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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   3637 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 14, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Are people using "milktoast" [sic] in an ironic way or do people genuinely not know that it's wrong? I've been seeing it more and more lately on places like reddit.

Also, this might just be Baader-Meinhof, but I have a subjective feeling that mistakes of this kind have become more prevalent recently. Use of "should of", or "i.e." instead of "e.g", etc. Anyone able to sanity check me on if this is real (i.e., do people just care less about proper language use nowadays) or imagined?

I'm guessing a lot of people are getting words audibly and then repeating them in print phonetically. It's common enough to become a thing. I'm guessing people just read a lot less books/newspapers/magazines where they'd have learned the correct phrasing of things. I remember having the opposite problem where I'd read a lot as a kid and knew words and phrases but not how they actually sounded out loud so when I'd try to say it I sounded dumb but people who learned it from hearing it would know how to say it right but maybe not how to write it.

At least they're probably using the word to mean what it actually means and they just don't know how to spell it. It doesn't bother me but I see so many people use the word nonplussed to mean not impressed (which arguably makes sense) even though it means confused. One thing I see a lot of even really smart people do is say "with regards to" instead of "with regard to" and I have to stop myself from commenting about it at this point.

I think using the wrong words or phrases or spelling them incorrectly isn't that bad of a thing but I hate the new trend of everyone just deciding that being grammatically incorrect is correct if enough people are wrong and doing it enough. Mostly because it feels like people trying to write history rather than letting it happen.

Yes. But I'm also the kind of person who gets mildly annoyed at people on here who use hyphens instead of en dashes or em dashes (as the case may be); i.e. I'm an insufferable pedant.

To be fair, there's no easy way to type the dashes on a standard keyboard. So people just use hyphens instead, cause that's easier than bringing up charmap or whatever. And to be honest I have no idea (even as a frequent pedant) what the difference in usage between em dash and en dash is supposed to be.

there's no easy way to type the dashes on a standard keyboard

In Markdown, at least, you can use HTML named character references. "& ndash;" without the space after the ampersand → "–", and "& mdash;" without the space after the ampersand → "—".

I have no idea what the difference in usage between em dash and en dash is supposed to be

Wikipedia's Manual of Style includes a handy guide—though, of course, Wikipedia is not necessarily trustworthy.

At the risk of being insufferably pedantic and because you seem to care, there should be a comma after “i.e.” (or “e.g.”, for that matter).

I'm glad I could lure you into the ninth circle of pedantry. A comma after "i.e." is preferable but not required; it's a matter of style, not grammar. But if we're talking style, the bigger blunder here is that I used "i.e" in text where I could have just as easily written "in other words". "i.e." and "e.g." are best confined to lists, parentheticals, and other situations where economy of space trumps flow and readability.

I love this place so much.

I get unreasonably upset at people using risky for risque.

Also, this might just be Baader-Meinhof, but I have a subjective feeling that mistakes of this kind have become more prevalent recently. Use of "should of", or "i.e." instead of "e.g", etc.

It's something I've been noticing for at least 7 years. I think it's mostly kids/teenagers. Apparently it's rude to correct people online on their spelling these days as well, so I guess the answer to "do people just care less about proper language use nowadays?" is yes.

Is it possible for the site like reddit to cache our responses so if we accidentally click somewhere else our comment is saved? I just lost a whole 5 paragraphs and I'm very sad :(

On old.reddit you can just click the reply button again and your text will still be there.

In theory, yes and there are lots of websites that do that. If particular stubborn site doesn't, you might use a userscript to do it.

Custom CSS question: How do I change the colour of the vote arrows after they're clicked?

This is what I use.

.active.arrow-up::before {
    color: #bd2130;
}

.active.arrow-down::before {
    color: #0062cc;
}

It's not perfect when I'm using the Motte on my phone (need to tap somewhere else for the color to update) but works fine on my desktop browser.

Works a treat. Thanks!

Obviously I get all my news from the most reliable sources, The Motte. So imagine my surprise when I randomly heard a news clip today and someone said MAGA, pronouncing the MA, like from the word maw, instead of mad. Before I embarrass myself in conversation, the reporter was a weirdo right, everyone says MAGA with the MA sound from mad, right?

Neither, it's may-guh. The same vowel sound as in "make".

In the early days of Trump's campaign I was confused at why so many conservative Americans were celebrating the drunken debauchery of Magaluf.

Maw? Mad? I've always thought it was the PALM vowel, like in "saga" or "mama".

Wait it's not Mage-ah?

You say Mah-GA, and I say May-GA.

Mah-GA, May-GA, Mah-GA, May-GA, let's call the whole thing off!

I intended to post Ella and Louie, but then I found this version.

Now that you mention it, I can't recall ever hearing anyone saying that in real life.

When I say it in my head, it sounds like the maga in magazine. In my head, MA like in mall sounds vaguely British, but I have nothing to back this up.

In my head, MA like in mall sounds vaguely British, but I have nothing to back this up.

I mean, it is how the Brits would pronounce that word, because the first letter of the British English alphabet is "aw" and not "a" (just like how they pronounce the letter "o" as "oi" under certain conditions, like in the word "no").

I hear both pronunciations equally often.

Obviously.

Not sure if this is the right place, but...

I know for a fact that the allegations of election fraud in 2020 on both sides have been discussed thoroughly both on the reddit and here. Is there anyone who can point me to a good thread for both Biden and Trump alleged fraud?

I've been made aware of a vile and slanderous conspiracy against me, and need some advice.
A group of people are trying to get me to accept a vacant position on a municipal corporation board, and aren't taking "haha thanks for your confidence I'll think about it and get back to you don't call me I'll call you" as an answer.

What's the tactful way to say "this public service would get in the way of my valuable gardening time and also I would probably end up arrested for assault at every meeting"?
I'm sure a lot of people here have turned down "offers" of job responsibilities, management crap, admin duties, etc. It's a totally new experience to me, because my bosses have usually been good judges of character and potential.

The word you’re looking for is ‘no’.

Against the grain of the advice you are looking for ... but maybe take the position? How bad could it be? And could you term limit yourself?

Communities are made better when people step up and do volunteer work. It won't really feel like you are helping a whole bunch, but maybe you doing this annoying but necessary tasks frees someone else up to do less annoying and less necessary but more beneficial tasks.

I was the secretary for the parent teacher organization at my daughter's small pre-school. I was mostly helping put emails together. It sucked and it was boring. But it wasn't a ton of work. And me doing it meant that the other parents in the organization got more done organizing fun events for the kids.

I'd totally do it if it was a position like yours. Jokes aside I'd really like to volunteer more, but with something that's either already functional or that I've got the power to fix.

The story behind this one is that they got absolutely played by a big new contractor, the board members responsible have been bailing as the consequences become apparent, and nobody has any idea how to solve the situation.
A few of them decided to rope me in because I'd privately warned against it in the first place. But what am I supposed to do to help when my warning was literally "if this doesnt work out, you won't have an exit plan"?
I know they're not deliberately setting me up as a fall guy, but that's how it would work out.

You're right though, it's time to find some volunteer work, maybe through the local church.

"No thank you, I'm not interested". It really is as simple as that.

If you wanted to make a foldable keyboard which merely stored keystrokes (the text you type) and nothing more, with no screen attached, in other words genuinely just a foldable keyboard, how thin could you make this? Could you make it so thin that it folds in your pocket?

As thin as a decent mechanical design allows you to. The electronics won’t take essentially any space and a small molded lithium battery won’t take much either. You could even make it wireless for dual use as a regular keyboard and for transferring any stored data out.

Yes. Variants that plug into small computer have been around for a while: early generation Palm Pilots rather famously had a pretty slick full-size TLK keyboard in the late 90s early 00s, and they're clever enough people make adapters for them today. No onboard storage without the Palm Pilot, though.

