estimate of the situation; based on my care for the world

I do not claim omniscience or that my perceptions are reality

They are my perceptions and opinions

I realise time may prove me mistaken - or not

We shall see

 

He's fine using nuclear weapons https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSnVb4i_ZZ4&t=31

He loves war, even nuclear war https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-FUfMRgbWU

He has defended Putin annexing Crimea http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/31/politics/donald-drumpf-russia-ukraine-crimea-putin/

He has made it clear that he doesn't care about protecting our allies from war http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/11/drumpf-north-korea-nuclear-crises-214457

 

I would also like to briefly address the idea that we shouldn't take what he says seriously, as he may have only been a fringe outsider pandering for votes:

hitlernytimes.jpg

And to be clear as well, the Nazis were never planning to commit genocide; all they wanted was to deport Jews and prevent them from entering Germany.  Of course, nobody wanted to accept Jewish refugees, and it was far more economically sound to detain them, force labor from them, and murder them.  While I don't think a Drumpf presidency would reach that level of evil in that way, not accepting the sincerity of evil statements is how authoritarians seize and maintain power.

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7 hours ago, Athis said:

 

I have presented my views in a series of posts and with explanations

 

You have not explained anything, only made vague statements. You've also failed to address sunstantially any objection people had to your views.

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Internet Discourse 102: Ignore anyone who has valid arguments against your own to win.

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2 minutes ago, Twig said:

Internet Discourse 102: Ignore anyone who has valid arguments against your own to win.

 

Come on, Twig. There are only two types of information: information that confirms your gut instinct about a given subject, and irrelevant nonsense.

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at first i didn't realize which thread i was in and thought you were responding to my rambly nonsense about what "senpai" means

 

that's me right now!!

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14 minutes ago, Twig said:

at first i didn't realize which thread i was in and thought you were responding to my rambly nonsense about what "senpai" means

 

that's me right now!!

 

I thought about introducing the distinction between "kohai" and "kun" in Japanese workplace honorifics, but I saw that no good would come of it. That's where I am, right now!

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