You can already pretend to be a kid in a room with other kids on discord! There’s a HUGE CSAM problem on it.

Well I’d call it grotesque, but it’s clearly moving water.

Countries don’t exist in vacuums. A big part of geopolitics is figuring out how to manage not getting attacked while being able to build up things other than war machines. For instance, if you have allies you trust, your COMBINED force projection would need to be enough to prevent attacks, leaving each with more room to focus on their economies. If you want to be completely isolated, sure, you have to be able to individually defend yourself, but we live in a world where we really CAN’T be completely isolated, so it only makes sense to try to work together.

I call that effect “baader-meinception”

Honestly it’s just the Internet. Tech is fucking awesome, as long as it’s decoupled from anything and anyone else trying to control, monitor, impose, or otherwise fuck with the tech that’s mine, bought or built fairly. And also the untold psychological torture the Internet is just constantly inflicting on us.

We’re just getting to the oldest linguistic debate. Is a linguist’s job to describe, or to prescribe? I lean very heavily towards describe.

That’s literally how accents and dialects work. People in a bubble developed different linguistic shifts. To them, and to to broader world as a whole, they are speaking a correct form of English, and yet some thick accents are practically unintelligible to people who haven’t practiced hearing the accent. We only recently began worrying about being understood beyond our narrow in groups. For the majority of history, these “bubbles” are just what we called cultures.

There are those constraints around written/spoken word, for sure. I’m more referring to how close it is to the “raw” thought.

We evolved the ability to think. In order to allow our thoughts to reach others, we developed spoken word. In order to allow those spoken words to be passed through time, we developed written word. Each refers back to the previous “layer” of communication.

Even someone who has a speech impediment, for instance, is still using the same written language as someone else in the same culture. And that written language was developed specifically to try and evoke the words someone in the culture speaks.

Words aren’t “endangered”. There are literally an infinite number of potential words, if we need to reinvent a meaning, we can quite easily(see: synonym). Further, the original meanings still exist. You can still use “awful” to mean “inspiring awe” and you’re correct, you just won’t be understood.

Gotteeeeeem!

That evolution has happened SO many times. Why does “literally” give you fits when “awful” or “terrific” do not? Perhaps because it’s the shift you happen to be living through?

And “6 7” is a shibboleth, a linguistic phenomenon that’s been going on for as long as we have written history, essentially, it’s just now that it’s the youngins doing the thing, it’s bad. Yeah, you right, pretty shitty take.

Written word is a facsimile of a facsimile of what we’re actually communicating. We go from nebulous thoughts, concepts not bound by language, to sounds that roughly convey those concepts, and then to squiggly lines that roughly convey those sounds, and then back up the chain in the other person. Really, it’s a miracle we understand each other at all.

Honestly it sounds like we’re describing the same driving style, and I’m just pointing out nuances to the specific wording of the law. And, ultimately, it boils down to, as you said, the driving habits (more than the actual laws) of the area you’re in. I do, in fact, live in the states, where those kinds of rules aren’t really enforced, and people weave through lanes more or less however they want. In that environment, minimizing your own lane changes is maximizing predictability.

For what it’s worth, I don’t ever foresee a time where I’ll be driving in any other countries, but in that event, yeah, I’ll have to adjust a bit, probably.

The most dangerous act while driving on a multi-lane highway is lane changes. When there are entrances/exits every mile or less, I’m not going to merge into the lane that merges with the on ramp, be in the way of people trying to get on, and merge back to the inside in, what, 4 seconds? If I followed that logic, I would be weaving between lanes. Similarly, if I’m in, say lane 3 and actively passing a column of cars, but someone faster is coming up behind - I’m going to merge when it’s -safe- to do so. Yes, I could technically squeeze in between two of the cars in the column I’m passing slightly slower than the guy behind me, but that’s just not safe. And, if there is a lane further inside, THEY should be merging to get around.

In almost every activity you’ll do, there are prescribed “right” ways to do things that usually work, but sometimes require a little bit of an exception. Smooth traffic flow and minimizing dangerous maneuvers is one of those times.

You know, I was tempted to note (US) after the lanes. I see now that people get angry if you don’t. The logic still applies though. The first lane is for entering/exiting. The middle are for cruising, driving a steady pace near the speed limit. The inside is for passing.

If there is an open lane to the inside, the person trying to pass someone already doing a reasonable pace should be the one making the change. If there’s not, then yeah, the slower vehicle needs to go ahead and move over.

Those people are wrong. On a 3+ lane highway, the right lane is for entering or exiting, the left lane is for passing, and the middle lane(s) is for cruising. Unless you’re like, only doing 55 or something, in which case just get off the interstate and take surface streets.

Men really will do anything to a avoid therapy.

Killing in the Name is the right answer, I feel.

Okay that sounds a lot less insane than the mental picture I had. I was like, “mines? Some weird construction…? Snow piercer?” But it sounds like just regular level younger people doing obsessive things to the point of resembling self-harm.