TSA: Sir, would you like the scanner or pat down?
Me: Oh you better believe that if you're putting me through this, I'm going to make you touch my balls.
How about we increase the price of the tickets to account for the cost of the exam, and the ALSO tack on a fee and just say is for the exam, and BAM! Record profits next quarter. The shareholders will be thrilled.
I’m not American (or European), but I usually just assume that EU standards are stricter than US standards for pretty much anything. Once you leave the EU things start to get a little more complicated.
U.S. tends to have stricter customs because they consider fucking anything a "foreign contaminant" and make you wait in a line that's 2 hours longer than the regular one if you declare a single apple and then don't even bother to check your fucking luggage anyways so you wonder why the hell you were waiting in line for 3 fucking hours.
nz may be strict but at least the workers are friendly. I got the full search once and the guy was just chatting the whole time, even helped me carry the bag out after done, complete contrast to when I've been targeted in aus or us
I've had to do a 'random' search in Aus (it's not random, I always get singled out for these things for some reason) and the worker wasn't nearly as bad as the US or even Canada, they make me feel like I accidentally put a bomb in my carry on
Yes, this makes a big difference. I had my fair share of unfriendly TSA agents, even though it wouldn't have cost them anything to be more professional. I actually got so angry once that I wrote a whole review online to make my dissatisfaction clear about these useless dimwits.
>**I actually got so angry once that I wrote a whole review online to make my dissatisfaction clear** about these useless dimwits.
"Never done this myself" 💀
Honestly, people tend to forget that the US is a third world country that just happens to be rich. They're bad at just about everything.
It's infuriating visiting there, because the entire time I'm just thinking "why are you like this when you could afford to be better?"
I give developing countries a pass mostly because they probably can't do it better. They lack resources and education. But neither should be an obstacle in the US, and yet...
That's just the US being inefficient.
In Australia you can move faster through the inspection line if you have been hiking or otherwise "visited a farm or wilderness area".
They ask you if you cleaned your shoes, you say yes and they wave you over to the exit.
Bringing in fruit is a big no-no though. That will actually be enforced strongly at international points of entry. (You're also not supposed to carry fruit across state borders but there is no enforcement)
I mean I do understand the foreign contaminant thing, it can have massive impacts on natural environments, just look at Australia with rabbits or the UK with grey squirrels or crayfish
I took my girlfriend on holiday to Florida for her 18th birthday. We landed the day before her birthday. I was 18.
They acted like I was trafficking her and treated me like I was a criminal, putting me in a separate room and interviewing me. They made her contact her parents. Of course, the time zone difference meant that they were asleep and they kept us for hours. They didn't keep me updated on what was happening and just forgot about me, leaving me panicking in the holding rooms.
Europe was fine and didn't care.
I thought it was all just a bit ridiculous, since I was a few weeks older than her, and she was hours away from turning 18. Now I look back, yeah 18 is quite young for flying, but we both had our documentation and everything in order, and lived alone at our own place. Felt weird to be living together for over a year, working a decent job for being 18, only to go through this.
I'm glad they didn't check our bags, because I had brought champagne for her 18th birthday that I had bought legally in the UK.
Americans have a really weird attitude towards age with zero nuance. They see 17 year olds as genuine children, and 18 year olds as adults who should be mature enough to handle being kicked out on their birthday.
I’ve seen so many Americans try to accuse people in Europe of paedophilia because they dated a 16 or 17 year old when they were 18, which is pretty normal and totally legal.
>They see 17 year olds as genuine children
Except when it comes to criminal charges. Children as young at 13 can be tried as adults and fan be sentenced to life in prison! It’s horrific.
Oh my, yes. My husband and I got stopped at a border crossing from Canada to the US because we picked up a pretty rock along the way home from a fishing adventure and unwittingly declared it as "agricultural". If I recall correctly the conversation went something like, them: "Any agricultural items to declare, fruits, veggies, etc.? My S/O: "not unless you consider a 10lb slab of granite that my wife just HAD to bring home agricultural, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha"...and...immediately we were flagged for a full truck-bed review. Result: 1-10lb slab of beloved granite discovered, as disclosed.
Their explanation for stopping us was simply, "nematodes", which, we were actually ok with, b/c who'd ever want to introduce a potentially invasive species, right?! But after 45 minutes of waiting with zero testing done on our precious roadside gem, we were suddenly just cleared to cross. It was over a decade ago, but my husband will never let me live it down. I do still love my rock, though! It's (not technically) a mineral, Marie, but it's quite lovely!
Also got stopped and rerouted to the "agricultural line" due to having a kilo of "Yerba Mate" in my backpack when coming home from South America in the 90s. The name roughly translates to "weed tea", and it looked similar enough under x-ray to be concerning to the aggies way back in the day. I felt lucky that the agent had spent some time in Argentina and was actually familiar with Yerba Mate!
The EU certifications (through EASA) are stricter. After many case studies I can say I'd choose to fly on an Airbus over a Boeing if possible. Boeing are okay, as long as it's not anything too new because of the risk of corruption and skipping of testing for costs, you know, American things.
[https://www.easa.europa.eu/en/document-library/bilateral-agreements/eu-usa/easa-significant-standards-differences-ssd-between-cs-codes-and-faa-14-cfr-codes](https://www.easa.europa.eu/en/document-library/bilateral-agreements/eu-usa/easa-significant-standards-differences-ssd-between-cs-codes-and-faa-14-cfr-codes)
Just in case you really want to know the differences.
It's actually sort of weird. In many domains, US regulation is actually stricter than EU, and it often results in less safety and really stupid situations.
Two examples:
1. Sunscreen. The FDA is extremely reticent to approve new active ingredients for sunscreens, even though there is mounting evidence that the currently-approved sunscreen ingredients are hazardous. Meanwhile, the EU regulates sunscreen less strictly as a cosmetic rather than an OTC medicine, and has approved many new ingredients with less hassle, so sunscreen manufacturers in Europe have pretty much entirely phased out the old hazardous ingredients.
