It doesn't feel proportional to people living outside of the city. That is my point. I guess you had trouble following that with all the sarcasm you're swimming in.

The state funnels a lot of its resources into NYC already though. I grew up in the Hudson Valley and lived in multiple parts of upstate NY over the years, and people in most regions feel like an afterthought because of how much the state sends to NYC.

New York overall is a much healthier place if communities are thriving everywhere, and with the NYC housing situation being messy right now, it's extremely beneficial for the Hudson Valley and Capitol Region especially to provide alternative options to people looking to move out of NYC for cheaper housing and more space.

Almost all of the Hudson Valley, the Capitol Region, Rochester, and Buffalo are all growing and having little economic renaissances right now. A lot of the state North of NYC is actually doing really well in the post-2020 economy.

It's hard to predict what would have happened to the outer boroughs if they continued to develop independently of Manhattan.

Considering how much the Jersey side of the river has grown in the same timeframe, I think those areas would have still grown into something similar as they are today. But transportation projects would have definitely had more red tape at points, so that could have slowed down the ability of people to move further away from downtown Manhattan.

As long as the transportation options exist, the culture probably would too.

One of the big issues that a lot of activist groups have called out in regards to policing is the disconnect between police and the communities they patrol. If they don't live in and participate in the community, then it creates a disconnect between them and the people they're supposed to be serving.

It's good to hear that you've had friendly interactions with them.

>NGL sounds a little bitter.

How? When someone says "I make $150K on Wall Street but work 80 hours per week", you can quickly do the math and find out their hourly rate for their work is in the same ballpark as most other professionals. They just work a ton of overtime. That makes that profession so much less desirable for me. I feel almost the exact opposite of bitter: I feel bad for them if that's how many hours they have to work and that's all it gets them.

I have no clue where you're going with the rest of this. Most people aim to work 40 hours or less and then do whatever they want with the rest of their time. Some people apparently make similar hourly rates as the rest of us but give up most of the rest of their week to make more money.

It's always funny when you hear how much some people make in NYC, and then you find out how many hours they work per week.

Most professionals working 40 hours of overtime per week would also make that much or more lol

It looks much bigger than a Cooper's hawk.

It also has a white chest and a red tail. Cooper's hawks don't have either of those features generally.

The tail on this one is a dead giveaway. Not all of them are kind enough to have such a clearly red tail feather popping out to identify them 😂

Yea, and OP already responded that this bird was much larger than a crow. Cooper's hawks aren't that much bigger than crows, so, again, everything is pointing at red-tailed.

That eliminates falcon then. Fully grown adult peregrines are close in size to adult crows.

If the coloration on this bird was brown (can be hard to tell in a picture), then I'm pretty confident it's a red-tailed hawk.

Brown cheeks, white throat, brown/red tail. It's clearly a red-tailed hawk.

Peregrines have white cheeks with malar stripes, stripes from neck to tail on their underside, and a dark tail.

OP, was this bird bigger than a crow? If so, then it was definitely a red-tailed hawk.

Check out Happy Cow for the area. The Jersey side of the river has a decent amount of vegan options. Manhattan and Brooklyn will blow your mind with how many vegan options there are.

Living in Jersey lets you access everything in NYC but also lets you easily get in your car and leave the region to try other places. Philly has a great vegan food scene, and there's a lot of cool stuff happening North in the Hudson Valley (Beacon, Kingston, New Paltz, Albany, and Schenectady all have good vegan spots).

A big part of that is because most of us can get our work done in less time than we're given to do it.

Our incentives change when working from home, so instead of just figuring out how to stretch out 40 hours of work--where there's very little reward for getting done early, now we're trying to get it done as quickly as possible so we can enjoy the rest of our time 🤷‍♂️

Part of what makes that frustrating is that we all know they aren't being honest with their reasons. Most of us were fine working from home when it wasn't safe to come in, so that's BS.

It just feels like they have to justify managers and rent.

Most people that are given the choice about how often or even if they come in seem much happier doing so than people that are forced to come in. But these doofuses don't understand that.

I go into the office 1 or 2 times a week, and they are my least productive days by far.

It's mostly meetings that could have been done remotely and bullshitting with coworkers I don't see very often.

My employer definitely gets less for their money for my work on those days.

This looks like a steal. I wish it was available in a few months 😬

USPS lost the title to my car earlier this year. I kept getting daily emails from USPS showing that it was going to arrive in the mail that day. Eventually a manager at my post office admitted that they have no way to figure out where that one, very important piece of mail was.

Let's look at what directly preceded that line in his speech:

>And that is why I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.

And a little after that line:

>There is so much injustice and suffering crying out for our attention: victims of hunger, of racism, and political persecution, writers and poets, prisoners in so many lands

Wiesel spoke about calling out and confronting injustice long before it can ever reach the levels he saw.

So yes, his thoughts on the subject are worth sharing while discussing if you should or shouldn't be neutral about a political party in America that openly embraces making life more difficult for marginalized groups across the spectrum, questioning their rights, and emboldens hate groups to terrorize those individuals.

To minimize that, as you are doing, signals that it is okay to support that.

Considering that you, oblivia17, frequently post on conspiracy theory subs about "the left" and on conservative/neo-fascist groups, you have clearly already taken your side.

But it does matter.

That is what privilege is. You haven't been personally affected, as far as you know, by politics or society at large, because you are not part of a disenfranchised group. You have the privilege of not knowing what it is like for others.

Your right to be married isn't on the ballot (non-cis/non-heterosexual people).

Your access to a standard medical procedure isn't on the ballot (women).

Politicians across the country aren't running on the position that you don't deserve to exist (transgender individuals).

Politicians across the country don't openly court the support of and embolden the hatred of groups that wish you were dead (Jews and blacks right now, but others as well).

Etc.

You say it doesn't matter because it hasn't caused you personal pain yet. But you live in a city full of people that are constantly harmed by politics. And it just so happens that almost all of that harm is caused by individuals of the same political party.

And to answer your first question: yes, who you vote for does matter for all of this. Do not give power to the people that campaign on pushing policies that will actively harm groups of people or who court the support of, and therefore embolden, hate groups.

In 2022, a vote for a Republican is a vote to harm women's rights and autonomy in America, to further villainize one of the most marginalized communities in our society (transgender individuals), and give a rubber stamp of approval to people that campaigned with dog whistles galore about how Jews, Muslims and black people are evil and the cause of many of the problems in our society.

Not only does giving power to these individuals give them the opportunity to pass laws that will harm these groups, but it also tells the world that we are a country that supports harming these individuals.

Or where politics encourages hate crimes against their place of worship or in their neighborhood.

Dude reeks of privilege and still doesn't get it in 2022.

Let me guess: white, straight male, probably middle class and not part of a religious group that is frequently targeted by hate groups?

This is what privilege looks like, buddy.

Supporting or not supporting a candidate that campaigns on removing people's rights isn't just a matter of differing opinions.

>We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. - Elie Wiesel during his acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize.