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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   4449 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 19, 2023

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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Hmm. Let me say something about my reasoning.

When I was 11, I feared [redacted] happening to me - a fate which most of you on the Motte would agree is a terrible one. I believed that skill at public speaking and rhetoric could reduce my odds of suffering this fate, so I practiced diligently in front of a mirror. I did this for a few years.

I was never nervous about any presentation I ever gave after that. Why would I be? Blow a school presentation, and what's the worst that happens? I get a C? If I'm really unlucky, a fistfight with some asshole bully that's probably going to leave no more than bruises? Laughable. I also became an excellent public speaker - better than say 99 percent of high school or college students. Any time there was a speech or presentation that needed to be given, my classmates and the faculty would agree that I was the best in say my classroom of 25, and by a pretty decent margin.

I had just been training in earnest for a goddamn rhetoric Hock, and it had benefits in other areas - such as being genuinely confident and unafraid when presenting and public speaking. Also it made me a decent if overwrought writer. Why fear being rejected or making a fool of yourself, when you've just stared death by avalanche or hypothermia or wild animals in the face day after day?

As far as frivolity: that is the point. The Hock is just pointless Twitter drama writ large and played out in the Alaskan wilderness.

I do have a question for you - have you ever survived any kind of life and death shit like war or something like that? I haven't, and I'm sorry if the question is offensive. If it is, it's probably offensive for its trite meaninglessness and dumbass attempt to ask about shit that you have to be there to know anything about.

Why fear being rejected or making a fool of yourself, when you've just stared death by avalanche or hypothermia or wild animals in the face day after day?

Because it won't make you fearless, it will make you resentful that it didn't work.

Notice in your "presentation Hock" comparison, the thing that made you not fear public speaking was practicing for public speaking? There is no analogy skill transfer between wilderness survival -> improving social awkwardness. You are comparing practicing something that directly improves the thing it applies to, to doing something completely unrelated in hopes that it will reframe you into being better at it. IT WON'T WORK the way you are hoping.

I do beleive that if you went and worked as a mission in a 3rd world scenario, surrounded by others, it would, in fact improve your socialization.

The Hock is just pointless Twitter drama writ large and played out in the Alaskan wilderness.

So three days into your Twitter drama you get yourself killed and your remains are not found until the summer thaw, if ever. If you are the only person in your world, that's fine. But if you have family or any one else involved with you, be that work or life, it's shitty for them.

What's [redacted]?

I do have a question for you - have you ever survived any kind of life and death shit like war or something like that?

I dunno about the guy you’re replying to, but I have and I agree with him. You can read the rest of my advice in replies to your ‘hock’ posting.

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