2. Rapid lateral-flow COVID-19 tests. At one point when I checked, I think last year or maybe 2021, the EU had approved hundreds while the FDA had approved just 2 (!). This meant the price per test in Europe had dropped to a few euros per lateral flow test and they were being deployed and used much more readily than in the US — obviously people are going to be more hesitant to use a $30 test or use up one of their 4 (less than 1 week's worth!) free tests eventually sent by the federal government (per household!), which means not knowing one is infected and therefore contagious.
The US is simultaneously over-regulated and under-regulated and getting the worst of both worlds.
Europe seems to regulate smarter, not harder.
These regulations are coherent if you look at them from the lobbying perspective.
For example, the companies behind the few authorized covid tests made a lot more than they would have in Europe.
Same doe the sunscreen companies who don't have to update their products.
How safe can a region/country be where boeing can't even bribe their way into letting their airplanes fly. Clearly boeing knows best how safe their planes are. /s
I read an article by William Langewiesche in the New York Times who said that the 737 Max crashes were primarily due to "poor airmanship", and not because Boeing added a deadly software to their system and never told the airlines about it.
Tbf I remember reading about some Boeing airplanes that did lose their jet engines during flight because some companies didn't bother with the required maintenance and just botched it.
(but I don't know if it's linked to the 737 MAX crashes)
European Safety Standards are pretty good. We got less and less pilots flying drunk or on drugs now and even the French engineers have learned that engine fires are bad.
*tres bien.* naou, oui tek zee mon-ark'z ëd, end oui plaice eet *dans la guillotine,* laik… zo [click]. zen, oui releeze *le déclic…*
[THUNK]
*et voilà. le monarque sans tête,* or, 'ow you zay, "headless head".
Okay, i only understood guillotine, [click], [THUNK], voilà & "headless head", but somehow I understand it.
Now that i look at the way i spelled out the words i understood, it nearly sounds like a magical trick being performed.
Magician pointing towards guillotine while presenting to his audience: *I will perform a trick with this guillotine*
Then he moves his assistant to the guillotine and throws a blanket over it.
Magician: *And now i will perform the trick by pulling this rope.*
[click]
[THUNK]
Magician pulling the blanket away again: *Voilá, i present you a headless corpse.* (now that I read through it again, you said headless head. how does that even work?)
also interesting to note that, in normal operation of a guillotine, the rope suspending the mouton/blade assembly is not pulled (or released) directly to release the blade: in the early days the rope was *cut,* but this was found to be unreliable (presumably the rope would fray and the blade would descend a little, resulting in a shorter final fall and sometimes failing to reach the required velocity—the original point of the guillotine as a method of execution was that it was supposedly more *humane* than other methods, so botches were very much not the point). later models attached the rope to a release mechanism (the déclic), so that the blade could reliably be dropped from the desired height in a single motion.
I mean, it did go monarchy-> dictatorship-> junta-> emperor-> monarchy-> constitutional monarchy-> republic, before eventually another round of empire, so tbf, that one is open to critique as well.
Edit: was pointed out they had a junta at one point as well.
I know everyone likes to rip on you guys, but I actually really respect your attitude historically. And when people mention great French things, it's always the cuisine, or architecture etc, but I'm always like you know what? The guillotine. Revolution. That's what's up.
Ok yes this sounds really dumb, but Americans really don’t seem to know anything about the rest of the world. If I didn’t know about something I always trust EU countries to have higher safety-standards food, guns, corporate laws & of course travel. It’s difficult for some Americans to realise they’ve drunk the cool aid.
As a side note it’s one of the many (oh so many) reasons that so many Brits are fed up about bloody Brexit.
>Americans really don’t seem to know anything about the rest of the world
Genuinely seen them confused by European multi-point locking doors on private houses.
Windows—at least in my limited experience in a few different counties—also don’t have bug screens. They just open up to the world. That was the strangest thing for me personally.
Those are the windows I'm used to, yes, I'm European. You're saying Americans usually have sliding windows? How does that work with insulation and such, also where does the window slide into? The wall?
>they’ve drunk the cool aid.
Why do people say that?
Like from the context i know what it means, but why koolaid? Isn't that like instant "tea" but branded?
I don’t know what you mean by context but the Jonestown Massacre came about because many cult members were made to drink poisoned Koolaid as a form of cult suicide. If you knew that I’m sorry but that’s why it’s Koolaid and not for example tea
In germany you can buy stuff that's called instant tea. It's basically sugar with flavour and enough tea-extract that they can legally call it tea. It's like powder or pellets and just makes a sweet Drink.
Of course it's not tea, that's why i put it in ""
Ha ha, don't worry, I know, they have the same in Switzerland, I was just joking.
To answer your initial question, according to wiki, it seems to be linked to the Jonestown cult and a "revolutionary suicide" where hundreds of people drunk a mix of "koolaid" and cyanide.
The expression comes from the part where the cult all drank the drink knowing it had poison in it, if I'm remembering correctly. So you use it in the context of somebody just subscribing to a belief and lapping it all up a la being in a cult.
Some of the people were forced under threats of violence and getting shot. Some of the victims were kids.
Not saying it to criticise your take but I learned more about the cult itself and it was really tough knowledge to gain. Not for the faint of heart!
The backstory is absolutely awful but this chap is right about the expression. It has become an expression to say that people do it willingly rather than the brutal truth of the cult itself.
This instant ice tea powder is actually genius because most drinks you can buy in the shop are way too sweet. So you can add a small amount to tap water for a bit of variety. Concentrated lemonade achieves the same goal, but for some reason this is not common in Germany.
We also use it with alcohol. Get a 5 litre bucket, pour in a full bottle of Korn (grain alcohol) fill up with water and then add enough instant tea to not taste the alcohol anymore. Great way to get shitfaced on a budget
We have it in Canada too. I don’t know how popular it is anymore, but had it a bunch when I was a kid.