In terms of the smallest possible device that only had storage and operated without interacting with anything else, you're mostly going to be limited by your mechanicals and the software. If you're willing to deal with momentary switches, you don't even have to make it a folding device, though in turn it will absolute suck to use.

If you want conventional switches and keycaps, you're pretty much stuck with a pretty specific layout given your target number of keys, and mechanical switches are very hard to find slimmer than a half-inch (meaning you get one fold at most before it looks like you're smuggling the world's most awkward hardon). Scissor-style switches exist that about half that, but gfl finding 'em. For conventional cherry-MX and a 70% layout, expect a minimum size of 4" by 6" by 2" -- probably more cargo pant-pocket sized. The scissor-style switches can drop that down to less than an inch thick -- still bigger than a cell phone, but not as bad.

In the middle is... well, the membrane and lever approach from the Palm Keyboard, or membrane-and-contact. This only really saves vertical height, but it can be pretty huge in that dimension: membrane-and-contact keyboards can be literally a couple millimeters thick, or even rollable. Downside is that they're expensive and difficult in small sizes to get from major builders; DIY variants are usually based on flexPCBs that can be janky to work with or assemble.

The headless part is pretty trivial from a hardware perspective. You can get cheap tiny SOCs for a headless nix setup at sub 5 USD per chip at unit 1, and microcontrollers in the sub-1 USD range. The former will be easier to work with if you're trying to store data forever (who wants to write their own file system!), while the latter will be more energy-efficient.

Batteries are trivial, these days.

Super informative!

Can you come up with a healthy food menu for a day that includes 160g of protein and a little over 2000kcal for 4$? If you can't do it in 4$, go as low as possible.

Context: I did a deep-dive into recommended nutrition and apparently the current numbers are 2g of protein per kg of weight. My monthly budget for food is 100$, which comes out to about 3-4$ per day. I asked some LLMs the same question and they mostly couldn't do it.

I think soy protein is the cheapest, but soy flour is somewhat difficult to find

Yes. Greens, beef suet, and flour take you a long way, even if it’s not the most appetizing diet.

I think you're in eastern europe, and at least some of the US options are very unlikely to generalize over there (and the numbers are low for the US: 4 USD/day is about SNAP levels, and those are intended to supplement food budgets, not replace them entirely). If you're asking for US-side given the dollar unit:

The standard in the United States for hard-protein diets has traditionally been chicken breast, at about 130 grams protein and 700 calories per pound. Exact prices will vary depending on location, but expect around 2-3 USD per pound boneless skinless chicken breast in store brand bulk, generally on the lower end if you look at places like Sam's Club/CostCo. Bone-in used to consistently be less than 2 USD per pound, but it can vary a lot right now.

Canned tuna is kinda second-best: it's a little more expensive (~3ish USD per pound) and fewer calories, but it's shelf stable and prices are very stable. Depending on location, expect to need to check places like Gordon Food Services to buy in bulk. On the downside, large quantities start raising serious questions about heavy metal toxicity, and eating just canned tuna in water can risk rabbit starvation. Most people can't eat too much of it straight or solely spiced, as well.

Dried beans are more cost-effective in terms of dollar/calorie, but they can take obnoxious amounts of time to prepare, and they're pretty high in fat and carbs for the protein you get. Exact variety matters, but expect around 1-2 USD/pound dry weight, 100-120 grams protein and 1300 calories per pound. Even good in terms of dietary fiber! Downside is that it's a lot of beans, to the point I'm not sure I could eat that much in a day. Can be good to supplement or for variety, though.

Whey protein can sometimes be a reasonable choice, but it's very dependent on where and who you buy from. Some of the bulk purchases (eg Costco) can get as low as 3 USD/day to hit your protein requirements, while others will be as high as 30 USD/day.

Ground beef and turkey are usually (much) less dollar-efficient, but they can be used as supplements for flavor variation in ways that most of the above can't. Same for eggs. Unlike eggs, ground beef and turkey do (often!) go on sale, either for holidays or as it gets close to expiration date, often to compare or beat 'normal' chicken prices. Milk is very cheap, but it doesn't work well after the first gallon a day, and it doesn't work at all if you're lactose intolerant. (and I'd expect it's cheap in the US because of US-specific government policy stuff. Same for cheese.)

For filling the remainder of your diet, your big options are either breads or rice or noodles for carbohydrates, with the fixings (butter, fattier beans, heavy soups like cream of mushroom) for fats. You can get 1000 calories per 0.75 USD, here, without struggling too much; going with big bulk purchases can drop below that (eg 50 lbs of enriched white rice from CostCo runs around 25 USD, and each pound is 1500 calories and about 30 grams protein).

You can and should add some leafy greens for fiber and for macronutrients, but it tends to be what you do with the rest of your food budget, rather than a starting point.

These numbers are a little out of date, especially with current food inflation, but they'll point in a right-ish direction.

Dried beans are more cost-effective in terms of dollar/calorie, but they can take obnoxious amounts of time to prepare,

A tip for dealing with this is to prepare a large batch (like 5-10 lbs) at once and then freeze in portion sized bags. If you want to use them in a salad or just on their own you probably want to freeze them on a baking sheet before putting them into bags so they don't stick together too much.

Beans and chickpeas freeze pretty well and if you're using them for a stew or as filling in a burrito or something you absolute won't notice.

Are you in the US, and if so what region? I recall there was a blog in the early 2010's where there was a guy that did $2 a day, but I don't think he hit 2g/kg bw protein. That probably leaves some extra headroom, even with inflation, for a few extra grams of protein. I recall he had a bunch of open face penutbutter and banana sandwiches. It did require a bunch of annoying couponing to hit his budget as well.

Along those lines, the "Big On A Budget" Series from Animal is a bit of a cult classic. The ones with Evan Centopani are probably closest to what most people would consider a healthyish diet. The budget was $50 a week, early 2010's $s, and they didn't include the supplements they are selling. Offsetting that most people are probably not trying to feed a bulking 100kg+ body builder. You generally see a bunch of oats, rice, eggs, broccoli (if they include vegetables), and chicken breast. I am a fan of using broccoli slaw to save prep-time, as popularized by Chad Wesley Smith, but it's probably not worth it if your budget is that low.

Realistically $100/month is a very small food budget if you are in the US, especially for those protein goals. The USDA Thrifty Food Plan currently puts the budget for a 20-50 Male at $303.90/month. If you are US based and really only have a $100/month budget for food you likely qualify for SNAP benefits, and should also consider food banks.

Edit: I managed to dig up the couponing thing. It was $1 A Day, and it did involve annoying coupon shenanigans that are probably less common now. I think this site is also one I had thought of from the same era. There is a free PDF of a $4/day cookbook. I could have sworn there was another n$/day cookbook from that era that involved a bunch of baking, but apparently I never archived it.

I live in Eastern Europe. For reference, minimum wage here is about 500$/month and I make about 150% that.

Food prices here are about the same as those in the US/Western Europe. Bread is a little bit cheaper, meat is a little bit more expensive. But mostly the same.

5% tvorog is 2.5$ for 400g. That's 64g of protein, but still too expensive.

I think you'll have to stick to 1g/kg. It's not the end of the world, Central Asian construction workers have great muscle definition on a diet of kefir and white bread.

That makes way more sense than a US based person with that budget.

I think federal minimum wage at full time employment in the US is about $1,200/month right now. Seems consistent with PPP, which is about 2.1 for the Balkans.

For eating on a budget you probably have the slight advantage of things like kasha being more readily available in economy pricing, whereas (excluding oats for some reason) groats seem to be considered some sort of specialty health food in the US. Can't say I know anything beyond that though.

The traditional solution is a very legume heavy diet. My experience with beans in the Balkans is that they tend to be terrible and hard to eat much of, and recommend looking at Mexican recipes. I remember hearing something about rice and beans together making the protein better somehow, but don’t remember the specifics. And North African recipes for lentils. Second the eggs recommendation.

Rice + beans provide all essential amino acids, but in "you won't die or get sick" amounts, not "you'll get swole" amounts.

Does anyone have any recommendations for sci-fi works involving population decline? I ask because most late 20th century — and even early 21st century — works I'm familiar with assume continual population growth, and frequently an overpopulation crisis. (Even the grimiest dystopian cyberpunk seems to take for granted that people will somehow keep popping out kids, enough to more than replace all the people getting gunned down by megacorp hit squads or torn apart by psychotic cyborgs.)

The only exceptions I can think of are works involving sudden plagues of infertility (Handmaid's Tale, Children of Men) or are Japanese (Yokohama Shopping Log). Anything else out there?

Edit: I'm talking less the "post-apocalyptic" genre, where the collapse has already occurred and the focus is rebuilding, but during the decline — particularly a slower one like Yokohama Shopping Log.

A lot of wildbow's works (Worm, Pact, Twig...) hit similar themes; though the decline is usually violent, he has a recurring pattern of stories starting from a place of relative stability and affluence and gradually cranking up the bleakness/hopelessness/lack of resources available both to individual characters and to society at large.

On the Japanese media side, Shoujo Shuumatsu Ryokou (English title might be something like Girls' Last Tour) is a worthy spiritual successor to YKK, perhaps slightly more on the bleak and eventful side. It's a sort of cute slice of life series about two girls traversing a ruined world in the wake of WW4 in search of a something/anything, as the last remnants of human activity around them flicker out. The author's narration and Twitter feed pattern-match against the worst cases of inadequately medicated clinical depression I have encountered. Both the manga and the anime adaptation are pretty great.

Classic example is planet Solaria in Asimov's universe.

This planet was underpopulated and declining not because some catastrophe, but unlimited affluence.

Originally, there were about 20,000 people living in vast estates individually or as married couples. There were thousands of robots for every Solarian. Almost all of the work and manufacturing was conducted by robots. The population was kept stable through strict birth and immigration controls. In the era of Robots and Empire, no more than five thousand Solarians were known to remain. Twenty thousand years later, the population was twelve hundred, with just one human per estate. Solarians hated physical contact with others and only communicated with each other via holograms.

I appreciate any mention in the wild of Yokohama Shopping Log, but alas that I cannot recommend anything like it.

It's more in the background but The Lord of the Rings has some of this.

The population decline in Middle Earth in Third Age is explicitly due to apocalyptic conditions - constant war, orc and other monster infestation and plagues spread by Sauron (the Shire is one of few places exempt from this general shithole state).

Not what OP intended.

Perhaps for most peoples, but the elves seem to be leaving/declining more because they just aren't feeling the vibe anymore.

The later books of the Three Body Problem series have natural population decline. One of the secondary ideas is that advancing technology makes manly vigour somewhat superfluous, resulting in an epidemic of androgynous soyboys who are not exactly top-tier in a crisis.

Fallen Angels maybe?

Children of Men

Interstellar?

A Canticle for Leibowitz?

I'd class that more in the "post-apocalyptic" genre — more "mass death" than "population decline."

These episodes from The Outer Limits (1995 - 2002) series: Dark Rain, Patient Zero, Rite of Passage, The Vaccine, Lithia, The Camp, and Promised Land.

The Luck of the Draw episode from Sliders - "in this Earth where San Francisco, populated by only 100,000 people in a world of half a billion".

These episodes from The Outer Limits (1995 - 2002) series

I had to remind myself of those episodes, because it's been awhile since I watched the show — not since back when it first aired.

There’s the post-collapse genre exemplified by Foundation. It shifts back to focusing on recovery pretty fast, but the idea of planning for population decay and instability is there. Dune flirts with the subject for similar reasons. I haven’t read past God-Emperor, but I hear the last couple Frank novels are weirdly desolate.

For more modern stories which play around in the post-apocalypse, maybe Revelation Space? Or influenced works like the sandbox space game Starsector. These are settings where humanity has not coped well with the collapse of major technologies. You really get a sense that humanity is limping along even when there are insane accomplishments in the setting.

You might appreciate an explicit (if minor) theme in A Fire Upon the Deep. The sympathetic alien leader of Woodcarvers is specifically struggling with the eugenics required to keep continuity of consciousness in an organism made of multiple separate brains. Shit’s wild. The whole book is great, and straddles the line between bleak and triumphant. I suspect the sequel, featuring a few humans marooned on a primitive planet, would hit similar themes.

On the fantasy side, Prince of Nothing. It’s also post-apocalyptic, and it’s very clear that the squabbling institutions of men are losing ground. The first apocalypse was triggered by summoning an entity which prevented live births so long as it remained in the world, and the group which summoned it is still around. Great series. Absolutely horrible.

So yeah, good question.

Prince of Nothing

Well, the Sranc certainly aren’t suffering from depopulation…

The Nonmen are a race explicitly suffering from depopulation as all their women were killed by the Womb Plague iirc, so you have a society of immortal individuals slowly dying off from war and madness. I think it’s The Unholy Consult that has the section exploring the last of their extant Mansions. Haunting and beautiful stuff, Bakker is easily one of the best fantasy authors living.

I second the Starsector recommendation, although do note that the game is still in development and the main storyline is currently only half-finished.

A Fire Upon the Deep

I suspect the sequel, featuring a few humans marooned on a primitive planet, would hit similar themes.

I will highly recommend the sequel, A Deepness in the Sky. That primitive planet? It circles a star that dies out then flashes on. The natives? Spider-aliens. The deepness? Their word for where they hibernate during the sun's darkness, and the place that protects them from the explosion of light. Thus, the Deepness in the Sky is their place of safety, off their bipolar world, somewhere outside of the constraints their world has imposed upon them.

And I haven't even mentioned the humans, yet.

Shit's wild.

It's pretty wild, but it suffers from the fact that the aliens are just humans who happen to look like spiders. Their psychology, politics and history are identical to that of western countries in 20th century Earth. Nothing about their strange history or biology makes them any different from humans. They have nuclear families, they have constitutional monarchies, they are just Spider-Alien Britain. Hell, the competing human factions and sub-factions in the book are more alien then the aliens.

I think this is by choice since the author seems to believe in a kind of Whig view of history that liberalism is the only real way to advance and anything else is doomed to slow death or stagnation.

The Three-Body Problem did a better job of showcasing actually bizarre aliens, instead of people who look bizarre.

Their psychology, politics and history are identical to that of western countries in 20th century Earth. Nothing about their strange history or biology makes them any different from humans. They have nuclear families, they have constitutional monarchies, they are just Spider-Alien Britain. Hell, the competing human factions and sub-factions in the book are more alien then the aliens.

Wasn't that how the weaponized autists interpreted them for the masses? When one of the protagonists meets them in real life, he's immediately weirded out.

Wasn't that how the weaponized autists interpreted them for the masses? When one of the protagonists meets them in real life, he's immediately weirded out.

Yes and no. The spider society really does have nuclear families, a class system, constitutional monarchies and a World War and Cold War that mirror that of 20th century Britain. The physical descriptions and names are made to more mirror human culture by the autists, but fundamentally the spiders' history and social structure is like 20th century Britain in reality, that part isn't made up.

Also, although, the humans are weirded out, the spiders find humans extremely cute; because, spider children can only look in one direction like humans and spiders find the way humans stare at them while speaking, adorable.

Yeah I loved their 'house of congress' analog turning out to just be a giant pit full of spiders.

Dying Earth, Book of the New Sun? That's the closest I can think of, but those are not decline so much as post-collapse.

For that matter, the Barsoom novels occur on a Mars which was previously much more inhabited.

