NorthernRyland

That's crazy we constantly debate here, for example right now. Maybe some bad behavior but we're still doing it. Thai people tend to shut down when you say anything which contradicts the narrative they've been told (like women!). They're very good at not stepping out of line but of this is boring and leads to stagnation in the culture.

Have you seen how IQ tests equate to profession? Average IQ in Thailand is the same as a janitor in the US. You can't take your average janitor and pay for their education at Harvard and expect them to succeed. No amount of money or education and fix this. There are hard physical limits we're dealing with here. IQ is just a proxy for other things and even if the tests are not 100% accurate the concept is still sound.

Thai people in general don't know how to have a civil debate or handle being questioned. I guess this starts with the family but school is probably holding them back too. If you can't debate the merits of any given topic then no progress will be made.

Only eugenic breeding can raise general IQ. I know some high IQ Thai people but they have the fewest number of kids. Meanwhile the low IQ Thai have the most kids. In the US and Europe we have social programs that fund dysgenic breeding so expect IQ to continue to fall in those countries. The West also has dysgenic government so the person with the lowest IQ and the highest IQ both have the same voting power. Full franchise democracy like in the US is highly dysgenic. At least Thailand doesn't give their low IQ citizens too much voting power or things would get much worse, probably full blown communism.

That would be amazing if Thai people started picking up their dog waste. Unfortunately Thai people seem totally content is live around dog <deleted> and disgusting diseased dogs littering the streets.

I would have loved to see that.

Get out of the city and look at what people are doing. Burning everywhere. Even get up on a hill and look into the outer regions of the city. Notice all the smoke billowing up from various locations? it adds up eventually.

If you get a little outside the city you'll see everyone burning leaves, fields and everything else. It's a clown shown with authorities, no one cares. The government just banned lanterns over Loi Krathong this year, punishable by large fines and jail time yet I saw about 1000 of them flying over my house last week. Clown show. What else can be said?

totally banned I don't get how they missed it. Every so often I get my lighter confiscated because I left it with my pipes and forgot to remove it. They always seem to find it.

I've only had a few girl friends here but all of them seemed to have bad blood with Thai men after some bad experience. I try to talk them down off the idea that you can marry some western guy and fix all your problems since you trading in one set of problems for another. Having said that Thai men seem to really struggle with infidelity. I never knew so many people to have affairs as these guys do so I don't blame them for looking outside in that regard.

It's too early to know. Seriously all we can do is just wait and see what happens. These people don't have a plan (as usual) and they're gong to figure it out as they go along. If I had to guess they're not going to have any feasible way to collect the money so they'll have us file a form at immigration and have us state our income and how much we should pay based on some totally inadequate information. Since they can't know much money we're actually bringing in to the country we'll probably have to volunteer receipts and rental agreements etc... It could be a total nightmare and I don't see how they accomplish this with their current system.

Authorities will wait until a road collapses before they do anything. I can think of areas where the road is 100% going to collapse on the corner but nothing is being done. Ditto for trees on slopes which are going to collapse on the road and take down power lines. It would take months to cut them all back but that's still better than waiting until they come down and kill a driver or at the very least take the power lines down.

I'm seriously considering buying land and building something in a remote location just to avoid burning and noise. Maybe it's just a Chiang Mai problem but getting a property with some space that isn't right up your neighbor is nearly impossible. Sure rent is cheap but those houses put you way too close to neighbors and Thai people love making noise and burning if you're in rural areas.

How are people getting bills higher than 3000/month? Do they have AC on all day which is set to 18c? Except during the winter in Chiang Mai I have an AC on about 20 hours a day and still never hit 30000 even. I guess if you had a family with AC in 4 rooms at once that would do it.

it kills me that Thai adults let teenagers take the mufflers off their bike and make so much noise. The so-called adults here never seem to advance much past teenagers themselves though so maybe it makes sense.

Do you know the average wage in Thailand? Why not try to fit in a little and be modest?

The hospital if horrible I'm sure but "just washing with a hose" is more sanitary by far. I really wish people in the west would be able to understand this.

Thai police are an institutional cargo cult. They wear uniforms and occupy offices with police-like appearance but they don't actually serve the function of the police. The Thai public if asked would say they have police but they're part of the cargo cult also that doesn't know the difference between actual police and people that wear police costumes. I cringe a little whenever I meet a Thai cop because they're such a joke but they don't even know it. It's a real sad state of affairs to be sure.

50% of gun deaths in the US are suicides. Looking at "gun deaths" doesn't show the full the picture.

I think the majority of gun deaths are suicide and then following that it's homicides by gangs (mainly black and then "hispanic" to a lesser degree). The high profile mass shootings in the 5+ range are a tiny fraction of the gun deaths yet that's all the media reports on. Does Thailand have more domestic gun violence than the US though? That would be interesting to know.

On the contrary, this is exactly why Thailand is 3rd world. They've imported foreign institutions like rule of law but they lack the ability to actually implement it properly.

Last week my neighbor cut down a tree on his property and systemically cut it in to pieces and burned every last twig down to charcoal. Stunk like hell all day for 4 days but guess what? no one cares except for pesky farangs that don't understand Thai culture. Obviously Thailand is going up in smoke. That's what they want isn't it?

but where will all the mean middle aged women go when they lose their jobs?

I'm a huge proponent of a colonial police force since Thai's are so useless here. Chinese though? no way. Someone more honorable like Japanese or any number of European/Anglo countries would be perfect.

Your choices are to drive yourself and let them to kill you or drive with them and they kill you anyways. Choose wisely nappy haired hippy adventurer, that blunt may be your last.