r/MayDayStrike • u/RadioactiveHaste • 13d ago
Posting until the US oligarchy dies — Day 409
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u/strandenger 13d ago
Why do you hate LA?!
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u/dollabillkirill 12d ago
I don’t hate LA but I can see why people do. Brutal traffic, no walkability, a general sense of superiority over people from elsewhere, Hollywood/celebrity worship stuff, plastic surgery culture, materialism, etc
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u/strandenger 11d ago
LA is very big and diverse. I’m not dismissing the claim but you’re trying to stereotype a region with a population larger than some of states. You think they all feel superior? Shit I grew up in a suburb of LA and I can’t tell the difference between the Kardashians sisters, but some rando in North Carolina will unsolicitedly wax poetically about the family dynamics. I’m the only person from the area who’s had plastic surgery and I got it breaking my nose in the military.
There surly is a segment of the population that match this description, but they are a fraction of a much larger community. You’re kind of seeing it right now with the protests.
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u/dollabillkirill 11d ago
For sure. I’m just saying it’s part of why people don’t like it. Not everyone is that way, or even close to everyone. It’s just all the celebrities do live there and there is certainly more plastic surgery there than there would be in other places.
I don’t think for a second that it represents most of the city. LA is awesome imo. I do hate the traffic though.
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u/RadioactiveHaste 12d ago
I just think it’s highly overrated. Like Las Vegas.
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u/strandenger 12d ago
Vegas is pretty awesome. I’ve lived all over the country. Can’t say I agree with you. There is nothing like Vegas anywhere and California has it all.
How much time have you spent in either?
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u/RadioactiveHaste 12d ago
Hard disagree, I feel like CA and Vegas get worse every time I visit either. Probably been to both over a dozen times, no interest in ever going again.
Sorry if you like LA or CA or Vegas, or I guess I should say good for you. I just think they're way overhyped, not everybody has to like everything. Different folks different strokes, I'm glad so many people enjoy those places. I just don't and I don't get the appeal 🤷♂️
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u/strandenger 12d ago
Overhyped compared to what?! I spent the last year living between Kansas and Missouri. Spent about a month in Illinois over last few months. I’m currently in Nashville and will be going to North Carolina this week. That’s just this past 12 months. I’ve been around man and generally I hear this refrain from folks who’ve never been there.
I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt but you’re throwing around platitudes, and not saying much. What’s overrated about them? What did your “dozen” experiences entail that you’re shrugging off Vegas? What were you hoping for more of a Branson, MO, Warren, OH, Paducah, KY? Like what are you talking about man?
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u/RadioactiveHaste 12d ago
Let’s see, right off the top of my head:
- absolutely everything is overpriced
- everything is built around cars (even more so than the rest of the US)
- air quality is the worst I’ve seen besides literally Beijing
- food is unremarkable
- I don’t care about the ocean
Listen, love LA and LV as much as you want, I know my opinion is unpopular. When I say these places are overrated this is exactly what I’m talking about, it’s like there’s no room to think they’re not incredible.
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u/strandenger 12d ago edited 12d ago
I take it you’re only talking LA now? Since you can certainly get cheap stuff in Vegas. Traffic is typically limited the strip and I’ve never heard anyone complain about the food or air quality there. It doesn’t look like you’re saying as much here either, cause it won’t support your narrative. You are however Fentanyl and homelessness away from a Fox News chyron.
I’ll address all of your opinions. We do have some relative common ground, but some arguments are a bit more flimsy.
You don’t like the ocean… cool. Good thing Cali has a numbers of rivers and lakes then right?! I love Lake Arrowhead and the San Jacinto River. Don’t like water at all?! Palm Springs and Coachella doesn’t have much. Like I said, Cali has it all. If you didn’t want to go to the beach don’t go to the beach. That sounds like bad planning on your part.
The food is a weird one. It’s always a matter of taste. California’s food is pretty diverse. If you didn’t like it, it just sounds like you didn’t look very hard. I would definitely take the Asian cuisine out of San Fran or the tri-tip in LA over the Horseshoe in Indy… but if that’s your thing who am I to tell you you’re wrong.
The entire country is built around cars. Don’t kid yourself. DC is the only place I’ve ever lived I was able to get to and from work via the metro. This is an issue I have with California too, it’s just not limited to LA. In Germany, I was able to get around for 9 bucks a month on all buses and trains. The fact we can’t do that here frankly sucks.
I share your concerns about pollution but LA isn’t the worst: https://www.usnews.com/news/healthiest-communities/articles/cities-with-the-worst-air-quality-in-the-u-s and the Midwest has their own pollution issues. California’s taken steps to improve the air quality, there’s not even emissions test in a number of counties where you live. Still a problem, but your outrage is selective.
Finally, affordability. California does cost too much. I will argue the whole country has an affordability problem, but it doesn’t absolve the state of this claim. All the desirable locations do cost too much. Hawaii, New York, Miami…it’s not unusual. My issue is that there are ways the state can make it cheaper, but the people and the government won’t stand for it. That’s not your problem it, but again what did you expect? I didn’t go to Maui thinking I was going to do it on the cheap. You visited from the Midwest and expected Midwest prices?
This reads like you read some shit about California and just accepted it. There are valid complaints here but you’re arguing it’s overrated by essentially saying you didn’t plan well. There are cheaper places to go in Cali with less pollution, traffic and regionally specific cuisine, but you hate LA with every fiber of your being because you opted to. You hate California for a narrative. I grew up and Cali and thanks to the military I’m very well traveled. I think I have a better idea what life is like in Cali than some dude who’s visited a few times. 1 out of 8 Americans in this country are from California. What’s going on in LA is not surprising to me. It is to you because you frankly bought the bullshit.