I’m wondering to what extent the German Wehrmacht is, or at least was present in British and American cultural memory as a worthy enemy in battle, unlike the Japanese and the Italians, in a similar way how, I suppose, Confederates were seen as worthy enemies in the Northern US after the Civil War, unlike the various Indian tribes. It’d largely explain why the so-called myths of the clean Wehrmacht and the Lost Cause of the South came to be.

Obviously as a Brit I'm consuming the fictionalised version of the American frontier from a long distance, but in the Cowboys and Indians mythos I grew up with Indians were always Worthy Opponents in the TVTropes sense. I assume this idea dates back to the golden age of the Western as a movie genre because that is where the tropes come from.

if we're dealing with mythos, this scene might be a worthwhile corrective.

Yeah, there was a brief "lone ranger and Tonto" period where the mythology was sanitized, which was used to launder support for AIM and other Indian terrorist groups in the 60s-80s.

Didn't the warriors of various Indian tribes routinely take hostages/captives and kill/torture them?

On the east coast colonial period, yes. Horrible drawn out tortures. Being seared to death with hot coals. Skinned alive one small strip at time. Fingers broken and twisted the wrong way. Completely senseless. And not even always during warfare. They'd take hostages and get to work on one as an example to the others.

Depends on the period, roughly speaking. During WWII Germany was of course villainized in propaganda and amongst western Allied soldiers; massacres of surrendering German soldiers were not regular but also not uncommon. SS troops were frequently shot out of hand due to several high-profile incidents. In the mass surrenders at the end of the war surrendering Germans were not classified as POWs but rather as "disarmed enemy soldiers" who were not entitled to the levels of treatment outlined by the Geneva Conventions. The claims surrounding the "Rhine death camps" are overblown but there was genuine systemic mistreatment of surrendering Wehrmacht personnel during and immediately after the war.

The dive in relations with the Soviet Union led to the quick realization that Europe and the United States might need to fight the Reds and there were a bunch of people with lots of experience killing Russkies. This is what initiated the rehabilitation of ex-Wehrmacht senior officers and the start of the "clean Wehrmacht" myth in the west. I'm short on time but I might come back to this later because there are some interesting dynamics at play here.

After the end of the Cold War the changing political realities and the opening of Soviet archives doomed the reputation of the Wehrmacht. There was no way to deny their involvement in horrendous war crimes or the depth of their entwinement with Nazi rule.

A simple way to look at the arc of it all is to look at how officers convicted of war crimes to Allied forces were treated. Take Kurt Meyer for example: sentenced to death, reduced to life in prison, transferred to Germany, released permanently all within ten years.

During WWII Germany was of course villainized in propaganda and amongst western Allied soldiers; massacres of surrendering German soldiers were not regular but also not uncommon.

I think it's important to point out here that the massacred soldiers in question were almost(?) all Waffen-SS, not Wehrmacht.

For larger massacres, generally. But lots of ordinary Wehrmacht soldiers had their surrenders not-so-politely declined; this was sort of glossed over in the post-war official histories but appear frequently in AARs. Also as Ioper notes due to the influx of draftees and soldiers from other branches into the Waffen-SS (whose units were almost always subordinated or OKH or OKW) just because someone was in the SS doesn't mean they were SS.

At the point of the Allied invasion of continental Europe that distinction isn't super clear due to the massive expansion and forced conscription of both large numbers of Germans (often Wehrmacht) and foreigners, doubling in size many times over. It wasn't remotely the same org as before or at the start of the war.

Do most Americans not regard the Japanese as a worthy enemy? Maybe I listen to too much Dan Carlin or something, but my memory of Imperial Japan includes extreme bravery and substantial competence.

No, they don't, the dominant view of the WWII Japanese is that they were batshit crazy and directed by Nazi-tier evil leadership.

I think that this has changed over time. I am old enough to have known many WWII vets and they almost universally hated the Japs and did not really admire them even in the most begrudging fashion. the common adjectives describing Japanese soldiers would have been more like fanatical, honor bound, or suicidal. More like a death cult than an army. I think over the period of the Cold War, when Japan became more and more of an economic and strategic ally, and as the WWII generation died out, that shifted. In the popular worldview, movies like TORA TORA TORA and later films like Letters from Iwo Jima contributed as well.

The Japanese didn't adhere to Western codes of chivalry, they routinely tortured and executed their captives and generally fought without either decency or mercy. Such an enemy isn't seen as worthy and earns no respect; I think American attitudes towards them during the war reflect that.

A somewhat less subjective (but by no means esoteric) view might be that many of the Japanese conscripts were themselves basically brainwashed thugs drunk on pie-in-the sky notions of honor and loyalty to the emperor (they weren't all thugs, of course). They had their own codes, albeit not ones really accessible to non-Japanese, and this made them seem (particularly at the time) impenetrably barbaric. Their martial views of any enemy who would so dishonor themselves as to surrender contributed to the objectively horrific treatment they afforded any captives.

In the actual fighting (e.g. the jungles of Burma) they made formidable and resilient, if despised enemies. To say they were without decency or mercy may feel good but is a contextual judgment that overlooks the considerable cultural influences involved.

Somewhat related to Trump assasination attempt: does it occur that sometimes doctor beforehand plan for possible surgeries for people in dangerous professions? Documenting body's unusual features like abnormal positions of blood vessels or organs, keeping a pool of compatible blood, etc.

I remember reading that the Secret Service travels with donor blood ready to go for the President in case he needs a rapid transfusion.

Specifically mentioned in the film In the Line of Fire, which is just as gripping now as it was thirty years ago.

When I worked close to the white house, the Vice President's motorcade for the commute home had an ambulance as part of the standard vehicles. The most memorable though was the SUV with the doors removed and a SAW mounted in the door's place.

After their showing this week, not sure I'd be comfortable with the SS doing that. Imagine they're pumping it into you and one of them goes "huh, the package says it should have been refrigerated! How about that"

Why arent my posts showing up in real time? It appears a mod has to approve each post of mine? Why is that?

Because you're a new user, and the inherited code requires new users with no upvote history to have their posts manually approved. The mods try to approve stuff from the filter as frequently as possible, and hopefully you'll get enough upvotes in short order for the filter to leave you alone.

Before you ask, no, apparently we can't fix this.

Can't you change the threshold where this happens? Set it to like -1 and then it'll never bother anyone.

We've asked. No dice.

How about whenever a new account is created they automatically make shadow posts which get upvoted by enough "new account upvoter" bots to overcome this threshold immediately?

Manually, we could make a weekly/monthly circlejerk thread where everybody upvotes every post that's made and new users can introduce themselves and everyone congratulates them and each other with infinite upvotes.

…or holds a grudge. Still probably worth it, though.

I'd be for it.

I'm not a new user. I've had this account for months .

You haven't posted much and you haven't earned many upvotes. Until you participate regularly, you will be caught in the new user filter.

How many upvotes do I need to escape the filter?

I don't know. I don't know if it's a fixed number. Just participate regularly and eventually you won't be flagged as a new user.

I know @AhhhTheFrench's had trouble with being flagged because he gets downvoted a lot. Now, he's significantly less pleasant to deal with than @Doubletree2 here, but do you think the vote totals being involved might end up disproportionately hurting those whose views differ from the typical mottizen's?

Yes, it does have that effect. guesswho/darwin stayed in the new user filter despite being a regular poster because he was downvoted so heavily.

It is an inconvenience, but I'm not sure what alternatives Zorba might want to implement.

I dont know if anyone here knows the answer to this, but i was browsing x and saw this picture.

Is trump carrying? I assume the pistol on the left is a shoulder strap for the SS agent. But the one on the right looks clipped to his belt under his jacket.

https://x.com/growing_daniel/status/1812570975726432656

No. From the picture, it's all armed Secret Service agents piled on top of Trump. If you look at the bottom left, you'll see his legs sticking out from the pile.

