> Why is it that the states most accepting of queer people tend to be the most expensive, and the most affordable states tend to be hostile???

Because accepting states are more enjoyable places to live. Sadly, this is likely to get worse as the Christian cultists take stronger hold over many red state governments and pass laws that affect queer people, women, and minorities.... you're far from the only person in a state like that right now thinking "I need to get the fuck out of here."

I don't know why this post is downvoted. As a queer person myself I completely understand your motivations and I support the idea.

> What is the housing market up there like?

It's fucked, but less fucked the further you get from Portland. IDK how it compares to Kansas, but it's probably worse. Just do some browsing on Zillow (or whatever site) in areas you're interested in.

The challenge here is that the cheaper areas are also more rural, which also generally means less queer-friendly. Southern Maine and up the midcoast you'll see pride flags everywhere (including the churches) but it's a different story up north and in the west.

> Is it better to rent or own?

Always better to own, but tough to afford depending on location. And of course interest rates right now suck, but that's true everywhere...

> What places are there to visit and things to do? (I'm a nature lover and big cities never interested me anyway).

If you like being out in nature, Maine is a great spot to be. I think most folks who live here have some kind of hobby that gets them outdoors. Where you should go depends on what you like to do (and where you live), but there's really nowhere in Maine that's far from outdoor recreation opportunities.

> How would you recommend a Kansan like me adjust to the Maine lifestyle?

A few things to be aware of:

1. You need to find some reason to be excited about winter/snow. Skiing, snowshoeing, snowmo, ice fishing, fatbiking... it can be whatever, but it's good to have something or the winter is LONG and depressing.
2. Mainers are generally nice and accepting in a way, but don't expect a warm welcome... or any welcome at all, really. Folks generally keep to themselves, so you will need to go out of your way to integrate yourself into the community, meet people through activities, etc. If you don't, it can be really isolating. It's a weird culture though -- if you need help and people see it, random strangers will absolutely stop to help you. But at the same time you can move into a new place and not a single neighbor will come say hi, or wave.
3. Per point 2, Maine doesn't have really have a big/organized queer community. There are some gay/LGBTQ-friendly bars in Portland and other spots as well, but it's not comparable to what you'd find in larger cities, in case that matters to you. And again, the further you get from Portland, the less visible queer community there's gonna be.

/u/SameProfession254 this is the way ^

Go to Maine Wildlife Park

Wow, divorce is down quite a bit, eh? Where are all of the "Millennials are ruining divorce!!" headlines?

It is.

My modem already supports gigabit (I never use Spectrum's crap, had terrible issues with disconnection with three successive routers from them. Bought my own gear and the problem vanished.)

Damn, as of the last time I checked, I had their fastest available plan for my area, but it looks like they are indeed offering gigabit in my zip code now. Although if I try to upgrade it just says "Call us," so FML, guess I get to waste another hour being on hold with these assholes.

> their speeds are consistently high

Their download speeds are OK. Their upload speeds are shit.

I'm on their fastest available residential plan and the upload maxes out at 10mbps (usually it's far slower). This isn't fast enough for some of the work I do (large video files that must be backed up to the cloud) so I looked into their business tier — the fastest tier of that is still only a max of 35 Mbps up.

I recognize it's cable internet and not fiber, but for that to be the fastest business plan in 2023 is pathetic. Cable companies elsewhere sometimes have 50+ Mbps up even for residential connections.

Can't wait for fidium to come to my area, I will drop spectrum instantly.

> CPRC (China)

The Chinese People's Republic of China? Jesus christ dude, at least get the fucking name right if you're trying to scaremonger.

> ventually watch

> "you" were worry

Leave now my man, you will fit right in in Florida lmao

By all means, go! Enjoy the low taxes, the sunshine, and (eventually) the impossibly high insurance costs on your underwater property! But hey, at least you'll be able to rest easy knowing that your kids will learn about sex and sexuality from random internet videos rather than qualified teachers, and that they won't be exposed to any scary books that talk about black people.

Honestly, in my experience having winter tires is more important than AWD anyway. Plenty of folks here survive winters with 2WD, any AWD vehicle you get is gonna be fine, particularly if you put winter tires on it, which you should.

(I recognize that's expensive, but in the long term it mostly evens out as your two sets of tires will wear more slowly than having one set on year-round.)

> most people simply stay up later and offset whatever benefits they would have seen in the first place

Yes, I'm sure none of the studies on this subject ever considered this...

They're spending our money on these stupid fucking commercials. Insult to injury.

Pro tip: if you see the words "Maine" "energy" "affordable" or similar in an ad, there's like a 99% chance it's CMP pretending to not be CMP.

Basically, if it's not Our Power/Pine Tree Power, it's almost certainly just CMP pretending to be some kind of grassroots org. I recently saw a bullshit ad where they dug up the "no line is safe to touch evah" guy to oppose Pine Tree Power. While pretending not to be CMP, of course. It's fucking gross.