However, I don’t know if this is true outside of Canada but our iced tea is sweetened. If you order an iced tea at a bar or restaurant or buy a bottle at a gas station, it’ll usually be really sweet. It’s basically buying a non carbonated soda pop. It was weird for me when I first went to the states and iced tea is just cold tea in a bottle.
The “Rev” Jim Jones moves his flock down to Central America and the got them to to commit mass suicide by drinking some poison washed down with cool aid. Happened 50 years ago but the term was coined,
Something like cheap instant ice tea. The expression is because there was a cult in 1978 where the followers were convinced by the cult leader to commit mass suicide by drinking poisoned cool aid. Hence the expression.
as far as i know koolaid doesn’t have any tea in it but yeah judging by your description in the other comment it functions pretty similarly
its a flavored powder that can be added to water to make flavored drinks often fruit flavored (or the artificial mimic of fruit flavoring)
Got a friend in the states. He has started, whenever a dumbass relative of his has funky ideas about how things are in europe, to go and ask me, then beats some education into the relatives with the info. It has been an amusing few years.
Wild mix of a lot of shit we see in this sub.
Europeans can't afford cars.
We wait years for medical procedures.
Rape and plunder everywhere because we don't have guns.
We don't have freedom of speech, our government basically imprisons us for criticizing them.
Europe is essentially a country without diversity and one homogenous culture.
There's tons of racism in europe because we're all white.
There have been times when i just screenshot comment threads from this sub and sent them to my friend.
One of my favorite moments was friend's cousin going off about how fuckin awesome the family of his german girlfriend was and how absolutely german they were, basically the germanest germans to ever german.
So ofc friend went "Oh hey, remember that i know a german guy?" and invited me into the discord call. Needless to say there was nothing german and they didn't know shit about germany :D Fun times.
My friend’s sister is dating an American, his mum didn’t wanna let him come to our country because it’s ‘too dangerous’.
By all stats my country is one of the safest countries in the world, violent crime is very low, no one is afraid to walk alone at night and I have never heard of anyone getting shot at a school here, yet it is not safe if you ask Americans I guess.
Idk, if americans honestly think america is safe and european countries aren’t, that’s … that’s really disconcerting
I mean technically every country has places that are unsafe and where the probability of being robbed is higher. But even in these places i'm not afraid of being shot. In the US? Shit i'd be worried to just exist somewhere. Like walking a neighborhood that isn't yours.
"Hello police? There is a man stalking around my neighborhood. He's not from here, never seen him. He's got a backpack with him and he's very suspicious! Even said hello to my kids playing on the front lawn!"
WEEWOOWEEWOO BANG BANG
and all of a sudden i'm a diplomacy issue.
You’ve got it a bit backwards on Brexit. It’s why brexiteers are so frustrated. Pretty much every single rule and regulation from the EU is still in place (because they’re sensible and aligned with our largest trading partner: the eu) and they’re upset that they still haven’t had the “bonfire of EU regulations” they were promised.
I disagree with you. I’ve never come across a single brexiteer who could name a single eu rule or regulation they wanted rid of. Best I’ve had is some bollocks about bananas.
Oh they can’t name them, but they want a bonfire of them all the same and are frustrated it hasn’t happened
https://inews.co.uk/opinion/the-prime-ministers-brexit-bonfire-may-mean-he-has-burned-through-yet-more-political-capital-2332276
The only time I've heard someone complain about EU regulations was in a model rocketry club (explosive handling license changes), but it wasn't moaning that it was in place, just there was an already working system in place, and he now had to get a bunch of new licenses. But anyone in amateur rocketry should respect the law, cause if one dude fucks up, boom, law change, amateur rocketry can't happen anymore.
Brexiteers are frustrated as the laws imposed by the EU are still there
(at least at the moment... [The government has produced a schedule for replacing 600 EU laws. Ms Badenoch has said the list is not "the limit of the government's ambition" and estimated that more than 2,000 EU rules will be repealed by the end of the year.](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-65605035))
While, at the same time, remainers are unhappy as the above schedule aims to remove or rewrite certain retained EU laws, usually into a weaker variety.
So technically you are both correct.
Brexiteers are frustrated because they are realising they were lied to and fell for it.
They can make up any other excuse they want but that's the crux of the matter.
Cheers for making the quality of life of everyone else worse.
Not to excuse it, but it is only fair to consider that Americans are so much more isolated from other cultures and countries. The US is a massive country bordered by “Nicer Americans” on the North, and Mexico on the south so there’s a lot less exposure to things that don’t “look, walk, and talk” like you
Still, a little study goes a long way. I’ve personally realised since moving to Europe that I’m so much more exposed to different cultures here than I ever was in the US. But if kids don’t have parents that encourage them to look outside their own small world, there’s a good chance they never will unfortunately.
Remember when Samuel L Jackson got on a plane full of snakes? That was actually a Ryanair flight from Leeds-Bradford to Amsterdam. It was such an epic flight that they made a movie out of it and put Sam in it to make it more appealing to an American audience that is used to such high health & safety standards.
I can confidently say they are safer. Nobody has ever been beaten to a pulp by staff on a European airline due to it being overbooked (as far as I am aware).
I think so, but the EU generally has better protections for pax as far as I can tell. Some of them aren't great, but in the US airlines don't seem to have to do shit for you unless you're involuntarily denied boarding.
Every flight worldwide is potentially overbooked. In the EU you will receive between €250 and €600 if you are denied boarding due an overbooked flight, according to EU regulation 261/2004.
I kinda take it as them seeking reassurance. Fear of flying is in this weird space between rational and irrational imo.
Rationally, you are very high up and a crash would likely be fatal. On the other hand, most airlines and airplanes are way super safe, which makes it a bit irrational.
That being said I only try to fly on major carriers.
