While you’re right. It would be better to say something like “I need it for my country” or “US needs it”. Since English doesn’t distinguish between inclusive and exclusive “we”, it can lead to the conclusion that the commenter supposes people reading their comment are from US as well.
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BakedCatboy@lemmy.ml 4 weeks agoWhat part of their comment assumes that everyone else is from their country? I only see them referring to themselves and their own country.
VintageGenious@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
BakedCatboy@lemmy.ml 4 weeks ago
I agree it could be more clear, but I don’t think it’s fair to jump down their throat when they didn’t even mention the US. It just strikes me as an uncharitable interpretation.
yggstyle@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
It’s pedantic. At best because someone wants to virtue signal by tilting at windmills. At worst It’s a bad faith argument being made to isolate someone. In both cases it’s shite behavior:
An example would be assailing someone for not liking cookies when they simply said they enjoy cake. This tactic was originally used by trolls and hate groups to splinter larger social groups support structure and/or put people on the backfoot… Now it’s so commonplace people will do it just because they can… and someone else will if they don’t. Might as well get the glory of taking someone down a peg.
It’s pathetic. Op made an affirmative statement about something they believed in and was promptly shit on by some cunt who brought nothing meaningful to the table themselves. What’s worse is they initially were getting nothing but positive reinforcement so they could go and do it again. Are we still enjoying all the polarizing “LOL [insert group] BAD!” It really brings the community together.
You don’t need to engage every person doing that shit… but for fucks sake stop upvoting it and reinforcing the behavior.
Kusimulkku@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
If I said “we need public transit as a city” am I assuming that everyone lives in my city or am I simply talking about my own city?
I mean you meant the US, though, right?
BakedCatboy@lemmy.ml 4 weeks ago
Is it wrong to want to talk about the place you live in without telling people where you live? Should everyone be required to state the place they live in any time they talk about it? I don’t really see what the problem is with speaking about your place of residence without revealing where you live. I don’t get how not mentioning where you live means you assume everyone knows. Maybe you not knowing is intentional.
While I think it’s annoying when people assume others live in the US, I think it’s even more annoying to both assume people who don’t mention where they live must live in the US and also assume they intended you to know that they live in the US.
Kusimulkku@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
I was just saying that way you said it does seem to assume others understood you’re talking about the US. If you specify it (“we in the US”) then that avoids the whole issue.
BakedCatboy@lemmy.ml 4 weeks ago
I think we’ll have to agree to disagree then, I don’t think that is at all the obvious interpretation and I don’t think everyone needs to clarify where they live when talking about it to “avoid the issue”.
Imo if people making assumptions about others living in the US annoys you then you should find it more annoying when someone assumes where you live AND assumes you intended to be presumptuous about it.
comfy@lemmy.ml 4 weeks ago
[deleted]BakedCatboy@lemmy.ml 4 weeks ago
Why are we assuming they’re talking about the US?
(Protip: It’s because we know they’ve assumed the US as the default country, since that’s a really common phenomenon)
I think that would be a valid complaint if they had actually lumped everyone in this thread into their statement by assuming that everyone here lives in the US by default, but I sincerely think that any charitable interpretation of their comment reads as “we” simply meaning “the people of my country”.
comfy@lemmy.ml 4 weeks ago
Yeah I realized my reply was a bit silly so I retracted it, I’m guessing I was a bit late and you’d already replied.
BakedCatboy@lemmy.ml 4 weeks ago
It’s all good! For some reason your comment still shows up in my inbox in Sync so I didn’t realize
anas@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
That’s exactly what I would assume, because you’re talking like your city is the default and everyone knows which one you’re talking about.
BakedCatboy@lemmy.ml 4 weeks ago
I still don’t see how saying that you want x or y in your country is equivalent to talking like your community is the default.
I would totally agree if the statement was “we need x in my country and you all should vote for it” because that would be assuming everyone reading is able to participate and therefore lives there. But that’s far from what the statement was, which made no assumptions and didn’t even mention a country. All they said was that they want something in their country.
Kusimulkku@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
“We need this as a city” and “we need this in my city” have a different meaning imo. First one makes it sound like you’re including us in your “we”, as in the people in your city.
BakedCatboy@lemmy.ml 4 weeks ago
Doesn’t “as a city” just tell you who the “we” refers to? As in “we, the people of our city, need x”? That’s how I understand it.