what does merit listed mean?

Seems like a basic safety/planning kind of question since you’d be in the middle of a body of water

I think so, too. Swimming with a life jacket in my opinion is more difficult than swimming without one. However, I would think that treading water is more difficult than swimming with a life jacket so maybe if swimming with a life jacket is the expectation, then that’s ok.

Backing it up one step further, a common beginner mistake is to decide on a destination irrespective of the wind direction. This sometimes makes sailing more difficult than it needs to be and can result in the unnecessary torturing of guests as the captain stubbornly pounds into wind and wave to achieve a destination not superior to other options that would provide a more congenial travel experience.

this is really helpful, thank you!

420 or laser type boat

the world of the rich vs the average person…

of all the places to not have easy access to healthcare…

has the US considered…not funding them?

Ignoring the fact that gender dysphoria is a real thing whereas hysteria isn’t,

I’m not sure how you can make this your premise; back then hysteria was very much “a real thing”. Also one could say that doctors have manipulated people undergoing surgery now into giving consent

socialism has been shown to be worse,

uh…

I got downvoted recently for saying “If you’re friends with someone, wouldn’t you want to know if they’re also friends with someone problematic?” and “I would definitely want to know if my friends were close with people who’d been in prison.”

Though to an extent, the lack of community, especially amongst children is due to the complete lack of independence and they have to depend on their parents to drive them everywhere.

where do you live that there’s not even a playground or a residential street within walking distance of your home?

Wish it’d be acceptable for people to call out reps/senators for “doing the bidding” of other countries too

When I’m feeling blue about something for a while, I do try to exercise daily. I don’t know whether or not endorphins make a difference for me but I do not that I feel more awake after exercising. I like the feeling that I accomplished something for that day and it keeps my routine regular. The alternative that I can spend a lot of time thinking about something troubling me and I’m not productive.

I wouldn’t use “never get to experience” but i would say it’s much harder to have that real sense of community that we easily found in the 90s, early 2000s, etc.

People are more connected to others but still more isolated from others. We were less connected to other people back then so people made a real effort to come up with fun activities and bond together. For kids, it’s the lack of just playing outside in the neighbourhood with friends. For adults, it’s the lack of third places and community/religious events.

Orr would defend his Communist friends to his Fascist freinds and he would defend his Fascist friends to his Communist friends. No one ever defended Orr because he was too weird.

yes this is basically what I mean

I know people who were Christians in Afghanistan, who were outed to the government (Taliban). The word they use is “spy”. It may not be the normal, English use of the word, but it’s the word that real-life people who have been on the receiving end of the betrayal use.

This is basically what i mean; someone who you can’t fully trust about their allegiance.

That is really awful what happened to those people; are they ok now?

Would you rather he, as a non-government affiliated citizen, pick a side? War is stupid. Communication is great. Maybe this is naive of me, but I think the world would be better, and maybe require less war, if everyone had equal access to communication.

I recently read about Ted Hall who shared nuclear secrets with the Soviet Union because he thought everyone should have equal access to nuclear weapons and this would prevent another world war.

Your logic is similar and it’s not a good thing.

That is such a heads-up for me in terms of making assumptions based on my own privilege, and I apologise for doing that here. I’m very lucky to be able to discuss politics without fear.

it’s ok, everyone has their own problems

my wording was maybe not clear

Not a good way to make them see reason. I know it’s hypothetical but if you’re friends shouldn’t you put in some effort to help instead of just drop them?

you’re planning to spend time debating with a ziganwu? or if you’re western, a staunch far-left or far-right supporter or someone with very racist views?

no, it’s normal to have a variety of friends

i’m talking about people with loyalty to a specific ideology and they are not honest about who they are in contact with, i live in asia in an area where you can get in a lot of trouble if you support democracy and if you share such information with the wrong person you can get in a lot of trouble