yeah bro i care about material conditions
'material' meaning weed and 'conditions' meaning i want to fuck prostitutes
this is my foundation for a fair and just society. no why would i read that dusty old book?
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- everybody smokes cigarettes everywhere and there is no escape
- scam artists line Amsterdam with apparently no health codes to keep in line with, just read reviews for any of the many businesses that sell food or whatever else
- Anne Frank museum -- completely points the finger of fascism in Germany at people not participating enough in "democracy", saying we all just need to vote to prevent it from ever happening again
- Hotel rooms are the size of closets but cost just as much if not more than hotels in the USA
- extremely anti-masking; if you dare wear one you will not be served in many restaurants, will be cussed at, and people will fake cough in your face as a matter of principle
I hate to stereotype, but I know a fuck ton of Dutch antivaxxers. Can confirm the anti mask sentiment.
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One guy at a baked goods shop told us we were conspiracy idiots for believing in covid and instead of giving us what we ordered shoved a bunch of week old rock hard muffins in a bag and then charged us double the price.
We ended up disputing the charge with my credit card company and they had to eat the chargeback fees but that was the extent to which it pissed some people off.
One guy shouted at us from like about block away when he spotted us with masks on and asked if we were "fucking r***ded or what?" obviously trying to pick a fight. He yelled and cussed at us until we were out of sight again.
That place is insane.
I'm sorry for your experience. The thing that gets to me is that the back to normal liberals have these slur dropping chuds their side.
Good on you to keep wearing masks. I'm still rocking my N95 everywhere, still 4+ years of no colds, flu, and covid. Fuck normies.
I like how this is a fuckcars post and yet that part's basically a footnote in this post about weed and sex work lmao
God I wish we could get halfway decent urban planning in North America though, fuck the automotive industry that created this nightmare
Love to consume and exploit, but do it ethical like unlike certain other places so I don't have to examine my behavior or the system. :smuglord:
Honestly the amount of western leftists (even self-labeled Marxists) who want socialism because the extent of their thinking and desires is that it will give them treats including healthcare, women (problematic), drugs, etc, is shockingly high. Treat socialists we might call these people, only one of these treats is not like the others. It really depresses me and sometimes for a moment makes me feel all Maoist third worldist and that the imperial core should just be nuked. Because if these people get power, if they stage a revolution and it succeeds, it will be a failed revolution, it will not bring liberation but the illusion of it, it will fall to internal rot, lack of discipline, and liberal reformism crashing down like the USSR but a whole lot quicker and with more suffering. Any revolution that fails to take the concerns of women and their liberation seriously is a reactionary one.
"Treat socialists" is a good way to describe these people. They heard the right-wing canard that socialism is about an easy life and free stuff, and decided "hey, I like that." In fact socialism is about fulfillment, not ease; by taking care of basic necessities, it frees one to work for the nation and society, and thus to live a fully human life. Socialism is not just freedom to work, but an obligation to work. The continual advancement of the productive forces requires all hands at the grindstone.
I get your fear about first world socialists collapsing the revolution almost as soon as the build it, but the good and bad news is that these people are never going to form a vanguard. They are completely tied to the liberal hegemony, and will turn fascist to protect it if they haven't already. Most genuine working-class people in the first world aren't like this, and a big reason they reject socialism is that it's so widely promoted to them as being all about "treats." This they rightly see as undignified -- "I work with my hands, and I'll provide for myself that way, or die trying." Their worldview is reactionary in many other ways, but here at least they are correct. They need, thus, to be shown that Marxism-Leninism (i.e., genuine or non-loser socialism) is about giving them the results of their labor -- and that the capitalist system is predicated on stealing that labor from them; hence Mao's slogan of "land to the tiller" and all that.
Bro could have just said weed but hes r*dditor so he had to include the reason because of which Amsterdam is literally one of the worst cities😭
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Amsterdam is the greatest City in the world because when I was 14 I visited and when I existed the train station there was a huge sign that read "watch out when you buy cocaine it could be heroine"
Would you rather not be warned that your cocaine might be heroin? Smh every 14 yr should know that
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They should have told you about the possibility of Fentanyl so you know you're getting a better deal.
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Legalizing sex work should be done with other measures to protect sex workers from being exploited or preventing them from doing it in the first place, there used to be a full post explaining this be a user here but she deleted her acvount, but the way this person worded it I assume he thinks it's good because he can't have sex otherwise.
2500 euro rent for a studio 😎
Tourists out of their mind on drugs 😎
Ranging inequality 😎
City is only affordable for rich white people 😎
Raging drug war 😎
Legalized rape of sex trafficked women 😎
I wouldn't say that's good but is this person stuck 20+ years in the past?
Plenty of US American states have legal weed, and almost every major city has it legalized in some way. Some even have canals, while only Nevada has legalized sex work (profound sexual exploitation of mostly women), "escorts" are defacto legal unless the cops want to hassle some easy targets that day. There are definitely cars in Amsterdam, wtf.
The only thing that's true and good is the bike culture.
I've no quarms with it being decriminalised as that's the best way to reduce harm to the women involved
It is, however, still rape to hire one
Amsterdam truly is though.
I always remember the main street is planned with public trams going both ways in the center of the road and on each respective side then: car lanes, separated bike lanes, and sidewalks for pedestrians. Simple brilliance and unimaginable efficiency compared to the US. Even if you have cars, this is the way to do it.
And the canals. Just gorgeous.
I don't doubt it. US cities are urban planning nightmares. I once made the mistake of flying into LAX (Los Angeles International) a few days before Christmas; traffic out was so bad that it literally took me two hours to drive a mile from the airport. A true "fuck cars" moment.
It's more that instead of focusing on all the good things about Amsterdam, this guy is weirdly obsessed with weed and prostitution.
I visited Utrecht a few times when dating a Dutch woman, and cycling was an absolute joy. I moved over to the side of the road to let a car overtake and she just looked at me like I was crazy and was like "no? We have right of way. They stay behind us"
On the other hand I also saw Zwarte Piet for the first time and had to explain to her that her fun Christmas tradition was the most racist thing I'd ever seen and the more she told me about it the more racist it got
I didn't get a chance to visit Utrecht but I hear it's a beautiful city too! That's cool you were able to spend time there like that.
Zwarte Piet is racist cringe for sure. Sorry you had to deal with that.
Speaking from experience, Amsterdam is very neoliberal, both in governance and people's own views
And where do the drugs and women come from?
It's sad how liberals will refuse to answer that question and ignore the realities of human trafficking. It's the same logic when they praise the social democracy of Scandinavia and Keynesism of Western Europe, while ignoring the reality that it's all propped up by the historical and modern day imperial plunder of the global South.
Having a bunch of canals makes every trip longer. It was kinda annoying when I visited because a one mile trip was like 1.5 with all the crossings. Otherwise awesome city.
There are plenty of cars in Amsterdam, but i guess it depends on how you define "car culture". There are also a lot of bikes, that's true. But the layout of the city is just not that great, which complicates and impedes public transportation. It needed to have a major redesign happen at some point but never did. Large parts of cities sometimes need to be demolished to make space for a better, more rational layout, there's just no way around this.