Seems like I didn’t finish my thought there, I was in the middle of only my second cup of morning coffee, sorry for being a bit unclear!

But yes, I would include the US in “russia or some such place.” I would argue that the US has not fought a defensive war since 1945. So I would exclude them from the “defending your country” thing. If you join the US armed forces, you are not going to defend your country, if anything, you are making the world more dangerous for your fellow countrymenwomen.

So if you are a American, I probably agree with any and all reasons to not join the military. But thats also why I included the bit about “if you are European” in my original post.

Sweden? Probably Sweden. I’ll go with that.

Onse perkele kun ei saada näitä kriminaaleja kuriin!

I’m quite glad to see that most of the answers are positive here. It used to be the other way around, of course this thread is not representative of the whole Europe, but anyways…

I’m a Finn, so I went. My plan was to do the minimum and get the hell out of there. But after 6 weeks I liked the guys in my group, I actually enjoyed having to actually do something different for a change, not just sit at the computer or go to band practice/gigs. So when the 8 week starting period ended and it became time to choose what you want to “specialize” in, I checked the boxes for NCO and officer training. Didn’t get to go for the officer training but got to go to be a NCO. I was in the artillery. My job was to figure out where we were and which direction we were pointing. So I learned a lot of stuff about maps, that was fun because I love maps. I also learned how to take the position and direction from the moon and stars, that was fun because I love stars and space shit. I learned a bunch of other skills as well. If I were a dictator, I’d force everyone to go, at least for 5-6 months. You learn skills that you might not need, sure, but you also learn stuff that you didn’t know you needed.

Over the years I’ve heard people say “I wouldn’t go because my country is not worth fighting for.” I would understand that if you are from russia or some such place. But so many Germans have said it to me and I’m just baffled by that. Like okay, I get it, the government is shit. But in a war, you are not defending just the government, you are defending your family, friends, your house, the park you walk through, the way you live, the way your neighbor lives. Are those not worth defending? I’m fine if you are a pacifist and wont take up arms, thats fine. But if you say your country is not worth defending and you live in Europe, thats just ridiculous.

I’m a misanthrope and I hate most people, but if someone tries to come to my yard and start some shit, I’m gonna go fight, out of spite, if not for anything else. I want to hate people in my own terms, I want to tell people to fuck off in Finnish in Finland. Not in russia.

Hehe, no worries.

I watched a video yesterday, that one major youtuber, the one with the glasses and big mustache, he went a month without a phone. It was a good video. He used a old timey alarm clock, notepad, had a phone that plugs into the wall and all that good stuff. After that youtube decided to recommend a bunch of similar videos. Looks like its really happening, at least on some level.

For me, I’ve sort of accidentally drifted away from using my phone. It used to be that I had to charge it twice a day, now I have over 60% of battery left when I go to bed. I deleted my discord account and removed the app, now I’m not constantly checking the phone every time someone shares a meme.

I went back to IRC, at first I thought “oh better get a bouncer or a mobile app so I can keep in touch” but I procrastinated, turns out that was the right choice. I’m not worried about missing out on what people say when I’m not at home, or sleeping, or whatever. I don’t spend the first 30minutes of the day going through what was said during the night. Its quite freeing. I now use the phone more as a mp3/audiobook/podcast player.

I don’t think they do that any longer.

I wouldn’t know. I haven’t really listened to (music) radio since I realized audiobooks and podcasts were a thing, about 15-20 years ago :D

To be honest, Volkswagen was just one of the ways the nazis scammed Germans from their money.

Here’s hoping that they make shit weapons for israel, scamming them out of their money.

Oh right, I forgot about that. The theme (or whatever its called) that I use doesn’t show the separate numbers, unless I put my mouse over the average number.

But like I said, don’t worry about it too much. And I echo the other guy who said that you may have some weirdo following you and downvoting you, just wait it out. Maybe make a new account to get rid of them or whatever.

If it were me, I wouldn’t care about such stuff.

For me it shows a the most recent comment at +2, then a bunch that are at 0, then one that is at +5 and only then there’s some that are in the negatives.

But anyways, I wouldn’t worry too much about them. People are strange. They downvote for strange reasons. Seems to me that you didn’t say anything controversial.

Turns out, hes not in line at all. Rothe below kindly corrected that he is not

Oh right, he was that guy

Yes and no, I guess.

Theres some grade A morons in Europe as well. But I guess on the whole Europeans have better base education compared to the Americans. Doesn’t help that Americans keep speaking of “Europe” as a whole, while Europe speaks of multiple different European countries as individuals.

I thought “crown prince” meant the next in line? If so, then that’s a tiny bit misleading, the guy on rape trial is just a prince. AFAIK he’s like the 4th in line for the throne, or something like that

I had a bunch of c-cassettes where every song started with the radio DJ talking over the intro and ended with the radio DJ or a commercial starting to play over it. Thank god for cd-r, that cassette thing didn’t last too long. It was pretty annoying to wait 40-60minutes for the song you wanted to start playing and often it would be ruined by the radio DJ talking endlessly over it.

It is, you can download a boat.

Probably.

lol this reminds me of that time on chemistry class, one of the guys who didn’t want to be there asked the teacher “what am I going to do with chemistry in my life? Like if I become a car sales man, what use is chemistry!?” and the teacher just quietly muttered the answer… “well I wouldn’t buy a car from a guy who doesn’t know the difference between hydrogen and petrol…” and then continued the lesson.

The guy was pretty quiet for the rest of the day lol.

Ha. That reminds of the time when my parents kept pestering me about sitting at the computer all day. Once they asked why do I “refuse” to go out with my mates. I replied with “why would I want to go out with people who bully me, when I can sit in IRC and talk to people who actually like me?” That shut them up for good about the topic lol

What do you mean with “analog tech”?

Thirding Mr Inbetween. Very good and kind of a fresh take on the topic. I’ve watched it a couple times already. Wish they would have made more but at the same time it ended up very well.