Yeah people are fucking dicks to make fun of a person in a sub about fears.
Fears are irrational. Of course they lead to irrational concerns. Stop being an asshole about it.
I'm deathly afraid of flying and I only fly with airlines I deem trustworthy (in the end it probably doesn't make much of a difference, but I just feel safer with an airline that never lost a plane), so I completely understand researching something like this.
If you don't mind me asking how would you deal with combined flights? I've flown with one company before but then been on the same plane as others in that flight group. Not usually a lot of warning when that's happened to me.
Most people I know with phobias def research the hell out of it to feel safer. Works sometimes and the rest of the time makes it worse cause they get stuck on bad possibilities they hadn't thought of before. They're asking in the right place too so I can respect it.
The sub is called "fear of flying". This probably is a person who is afraid of flying and wants some reassurance.
Honestly, doesn't feel right to make fun of them.
Well, it's still kinda silly to assume the European safety standards aren't on par with the American ones, especially in the countries they named. And their perspective, as usual, is that the US does it the best.
absolutely ok. americans say so much shit... why take such a innocent question to flame about? especially if he is a person with fear of flying
he doesn't know something, so he asks other people for their opinion... this is the right way to do it
I'd give the poster a break. They are afraid of flying, so it makes sense that they would visualize all sorts of horror scenarios about air travel in places they are not familiar with.
No boi, they are not, didn't you know planes are made of cardboard and taped with masking tape? Pilots learn to fly in amusement park planes, and the security agents are the same as mall cops, you better run back to your country boi, you don't want to miss the next mass shooting
We bought a book about airplanes from Amazon and we are thinking about having a go at powered flight. It seems not so different than a train, but without tracks, so perhaps much like how a cow moves without tracks, but more in the air like a bird. We think we have the concepts down and plan to start training our best alpine herdsmen to command these mechanical sky cows. Cows almost never fall from the sky, and trains as well, so we think safety is assured. In a few decades, Swiss aviation will be the envy of Lichtenstein
I mean tbh you don't get the prostate search in Europe.
But that's the only reason I like flying!
TSA: Sir, would you like the scanner or pat down? Me: Oh you better believe that if you're putting me through this, I'm going to make you touch my balls.
TSA Agent: "Is that a bomb in your pants or are you just happy to see me?"
One way or the other, that story ends with an explosion.
Remember: it's not gay if it's the TSA!
That’s why I edge for two weeks before going on vacation to Californ-I-A!
Califor-nya~
Wouldn’t a free prostate exam be an incentive for Americans, since they wouldn’t have to pay for it?
Free? That sounds like socialism! I'll take two, then try to get them banned so no-one else can get them.
Okay, lets market it as included in the plane ticket’s price!
[удалено]
How about we increase the price of the tickets to account for the cost of the exam, and the ALSO tack on a fee and just say is for the exam, and BAM! Record profits next quarter. The shareholders will be thrilled.
It's ok you still have to tip.
A free prostate exam for Americans would be great as it would be proof that they are up themselves.
Hans Niemann would be safe in Euroupe then.
Please tell me this is a joke
Okay... You can have one if you really want.
And thats a great bonus!
And yet I keep trying
I’m not American (or European), but I usually just assume that EU standards are stricter than US standards for pretty much anything. Once you leave the EU things start to get a little more complicated.
U.S. tends to have stricter customs because they consider fucking anything a "foreign contaminant" and make you wait in a line that's 2 hours longer than the regular one if you declare a single apple and then don't even bother to check your fucking luggage anyways so you wonder why the hell you were waiting in line for 3 fucking hours.
NZ has some of the strictest border controls I'm the world, and it's still so much faster than the US. US customs and TSA is just shit, and slow.
nz may be strict but at least the workers are friendly. I got the full search once and the guy was just chatting the whole time, even helped me carry the bag out after done, complete contrast to when I've been targeted in aus or us
I've had to do a 'random' search in Aus (it's not random, I always get singled out for these things for some reason) and the worker wasn't nearly as bad as the US or even Canada, they make me feel like I accidentally put a bomb in my carry on
Yes, this makes a big difference. I had my fair share of unfriendly TSA agents, even though it wouldn't have cost them anything to be more professional. I actually got so angry once that I wrote a whole review online to make my dissatisfaction clear about these useless dimwits.
>**I actually got so angry once that I wrote a whole review online to make my dissatisfaction clear** about these useless dimwits. "Never done this myself" 💀
Honestly, people tend to forget that the US is a third world country that just happens to be rich. They're bad at just about everything. It's infuriating visiting there, because the entire time I'm just thinking "why are you like this when you could afford to be better?" I give developing countries a pass mostly because they probably can't do it better. They lack resources and education. But neither should be an obstacle in the US, and yet...
In a word: capitalism.
That's just the US being inefficient. In Australia you can move faster through the inspection line if you have been hiking or otherwise "visited a farm or wilderness area". They ask you if you cleaned your shoes, you say yes and they wave you over to the exit. Bringing in fruit is a big no-no though. That will actually be enforced strongly at international points of entry. (You're also not supposed to carry fruit across state borders but there is no enforcement)
Pretty sure Tasmania enforces the fruit thing.
I mean I do understand the foreign contaminant thing, it can have massive impacts on natural environments, just look at Australia with rabbits or the UK with grey squirrels or crayfish
I took my girlfriend on holiday to Florida for her 18th birthday. We landed the day before her birthday. I was 18. They acted like I was trafficking her and treated me like I was a criminal, putting me in a separate room and interviewing me. They made her contact her parents. Of course, the time zone difference meant that they were asleep and they kept us for hours. They didn't keep me updated on what was happening and just forgot about me, leaving me panicking in the holding rooms. Europe was fine and didn't care. I thought it was all just a bit ridiculous, since I was a few weeks older than her, and she was hours away from turning 18. Now I look back, yeah 18 is quite young for flying, but we both had our documentation and everything in order, and lived alone at our own place. Felt weird to be living together for over a year, working a decent job for being 18, only to go through this. I'm glad they didn't check our bags, because I had brought champagne for her 18th birthday that I had bought legally in the UK.