If you watch the video I think that's another agent dogpiling on Trump -- he doesn't need to carry, he's got people for that. (theoretically, maybe he needs to get his own people.)

Judging by the holes in his administration, I’m not sure he’d be able to fill the ranks with his own people…

The people who are willing to take orders and use guns are a pro Trump demographic.

So are the police staffing a Pennsylvania rally, yeah?

Pro Trump is not the same as Working For Trump is not the same as Capable Security.

It's not clear that Don Jr's hunting buddies would have done a strictly worse job -- but one would think that given Trump's connections in the world of hated billionaires he could be in touch with some private security heavies pretty easily?

I don't think the kind of security that is able to take over privately-owned buildings which provide rooftop overlooks of a rally site is something money can buy. Nor should it be.

So, what are you reading?

I’m still on Hülsmann’s Abundance, Generosity and the State. Also going through Ogburn Jr.’s The Mysterious William Shakespeare, an Oxfordian tract. So far it has been a lot of interesting information well-presented, though occasionally I find his logic odd.

Still on a Lacan kick, now reading Jacques Lacan himself after finishing a primer on Freud and a clinical intro by Bruce Fink. I have some thoughts on my first forays into Lacan proper, as well as some on the Fink book (which Scott Alexander also read and reviewed).

Initially the recommendation was to absolutely avoid Ecrits, read supplementary material like Fink, and read Lacan's seminars starting at 11 and 7, then going back to 1. I tried 11 and it's a bit too hard to understand; too mired in previous work, I think. The recommendation stems from it being a turning point in his work, but I'd rather have the context to know what it is turning from.

I'm reading Lacan's first seminar now, which seems to ask more coherent questions. It is a direct offshoot from Freud and so far is commenting on Freud's writing directly, while throwing shade at other offshoots (ego psychology). The primary questions seem to be things like, what actually is the unconscious, what is the goal of analysis, what is the process of analysis, what is the position of the analyst, how should the analyst approach analysis...? These all seem to stem from the fact that Freud's actual methods are veiled and only communicated in a limited scope (i.e. what Freud actually wrote down). I'm still very early in the book, though.

I feel that I can actually grasp some of what Lacan is saying here, which is a nice change of pace. I'm sure that will change, but before this I wasn't sure there was a foundation to turn away from, so I'm feeling confident in my decision to divert from the suggested starting place and go chronologically.

A bit of commentary on the Fink book after finishing:

I feel like it was a good intro that avoided a lot of the roundabout references that permeate Lacanian commentary. At the risk of sounding like Goldilocks, it was perhaps too grounded, in the sense that the examples, case studies, and commentary by Fink were the biggest issues. The gist I have picked up from other third parties is that Lacan is all about abstracting and structuring Freudian analysis, moving away from the particulars in the abstract sense so that the actual particulars of any given case can be dealt with. Some of Fink's comments seemed closer to symptomizing than structuralizing, more cause -> effect proselytizing than observational.

In general it provides an overview of key concepts, and is a good jumping off point for anyone who is curious about Lacan. Extremely readable and engrossing at points. Very different from Lacan's own work, which is probably a big plus for some.

I never got around to actually reading Lacan, but the IEP's entry on him was stellar reading.

Just finished Nothing to Envy, about life in North Korea as told by defectors. It's remarkable how the Kim dynasty managed to keep things going despite such drastic mismanagement. The craziest example, I think, when it became necessary to use human feces as farm fertilizer - you're probably assuming they just had the sewage treatment plants compost it, or had feces composted wherever it was being collected previously, or something else sane and reasonable, but no! That is not the North Korean way! Instead, citizens were commanded to bring feces in themselves, with not only a quota to fill but an unreasonably high quota at that, such that feces-theft became an actual thing.

Just finished reading the Raven's Mark Trilogy. It was pretty good fantasy.

The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the last years of Hollywood by Sam Wasson. This all started because I recently met a California girl (woman) who looked to me very much like Sharon Tate. I told her this, which went over about as well as you'd expect. In any case I then did a deep dive and ended up with this book, which is not directly about Tate, but is quite well written and paints an interesting picture of the late 60s early 70s Hollywood. I also rewatched Chinatown, which is in my view a nearly perfect film, if such terms can be used.

I just finished the 4th Culture novel, "The State of the Art".

Easily the worst entry so far, and it's not close. It started with a couple of vignettes that shifted both tone and setting from the previous novels, and then the back half was back to a more typical entry.

It just wasn't interesting. Basically, yet another screed about how communism would work if it wasn't for those capitalist dirty tricks. How awful the earth would seem to an advanced, egalitarian race in a post-scarcity economy. Ian Bank's superiority complex barely shrouded through fiction. The only connection to other books was a one-character cameo.

Despite its shortness compared to the other entries, I'm frustrated because it seems like it was a waste of time. So far, the fifth book is starting off much better.

That’s my next one. Use of Weapons was great, as was Player, unsurprisingly. Phlebas didn’t do it for me. I still read Look to Windward out of order, though, and it was perhaps my favorite. So there’s hope.

I was actually planning to skip Excession after hearing the Mind-Mind interactions were better offscreen than as chatrooms. But I understand mileage may vary.

Question though - after UoW and Player, did Phlebas grow on you a little?

In particular, I think having the main character be an avowed enemy of the "main character" of the rest of the series is just such an excellent expository vantage point. The world was built around The Culture before you started seeing things from its point of view. It was a multi-hundred-page prologue.

I'm not going to read the spoiler because I'm 10% into Excession but... now I'm nervous. Damnit.

Don’t worry, it’s not a serious concern. More of an aesthetic preference.

I read Phlebas second, having heard Player was a better starting point. So the comparison was always going to be biased. But I’d say my problems with the book were more about structure than vantage.

It’s a series of set pieces. Some of them were pretty neat, but they really don’t go anywhere until the finale. In hindsight, it sort of reminds me of The Last Jedi, adding destinations more for visuals than for advancing the plot or characters. The characters live on top of the setting rather than in it. In contrast, the other novels have a better linkage between place and purpose.

I was stuck at the mall with my wife, so in between pulling out my credit card, I went on LibGen and downloaded the NYT #1 book of the twentyfirst century Elena Ferrante My Brilliant Friend.

While I disagreed with a lot of the list choices, very political and very effeminate, this one is literary gold. I see why it won.

Getting back into Kissinger's Diplomacy after taking a break from it to read Goethe’s Faust.

Kissinger is fairly critical of the containment policy of the Cold War. Committing to fight the expansion of the communist states everywhere meant that the ball was in the Soviets’ court to pick the most inconvenient places possible to start crises which America would be morally obligated to intervene in. The book is just about to start on the Vietnam war and what’s interesting is that the Soviets have not yet purposefully exploited this supposed weak point (he has given hints that Khrushchev was very good at creating difficult situations for the Americans but equally bad at finishing them, there’s an echo to an earlier chapter about Napoleon III here).

Kissinger repeatedly says that the Soviets are simply confused by America’s universal moral declarations and they refuse to take anything other than realpolitik seriously. Stalin gives lukewarm support to the Korean War not because it’s an inconvenient place for the US to defend but because he thinks it just won’t be a big deal. The Americans have said as much when discussing core strategic areas, yet when the war breaks out it becomes a place worth fighting for purely because America is bound by the implications of its stated moral principles.

