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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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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.