At least that’ll correct itself when all the fish are dead, right?

…right?

Still rooting for all the millions of you that I know are awesome people, but …yeah.

I’ve been on the outside observing this escalating shit show for 8 years now and I think I’ve finally reached the point where I don’t even have the words to convey what I feel about the current state of American politics.

I mean, I know there’s a lot of history behind it etc., but just the past months? I don’t even…

I hope shit gets better for ya’ll, I sincerely do.

I agree completely. I could see an argument for one instance that is shown globally via screens or whatnot as each year passes, but other than that it is such an enormous amount of unnecessary wastage.

That number doesn’t really tell us anything about the amount of post/content generation that was lost. One or two persons could change the general tone of a smaller sub easily, and often did so.

If only those two hypothetical posters left it could very well lead to a downward spiral into whatever bullshit is going on over there now.

Some of the smaller more specialised subs I frequented simply don’t exist anymore due to what happened.

If it wasn’t apparent already, we don’t live on the same continent. We live in completely different worlds.

The biggest threat here is getting mugged by some youngster with a knife that’ll get caught within 15 minutes.

If I lived over there I’d be carrying too. Here? Here we leave our babies to sleep outside safely.

Yes, I understood that point. It’s just not widely shared outside of the US. I personally wouldn’t mind having something for self defense, but I’m in a minority and it comes from living a rough life when younger. Luckily the risk of running into an armed intruder here is just about zero anyway. It’s just another world, really.

…and I think you’re smart enough to know there’s no outshooting any government, no matter the country.

I agree in principle, and the fee in itself isn’t expensive. It’s the fact that you need to buy a safe with a high enough security rating (which they actually do come to check on randomly) and then also another secure place to store ammo in. Legally they have to be separated when not in use.

After that you need an active membership in either a hunting party or a gun sports club, and participate/shoot a certain amount each year to keep the license for your gun. You also have to file and get approved for each individual gun you buy/own.

With all that said though, once you’ve gotten your first license and proved you can handle whatever firearm you got for either purpose it gets easier to get a second one, and then a third, as long as you have a valid enough reason to buy and own whatever gun you’re after.

Most people just start with a .22 and go up from there if it is for sports, or buy a shotgun or rifle for hunting.

As for self defense - it’s practically impossible to get a handgun for self protection purposes in any legal way, unless there are very special circumstances. Owning a gun for self protection is just not a thing people take seriously here, outside certain …groups.

As a sidenote tho, if you know where to look it’s not particularly hard to get a handgun if you want one, you just don’t want to get caught with one, and it’s also not completely trivial to get decent ammo. A black market Glock goes for around 500€ afaik.

Like I said, I agree with you in principle, but like I also mentioned, Finland is very conservative with certain things. This is one of them. I haven’t been shooting for a long time due to medical reasons, so some of this might be out of date. Maybe someone more involved please correct me if I got something wrong.

Finland is up there on weapons per person in Europe, but it is both expensive and complicated to get that first license. It does get easier the more you are into it, but following all the laws to the letter is, again, expensive as hell.

Meanwhile practically every fighting aged male has had some time on the range and weapon safety drilled into them during their conscription, although some more so than others. It might be an old system, but it works for us. Can’t really see it working in the US, tho, for obvious reasons.

Is it practical? Not really. Do we have a lot of mass shootings? Nope.

Definitely, who knows what those degenerates are into during the winter months.

Jokes aside, my mother tongue is Swedish but I was born in Finland. I’ve lived in both countries and speak both languages and I prefer Finland by far. Swedes are just… all up in your business all the time. In Finland privacy is preferred, mostly.

It’s pretty widely accepted that whatever happens over in the US has ramifications all over the world. My tribe, so to speak, are Swedish speaking Finns, and we’re a very small minority in a country that functions better than most.

It sort of gives one a perspective. The Finns are liberal in some things sure, but very conservative in many ways. We’ll never legalize weed for example, but we also won’t touch abortion rights because that’s just common sense.

That said, in the US my voting pattern would be extreme left sure, because that’s just normal over here. Sadly people are afraid and vote right because immigration, but that’ll stop once everyone realises it doesn’t work, since we still depend on immigration to get jobs filled. Everyone knows it, they just don’t want to say it out loud.

And when the climate really hits us, the clowns will probably be gone anyway. It’s the last gasp we’re seeing right now. Enjoy it while you can.

I agree with you, for the most part this has been my experience as well.

I don’t have anything in particular against dwarves as such, but why would I like them?

I can’t stand most metal, especially the death/black/whatever subgenres. Symphonic maybe once in a decade or so.

Better conversations, and less echo chambers in general. I know exactly who’ll disagree with that notion too, but that has been my experience.

The right-wingers that did come over are obviously butthurt to hell since they can’t abuse the report function and get backed by obviously biased mods like they do on Reddit. It’s easier to simply ignore them here, as well, even though they’re around as always.

Hell, half the comments in this very thread seem to be bitching about “Marxism” like it’s something that anyone gives half a shit about in today’s world. They need their bubble, and they seem to be angry they didn’t get this one, too.

Also people are generally more tech-savvy here than there, for obvious reasons. That’s a plus.

A Finn signing in. What are we discussing?

He’s not a giant asshole, he just doesn’t sugar-coat everything he says.

It’s sort of a defining trait in people where he is from. If we say something we tend to say it straight. He might be a more extreme example than most, but I had a good friend from the same neighborhood and he was the same.

We grew up a few years later when he had already moved to the US, but we used to sneak smokes in the park right outside where he first made Linux. My friend lived in the same building as he had done, but he was so computer illiterate that he had no idea who Linus was. I did, though, because Linus described that place pretty well in what I believe was his first book.

Fuck, didn’t know Mitnick died. Just married and with a child on the way, too.

He was arguably at his best at social engineering, too. Don’t know if it’s a real quote, but I remember reading about him saying it can bypass all your electronics, firewalls included.

That typo made me chuckle way harder than it should’ve, too.

Religion and hypocrisy.