The core investigation of the book seems to be about how Wilson caused Western leaders to question the old balance of power model in favour of a model based on universal declarations of rights, personal goodwill between leaders, collective security organisations and alliances concerned just as much with agreeable domestic institutions as military advantage. Despite the initial failures of the League of Nations and the misplaced trust in Stalin the Wilsonian style of diplomacy never really went away, and the next decades show Britain being won over by this vision (with Churchill being a solidly old-school exception), America learning hard lessons which temper its idealism and the Soviets being terribly confused at what America is actually willing to start a war over. Kissinger is very critical of the Wilsonian vision but he does give it one piece of high praise: to sustain the kind of long term commitment that fighting the Cold War required the American public needed an ideal which could motivate them.

tried reading Lovecraft, failed to start

What stopped you? Just not your thing? I really dug almost everything I read in the compendium I read back in high school.

maybe by attention span ruined and/or Lovecraft being tedious and boring, as I am being said. Honestly I find reading wikis about Lovecraft more rewarding

Picked up a random short book meant for a teenage audience about the conquest of the Incas. Mainly for language learning purposes but also the subject is just so insane. The “plot” of capture of Atahualpa is so infeasible that it feels like reading a book about the last season of game of thrones.

I just finished Jon Haidt’s The Righteous Mind. I’ve bought three copies and I’m going to try to give them to the right people.

What's the best way for me to upgrade to Windows 11?

I've had my current computer running Windows 8.1 for about 10 years. When Windows 10 came out a bunch of people complained about it and I was happy with what I had so I never upgraded. And no longer being forced to update my computer suddenly and without my permission was really convenient. I've upgraded the actual physical computer itself multiple times, basically ship of Theseusing out parts as they wore out or just got outdated such that at this point I don't think a single component is the same as it was 10 years ago, but when the hard drive got upgraded I cloned it over so I had continuity of experience, and it stayed on Windows 8.1. So most of the actual computer parts right now are two years old and mid to high end, but some are older and cheaper.

Gradually though, the amount of videogames that I can't play because they don't work on Windows 8.1 has increased and become rather inconvenient, so it's probably time to switch. Unfortunately, the time period where I can do that for free has long passed, presumably because they don't want people digging up old decrepit computers in order to recycle the windows keys. And some... nautical attempts at downloading and manually upgrading didn't work, I'm not entirely sure why, but I eventually gave up.

My computer skills are kind of mishmash hacked together by necessity. I did build my own computer myself, but only with a lot of googling, advice from my brother, and suffering. I would very much prefer not to have to learn more command line registry nonsense, but can probably follow step by step instructions if I have to. So I think my best bet is to just buy a new hard drive with Windows 11 installed on it, but I'm not sure. I don't actually want a new computer, I want my computer, but able to play modern games. I would like to keep continuity of experience as much as possible, including if possible all my files and folders, their positions on the desktop, my hundreds of Firefox tabs that I use in lieu of bookmarks. What's the best route for me to take to get my computer upgraded with as little difficulty as possible?

Get a macbook

It’s the year of the Linux desktop though.

The year of the Linux laptop is still a decade away or however long it takes for Ubuntu to not have 1/3rd the battery life as Windows on supposedly supported hardware

I actually did switch from Windows to Linux for my daily driver a few years ago. It's been a very solid choice. But if @MathWizard doesn't feel comfortable installing Windows on his own, I'm guessing Linux is right out for him.

Hard agree. I was a Windows fan since 3.1 and switched to Ubuntu a few months ago. The transition was not smooth. I have spent a lot of time troubleshooting, which I accepted as necessary since the alternatives are either ads in my Windows 11 or getting locked into the overpriced Apple ecosystem. But I would not recommend it for someone who is not technical, especially not for someone who "would very much prefer not to have to learn more command line registry nonsense".

Back your files up to another disk/cloud/whatever, download the win11 installer from Microsoft, stick it on a flash drive, boot from the drive, install win11.

Then download massgravel's Microsoft activation scripts from GitHub, follow the instructions, and you're done.

Very good chance you're just going to have to back up your Firefox tabs to a json file (all the tab manager add-ons have that. Tab session manager is my favorite)
Continuity is nice, but imo a fresh install once in a while is good for clearing out crap.

What I would do is buy a new hard drive and install it, and keep your old hard drive attached as a second disk (if you have the room) or in a drawer, to serve as a backup. Before you shut it down, though, go to https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows11 and choose the option to create Windows 11 installation media. This will let you use a USB thumbdrive to create a Windows 11 boot device. You should be able to then boot off of this USB drive and step through the relatively simple installation wizard to install it on your new hard drive. You should not need a product key at this time; you can activate it later if you want to and you may actually discover that there is a product activation linked to your Microsoft account. If it's not nagging you about activation, you're good to go. And if you don't mind the nagging, you can actually continue to use it this way, albeit some nonfunctional things like customization options are disabled.

Note that if you install Home, you are basically required to log in with a Microsoft Account, and it's difficult to avoid even with Pro. In know plenty of people are ideologically opposed to it, but IMO it's not worth fighting Microsoft over and actually provides some nice benefits (i.e., roaming files, synchronized browser profiles, that kind of thing.)

nautical attempts at downloading

If you're not averse to piracy look at massgravel. It will point you to legit images, simple ways to confirm they're legit, and the activation process is as easy as pasting one short command into the command line and then choosing "activate windows" from the menu that it loads. After that your Windows is authenticated by hardware ID meaning you could if you choose wipe it entirely and reinstall from scratch to eliminate the possibility of third party shenanigans.

Firefox should be fairly easy to backup. Either look for manual instructions or make a Firefox account. If you want to keep tabs you'll have to look for some way of backing up the session.

Copying your files and folders might be a bit more involved unless you've been prepared enough to store them anywhere other than the C: drive. You could simply buy a new HDD to use as the C: and then reassign your current C: as D: to keep all the files unaltered.

I would recommend Windows 10. Windows 11 sucks major ass.

I felt the same way about 8.1 vs 10. But if I go to 10 I'm going to run into the same issue again in half the time.

I cannot find a high-quality digital or audio copy of Henry Kissinger’s senior thesis, The Meaning of History, besides this crappy scan from archive.org.

If no one has one, would there be a market for me transcribing it?

The Internet Archive page also provides an OCR version of the same scan (labeled "PDF with text").

market

Don't forget that this document technically still is under copyright, so in theory you could be prosecuted for infringement, and charging money for the transcription presumably would expose you to even greater penalties.

Thanks! Completely missed that version.

Market was probably the wrong word to use here. I’d transcribe and offer for free via Internet Archive or similar, but I think that would still be infringement. Ah well!

I wouldn’t swear to it, but I think the dissertation is in the public domain. Works published in 1950 (the year Kissinger completed his dissertation) had to be registered and then renewed in the 28th year after publication. I don’t see that work in either the Stanford or U.S. Copyright Office renewal databases. It’s possible he didn’t copyright it to begin with, though you’d need to go through the 1950 and 1951 copyright books on Archive.org to be sure.

I think it is copyrighted. See "Access And Usage Rights" section here: https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/12481060

Long time lurker, first time poster with a general life question here.

My current situation is as follows: I've recently finished graduate school (in social sciences) and landed a research-adjacent position at a large organization. So far I've found myself fitting in quite well in terms of professional skills, but it's been an uphill battle socially.

The problem, to put it bluntly, is that I'm basically a walking stereotype of a weeaboo neckbeard with specific nerdy interests, who was suddenly thrust into a milieu of reasonably high-IQ, well-educated if somewhat snobbish upper-middle class background normies, who are well-versed in highbrow and middlebrow culture, and expect their interlocutors to be at the same level of general cultural awareness. I knew people like these in college and avoided them like the plague (didn't have anything against them, but we didn't exactly jive), however it no longer seems to be an option, as I realize that if I stick with my field, I'll be looking at working alongside people like these for the next 30 years, give or take, and I would prefer for this experience to be more pleasant and not feel like a perpetual outsider. Not to mention that I'd probably need to fit in culturally in order to eventually move up the ladder.

