EVERYTHING Too $$$ Now

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unemployable
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Re: EVERYTHING Too $$$ Now

Post by unemployable »

Jean wrote:
Thu May 04, 2023 7:29 pm
this inconsistent use of weight units is really terrifying.
Including money as it's in Canuck dollars. And whatever a "point" is. Which I'm not gonna google because I don't want to get on some watch list. Or do they like, combine with the points you get on your driver's license for a speeding ticket or something like that?

Frita
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Re: EVERYTHING Too $$$ Now

Post by Frita »

unemployable wrote:
Fri May 05, 2023 8:42 am
Including money as it's in Canuck dollars. And whatever a "point" is. Which I'm not gonna google because I don't want to get on some watch list. Or do they like, combine with the points you get on your driver's license for a speeding ticket or something like that?
A point is just a way to breakdown grams into smaller units: http://conversion.org/mass/point/gram

7Wannabe5
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Re: EVERYTHING Too $$$ Now

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Are humans really more inclined towards addiction now than in previous eras?

Image
Percentage of U.S. adults in households earning $100,000 or more who drink alcohol : 80
March 2023 • Source: Gallup (Washington)
In households earning less than $40,000 : 49
- Harper's Index- March 2023

ducknald_don
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Re: EVERYTHING Too $$$ Now

Post by ducknald_don »

I can believe that. I live in a thoroughly middle class area and on recycling day all you can hear is the clanking of bottles.

chenda
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Re: EVERYTHING Too $$$ Now

Post by chenda »

Seppia wrote:
Fri May 05, 2023 8:16 am
Thats interesting, I hope we become more Asianised in this respect.
ducknald_don wrote:
Fri May 05, 2023 10:28 am
I can believe that. I live in a thoroughly middle class area and on recycling day all you can hear is the clanking of bottles.
So true 😂

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Re: EVERYTHING Too $$$ Now

Post by jacob »

Insofar I could walk down the street with my own bowl, fill it without waiting by paying $1/1000kcal, and walk right back two minutes later, I'd do that everyday no questions asked. That's like my dream food-scenario.

I wonder what it would take to implement this in the US or if it would even be possible...

AxelHeyst
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Re: EVERYTHING Too $$$ Now

Post by AxelHeyst »

At some point during Occupy Oakland the food people set up a beans n rice table on the sidewalk and fed a ton of people for free, and I think they handed out flyers on or at least talked to people about how it was healthier *and* cheaper than the Burger King they had set up right in front of.

I think there's also a dharma place in Berkeley that has ~beans n rice and it's either free or extremely cheap. (Although the suuuper expensive vegan rest of the menu is what paid the rent...). Or at least there was eight years ago

chenda
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Re: EVERYTHING Too $$$ Now

Post by chenda »

Apparently fast food and takeaways date back to ancient times so it might well have been the norm in urban areas.

There's an interesting research topic for someone.

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Jean
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Re: EVERYTHING Too $$$ Now

Post by Jean »

unemployable wrote:
Fri May 05, 2023 8:42 am
Including money as it's in Canuck dollars. And whatever a "point" is. Which I'm not gonna google because I don't want to get on some watch list. Or do they like, combine with the points you get on your driver's license for a speeding ticket or something like that?
I understood that a point was a tenth of a gram, so 100 mg, but for the last drug, they used miligrams. I don't know why they didn't use point or miligrams the whole way.

chenda
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Re: EVERYTHING Too $$$ Now

Post by chenda »

Jean wrote:
Fri May 05, 2023 3:58 pm
I understood that a point was a tenth of a gram, so 100 mg, but for the last drug, they used miligrams. I don't know why they didn't use point or miligrams the whole way.
MDMA is potent in very small quantities.

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Jean
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Re: EVERYTHING Too $$$ Now

Post by Jean »

yes but they only offer multiple of 100mg, so 1 point, so why use mg

chenda
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Re: EVERYTHING Too $$$ Now

Post by chenda »

Jean wrote:
Fri May 05, 2023 5:01 pm
yes but they only offer multiple of 100mg, so 1 point, so why use mg
Oh yes I see what you mean, it is inconsistent. Though it may well have been put together by a recreational drug user so perhaps inconsistency is to be expected.

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C40
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Re: EVERYTHING Too $$$ Now

Post by C40 »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Fri May 05, 2023 10:24 am
Are humans really more inclined towards addiction now than in previous eras?
(chart)
- Harper's Index- March 2023
The chart is interesting but if you go back a few hundred years more, it looks way different. People in the US were drinking a LOT back before the revolution

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Sclass
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Re: EVERYTHING Too $$$ Now

Post by Sclass »

ducknald_don wrote:
Fri May 05, 2023 10:28 am
I can believe that. I live in a thoroughly middle class area and on recycling day all you can hear is the clanking of bottles.
Yeah. I know that clank. My old neighborhood was particularly bad. The houses were close together and the bins were open totes. There were no secrets.

My new neighborhood has those big wheeled bins and the homes are far apart. I don’t hear clank. But I do see what people are putting up on the conveyor at the grocery. Sad bunch of people. They have the look of alcoholism.

