| 4 Sep 2018 |
 ummokay | I don't know what to compare to as far as safety goes since I've only ever been in the US and Canada | 04:23:12 |
| ummokay | What makes you think it's unsafe? | 04:23:20 |
 wraptile 🐍 | insane crime rate, gangs, guns - the usual things that get associated with USA 😄 | 04:24:45 |
| ummokay | I think that's largely a media illusion though there might be some truth to it. It's a big country. | 04:25:44 |
| wraptile 🐍 | aye, I think so as well. It's almost a continent on it's own really | 04:26:52 |
| ummokay | Most people here would think other parts of the world are unsafe since reporting is based on what's exciting and since crime and violence are exciting, it gets reported on about other countries | 04:26:56 |
| ummokay | The thing about guns is that the people who have them either mind there own business with them unless confronted or they're used in gang areas where tourists don't go anyway. | 04:27:56 |
| wraptile 🐍 | but there are objective truths as well. Like crime stats and weapon legality. Surely a place where criminals can easily obtain shotguns is more dangerous where owning a 11cm knife is illegal, right? | 04:28:13 |
| ummokay | I don't know if that simple. You're probably more likely to be shot than you are in the other place, sure. | 04:29:02 |
| ummokay | There's still a question about who has the right to have what sorts of weapons, regardless of the consequences. I don't think that's easy to answer. There's also a question of how much violence and suicides occur regardless of the method and there's also a question of how much our attention is directed toward gun issues as opposed to potentially more important issues. | 04:31:14 |
| ummokay | I have mixed feelings about guns but I worry about people oversimplifying things by saying that banning guns would mean less people get shot. | 04:32:00 |
| wraptile 🐍 | another objective truth is that USA is their own region when it comes to insurance and it's usually double what it is for europe/sea regions, so clearly there are some risks there and someone has done the math 🙂 | 04:33:05 |
| ummokay | I agree that insurance here is ridiculous | 04:33:34 |
| wraptile 🐍 | no I mean if I get insurance in europe and if I want to have it valid when I travel to USA I need to pay pretty much double | 04:34:29 |
| wraptile 🐍 | so EU insurance companies clearly indicate that it's more dangerous than SEA for example | 04:35:01 |
| wraptile 🐍 | at least to your wallet :D | 04:35:08 |
| ummokay | Fair enough. There's also a profit motive and more people from Europe are coming to the US than to SEA. | 04:35:44 |
| ummokay | idk if that's true but I'm guessing | 04:36:07 |
| ummokay | USA is definitely bad in a lot of ways but I think people focus on the wrong things. | 04:37:22 |
| ummokay | If we're so concerned about death, why not talk about the endless war waged by the US and its allies or the needless poverty, torture of others, silencing of others, etc? | 04:38:54 |
| wraptile 🐍 | well you can talk about everything really - and people do. | 04:39:39 |
| ummokay | We can't actually do that though. | 04:39:52 |
| ummokay | I can believe a practically infinite amount of things but the amount of energy I can expend related to them is significantly smaller. | 04:40:38 |
| ummokay | One reason media focuses on some issues more than others is that their owners know that the general public is against needless war so just redirect their attention to Trump's outrageous (but legal) behavior and no one has to defend war, torture, etc. and it's allowed to go on indefinitely. | 04:42:22 |
| ummokay | Our attention and what we talk about and are motivated by/motivate others to do is pretty small compared to the number of things we can believe. | 04:43:10 |
| wraptile 🐍 | eh I disagree, I think people are perfectly capable of caring about multiple things at the same time | 04:44:43 |
| ummokay | Caring and doing are very different though | 04:44:58 |
| ummokay | Do you fight for EVERYTHING you care about or do you have to choose some over the others? | 04:45:51 |
| wraptile 🐍 | right, yeah I agree that taking action takes a lot of time, which is limited. But I think it's unfair to say "stop caring about X" because there are more important things to care about. | 04:57:19 |
| wraptile 🐍 | or stop doing X, there are more important things to do | 04:57:42 |
