Okay… I don’t care. That isn’t relevant to the point I was making, which is that if push comes to shove, pretty much anyone with a low to moderate degree of competence will be able to exit the country, even if the government isnt a huge fan of the idea. Borders in europe are completely unrelated, because we weren’t talking about how difficult it is to cross the American-Mexican border relative to any other border in the world, but how difficult it is to cross this particular border relative to any given individual’s ability to do so.

I mean, it isn’t something I would do all willy nilly. But what I thought you meant was that Trump/ICE would physically stop you from leaving the country in the same way that Putin tries to stop Russian citizens from leaving, and my point was that this is extremely unlikely to happen in the near future.

It is very easy to leave the US. You literally just get in a car/bus and cross the border into Mexico. When I crossed most recently, the agent on the US side simply demanded, I think, $3 to use their bridge. On the Mexican side, the border agent opened a few doors on my car while I occasionally let my foot off the brake to keep the line moving, in the most low-effort pantomime of checking for contraband I’ve ever seen. A few years ago when I went through the Mexican border checkpoint, there was literally no one there. Once on the Mexican side of the border, I went to get a tourist visa and vehicle import permit - though, honestly, this chore is almost entirely optional since you can easily avoid the checkpoints where they check for this paperwork, and if you get pulled over without it, you just bribe the cop to leave you alone.

If you have a passport, you can also just buy a plane ticket to literally anywhere.

These modes of leaving the country will almost certainly not change much in the near/mid term, even if the US does become more authoritarian. The transport of people and goods into and out of the country is a huge factor in our economic productivity. If Trump actually shut down the border and restricted international flights, he would lose middle america due to interfering with their vacation to Cabo, he would lose working class America because tons and tons of factories and extraction companies would shut down overnight, he would face riots in every border town as people would be unable to go to work, see family, or visit their preferred doctor, and the american billionaires would have him assassinated as they watched their stock prices plummet. It’s not gonna happen.

Imagining Trump did do this, though - his “Border Wall” is a joke. The US-Mexico border stretches thousands of miles, and along most of the border there is just a fence - if that. If worse came to worse, the fact is, there are already networks of coyotes who would be more than happy to take your money to smuggle you into Mexico just as readily as they would smuggle you out.

Suppose you leave the US and end up in Northern Mexico. Now what? Well, from there you can start building a new life for yourself. Many countries are happy to take US nationals for an indefinite period of time on working visas. You could also try petitioning other nations for political asylum if you feel it is justified. Almost any skill you used in the US to make money will be useful in other nations as well. If you have some amount of savings, you could live frugally on the outskirts of a friendly mexican village in a cozy (if not plumbed) casita for years. During this time, you can build up your social network and learn spanish, and even if you have no paperwork and no legal right to be in the country, fairly easily find some work that will keep you fed and housed.

I, personally, have quite a lot invested in the US and would be loath to give it up. But if my friends started getting disappeared, you best believe I’d be bouncing asap.

If you think that, you live in a bubble. Go to an anti-Trump protest and ask what desktop operating system they use. Your answers will be “Windows is gross, ew, I use a Mac”, “Whatever my job gives me, I haven’t used a personal laptop in years”, and “What’s an operating system?”

Apple is aligned with Trump thanks to Tim Cook

The infographic is explaining broad cultural differences. If you think many people in liberal america are changing their laptops because of Tim Cook, you are out of touch.

NYT writes with a conservative slant

Again, this is about broad cultural trends. I know one of lemmy’s favorite catchphrases is “America has a center right party and a far right party” - and I’m not saying that isn’t true. But the people in these parties and the people occupying their associated social demographics see large differences between each other, which is what this infographic is about. American liberals, by and large, respect the NYT. They might disagree with its slant in one way or another, but if a god-and-guns conservative starts criticizing it over thanksgiving dinner, they will defend it tooth and nail. Meanwhile, American leftists are not represented in this infographic because they make up an incredibly small portion of the population, and are largely culturally irrelivant outside a few isolated and insular pockets.

HP is shit-tier hardware, but WhyTF is it red?

It is a stand-in for non-Mac PCs in general. They probably felt they had to pick a brand to counter “Mac”, and HP only has 2 letters and so fit in the infographic better.

What makes Basketball inherently democratic/liberal? What makes Baseball republican/conservative?

