RE: USA: Tariffs are TAX [eng/срп] САД: Царине су ПОРЕЗ
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"...it is a battle between the powers that be and is causing people to choose one side or the other. Without them realizing that this act alone already seals a kind of powerlessness which, because it revolves around taking a political stance, could be described as successful."
I strongly agree, and strive to steer discussions that center on complaints about political agents and policies towards what we can personally do to insulate ourselves from those things, and how we can work together to disempower them and empower ourselves.
"So I won't."
I confess I share all your concerns about what will drive people to secure themselves from malevolent powers. Perhaps I am a pessimist, but too often in history I see how people are driven by exigency to mob violence as a result of pernicous politics, and I would much prefer to simply thrive instead of suffering such exigent circumstances. I believe my efforts to encourage adopting such mechanisms do bear fruit from time to time, as I see people adopting them.
I appreciate very much your reticence to disabuse the zealous. You are wiser and kinder than I.
I unfortunately share that pessimism.
Just now I came back from the grocery and must tell you that the dumbness of my fellow people shocks me ever so often.
Waiting in line at the cashiers, there were three women, two before me, one behind me and the rest of the crowd. The old lady who was first, paid with her bank card and didn't get it that once in a while the automat requires to slip the card into it, instead of just scanning over it. She then did so, after the cashier told her but immediately withdrew it, before the system had time to process. She did it three times without learning. I then went and tried to help but she cried "I know!", obviously without knowing.
An old woman behind me was pulling a little hand-wagon but could not get through the narrow lane (she had not bought anything), since the woman in front of me (age around mid thirty) had a shopping cart, which she had to push forward to let her pass.
I told her: "When the other lady is done, you must push your cart forward, so she can leave."
But she already forgot - attention span about ten seconds long - and I had to remind her once again. She had put her shopping on the conveyor belt (only four things, what she needed the whole trolley for, a mystery, as there are small baskets) and gave her bottle receipt to the cashier first, whom she confused as if she had no other shopping and just wanted the money for the receipt.
When the matter was cleared up, she fumbled around in her wallet for 2.29 euros for ages and finally gave the coins. The registration already completed, she fished out more coins, which the cashier patiently accepted and then gave her back nine cents. When it was my turn and I had paid, she was once again standing in the middle of the aisle with her trolley, looking closely at her receipt.
This supermarket in particular has the dumbest customers (it is the cheapest one in this area), as it always turns out to be observed. I have now decided to go to the other stores and pay more, just for the sake of my (im)patience to watch these kinds of scenes. To my dismay, it's always my own gender who disturbs, needs extra attention, wants extra sausages, etc. etc. Guys mostly never do this kind of stuff. But maybe, I got biased. I don't know. I wonder, if I myself will behave in such helpless and annoying way when I enter a certain age. My mom outright refused to adapt to modern tech and left it to her children to support her in these modern kind of shopping and other experiences. Since she had six of us, she did well and we accepted her refusal to cope to everything new. At least, she admitted that she did not want to learn certain things and from my perspective, she had every right in doing so, after raising a family and taking care of us and my dad. But if you lack such family support, you become a nuisance for society.
Oh well, I am sorry to bother you with this personal anecdotes.
Cheers anyway, I am sure I could find examples of intelligence when moving around in more educated environments. Public space seems not to be such a place.
A cost of doing business we may not anticipate.
You do not bother me with your observations, but indeed have caused me to laugh in recognition of shared miseries, for which I am grateful.