As for my own level of general cultural awareness, it is abysmally low, which makes communication very embarassing at times. I'd be able to discuss at length untranslated Japanese visual novels, Magic the Gathering meta, Super Mario 64 speedrun strats, Nijisanji vtubers or obscure internet trivia, but I managed to walk around God's green Earth for ~30 years without ever having watched Titanic, becoming able to recognize more than two songs from the Beatles or learning a single verse of poetry by heart. I want to fix that, and I'm willing to spend my commutes and several evenings a week on this project, even if the task at hand seems quite daunting. I''ve made peace with the fact that I'll probably never be a literati, but I want to be at least functional in such social settings.

However, because the gaping hole in my knowledge is so massive, I don't even know where to begin. Do I divide things up into subprojects like "Movies", "Music", "Literature", etc. with their own schedules and goals? (E.g. "Movies project – knock out 2 movies from imdb top 250 a week for a year before moving on to more obscure stuff".) Is there a smarter way to go about it?

Not caring and keeping to myself at work is not an option.

tl;dr version: adult nerd with very little cultural knowledge wants to fill in that gap (speedrun it, if possible) and become pleasant enough company in educated upper middle class non-STEM milieu. What would be the best way to achieve that?

I'm sorry brother, you lost me at nijisanji.

But I think you're overthinking this. Most of these people don't want to seriously engage with any of these things in an earnest/autistic way.
You only need to read the spark notes and what the "media literacy" take on Twitter is. For God's sake don't have any original thoughts!

I'm sorry brother, you lost me at nijisanji.

That's fair. If it makes it any better, I mostly watch the JP branch (Shirayuki Tomoe, Yumeoi Kakeru) and steer clear of EN. To be frank, I just don't think HoloJP is all that entertaining due to inherent limitations of what an idol is expected to do and say. Granted, while JP Nijis can generally handle that degree of freedom, in EN it quickly turns into "e-girls with an avatar" shitshow.

Nah, I'm just messing with you. I listen to shondo, marimari underscore EN, pippa and worse, absolutely zero high ground to criticize anyone.

It's hard to quiet the voice in the back of your mind yelling "these are just 2d e-girls, what are you doing?"

I feel like the people you describe tend to fake it a lot. It's almost a cliche, they talk about books a lot but hardly ever actually read them. I doubt they're spending a lot of time listening to classical music or watching art films, either. Unless they're really into it, in which case you're not going to fool them by "speedrunning" it, it's going to be glaringly obvious. But there's enough other people just faking it that you wouldn't really stand out either.

Also:

Nijisanji vtubers

Do you watch the JP branch or are you still watching Kurosanji?

Do you watch the JP branch or are you still watching Kurosanji?

JP-only pretty much. Sometimes I look up what the EN branch is up to, like a rubbernecker stopping to gawk at a train wreck.

People don't care about poetry. Not sure what's best literature-wise. The bible, I assume, would be among the highest value things.

Is sports a thing at all? I'd generally imagine sports, movies, and politics are the easier things to engage in, if you just want things to talk about, but the last of those requires care. I personally like watching (American) football.

Maybe also it might be valuable to try not to come across as an anime nerd, if you're at risk of that.

Yep, I try to hide my power level and pretend to be a plain, inoffensive sort of dude. Sports is not that popular in my circles. The culture at my workplace is, for a lack of better word, quite feminine, and even men tend to balk at "sportsball". Ironically for a nerd, I used to be quite into soccer, but I've fallen out of the habit of watching soccer matches on my days off some 5-7 years ago.

Maybe don't try to force yourself to be "widely cultured", but lean in on specific interests hyperfocus instead. Try to find a thing or three that are not stereotypically low status nerd culture, but also obscure enough that you're not likely to run into anyone else being into this specific thing. Like medieval Chinese painting, Roman poetry or political theology in the Byzantine Empire. Poke around anything older than 50-100 years and then when something looks interesting, just dive all in on the rabbithole of that specific thing. The plan is to come off as more of a foreigner of the same social class, you're not quite versed in the same stuff everyone else is but still giving the roughly correct vibe, rather than an easily pigeonholeable weeb pleb. If you can find some specific thing with good cultural valences you can get yourself to be genuinely interested in, that's going to be a huge force multiplier with actually getting deep enough in the thing for it to do some good.

Thanks, that's genuinely helpful! I generally enjoy reading about history, so I'm sure I'll be able to find something of the sort.

I'd be able to discuss at length [...] Magic the Gathering meta

So, what's your opinion on Nadu?

Haven't been keeping very up to date with competitive MtG lately (I've gotten into Legends of Runeterra last year, which is roughly everything I like about Magic stripped of a lot of the annoying parts), but I generally dislike cards that warp the meta around itself and make you play either decks with it or decks, that reliably beat it. I enjoy diverse metas with a lot of options quite a bit more. While I don't think Nadu is as game-breaking as many people seem to suggest (high T1, maybe T0.5, but nowhere near a true tier 0 like Hogaak), I haven't seen much of it.

Pushed.

The problem, to put it bluntly, is that you want the cool kids to like you and you are worried that they won't.

First of all, I think your endeavor will most likely fail for achieving its intended purpose. There are very few genuine shared cultural touchstones left; most of what served that purpose has long since been deconstructed or gatekept to exclude people they don't want there.

Second, try and seek out other cultural artifacts for the joy of it, not because it will make you more palatable to your colleagues. Passion is obvious to someone who is genuinely observing, and a faker is more cringe than someone who is genuinely ignorant. Read widely. Experience more. Go outside your comfort zone. Look at the things you enjoy and learn about them, not as a consumer, but as a producer, a businessperson, a creator. How is something done and what makes it possible? What are these philosophies, where do they come from, and who and what contexts produced them? What do you get out of it and what can you learn about it?

Third, find scotch people, not bourbon people. Scotch people, especially guys, will be happy to talk at length about what they like and are willing to try and share widely for the joy of it. Bourbon people like their one thing; if there is nothing to be gained from associating with you they will avoid discussing what they like to prevent any chance of them getting less of what they like.

I do not have a high opinion of the "rat community", insofar as it exists, on the internet. However, they are a treasure trove of obscure facts and anecdotes by people who at least attempt, or pretend, to question their own thinking. Read the quality contributions, pay attention when someone with more domain-specific knowledge is sharing their thoughts. There's no shortage of guys willing to talk shit about anything from the Roman Empire to construction projects and zoning laws.

Finally, more importantly than anything else, recognize that your interests and likes are not your identity. People who wear their interests like clothes are are not to be trusted; they are either defined by a company's marketing or a desire to be part of a social group. They are as dust, blown which way the wind takes them.

What makes you think they care about poetry? I can’t remember the last time I came across someone who actually cared about poetry

Might be a difference in the cultural context – I reside in a European country, and the local intelligentsia still cares quite a bit about poetry and literature more broadly. I did hear that the US is pretty different in that regard though.

Because to opine on poetry, specifically as a man, is seen as either insufferably conceited, effete, or both.

One choice retort I had up my sleeve the other day to respond to another Mottizen, was :"You will never be a poet." I thought it was a rather good comeback, but then realized it would probably be taken as a compliment.

I actually gave some thought to this and literally the last person I remember who cared about poetry was an insufferably conceited gay man. So yeah

I'm probably one of those, I'll leave it to the audience to guess which.

First off, I don't think there is any viable way to fake or half-ass this. But it's part of growing up IMO to develop the ability to fit in in multiple different types of social groups. You can learn to fit in with this new crowd, but you'll want to make sure you maintain a group of friends, preferably IRL, that you can talk about the things you actually like and find interesting with.

IME, most people are quite happy to share their sources of cultural references with a less-knowledgeable newbie. So whenever you hear a reference to something you don't know, ask. Not necessarily at the time you hear it, if not appropriate, but later. Then follow up and read, watch, or listen to whatever they suggest. Keep an eye on the things people around you read, watch, listen to, and copy them. If you already have an impression that you ought to know some piece of media, then do it - go ahead and watch Titanic, and get a recording of the top 20 or so Beatles songs and listen to them a dozen or so times. Don't make a big deal about any particular thing, just keep consuming and let it all soak in. This should hopefully provide enough sources of things to consume to occupy all the time you're willing to spend. You'll have to accept that you're not going to be the coolest guy around in this crowd for a while, but that's okay. You're going to have to keep your mouth shut and listen a lot, and often let references you don't get yet just float on by.

