The only disinformation here is you saying "violence is widespread" and that police is not targeting black people. If so, how do you explain these findings?
The good ol’ classic “if I did it, anyone can do”. Funny you say you got out of college in 2001, when the entire global and domestic political-economic scenario were different and the social value of a degree was much higher than today.
And while I think attributing negative adjectives to 2020 is arbitrary, since the bad things happening now are not bound to the calendar, this year was particularly bad for an even bigger number of people than the average year. It may not have been bad for you, but passing off the year as remotely good is disrespectful and shows a lack of empathy to the millions who had it bad because of covid, racial conflicts, natural disasters, terrorism, increased poverty etc etc.
I feel like these days almost every blog/medium/substack post is either about glorifying overwork, giving your entire life to a brand/company, or praising the whole "hustle culture". I don't know how it started or the reasons people have to write such posts, but it can be dangerous to create this mindset within society. As if current job market didn't exploit workers enough...
If you participate in politics without being minimally informed about it, people will demonize you for not being up to date with policies and current affairs. If you do not participate in politics, people will demonize you for taking no sides and expressing no interest in the future of the country. If you have some academic training, try to stay informed about current affairs and participate in politics, people will demonize you for engaging in “political hobbyism”.
And this seems to be an issue specific to U.S. politics. Maybe it’s time to collectively agree that American democracy is about excluding people from politics, in detriment to the interests of the economic elites.
EDIT: while I generally agree that what the author calls "political hobbyist" can be harmful to specific causes and can even perpetuate the status quo/political inequalities, it is within their own right to engage in politics however they see fit. We have to keep in mind that not everyone can be actively engaged in political debates in the city hall, or organizing a group of like-minded people to fight for a specific cause. Excluding "political hobbyists" from the political debate just because they are not engaging in "real politics" (author's words) is straight up anti-democratic -- after all, who can define what "real politics" is.
The entertainment industry cannot let people realize we would live happily without its products. They have to keep the stream of shows and films coming so people don't realize that.
Situation which will increase the disparity between the elite and the "dirty plebs". Since poor people have more risky jobs and lack the extra-care elites can afford, we will be the first ones to lose our jobs and go into debt in case we get sick. Unfortunately, inequality will only rise with COVID, especially in countries with poor social welfare models, like the U.S..
I would guess some people are more sensitive to it. My entire family handles mangoes (raw, ripe or whatever) and only my mother has allergic reactions. She also cannot eat mangoes otherwise she has rashes in the skin, while I eat up to 10 mangoes a day and end up okay.
We kind of figured it the hard way — it’s mango season now and she has bad allergies as always. We have been handling mangoes for years now, and she started using surgical gloves, but it still doesn’t fully prevent allergies.
That would explain why my mother got bad allergies on her skin after handling cashews (seeds and all) from our backyard. Thanks for the info, I will look more into it.
I noticed writers trying to come off as highly educated and pompous often write sentences that are too long, with too many adverbs and adjectives. Not to mention excessive use of passive voice and useless phrasal verbs. This is precisely the type of writing that needs an editor.
How many people attended high school back in those days? Did people in every country have the same opportunities in terms of education? Remember that when people say education standards are improving, they are not talking about a particular country, but rather about an overall global measurement. I’m sure countries in the global south (where the majority of the world’s population lives) were not having those same education opportunities back in the 60s. But now they have widespread access to education.
Also, how useful it is/was reading in Anglo Saxon? And please, could you point out all those examples and arguments with verifiable evidence, rather than anecdotal ones?
I also live in Brazil. Here the government builds entire neighborhoods of 10.000 to 30.000 houses (basic building, with two bedrooms, living room, bathroom and kitchen) and sells those houses for very cheap installments, sometimes even as low as 50 USD/month. There are some conditions to be met before buying such houses, but usually even people working in the worst types of jobs (say, bagging groceries or sweeping the streets) can meet them. These sorts of programs used to be more popular in the past (when we had a more left-leaning government), but just today I passed by 15.000 houses being built on a city of half a million inhabitants.