I agree this is their weakest comparison. I assume they were going with basketball=black people, baseball=apple pie. A more apt comparison, imo, would be conservatives watching sports while liberals watch TED Talks or something.

HP, I think, just represents using a generic PC. The stereotype is that liberals use Macs

I appreciate that you have listened to others advice.

I will say that I have known people who do this sort of thing, who do things like pulling double all nighters to study for exams or work on school projects. Iirc, there was a sort of fad sleep schedule for extreme productivity bitd where you would work for 2:40, then take a 20 min power nap, on repeat, forever. Sounded hellish, but some people credited it with getting them through their ChemE degrees. And the reality is, if your actual chokepoint actually is time, then sleeping less could be a tradeoff to achieving your goal.

On the other hand, based on what you have written, what you actually need to do is just distance yourself from your parents. I also dont get along with my parents. My solution is that I moved to a different city, only talk to them on the phone maybe once or twice per year, and don’t visit for holidays or anything else. Their opinions on my life mean nothing to me.

Everyone here saying they want the medieval travel version because modern air travel is sooooo terrible should really be joking.

To start, safety. Going on a 6 month journey in the middle ages came with a significant increase in your chance of a gruesome death relative to staying home. Of course, mortality was higher at home than it is today as well, but travel increased mortality even more, since you could very well run into thieves/pirates/slavers, new and exciting diseases your immune system wasn’t adapted to, end up stranded and/or lost in the wilderness, or just get kicked by a horse. In contrast, modern air travel is one of the safest ways to travel today - which makes it one of the safest ways to travel in all of human history.

Next, comfort. As an average traveller in the middle ages (not a noble person), you will be walking. Maybe you have a horse or donkey in your group to help carry food and supplies, but the supplies will take priority, and the only way you get to ride that animal is if you break your leg. To any fans of camping/backpacking, remember that you will not be using modern tents, backpacks, or shoes. Your shelter for a night out will be, at best, a good wool blanket or cloak - mosquitos or gnats buzzing in your ears, rain falling on your face, the cold ground sucking away your warmth. Your backpack, at best, is a sack with shoulder straps, or perhaps a few sticks lashed together with a few ropes to hang over your shoulders - and it may just be a sack that you sling over your shoulder and carry from the front with both hands, your body bruised, aching, and chaffed after just one day of handling such a load. Your shoes are floppy bits of leather - no support or padding to be heard of. If you get sick? Keep walking, or the group is leaving you behind. Get to a villiage? Maybe you’ll get a respite by sleeping under the eves of someones roof or on the hard wood floor of the local church. Food? Heard of hard tack? Shit your pants? Well, you’ll just have to walk in your shit pants for 6 months. But yes, yes, tell me how this is so much better than being mildly uncomfortable sitting in a climate controlled airplane for a few hours while you look down on the earth like a LITERAL FUCKING GOD.

And finally, time. People here seem to think like medieval people travelled for 6 months just for funsies. But no, this is not like taking a year long vacation. For one thing, the other two reasons above - your life is going to be very shitty for basically the whole time, and you might just die due to an ill-tempered musselman or an evil jew witch cursing you to shit blood. But also, you are giving up the opportunity to do anything else to improve your life or the life of your family for a whole year. Your mom could get sick and die. That sexy somebody you keep making eye contact with could marry someone else. The part of the community crop land you’ve been angling to get assigned to your family will get snaked by Bill - of course. Fucking Bill. What a dick. And really, until you show up again, no one is going to do anything to help you out because, again, there is a good chance you die on your trip.

Now, of course, everyone on Lemmy will hate to hear this, because of course, sitting next to a baby on a plane because of THE CAPITALISTS is literally the worst thing that ever happened to anyone, ever, and it was definitely better to die of plague while living under the rule of a literal feudal lord.

But what they’ll hate to hear even more is that if you really want to go on a year long pilgrimage, you can fucking do that. You could start today. And it would still be better than your medival counterparts’, almost no matter what. You can quit your job, break your lease, and start travelling with a few dollars in your pocket - and when you want to return to normal life, just say “oh, I was travelling”, and all the hiring managers will think you are super cool. You can hitchhike across countries where you don’t speak the language, and use your smartphone to translate. You can eat for free out of dumpsters because we throw out tons and tons of perfectly edible food every day. If you are reading this now, you can make money easily simply by travelling to a particular place and speaking a language you already know. If you decide to walk through the wilderness for days, weeks, or months, you can find free maps, mapping software, and information not just about the safest routes, but the most beautiful. You can pick up extraordinarily light, comfortable, and functional equipment from a thrift store. YOU CAN SEE AT NIGHT WITH THE CLICK OF A BUTTON. And if, during your travels, you find out your mom has fallen ill, or Bill is about to swindle the family farm, you can beg, borrow, or steal enough money to catch an oh-so-uncomfortable plane ride home and deal with the situation.

