RunawayFixer

I had a similar experience. The first 2 years where chemistry was a subject, there was always a giant Mendeleev table against a side wall. And in later years it was mostly bring your own, but if you forget, then we'll give you a copy.

Iirc, they knew that it was stupid, their publisher forced it on them. They weren't happy about it either.

That's scorn + derision.

The argument was never about the lady, the lady her plight is a story telling device to make this abstract problem more relatable, to make the story more compelling and to get empathy + sympathy from the audience. The same way I tried to use my grandmother's experience as a story telling device to make you more empathic with people who are differently able than you. These kinds of people exist in every country, you may even know some without knowing it because it's not exactly written on our faces what our cognitive capabilities are. They deserve our sympathy and help if they want it, but to be scornful towards them is bad imo. I really don't like victim blaming.

What I'm trying to say is: Keep an open mind, don't let your prejudices determine your opinions about people, grow some empathy and try to be sympathetic with people's situations. Scorn is never the right answer.

Yeah, there's that scorn again that I was talking about. Your derision and scorn towards those that are less able than you demonstrate a lack of empathy and an absence of sympathy. Your "lots of data" is just your prejudices, you're making sweeping generalizations, not based on knowledge or understanding, but largely based on your preconceived ignorant opinions.

That lady isn't perfect, but as we can see, neither are you. Nor am I obviously. Cut people some slack, grow some empathy.

What this data also tells you is there is not a single country where 100% of people know how to cook, there will be people like that lady in every country. Some countries will have more as a percentage of the population, others less. Even Poland will have some. Those people deserve empathy, not scorn.

What this data also shows is that going out to eat is unlikely to be the reason for not being able to cook. People in western Europe and especially Spain/Portugal/Italy go out to eat very regularly, often daily, yet these countries rank higher on the cooking map than eastern Europe where people eat out less. That part of your reasoning, is again based on prejudice.

Prejudice, lack of empathy, scorn, I realize that these are negative terms and that you will find them offensive when applied to you, but ... they are the correct terms. Your reasoning is based on prejudice. Your attitude towards that woman was scornful. You show a lack of empathy with people who are not like you.

That lady is 1 person, there's no indication that she's representative of the USA population as a whole. To see 1 person and then assume that everyone else in her country must be like her, is a very stupid generalization. Your opinion is based on prejudice, not reason. So far you've shown a tendency for victim blaming, a lack of empathy towards individuals that are left behind & prejudice towards all US Americans. Should I assume from that that all Poles lack empathy, and are full of prejudices about other people? Of course not, because you're only 1 person and therefore too small a sample size to make a sweeping generalization like that.

I'm not from the USA, neither was my grandmother. Irregardless of that, even if we were from the USA, my grandmother would have left school decades before the USA education system fell behind that of other Western nations.

My grandmother also read books and a non stupid daily news paper, but she still couldn't do basic arithmetics. It wasn't about intellect, sometimes it's opportunity and exposure, or maybe the unique wrinkles in our brain. There's all sorts of people, not everyone is able to do the same things, so grow some empathy.

My grandmother was a great cook and also liked to cook, but she still needed my grandfather to do the very basic math to convert the recipe ratios in function of the amount of guests. She wasn't stupid, she just left school at 13yo to help in the house and the only math that she did after that was counting.

All that to say: It's not because it's easy for you, that it's easy for everyone.

The late medieval Burgundians will have been the first to call it the low countries (les pays-bas). They acquired these territories (various duchies and counties in Belgium + Netherlands + bits around it) over time, not as one piece of land. All those different territories had different laws and traditions, different crown laws (HRE or kingdom of France), different local charters, ... It wasn't one country, so plural makes sense.

Most of those do make sense from a 19th century or older viewpoint, so I suspect that it's not just a coincidence that those words were linked to those countries. If it was only one or a few with an ulterior meaning, then I could believe it to be a coincidence, but it's most of them. I more believe that there were chinese word artists at work who looked for words with both a fitting meaning and the right sound.

When it comes to nature, the USA is a really beautiful country. France gave the world the Code Napoléon, which is one of the most influential evolutions in law systems. Britain's success in it's colonies and in the industrial revolution was very often based on the endeavours of individuals, ie heroes. Northern Germans are sticklers for following rules, politeness etc (which was back then viewed very positively by others, but has since become a bit tainted because an attitude of the law is the law will often lead to inhumanity). Mexico: not a clue. Korea: I just have vague guesses. Japan, when seen from northern China, is where the sun rises.

Not just the fed I think. For example, this would also allow republicans to fully take over the fec (currently inoperative because of lack of quorum) and then use it as a weapon against their opponents, in order to win the 2026 elections. All these agencies were independent for a reason, there's bound to be many more opportunities for abuse of power.

There's not that many semi independent agencies left that aren't under control of Trump or one of his cronies I think, the most notable being the fed. If Trump manages to take control of the fed, then trust in the dollar will take a major hit and it's going to send the markets into a bit of a panic. But that small panic will be nothing compared to the fallout of when Trump actually starts mismanaging the Fed.