It’s stress. Some of my neighbors are really stressed out. They drown their anxiety in expensive wines. Somehow it isn’t seen as bad as vodka shots and gin. It’s considered kind of classy among the neighbors. Wine connoisseurs of the suburbs.

The good news is the younger folks are substituting weed for booze.

chenda
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Re: EVERYTHING Too $$$ Now

Post by chenda »

It's funny how Gin and Vodka, once the choice of the poor and destitute, have become fashionable amongst the affluent. The Victorian's thought gin was the source of all social evils.

You can do tours of Bombay Sapphire's distillery today and taste all sorts of exotic flavoured gins and learn about the history of it. It's very nice.

I'm not sure weed is better than alcohol, although it probably leads to less violence.

7Wannabe5
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Re: EVERYTHING Too $$$ Now

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

One thing that has always bothered me about the cult of fitness and success that passes for religion in the modern/post-modern upper-middle class is the underbelly of semi-illicit drug use that supports it. The cute white suburban girls with high SAT scores at my high school lived on coffee and aspirin with the occasional use of syrup of ipecac before bikini season. The gentry class girls who were dating elite class boys at my top-rated college introduced me to the vodka and cranberry with just one slice of pizza per day diet. An aide to Republican Senator during "Just Say No" era introduced me to opium*. My two sisters who have remained continuously yoga fit currently smoke the variety of pot that is energizing before they work out. If I meet any woman around my age who appears to be middle-upper-middle-class, fit, and full-time employed at professional job, I immediately calculate the odds that she drinks a bit too much in the evening as 80%. The girls, now women in their 30s, of my daughter's generation are just somewhat more likely to throw prescription drugs such as Ritalin and/or vaping into the mix. My mother's and grandmother's generations had amphetamines and cigarettes along with the alcohol.

Of course, I might just be vibing some sour grapes here due to fact that I am totally straight-edge on the drugs, alcohol, tobacco front but also intermitently chubby. So, it annoys me how often the class indicator of "health/fitness" is "faked."

*I have life-long very bad habit of sleeping with good-looking Republican men when I don't want to get emotionally involved.

guitarplayer
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Re: EVERYTHING Too $$$ Now

Post by guitarplayer »

It's either I am very detached from mainstream society or I need to go the the US for an anthropology field trip.

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Ego
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Re: EVERYTHING Too $$$ Now

Post by Ego »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Sat May 06, 2023 7:57 am
If I meet any woman around my age who appears to be middle-upper-middle-class, fit, and full-time employed at professional job, I immediately calculate the odds that she drinks a bit too much in the evening as 80%. The girls, now women in their 30s, of my daughter's generation are just somewhat more likely to throw prescription drugs such as Ritalin and/or vaping into the mix. My mother's and grandmother's generations had amphetamines and cigarettes along with the alcohol.
Exactly. And the circular nature is incredible. Striving for status symbols has created such distress that it must be dampened with drug and drink and endorphins. Increasingly, the drug and drink and endorphin of choice has itself become the status symbol. Payments for the Peloton Tread (mill) and the Equinox gym combined with the instructor bragging about the good bottle of wine she downed last night and the boxed vegan dinner she had delivered are the very things that keeps them on the treadmill.

ETA: In other words:
If the cost of cope creates the need for cope, then stop.

chenda
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Re: EVERYTHING Too $$$ Now

Post by chenda »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Sat May 06, 2023 7:57 am
An aide to Republican Senator during "Just Say No" era introduced me to opium*.
I'd like to try opium, what was it like ? It's surprising it hasn't made a come back in some ways given the enthusiasm for Downton Abbey and steampunk stuff.

I don't think drug taking is inherently bad. It's probably as old as humans are. There is a theory a lot of neolithic art was inspired by psychedelic experiences brought on by magic mushrooms.

lightfruit55
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Re: EVERYTHING Too $$$ Now

Post by lightfruit55 »

The picture posted by @Ego on the legal drug store is insane to me as someone from Singapore. I don't think Singapore's zero-tolerance stance against illicit drugs (including cannabis even) needs any introduction. I will not go into any ideological debate on whether our harsh punishments are right or wrong, effective or ineffective, etc. But what I can say is that there is, by and large, strong local support for our position on drugs and it is absolutely bewildering to many of us in Asia as to how permissive and normalised drug use is (even the softer performance stimulants) in many rich western cities. This seems to be a cultural difference. (I would say though that the younger generation in Singapore seems to be increasingly normalising the use of cannabis and vaping but our government is firm on combatting this trend :| )

Re eating out in Asia, +1 on the comments so far. It is generally cheaper and faster to eat out than to cook one's meal as a single person or even a couple. But it seems to me that with the cost-of-living crisis and service labour shortages in many developed Asian countries (e.g. Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, HK), eating out is becoming increasingly unaffordable for many in the lower and middle (even upper middle I would think) class. With the "eating out" culture so strong and with so many dining options abound, the feelings of unaffordability and deprivation (that @THF has raised for discussion) are/will be more pronounced in Asia.

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