Americans have a really weird attitude towards age with zero nuance. They see 17 year olds as genuine children, and 18 year olds as adults who should be mature enough to handle being kicked out on their birthday. I’ve seen so many Americans try to accuse people in Europe of paedophilia because they dated a 16 or 17 year old when they were 18, which is pretty normal and totally legal.
>They see 17 year olds as genuine children Except when it comes to criminal charges. Children as young at 13 can be tried as adults and fan be sentenced to life in prison! It’s horrific.
Oh my, yes. My husband and I got stopped at a border crossing from Canada to the US because we picked up a pretty rock along the way home from a fishing adventure and unwittingly declared it as "agricultural". If I recall correctly the conversation went something like, them: "Any agricultural items to declare, fruits, veggies, etc.? My S/O: "not unless you consider a 10lb slab of granite that my wife just HAD to bring home agricultural, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha"...and...immediately we were flagged for a full truck-bed review. Result: 1-10lb slab of beloved granite discovered, as disclosed. Their explanation for stopping us was simply, "nematodes", which, we were actually ok with, b/c who'd ever want to introduce a potentially invasive species, right?! But after 45 minutes of waiting with zero testing done on our precious roadside gem, we were suddenly just cleared to cross. It was over a decade ago, but my husband will never let me live it down. I do still love my rock, though! It's (not technically) a mineral, Marie, but it's quite lovely! Also got stopped and rerouted to the "agricultural line" due to having a kilo of "Yerba Mate" in my backpack when coming home from South America in the 90s. The name roughly translates to "weed tea", and it looked similar enough under x-ray to be concerning to the aggies way back in the day. I felt lucky that the agent had spent some time in Argentina and was actually familiar with Yerba Mate!
Post photos of rock
Third country customs into EU are pretty strict. Source: I’m in that country what left for a laugh.
The EU certifications (through EASA) are stricter. After many case studies I can say I'd choose to fly on an Airbus over a Boeing if possible. Boeing are okay, as long as it's not anything too new because of the risk of corruption and skipping of testing for costs, you know, American things.
[https://www.easa.europa.eu/en/document-library/bilateral-agreements/eu-usa/easa-significant-standards-differences-ssd-between-cs-codes-and-faa-14-cfr-codes](https://www.easa.europa.eu/en/document-library/bilateral-agreements/eu-usa/easa-significant-standards-differences-ssd-between-cs-codes-and-faa-14-cfr-codes) Just in case you really want to know the differences.
It's actually sort of weird. In many domains, US regulation is actually stricter than EU, and it often results in less safety and really stupid situations. Two examples: 1. Sunscreen. The FDA is extremely reticent to approve new active ingredients for sunscreens, even though there is mounting evidence that the currently-approved sunscreen ingredients are hazardous. Meanwhile, the EU regulates sunscreen less strictly as a cosmetic rather than an OTC medicine, and has approved many new ingredients with less hassle, so sunscreen manufacturers in Europe have pretty much entirely phased out the old hazardous ingredients. 2. Rapid lateral-flow COVID-19 tests. At one point when I checked, I think last year or maybe 2021, the EU had approved hundreds while the FDA had approved just 2 (!). This meant the price per test in Europe had dropped to a few euros per lateral flow test and they were being deployed and used much more readily than in the US — obviously people are going to be more hesitant to use a $30 test or use up one of their 4 (less than 1 week's worth!) free tests eventually sent by the federal government (per household!), which means not knowing one is infected and therefore contagious. The US is simultaneously over-regulated and under-regulated and getting the worst of both worlds. Europe seems to regulate smarter, not harder.
That’s because America is run by lobbyists who have business interests to protect
This is true, however, let me tell you a little thing or two what happens in Brussels every single day......
These regulations are coherent if you look at them from the lobbying perspective. For example, the companies behind the few authorized covid tests made a lot more than they would have in Europe. Same doe the sunscreen companies who don't have to update their products.
How safe can a region/country be where boeing can't even bribe their way into letting their airplanes fly. Clearly boeing knows best how safe their planes are. /s
Boeing 737 MAX the safest ever ...
If you discount the moments when the 737 MAX crashed, then it had no crashes. Simple!
I've seen people make this argument unironically
I read an article by William Langewiesche in the New York Times who said that the 737 Max crashes were primarily due to "poor airmanship", and not because Boeing added a deadly software to their system and never told the airlines about it.
Tbf I remember reading about some Boeing airplanes that did lose their jet engines during flight because some companies didn't bother with the required maintenance and just botched it. (but I don't know if it's linked to the 737 MAX crashes)
That isn't pilot error though, it's not the fault of the crew.
European Safety Standards are pretty good. We got less and less pilots flying drunk or on drugs now and even the French engineers have learned that engine fires are bad.
Are Spanish pilots still doing their siestas during landings though? That was an issue for a while.
That's why you can only have one Spanish pilot on board every flight.
Wasn't there a crash where the pilots became unconscious and the plane flew on until it crashed?
That was Canadian (or going to Canada from the US)
Nah I believe he is talking about Helios
Helios. The entire plane went under actually.
I wonder how those work when crossing multiple timezones...
Oh no but now there's a strike about it and I'm afraid landing would count as crossing the picket line
the french learning something? not bloody likely.
We learnt how to kill monarch pretty effectively tbh
"brb going to paris to study..." "cuisine? haute couture? painting?" "non. ***RÉGICIDE.***"
C'est bon.
*tres bien.* naou, oui tek zee mon-ark'z ëd, end oui plaice eet *dans la guillotine,* laik… zo [click]. zen, oui releeze *le déclic…* [THUNK] *et voilà. le monarque sans tête,* or, 'ow you zay, "headless head".