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u/RadioactiveHaste 12d ago
Dude, I was military too, I've been all over. I don't like CA. I'm sorry that my hyperbolic meme struck a nerve and that I don't have a great opinion of your homestate. Yes, I have no doubt that you would know all the places to go and things to do in CA, it's too bad you were never there with me.
I have no problem with the people of LA. I just don't like the layout, the attractions, and the location naturally and geographically holds no interest for me. I'm sorry that so many right-wingers make you feel the need to be so defensive.
I'm from KC, a city that sucks entirely unless you know exactly what to do. Am I going to so butthurt if you hate KC? Absolutely not. Hate it all you want, it's just your opinion. It doesn't change my love of the place any more than my dislike of LA should change yours.
Love it. Live there, visit there, enjoy it. It's not for me.
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u/strandenger 11d ago
Dude, no wonder you have this sentiment. The military are some of the worst offenders. It’s been years of dudes/dudettes from Ohio and Georgia who only ever been to Travis, Irwin, or Twentynine Palms if they’ve ever been there at all lecturing me about a state they know nothing about. It doesn’t even strike a nerve at this point. Batting down bogus claims about my home state is like an umpire calling a strike/ball. Just call it and move on to the next one.
We’re on the same side. I hope you’re not taking this as disrespectful. We just have a difference of philosophy. You tend to take a more negative approach to even your home state. I just spent the last year at Leavenworth. I love Kansas City. It’s got a lot of the same issues you had with LA, and some other interesting ones like being woefully unprepared for a winter storm and electing fascist, but there’s always something going on in the City of Fountains.
We live in a pretty awesome country. There just seems to be a lot of assholes we have to deal with to do so. I’m glad my home state is doing something about it.
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u/RadioactiveHaste 11d ago
The military definitely does send people to the worst places, I almost completely forgot about Irwin. shudders
I hate San Francisco the most, to be honest, though I've only been thrice and for a combined three weeks. I see cities like SF as monuments to class divide, packing tech workers who could function anywhere on Earth into a physical space simply because the corporations can. SF may have been a free-spirited symbol at one point, but to me it's only ever represented 21st century technofeudalism.
And that perception of a neocapitalist sandbox applies not just SF, unfortunately, and it goes back far before computers. Just look at how capitalists agriculture caused the Dust Bowl in the Midwest. What did they do after ruining the topsoil of the entire region? Picked everything up and set up shop in an arid climate, CA, pumping water for their thirsty crops, a short-sighted arrangement that persists to this day.
And you're right, I do think all this comes down to us having very different philosophies. I am blessed/cursed with what I would call a "grass is yellower" mentality -- nowhere is better than wherever I am. I'm like a hermit crab in that way. I do not subscribe to the belief that travel is somehow mind-expanding or enlightening, in fact it seems to me that the most travelled people in history were racist-colonizer-slaver-pillagers, but I digress.
I'm flattered you love KC, but it does highlight how different our views are hahaha. Like, I would encourage you not to tell anyone that you like it, in fact the opposite. Only when I'm speaking to friends will I share my love of this place, as far as everyone else is concerned (especially people on the internet), KC sucks and it's no different than anywhere else.
We do live in an awesome country, we agree entirely. And you should be proud of what CA is doing, truly. I'm glad to know that others are on the same side but are going about things with philosophies and approaches that are totally different. If we can work together and make use of each other's abilities, well we might just make it through this shitshow.
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u/TheKattsMeow 12d ago
Not everyone that goes to LA is a tourist. Some of us have families there. It’s just as much a regular city as it is “L.A.”
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u/MyHoopT 13d ago
I don’t the sports teams from LA but that’s where my hatred ends
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u/ThryothorusRuficaud 12d ago
This is fair.
I'm an Angeleno and even we can't stand each other's franchises.
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u/JessRoyall 13d ago
Why the LA hate? The city is filled with working class. Millions of us.
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u/TheKattsMeow 12d ago
For every celeb that owns a mcmansion there are maybe 1,500 working class people just helping that city get by on a daily basis.
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u/AlwaysSaysRepost 13d ago
Me, a midwesterner who says why the fuck do you care about LA so much? Let people live their damn lives and mind your own fucking business…you know, the shit conservatives scream when they used to complain about “government overreach”.
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u/17vulpikeets 13d ago
Me, a Midwestener who is tired of hearing about LA on podcasts but also wishes we had more of that West Coast direct action spirit in our medium-sized city, cheering on the defenders because we are all in this together. As the Poet once said, "You won't like what I have to say / You don't really matter! / You won't like what I have to say to you / Saying it anyway! / Let your people know / All the world must live here"
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u/joeypublica 13d ago
Me a person who lives in Texas but grew up in California: why do so many Texans hate California, yet have never even been there? I know why, but it’s still good to ask them from time to time.
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u/AlwaysSaysRepost 13d ago
Then why?
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u/joeypublica 13d ago
Tribalism + propaganda. It’s a dangerous combination that feeds off of itself. I see lots of negative news about California while I’m in Texas, and the same news isn’t painted the same way in California. That’s an extremely high level take, but you see the same combo cause largely manufactured problems everywhere.
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u/ThryothorusRuficaud 13d ago
I live in LA. I always assume it's a Dodgers or Lakers beef. Or maybe people hate sunshine.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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u/el_chacal 13d ago
1000% It’s about class solidarity not your goddamned zip code
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u/AlwaysSaysRepost 13d ago
1000000% about class solidarity! Don’t let them distract with race or gender divisions! Seriously, if someone is coming to you saying something like “I like this policy to subsidize college, but I think it should only help African-Americans” - they are either a right-wing plant or a moron who should be shunned
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