Allspeed is having a sale. IDK how good the deals are (I go there for the bike stuff) but I think some stuff was 50% off? So, probably pretty good.

Jesus christ, that's fucking scary. I don't have a lot of faith in cops but hopefully with the drug test and maybe getting security footage they'll actually do something.

Either way I applaud you spreading the word and I will definitely do the same.

I can and did name the disagreement, but I can see you're not a big "reading comprehension" guy so I'm just gonna move on with my life at this point.

> So you are yourself admitting that you don't care enough about context to actually watch a video (crikey!).

I did watch ~25 minutes of the video. Crikey! Try reading the comments you reply to?

> A perfect example of the typical lazy keyboard warrior who wants to be told what to think.

Like I said, I watched the video. 25 minutes of unfiltered Scott Adams explaining things in his own words did absolutely nothing to change my opinion. The fact that I watched it and still don't agree with you doesn't mean I'm being "told what to think," it means that I don't agree with you.

Believe or not, different people can have different opinions!

> With regard to your other so-called 'sources' - all of which are perfectly aligned with if not the leaders of your woke mob, please do us all a favor and tune in to a source that disagrees with them if you are too lazy to do the work yourself.

Yeah I fucking did, I watched a bunch of the video YOU recommended. It sucked.

lmao, I love the WILD swing to a completely unrelated topic because you didn't expect anyone to call your bullshit and actually watch that fucking drivel.

> Clearly we know who the NPCs are.

NPCs are non-player characters in a video game. In my experience, people who apply that term to other humans tend to have the IQ of a turnip. It's a coping mechanism, convincing yourself that anyone who disagrees with you just isn't a person, and it is truly pathetic.

So I actually did watch some of this, and it's mostly complete bullshit.

For example, around ~8:30 he's claiming that most news stories about this didn't list the reason he said those things. Bullshit. The story linked here mentions the reason, and so does every other article I've seen about it. Just for fun, I checked articles from CNN, Reuters, and the Daily Beast – all of them explain why he said it, and that he was responding to that Rasmussen poll, what the poll said, etc.

~13:30 - now he's talking about the economics of cartooning, fucking kill me

16:50 - here's the part where he intimates that any black people who are mad at him are mad because they hate white people, not because of what he said. "You can tell by the comments," he chuckles, offering zero evidence or support for that statement.

17:45 OK, so here he seems to be trying to argue that what he said is just "don't hang out with people who don't like you," and that because people don't disagree with that general idea, that means nobody actually disagrees with what he said, just with "the way he said it". But that's not what he said at all. He's saying white people shouldn't be near black people because – per this poll – a small percentage of black people think it's "not ok to be white." He's not saying stay away from those people, he's saying stay away from ALL black people.

21:00 and now we're at the classic right-winger thing where they pretend EVERYONE agrees with them, but just secretly, because they're too afraid to say it. The fact that almost no one actually agrees doesn't matter because they're "NPCs".

Throwing in the towel around 25 minutes because that's as much of this prick as I can stomach, even at 2x speed. I saw absolutely nothing that explains or justifies what he said.

> You said it yourself 'just some of what he said'. That is actually the defnition of LACK of CONTEXT:

So you would only consider it acceptable reporting if they print the full transcript to that 70+ minute video, and the follow-up? lmao.

There's plenty of context to understand:

1. What he said
2. Why he said it

So instead of vaguely demanding more context, why don't you explain to the class specifically what missing context you're talking about?

You know, the "context" that makes it OK to say that white people should "get the fuck away" from black people, and that it's irrational for a white person to try to help a black person?

What context do you think it's missing? Here's just some of what he said:

> I would say, based on the current way things are going, the best advice I would give to white people is to get the hell away from Black people. Just get the fuck away. Wherever you have to go, just get away. Because there’s no fixing this. This can’t be fixed.

>So I don’t think it makes any sense as a white citizen of America to try to help Black citizens anymore. It doesn’t make sense. There’s no longer a rational impulse. So I’m going to back off on being helpful to Black America because it doesn’t seem like it pays off.

All because of the results of a single, small survey. A survey in which most people, including most black people, agreed with the statement that "it's OK to be white."

VIP are equal opportunity scammers, it's not just women. A while back the Belfast one tried to tell my brother he needed a repair of over $1k. He didn't trust them and took it to a reliable place for a second opinion — not only were they totally lying about that repair, they also totally missed a dangerous frame rust issue (which was free to fix, covered by a Toyota recall).

So, they made up a repair he DIDN'T need and missed a dangerous issue he did need fixed.

No one from my family has been there since, but based on the stories I see in this subreddit every time VIP comes up, they haven't changed anything about the way they do business.

The fuck are they even talking about? Nobody comes to Freeport because that corner with the fire station is pretty.

Me? I make a comfy six figures lol, I'm just not a selfish asshole, so I don't think the fact that I have money and a house means nobody else should be able to.