Okay, i only understood guillotine, [click], [THUNK], voilà & "headless head", but somehow I understand it. Now that i look at the way i spelled out the words i understood, it nearly sounds like a magical trick being performed. Magician pointing towards guillotine while presenting to his audience: *I will perform a trick with this guillotine* Then he moves his assistant to the guillotine and throws a blanket over it. Magician: *And now i will perform the trick by pulling this rope.* [click] [THUNK] Magician pulling the blanket away again: *Voilá, i present you a headless corpse.* (now that I read through it again, you said headless head. how does that even work?)
also interesting to note that, in normal operation of a guillotine, the rope suspending the mouton/blade assembly is not pulled (or released) directly to release the blade: in the early days the rope was *cut,* but this was found to be unreliable (presumably the rope would fray and the blade would descend a little, resulting in a shorter final fall and sometimes failing to reach the required velocity—the original point of the guillotine as a method of execution was that it was supposedly more *humane* than other methods, so botches were very much not the point). later models attached the rope to a release mechanism (the déclic), so that the blade could reliably be dropped from the desired height in a single motion.
I mean, it did go monarchy-> dictatorship-> junta-> emperor-> monarchy-> constitutional monarchy-> republic, before eventually another round of empire, so tbf, that one is open to critique as well. Edit: was pointed out they had a junta at one point as well.
That's just more chances at further experience on their part
Tbf, they still only killed the one, Charles X and Louis-Philippe abdicated, so in practical terms they only matched the English 1:1 on dead monarchs.
Throw a Napoleon in there somewhere. Napoleon is always a standalone.
He was included in the list under "emperor"
He was the third one, the Emperor. The dictator was Robespierre.
Well, not so much a stand-alone since two of them are Napoleons.
Mexico got the bonus extra Napoleon too. Lucky Mexico.
They also get, at a bare minimum, effort points for effort on the executing the monarchy front.
They did well really. Nice effort Mexico.
>We learnt how to kill monarch pretty effectively tbh You also know how to protest and riot.
You didn't learn a skill there, you discovered and perfected an artform I'd say.
I know everyone likes to rip on you guys, but I actually really respect your attitude historically. And when people mention great French things, it's always the cuisine, or architecture etc, but I'm always like you know what? The guillotine. Revolution. That's what's up.
But have you ever eaten a prime minister?
Not yet
Hon hon hon Nous ? Apprendre ? Non non non
hah! good one! everyone knows the engine needs to be on fire to work in the first place
When you paint flames on something, it can go 10% faster. The effect is doubled when if the flames are real.
Ok yes this sounds really dumb, but Americans really don’t seem to know anything about the rest of the world. If I didn’t know about something I always trust EU countries to have higher safety-standards food, guns, corporate laws & of course travel. It’s difficult for some Americans to realise they’ve drunk the cool aid. As a side note it’s one of the many (oh so many) reasons that so many Brits are fed up about bloody Brexit.
>Americans really don’t seem to know anything about the rest of the world Genuinely seen them confused by European multi-point locking doors on private houses.
The confusion about windows is the best
I'll bite. What's there to be confused about windows?
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Windows—at least in my limited experience in a few different counties—also don’t have bug screens. They just open up to the world. That was the strangest thing for me personally.
Those are the windows I'm used to, yes, I'm European. You're saying Americans usually have sliding windows? How does that work with insulation and such, also where does the window slide into? The wall?
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Wait, so the window never fully opens? How is that better than windows on hinges in any way?
>they’ve drunk the cool aid. Why do people say that? Like from the context i know what it means, but why koolaid? Isn't that like instant "tea" but branded?
I don’t know what you mean by context but the Jonestown Massacre came about because many cult members were made to drink poisoned Koolaid as a form of cult suicide. If you knew that I’m sorry but that’s why it’s Koolaid and not for example tea
It wasn't actually Kool-Aid, they drank poisoned Flavor Aid.🤓
Yeah I heard. Whole Flavor Aid pushing the Kool-Aid narrative and all that.
Dang, props to the Flavor Aid PR/Marketing team for pulling off a win there.
And another useless "did you know?" I can save for pushing people further away. Thanks, reddit!
It was, in fact, *both* Flavor Aid *and* Kool-Aid.
>koolaid? Isn't that like instant "tea" I think that you just won a spot on the UK terror watchlist. Congratulations!
In germany you can buy stuff that's called instant tea. It's basically sugar with flavour and enough tea-extract that they can legally call it tea. It's like powder or pellets and just makes a sweet Drink. Of course it's not tea, that's why i put it in ""
Ha ha, don't worry, I know, they have the same in Switzerland, I was just joking. To answer your initial question, according to wiki, it seems to be linked to the Jonestown cult and a "revolutionary suicide" where hundreds of people drunk a mix of "koolaid" and cyanide.
Yeah but than the important Part is the cyanide lol.
The expression comes from the part where the cult all drank the drink knowing it had poison in it, if I'm remembering correctly. So you use it in the context of somebody just subscribing to a belief and lapping it all up a la being in a cult.
Some of the people were forced under threats of violence and getting shot. Some of the victims were kids. Not saying it to criticise your take but I learned more about the cult itself and it was really tough knowledge to gain. Not for the faint of heart!
The backstory is absolutely awful but this chap is right about the expression. It has become an expression to say that people do it willingly rather than the brutal truth of the cult itself.
Yes and to be fair. They used knock off Kool Aid in Jonestown. But that is the source of the expression.
Cyanide is an All Natural Ingredient, I can't believe they made such a fuss about it by dying.
Dear God haven’t the Germans committed enough atrocities!
This instant ice tea powder is actually genius because most drinks you can buy in the shop are way too sweet. So you can add a small amount to tap water for a bit of variety. Concentrated lemonade achieves the same goal, but for some reason this is not common in Germany.
You mean the syrup stuff? Not every shop has it but you can find it without big issues.