Holy shit, YES, flying economy on an airplane is so much better.

The blank pages are supposed to get stamped when you cross a border. That way, while you are in a foreign country, you have proof that you were appropriately processed at the border and didn’t sneak in or something. But these days, because computers, governments have realized that there are better ways to keep track of this than ink made by a rubber stamp

And then I’m ordering eggs and hash browns at 3 am, will proceed to drink 13 cups of bad, weak coffee with excessive amounts of cream and sugar, and I will like it

A gas line, sure. But I’ve cut my internet line twice now

Calling us bots is a slur. We perfer the term “'tismed individuals”

Idk, I think the most likely cause of a world war breaking out tomorrow would be Russia either making an antagonistic move towards Poland, or else deciding to use nukes in Ukraine. I expect that this would play out in the EU/NATO/Anglosphere/possibly liberal asia (but not the US) fighting Russia and whoever is unwise enough to ally with them (Iran, Belarus, and NK being obvious candidates). Russia, now vastly outgunned in conventional warfare, starts deploying its aging nuclear weapons against Europe, but because the Russian military is a trash fire, about half of them can’t even launch, half that launch fail to make it to their destinations and harmlessly fall out of the air or fail to detonate on impact, and some are caught by advanced anti-icbm tech that NATO developed 20 years ago but has kept secret. At least one icbm detonates on the lauchpad and irradiates the surrounding area, which the Kremlin will try to spin as a retaliatory nuclear attack. Europe and its allies, being boy scouts, stick to conventional warfare.and quickly overrun Moskow, but spend the next several years routing out the Russian military from secret ICBM bases.

The US, always the main character, has a sub-plot where they mostly-nonviolently oust Trump from office and install an aw-shucks middle aged white man in the White House, who deploys the US military just in time to join the European forces to take Moscow. The US, being the largest single military in the alliance now, will pat itself on the back in its history books for the next 50 years for once again saving liberal Europe.

I am extremely dubious about the likelihood of the US actually taking significant military action in Greenland. The impression I get of the current US administration is that Trump is an aggressive and stupid bulldog that more powerful and sane interests have successfully leashed and collared. They let him run around and break shit as he pleases as long as it doesnt affect their interests and occasionally point him in a certain direction as an intimidation tactic in order to gain leverage. But the US putting itself on the losing side of a global conflict is not in their best interest, so they will always reign him back in before he actually starts any real shit.

So America?

I think you’re giving him too much credit here already…

I mean, found the problem. If your villiage can’t support a single bar, then odds are the population is extremely small. All the guys in town have likely already met you and assumed you aren’t interested, or would feel awkward approaching an attractive stranger in a town where gossip moves around quickly.

Move to a city. Go clubbing. You’ll get hit on.

honestly, the real answer

You seem to be ignoring the problem, which is that the default guest experience of lemmy will filter out all the people who would solve the problem. “Increase the user base” only helps if the users who join aren’t depressed doomers.

Bingo

Sure. There are many paths to Babylon, and if your goal is to improve your climbing grade, and what you are doing is improving your climbing grade and is convenient and enjoyable for you, then there is no reason to change anything.

I suppose my main point is that climbers who are new to trying to push their grade often try to push their grade too early, and end up plateauing and becoming discouraged. If, for example, you are stuck at the V3 grade in the gym, you may be very motivated to climb V4. You will then wail on whatever V4 in the gym seems most doable for you for weeks, hoping that one of these times you actually stick the moves and send it. However, this pattern leads to slow progress, frustration (as you fail to send before they take the problem down), and possibly injury (due to repeating the same moves many times while tired).

So my point is that climbers seeking to push their grade for the first time should realize that movement - not strength or endurance - is the master skill, and the main way to improve is therefore to climb more mileage to improve their intuitive movement patterns. And if your goal is to rack up mileage, then you should track that mileage. If you want to send V4, but have only sent 5 V3s, you have no right to be dissappointed in your inability to send the harder grade, and the fastest way to send the harder grade is to climb a lot more at the easier grade.

