Any system that doesn’t reward people fairly for their find is a system that encourages black market sales.

The Cheers theme song is a contender as well.

I think employment via technological progress looks like a bell curve. My guess is we’re still on the left side of the curve gaining jobs but I feel like we’re getting close to the peak, and sometime in the next 50-100 years we’ll begin to see employment opportunities decrease as AI merges with advanced robotics and begins displacing workers en masse.

The states are definitely rough, but it’s different in our home country. We understand our culture and its expectations and can easily navigate it. Not so much in foreign countries.

My wife and I were walking on the sidewalk (in Amsterdam) a couple blocks from our hotel and two men came from behind us and just started yelling at us in Dutch. Like full on cussing us out. We had no idea who these guys were. Had never seen them before. We were not in a restricted area or on private property, this was the fucking sidewalk fully on public land in the city. We had no idea what they were saying, and that adds a level of scariness to it that I wouldn’t necessarily experience in the states.

Immediately following that altercation we entered a cafe where we received probably the rudest service I’ve ever seen. So rude the guy made me want to pour the drink on the counter to spite his rude ass, and I say that as someone who spent a decade in the food and beverage industry waiting tables and bartending. I’m sympathetic to service workers and always treat everyone with respect. So it was definitely on his end.

That was just one afternoon. The next day brought two more unwarranted incidents of rudeness.

And look, I’m not saying everyone we encountered was rude, I’m saying the only time I’ve experienced extreme rudeness multiple times in my many many travels was in the Netherlands.

Did you stay in the super touristy red light district the entire trip? My first couple trips I stayed there and had no issues, but my wife and I are not 20 anymore and like to get out of the touristy areas to see how the locals live, and that’s where we experienced rude assholes. The Dutch who work inside the red light district depend on tourist money so being nice is a prerequisite.

It’s a beautiful city but holy fuck are the Dutch rude MFers. I’ve been there several times and every time I visit the locals are just fucking terrible. The last time I was there I swore I’d never return.

And I want to be clear here, my wife and I are not novice travelers decked out in USA gear head to toe walking around smoking weed on the streets and acting like loudmouth ignorant assholes. We’re experienced respectful travelers who genuinely want to experience new cultures. I lived in Europe for three years and have been to at least 17 countries, and the only place I’ve had problems with rude locals was Amsterdam.

Disgusting. Make your oatmeal on the stove like a normal person.

Right? Al Franken took a fucking picture in front of someone’s titties that were under a flak vest, shirt, and bra and we forced him to retire.

Around the same time we were forcing Franken out for a minor lapse in judgment, conservatives were rallying around Donald “I just grab ‘em by the pussy” Trump and Roy “I cruise shopping malls in my 30s trying to pick up 13 year old girls” Moore.

The only person conservatives forced out was Madison Cawthorn, and that’s because he exposed their cocaine orgies, but Matt Gaetz (R) the underage sex trafficker is still in office.