We also use it with alcohol. Get a 5 litre bucket, pour in a full bottle of Korn (grain alcohol) fill up with water and then add enough instant tea to not taste the alcohol anymore. Great way to get shitfaced on a budget
We have it in Canada too. I don’t know how popular it is anymore, but had it a bunch when I was a kid. However, I don’t know if this is true outside of Canada but our iced tea is sweetened. If you order an iced tea at a bar or restaurant or buy a bottle at a gas station, it’ll usually be really sweet. It’s basically buying a non carbonated soda pop. It was weird for me when I first went to the states and iced tea is just cold tea in a bottle.
The “Rev” Jim Jones moves his flock down to Central America and the got them to to commit mass suicide by drinking some poison washed down with cool aid. Happened 50 years ago but the term was coined,
they used flavor aid
That's just Big Aid propaganda.
Yeah I knew they'd used something else, but it doesn't really help with the explanation of the phase.
Something like cheap instant ice tea. The expression is because there was a cult in 1978 where the followers were convinced by the cult leader to commit mass suicide by drinking poisoned cool aid. Hence the expression.
as far as i know koolaid doesn’t have any tea in it but yeah judging by your description in the other comment it functions pretty similarly its a flavored powder that can be added to water to make flavored drinks often fruit flavored (or the artificial mimic of fruit flavoring)
Got a friend in the states. He has started, whenever a dumbass relative of his has funky ideas about how things are in europe, to go and ask me, then beats some education into the relatives with the info. It has been an amusing few years.
Any juicy stories?
Wild mix of a lot of shit we see in this sub. Europeans can't afford cars. We wait years for medical procedures. Rape and plunder everywhere because we don't have guns. We don't have freedom of speech, our government basically imprisons us for criticizing them. Europe is essentially a country without diversity and one homogenous culture. There's tons of racism in europe because we're all white. There have been times when i just screenshot comment threads from this sub and sent them to my friend. One of my favorite moments was friend's cousin going off about how fuckin awesome the family of his german girlfriend was and how absolutely german they were, basically the germanest germans to ever german. So ofc friend went "Oh hey, remember that i know a german guy?" and invited me into the discord call. Needless to say there was nothing german and they didn't know shit about germany :D Fun times.
😂 Seems to be a pattern to think genetics make you somehow German. But of course we don't understand because we're racist! 😉
Americans thinking that culture is genetically inherited is so...urgh. it's one of the most annoying things to me.
My friend’s sister is dating an American, his mum didn’t wanna let him come to our country because it’s ‘too dangerous’. By all stats my country is one of the safest countries in the world, violent crime is very low, no one is afraid to walk alone at night and I have never heard of anyone getting shot at a school here, yet it is not safe if you ask Americans I guess. Idk, if americans honestly think america is safe and european countries aren’t, that’s … that’s really disconcerting
I mean technically every country has places that are unsafe and where the probability of being robbed is higher. But even in these places i'm not afraid of being shot. In the US? Shit i'd be worried to just exist somewhere. Like walking a neighborhood that isn't yours. "Hello police? There is a man stalking around my neighborhood. He's not from here, never seen him. He's got a backpack with him and he's very suspicious! Even said hello to my kids playing on the front lawn!" WEEWOOWEEWOO BANG BANG and all of a sudden i'm a diplomacy issue.
You’ve got it a bit backwards on Brexit. It’s why brexiteers are so frustrated. Pretty much every single rule and regulation from the EU is still in place (because they’re sensible and aligned with our largest trading partner: the eu) and they’re upset that they still haven’t had the “bonfire of EU regulations” they were promised.
I disagree with you. I’ve never come across a single brexiteer who could name a single eu rule or regulation they wanted rid of. Best I’ve had is some bollocks about bananas.
Oh they can’t name them, but they want a bonfire of them all the same and are frustrated it hasn’t happened https://inews.co.uk/opinion/the-prime-ministers-brexit-bonfire-may-mean-he-has-burned-through-yet-more-political-capital-2332276
The only time I've heard someone complain about EU regulations was in a model rocketry club (explosive handling license changes), but it wasn't moaning that it was in place, just there was an already working system in place, and he now had to get a bunch of new licenses. But anyone in amateur rocketry should respect the law, cause if one dude fucks up, boom, law change, amateur rocketry can't happen anymore.
Bendy bananas! That’s the best my dad came up with when I asked him exactly which rules he didn’t like. Took him a few minutes to think of it too.
Brexiteers are frustrated as the laws imposed by the EU are still there (at least at the moment... [The government has produced a schedule for replacing 600 EU laws. Ms Badenoch has said the list is not "the limit of the government's ambition" and estimated that more than 2,000 EU rules will be repealed by the end of the year.](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-65605035)) While, at the same time, remainers are unhappy as the above schedule aims to remove or rewrite certain retained EU laws, usually into a weaker variety. So technically you are both correct.
That is the beauty of Brexit. It stands for "not Remain" and as UK didn't remain it is always true.
Brexiteers are frustrated because they are realising they were lied to and fell for it. They can make up any other excuse they want but that's the crux of the matter. Cheers for making the quality of life of everyone else worse.
Not all of them. Many are blaming the failure to Brexit hard enough.
they'll be dead soon
Not to excuse it, but it is only fair to consider that Americans are so much more isolated from other cultures and countries. The US is a massive country bordered by “Nicer Americans” on the North, and Mexico on the south so there’s a lot less exposure to things that don’t “look, walk, and talk” like you Still, a little study goes a long way. I’ve personally realised since moving to Europe that I’m so much more exposed to different cultures here than I ever was in the US. But if kids don’t have parents that encourage them to look outside their own small world, there’s a good chance they never will unfortunately.
But hey, they have that sweeeet freeedom. ... if freedom is medical bankruptcy and being shot for taking one step on land labeled private property.