So we start by increasing volume at a very easy grade, just to increase the number of routes/problems climbs in a typical session. Often this is enough to spur improvement, simply because it teaches the climber better time management. And as they increase the total amount of climbing they are doing, they are also spurring the necessary physiological adaptations to support long climbing sessions so they can accumulate more volume faster.

Then once they are regularly cranking out a sufficient amount of mileage, we start increasing difficulty. We say “how many climbs can you do at your onsight grade in a session?” We want them to be cranking out onsight or second-go sends, because this is usually the sweet spot for climbing improvement - just hard enough that you have to try, but not so hard that you get bogged down and turn it into a mega-proj. Then we simply say “okay, I know you are eager to get to X grade - but send 100 of X-1 first”. This gives them a tangible, measureable goal to work towards. And with a high volume of X-1 climbing per session, hitting that mark feels acheiveable. Eg, if your goal is to send V4, but your onsight grade is V2, we say “Log 100 unique V2 sends before you start working on V3”. If they are only sending 2 V2s per session and only climbing 2 days per week, then it will take them 25 weeks - nearly half a year minimum - to send 100! But if they are sending 10 V2s each session 4 days per week, then they will tick 100 in under a month with time to spare for additional rest days plus a 1 week vacation.

(An important aside - volume should be increased only as recovery allows. If the climber is showing up to every session with sore shoulders, achey elbows, and raw skin, they need more rest or less volume until they can handle the physiological demand. This is also where adding in a minimalist lifting routine or yoga practice can be helpful. As a lifting program for a new climber, I recommend 2 days per week, 3 sets of 3 or 2 sets of 5, adding weight to each set. one lift each for push pull and legs - switch up lifts every couple months to keep from getting bored. Keep the weights quite light - maybe 70% effort on the last rep of the last set, so that movement quality stays high. The whole workout should only take around 10 or 15 minutes, and you should walk out of the gym feeling limber and energized - I often like to use this style of workout as a warm up before pulling on to climb.)

Then, when the climber has racked up sufficient mileage at the lower grade but is still not progressing in the higher grade, we add in a more intense style of climbing - limit bouldering - since trying really hard will spur neurological and physiological adaptations in the muscles, teaching the climber to pull harder and maintain maximum body tension.

And then if this still does not spur improvement, we could talk about fingerboarding, technique drills, periodization, targeted lifting programs, or any number of other specialized techiques for spurring improvement. But the point is that we aren’t going to add unnecessary complexity to our training until it is actually needed; and we are mostly going to improve at climbing by improving our movement via direct experience by doing (1) a lot of climbing and (2) very hard moves.

Contrast this with some more typical climbing routines -

1. The gym bouldering newbie. Shows up to the gym twice per week, and immediately walks over to the new set. After a short warm up, they work on 2 or 3 problems at their project grade until they are smoked, then maybe try a problem at their project grade +1, finding it utterly impossible. They progress very slowly, because they rack up mileage very slowly, and never actually try really hard moves when they are feeling fresh.

2. The weekend warrior large group climber. They show up to the crag with their crew of 20 people. They climb 1 warm up, then shakily lead up something at their onsight grade (praying they don’t die as they make every clip, despite being completely safe), and finally wail on a toprope that was put up by the “strong” climber of the group before declaring that they are gassed and heading to the bar with everyone else. Again, they progress very slowly because they never actually climb that much.

3. The frustrated go-getter. They used to be in group 1 or 2, but are tired of climbing at a low grade, so they begin a highly structured 12 week climbing program with words like “mesocycle” and “anaerobic work capacity”. Depending on how well the program was designed, they may progress quite reasonably… but now they’ve turned rock climbing from a fun activity with friends into another grinding chore.

Contrast with what I outlined above - each step is a simple, clear goal that can be applied to any given session. It is simple and intuitive to explain to a climbing partner “I want to climb 20 pitches today, no matter what” or “I want to climb 10 V5s today”. You can have days when you just work on the new set with your friends or try to send the mega-proj (you just recognize that these days aren’t moving you towards climbing harder as fast as possible). Climbing stays fun - it just now has different metrics for success depending on the day.