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Small-Scale Question Sunday for December 8, 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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Derry Girls is very up and down, but the thing I think it does well is juxtapose mundane concerns with the things we get used to (soldiers searching school buses, having to cross armed checkpoints just to go to the other side of town, paramilitaries stealing cars etc, with the sometimes shocking, large bombs, shootings of someone you know etc.

I have a very vivid memory of going about my day as a kid, maybe 11 or 12 and coming home to my uncle and parents having very hushed conversations while watching the news, where a large bombing had taken place in Belfast. Then 10 minutes later i was out playing kerby with my friends. Just the things you can get used to.

Now I live in the US I am not particularly worried their Culture War will go hot. Up until recently i lived in a rural very Red town. Yet I work in academia, so almost all my colleagues are Blue. When I had bbqs or parties and those worlds collided, there was no boom. As different as they are, they are (from the pov of this outsider at least) no where near as opposed as back home. Indeed even very blue progressives are often more patriotic and God fearing than Conservatives in the UK.

I think social media and the like makes it look much worse than it is.