If it all feels weird or discouraging, know that you probably aren't the only one doing this, very possibly including in your current work social group. If you're faking it to some extent, you're not the only one.

To speedrun classic literature, go to the library and check out all the Wishbone books. Then if you like a particular story, you can actually read the original. If you don’t like any of them, at least you’ll know the basic plot line and should pick up on most references. For poetry, find an anthology of famous poems (or snag a list from the Internet) and read one or two per day for three months. Odds are you’ll probably find at least some you like. Rudyard Kipling seems to be popular among many rationalist-adjacent folks, so you might start with him. If you find that you really can’t stand any poetry at all, try reading them aloud. A lot of poems are just better that way. You can also usually find good recordings on YouTube. Both James Earl Jones and Christopher Lee have pretty decent recordings of Poe’s The Raven, for example. If there’s a poem you like well enough to memorize, print it out and read it out loud every night before you go to bed. As long as the poem isn’t Paradise Lost or something ridiculously long like that, you should have it memorized in no time. The routine will also probably help you fall asleep easier, in case you happen to have any trouble with that.

For movies, I’d suggest you keep a list of movie references that people around you make, and then just watch those. You should catch up to speed relatively quickly. Don’t watch all the top 100 films of all time or anything like that. Very few people have actually seen all of them, so you’d be wasting a lot of time.

I would guess that music is probably the least referenced, partly because there’s a relatively small number of universally-known songs. Person A might have grown up on the Beatles, but Person B grew up on Frank Sinatra, Person C on ACDC, Person D on Beethoven, and Persons E through G on jazz, hip hop, and pop, respectively. That said, if you have the time and don’t mind the bother, it wouldn’t hurt to listen once or twice to the top ten songs of each decade from 1950 to the present. Songs are short, and you can do it on your commute. If your coworkers are people of fine breeding and good taste, and they listen to classical music, find a Music Appreciation CD set, and just listen to the songs from the Baroque and Romantic periods. A Music Appreciation CD will only play short excerpts from the longer pieces, which should save you some time. Or just find a “Classical music you know but don’t know the name of” video on YouTube. Watch a few of those, while paying attention to who the composers are, and you should be set.

One final piece of advice: visit an art museum or two, if nothing else to say that you’ve been. New York, D.C., Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and other major cities have good collections. Pick whichever one is closest to you, spend a day there, and memorize the names and artists’ names of two or three pieces that you particularly like. Then if the subject ever comes up, you can add your two cents and raise your cultural standing.

Titanic, Beatles, poetry

They probably don’t care that you don’t know about these things.

You’re probably imagining that this is a bigger deal than it actually is.

Figure out what sources of media they consume daily and try to follow the same sources. If they get their information from social media find some of the people they follow, or what podcasts they listen to. Eventually, you will pick up on the some of the common references/background culture. I find most people are highly likely to be interested in currently trending events. If they reference an older piece of culture it is often somehow connected to a current event.

I will caution you that trying to force yourself to fit into social settings in this manner may lead to burnout and mental health problems. If you learn to enjoy doing it than that is great, but if it feels like a forced social performance that you hate doing then it may cause problems in the future.

Another option that might be available to you is telling people that you suspect that you are on the autism spectrum/neurodivergent. This may lower what they expect of you in social situations. It shifts the framing from you are having trouble fitting in because you haven’t put in sufficient effort to you are having trouble fitting because the neurotypical norms cause you mental distress/burdens/anxiety and your disability prevents you from substantially changing this.

People are usually accommodating and don’t ask a lot of follow-up questions. If they do just being familiar with autistic masking, autistic burnout, and special interests will probably be sufficient to answer any questions they have.

I don't think people so much react badly to alternative upbringings and backgrounds, as they do to attempts to "speedrun" their culture. Consider participating some events -- a concert, a hike, whatever kind of thing your colleagues seem to enjoy.

It's useful to read some stuff (for historical things, I recommend the Saint John's Reading List), listen to some stuff, subscribe to the New Yorker or something -- but most especially, it's useful to be genuinely interested, ask questions, and follow up on those questions by actually engaging with the cultural artifacts presented.

If someone enjoys the Beetles, they would probably be pleased if you listen to some albums on your commute, and come back with "I listened to some albums, and enjoyed [this song, or this quality]." Or even "I listened to some albums, and don't really get it, could you help me understand the appeal?" This is an opening for them to share something they like, which people enjoy doing. They would likely not be very happy if you listened to an audiobook about The Beetles Phenomenon, and proceeded to act like a know it all about it. If they are a woman, "mansplaining" might enter their mind at some point.

I'd be able to discuss at length untranslated Japanese visual novels, Magic the Gathering meta, Super Mario 64 speedrun strats, Nijisanji vtubers

Conversely, this description of your own interests presents, to an outsider, a brick wall, erected to keep them out, and perhaps a bit of embarrassment about what's inside. I assume this isn't actually how you describe your interests to your colleagues? This is actually how my brother describes his interests, and so I still have no idea what he's talking about most of the time, despite decades of polite questioning. This is bad.

I have some history and linguistic nerd friends, some of whom are more socially successful than others. The key is to focus on the relatable human side of things, not the deep rabbit hole side of things. This is why people who are not especially nerdy love things like the Inklings, or the bits of Kabalah in Unsung. There are probably things there that your colleagues would find interesting if they were presented as an interesting story you heard, or some bit of linguistics that's kind of neat.

There is something to be said for doing this the old fashioned way and reading a newspaper (say the WSJ, which is pretty centrist) cover-to-cover a couple times a week. This will include regular and business news, politics, opinions you can just steal, TV, movies, style, books, restaurant reviews, some general interest fluff articles on trends in social media, cooking, tech, real estate, language that people around you use etc. Sure, you’ll get the perspective of boomers on all these things, but if nothing else it’s a good place to start and you can start recognizing some of the names, ideas, products, whatever that people are talking about.

Yeah, the WSJ has a pretty good handle on the pulse of what upper-middle class people talk about, and provides sufficiently detailed generally non-offensive takes that you can pass for knowing at least something about topics when they come up in conversation. There was a time for me where easily 9/10 topics that came up in a weekly happy hour with work people were already discussed in that weeks Journal.

Their credulity when it came to the Max Deutsch v. Magnus Carlsen chess match significantly diminished how seriously I take their analysis, but you will at least have some idea of what people are talking about if you keep up with it.

Not caring and keeping to myself at work is not an option.

Amateur.

if I stick with my field, I'll be looking at working alongside people like these for the next 30 years, give or take

You could just work for significantly less than thirty years, rather than committing suicide by three decades of torture. If you're in the US, the federal Consumer Expenditure Survey can serve as a guide for budgeting. Just use the "cross-tabulated: size of consumer unit by income before taxes: one person: less than $15,000" column, and adjust for inflation and your actual expenses.

Not sure that is the best route for you.

I've seen this a thousand times and it's (almost)never about lacking specific knowledge about popular culture, the issue is that you think this is the issue. You're trying to engage in these subjects like a nerd would discussing his nerdy interests. People generally don't want to talk like that even about the things they are interested in.

What you need to do is learn how to engage in small talk, not study popular culture like there's an exam coming.

I honestly feel like theres something to be said for the old "did you see that ludicrous display last night?" strategy. I've also heard of, but never been able to find, old Victorian books that gave a surface level knowledge of many things - just enough to be involved in a conversation, but not a deep knowledge of anything (kind of like reading the first paragraph of a ton of wikipedia articles).

I suppose, but for that you just read the morning newspaper.

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