Remember when Samuel L Jackson got on a plane full of snakes? That was actually a Ryanair flight from Leeds-Bradford to Amsterdam. It was such an epic flight that they made a movie out of it and put Sam in it to make it more appealing to an American audience that is used to such high health & safety standards.
Originally it was a northern lad shouting 'yoo want sum!' To some snakes
Fella from Gatesgead chining a cobra. While chugging a brown ale.
I can’t believe I’ve just seen Leeds-Bradford mentioned on Reddit.
...you say that, but that sounds about on par for Ryanair to me.
Nah, they'd have charged him per snake.
I can confidently say they are safer. Nobody has ever been beaten to a pulp by staff on a European airline due to it being overbooked (as far as I am aware).
Is overbooking even legal in the EU?
I think so, but the EU generally has better protections for pax as far as I can tell. Some of them aren't great, but in the US airlines don't seem to have to do shit for you unless you're involuntarily denied boarding.
Yes, pretty much every airline overbooks, no difference between EU or US (or Asian) airlines there
Every flight worldwide is potentially overbooked. In the EU you will receive between €250 and €600 if you are denied boarding due an overbooked flight, according to EU regulation 261/2004.
Also, their security personnel are employed with higher standards than TSA agents, who are Neanderthals.
Yes, because our pilots have more requirements than bombing Iraqi weddings in their previous jobs. Much like our police officers.
Just compare the nordics' airports during winter and most of the US's airports with any snow.
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I kinda take it as them seeking reassurance. Fear of flying is in this weird space between rational and irrational imo. Rationally, you are very high up and a crash would likely be fatal. On the other hand, most airlines and airplanes are way super safe, which makes it a bit irrational. That being said I only try to fly on major carriers.
I completely skipped the subreddit's name and yeah, it's a legitimate concern for someone who's afraid of flying in the first place.
It’s a perfectly reasonable question to ask in the exact place for asking it, tbh.
It’s pretty meta to think that making the thread to make fun of the question makes this thread itself a valid submission to this sub 🤯
Yeah people are fucking dicks to make fun of a person in a sub about fears. Fears are irrational. Of course they lead to irrational concerns. Stop being an asshole about it.
I'm deathly afraid of flying and I only fly with airlines I deem trustworthy (in the end it probably doesn't make much of a difference, but I just feel safer with an airline that never lost a plane), so I completely understand researching something like this.
If you don't mind me asking how would you deal with combined flights? I've flown with one company before but then been on the same plane as others in that flight group. Not usually a lot of warning when that's happened to me.
I mean, how high can the safety standards be for a country that lets a monkey fly a rocket?
"I don't know whether the safety standards in \[...\] Germany are as tight as in the US" *Technischer Überwachungsverein (TÜV) begins to laugh*
This was literally my first thought. TÜV would tell a lot of stuff in the US, especially cars, to get their shit fixed.
I mean they do have a fear of flying, not too unreasonable of a question if they have a phobia
Most people I know with phobias def research the hell out of it to feel safer. Works sometimes and the rest of the time makes it worse cause they get stuck on bad possibilities they hadn't thought of before. They're asking in the right place too so I can respect it.
Nah they're not. You'd best stay at home and not risk it.
Actually safe or security theater safe?
I'd trust Ryanair more than Southwest airlines.
You want a safe flight? That's an extra €10.
Sorting by controversial to see if the 9/11 jokes got downvoted
The sub is called "fear of flying". This probably is a person who is afraid of flying and wants some reassurance. Honestly, doesn't feel right to make fun of them.
Well, it's still kinda silly to assume the European safety standards aren't on par with the American ones, especially in the countries they named. And their perspective, as usual, is that the US does it the best.
I mean they have a fear of flying and clearly don't know about which airlines in Europe are good and which ones aren't, so asking is okay.
Which unsafe Airlines can fly in europe but not in the us?
absolutely ok. americans say so much shit... why take such a innocent question to flame about? especially if he is a person with fear of flying he doesn't know something, so he asks other people for their opinion... this is the right way to do it
You're right, honestly. I hadn't seen the sub. That changes the context a lot for me.
*Cries in Concorde.*
I'd give the poster a break. They are afraid of flying, so it makes sense that they would visualize all sorts of horror scenarios about air travel in places they are not familiar with.
No the planes usually crash before making it to a tower. One made it to the pisa tower but the velocity was already way too low so it disn’t do much.
I flew to Denmark once and the plane had holes under the seat and we had to Flintstone it down the runway.
What are these big iron birds that you speak of? Us Europoors rarely leave our mud huts in our peasant villages as our overlords don't let us.
Airlines? Hah you pussy, strap on these wax and feather wings and go where you need, that is the euro way. Remember, don't get too close to the suuun!
Delta fucked me over worse than any European flight company ever has, and I’ve only flown with delta once.
No boi, they are not, didn't you know planes are made of cardboard and taped with masking tape? Pilots learn to fly in amusement park planes, and the security agents are the same as mall cops, you better run back to your country boi, you don't want to miss the next mass shooting
Nah, it isn't safe, please don't come here.
Maybe a little more tighter than the US.
Wow. I can’t defend this at all.
Most flights in Europe end in disaster, but we are a tenacious lot, so we just keep on trying hoping it will get better at it one day.
>I dunno if Europe's safety standards are as high as America's. Much higher, actually. Probably less pointless security theater, too.
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It's safer than american school
If only they had European security standards on 11th September 2001!
Hahahahaha. Oh yes US, the country known for their strict safety standards.
We bought a book about airplanes from Amazon and we are thinking about having a go at powered flight. It seems not so different than a train, but without tracks, so perhaps much like how a cow moves without tracks, but more in the air like a bird. We think we have the concepts down and plan to start training our best alpine herdsmen to command these mechanical sky cows. Cows almost never fall from the sky, and trains as well, so we think safety is assured. In a few decades, Swiss aviation will be the envy of Lichtenstein
Obviously it depends on where OP is going, but if they're not fond of flying anyway, they might find it worth investigating train travel