It’s also better really.

I used to live in a place where I needed a car to go anywhere because the buses were so unreliable, infrequent and useless (all going through the town centre with lots of delays). I hated it, because everyone drove and was stuck in traffic. Driving is very stressful too.

And now I live in a big city, have really dense public transport for 20 bucks a month flat. No more finding and paying for parking spaces. Being able to go back from a different place than I arrived. No more parking meters timing out. No more maintenance. No more fuel costs. No more insurance. No more traffic fines. No more yearly inspections. No more people damaging my ride with shopping carts. I love it honestly. And to top it all off I can ride while playing with my phone and not having to pay any attention to the road. No need to be sober either for that matter.

Quality quickly drops off leaving the city unfortunately but that’s the thing with cities, you rarely need to leave them anyway.

Here in Europe it’s very hard to see hydrants though. There are no signs and they’re just little panel-covered holes.

It’s because your country makes so many cars. Same in the US. Cars are holy because so much money is made off them.

Where I’m from in Holland they are sacred also but it’s kinda a different reason, car ownership was a big symbol of economic progress in the 60s and people have become addicted to them.

Eh so these are official parking spots? That’s a bit weird yeah.

Whoa and that in Germany where people are pretty law-abiding.

Seriously? :) It was an ok story but the guy was so annoying and the QT events soooooo frustrating. Just make it a real adventure.

The shaun shaun thing reminds me a lot of this character in lost that had nothing else to do but run around shouting WALT WALT all the time :P

With you on this one 🫶

Also, humans are social creatures. If you’re a progressive, surely you care about other people. I certainly do!

Other individuals yes, but not being part of a group. If I align with a group like a political party, it’s just a temporary thing while our goals align. I have no deep loyalty to any group or country.

I definitely think there’s some issues with a lot of the western notions of formality, with it being very Euro-centric and sometimes oozing with pretentious classism, often racism and misogyny, but that’s not an issue with formality

Here in Europe it’s definitely often associated with “old money”. Or people wanting to show they are powerful or rich, or that they want to hang out with people who are. I don’t believe being powerful or rich makes someone a better person or more important, so I don’t want to make special arrangement just because they have this group code.

However, maybe you are in the US? Progressivism here in Europe is a lot more left-wing than in Europe. Something like the Democratic party would be right-wing here, and the republican party extreme or at least radical right. I’d be more left than Bernie Sanders to give an idea. Many left-wing party politicians also don’t wear suits. There’s definitely an anti-formal slant there.

I’m not saying formality is some requisite of social life or anything, but I am saying that that stark rejection of it sounds antisocial, let me tell you. Well, to be totally fair it sounds neuro-divergent, more than anything, but I don’t mean to diagnose you either. You wouldn’t attend a friend’s wedding because it’s formal? I guess you just aren’t friends with people that would want you to wear a suit to their wedding. Whatever, feel free to disregard the last couple of sentences.

Oh yes I’m AuDHD so yeah I am definitely neurodivergent. And no I wouldn’t attend a formal wedding. I’ll be super uncomfortable and unhappy and people will see that and be bothered by it, so there is no point. Better not to be there. I wouldn’t enjoy it anyway. I’ve tried twice and it went down really badly.

Also, if your idea of diversity is “no dress-code”, frankly, that’s ridiculous. I admit that there’s, as I mentioned, quite a bit of classism and misogyny and racism in some groups, and those groups do end up being associated with more formal attire – I get that – but to blame that on suits or formality is ridiculous! Why are you talking like dress-code means people aren’t very diverse?!

No it’s not no dress code, I do go to dress code events. But more in the alt/goth/fetish sphere. But that leaves a LOT of room for expression. A black tie event for example does not, at least not for the guys. Women have a lot more wiggle room (and I’m kinda genderqueer but that kind of event is not very accepting of that either, lol)

I really do take offense to that position. The range of people that wear suits or go to formal occasions is extremely diverse, and to imply otherwise is beyond reductive.

I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you. It’s not the people per se but the events and what they represent. Events that I have seen that required dress codes and I have not shown up for:

• Expensive restaurants, clearly the suits are a point of “we’re better than the peasants here”
• A work event with lots of leaders - I believe in equality so I don’t think they are someone I want to impress with dressing up pretending to be in their ‘class’. With my actual skills, sure but such events aren’t the place for that.
• A cruise dinner with a captain, if I’m on a cruise I’m on a holiday and it’s me-time, I have no interest in that (and the whole thing turned out super boring anyway basically being stuck on an expensive boat with almost no time to visit interesting places :) )
• A trade show that required “business casual” attire. It was a security event and I’m an ethical hacker, everyone knows we don’t do suits. I’m not going to be super uncomfortable just to make the money men feel better.
• Job interviews, if they specify a dress code in the invitation then it’s insta-decline, I don’t want to work there anyway

And that’s just false. I mean, did you even see the pictures I showed? Do they look the same to you? Do they express the same things?!

Well I see they are a different colour but they are essentially the same to me. One of them isn’t wearing a tie which I like (I don’t do ties anyway, they are a hard limit for me)

So? I don’t care. Why would anyone care? I thought you were about wearing what you love and expressing yourself, why does it matter that businessman wear it too? I think corduroy pants look nice, so I wear corduroy pants. I think funky ties look nice, so I wear funky ties. If I think a suit looks nice, I’m gonna wear the suit – CEO be damned!

I do have to say I didn’t consider that you might actually like wearing suits. That’s something I didn’t think of, as I hate them so much. That changes things indeed. I was more arguing against events where people are required to wear them.

and that says that you meant to wear that, and didn’t just happen to wear it because you liked those pants and you liked that shirt.

I like that though because what you like says a lot about a person. I love self-expressive people, not people who just do whatever they need to fit in. I also hate formal occasions because again formal means there’s lots of rules on how to look and act. Again pressure to fit in. As a progressive I don’t align with that. I like people being very diverse. If I’m invited to a formal event (or even a trade show with a dress code) I just decline.

A suit is like the uniform of the business world. Very boring and non-expressive.

PS I also hate collared shirts and ties, I don’t wear them anymore. They bother my neck.

I like that a lot. I’m GenX but I always hated the suit & tie bullshit. These days I don’t even own a suit that fits. The last time I wore one was at a wedding in 2005 or so.