site banner
PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   4207 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for January 12, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

2
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Years ago I remember reading a copypasta from some guy purporting to be a defense attorney. He argued that the black defendants he represented were dumber across the board than the white or Hispanic ones, and made idiotic mistakes like showing up to court in a hoodie emblazoned with the weed symbol when they're defending themselves against a possession charge.

Does anyone have a link to this copypasta? I'm not interested in whether it's true or not, I just found the way it was written amusing.

Found the source.

"Often it takes a whole team of lawyers to persuade a black to wear a shirt and tie instead of gang colors"

https://www.amren.com/features/2014/05/confessions-of-a-public-defender/

That's the one, thanks so much!

You're welcome. On rereading it, did you still think it was funny? To me it read like a kind of Amren/Unz Deep Pessimism.

I mean Leonardo of Biz videos can be funny (especially if you know the esoteric lore) but mostly they're just disturbing.

At one time our office was looking for a motto that defined our philosophy. Someone joked that it should be: “Doesn’t everyone deserve an eleventh chance?”

Hilarious.

Where do you live?

I hope that you make it soon, we need more Americans who love the place.

Looking to go on a four day vacation in February with small kids (in the states with a focus on east coast). Any suggestions?

What part pf the east coast? The stretch between Miami and Bangor encompasses a lot of territory.

I’m in NJ but happy to take a short flight or slightly long drive

The first week and a half of February is a low-crowd low-heat time at Disney World, if that's the sort of thing your kids and your budget would be happy with. ("Never go to Disney World" is also a reasonable plan, of course, but if you ever intend to go at all, the time to do it is when your kids aren't old enough to want more thrilling rides or be apathetic about the character actors or constrain your schedule to crowded school-break weeks)

I’m a sucker for my kids so we’ve made a few trips to the house of Mouse. Could’ve used the amount spent to buy a nice car….but we did have a great time.

We enjoyed visiting Florida with kids. Crystal River, the Everglades, and the Keys (but not Key West, aside from an old fort turned botanical garden. Too crowded to navigate with kids and elderly). We rented a house with kayaks in Crystal River at a very reasonable rate, and kayaked down the canals to the warm springs and manatees (best done in the winter for manatee sightings; it sees like February would still have them).

Huntsville especially if any of the kids are starting to get into space.

DC if you can push to Cherry Blossom season (varies but often March) and you think they'd enjoy more museums than just the Children's museum.

South Florida/South Texas if you want beach/swim weather.

I spent two hours researching into alternative charging options for my laptop only to conclude that what I had was satisfactory. It felt like a bad waste of time. I'm curious how often everyone here encounters this sort of inefficient time use.

What happened: My laptop has a standard power brick. But lugging it around all the time has made me think of potentially lightening the load. I already carry a USB-C wall charger in my bag for phones and other accessories, though it's 60W, which is about half the wattage of my laptop charger. I therefore conducted a comprehensive research across blog articles, Reddit, YouTube reviews, ChatGPT, and laptop manufacturers in order to establish:

-Safety risks of using a charger with lower wattage -Refresher on watts vs volts vs amps, etc. -The current status of GaN chargers, the standard wattage for modern laptops, and how high of W I should go for future-proofing if I buy a new laptop in near future -The need to order 5A charging cords rather than the more common 3A for "fast charging", but the trade-off being the cord is slower for data transfers -Amazon product reviews & price history search -Some other relevant stuff I can't recall

In the end, I tested out my laptop with my existing USB-C charger, and while it's not beefy enough to charge during heavy use, it's more than fine charging while my laptop's off or slow down battery drain while in use. So I closed all the shopping and research tabs and went back to work.

It's not like I have 30 days left to live and every minute counted double. Still, I can't help feeling silly and want to admonish myself to try to be more thoughtful in the future, for instance by testing out my existing USB-C charger immediately after verifying that it's safe to use on laptops, something that takes like 5 minutes. I'm not really looking for words of affirmation from this community about how maybe I learned something or how everyone can use leisure. Instead, I'm curious--how many hours can you recall having wasted executing something thanks to bad planning/strategy, say in the last month?

I had a similar experience recently (as in like, yesterday) trying to get decent cycling shoes. The ones I purchased cold off the internet hurt my feet.

I probably invested 3-4 hours in internet research, another 2 hours calling various bicycle stores, measuring my feet, or trying on shoes, going back and forth on what to get to try and avoid the most expensive option that seemed the likeliest to work.

Ended up pulling the trigger by recognizing I need these things in and on my feet for at least a month prior to the event they're for anyway and got the expensive option I could have just started with.

Incredibly frustrating.

I have to say this was a rare outlier. Normally my stupid rabbit hole efforts are limited to around 2 hours.

I guess part of my motivation had been to discover some delightful solution that improves my life beyond my existing solution / baseline. The problem is delightful solutions are supposed to be uncommon for a well-functioning adult. So the one time that the 2 hour long research pays off handsomely reinforces a craving to invest in additional 2 hour long searches of another high, which inevitably disappoints the majority of the time.

In your case, I'd guess the high is the ability to find a cheap but excellent solution. The feeling of saving money thanks to resourcefulness is often intoxicating.

I've started a "quick" project to apply some basic maintenance to my bike. Just enough to get it up to acceptable standards and out of its decline into neglect. In the process of changing the balding tyre for a new one I discovered one wheel is not only a little wobbly and malformed (whatever, lol) but also cracked. I'm not an expert but I assume that a cracked metal wheel is a significant hazard and demands replacement. So I started looking for a replacement. Long story short what I learnt is that bicycle standards are all over the place (apparently 1.75 and 1 3/4 aren't the same - who decided to cross the streams by decimalising imperial measurements anyway?!) and that the first cheap one I'd seen really was a suitable replacement and not the potential risk of a wasted purchase/return/repurchase I was worried it might be.

I don't know how many hours I've wasted (it was more than two), or whether they really count as wasted, but I know that a 1 day job won't approach being finished until next week when I finally collect the new wheel that I had no idea I needed to order. Such is the work of being a jack of all trades. I could have handed it to a bike mechanic, had it fixed the same day and eaten the bill but by that logic I could just take taxis everywhere.

This isn't fun, more wellness, but I am going to abuse the immense power invested in me by virtue of being an admin and post here anyway.

How do I become more independent?

I speak in a very general sense. For an Indian kid, your life is set out on rails by your parents till high school, at which point your intelligence and diligence will determine what career you land, your college further constraining your options, until you end up in a life that proceeds with getting promoted, married, kids, and then dead.

But I am a homebody. It reflects on how deeply I hate the circumstances of my life that I am willing to throw so much away to leave it all behind. My parents, who I couldn't ask more of (other than having gotten my ADHD treated when I had begged them to), my dogs, my comfortable house and ailing grandpa, with whom every year apart is a non-negligible chance I'll never see him again.

But I lack drive. Curiosity? Yes. Intelligence? A quite decent level of it, if not world shattering. But so far my life has been railroaded along, with my only real choices being to either study hard or not, at least till the end of med school. I did take charge once, brushed myself into shape, proved, both to the GMC and to myself that I am a competent doctor. Or at least I did that as the first of many more times to come.

And now I feel adrfit. I can't go the country I wish to dwell in more than my own, that forms the earliest childhood memories of mine (unless I join the other illegal immigrants headed to El Salvador), I am forced to confront a mediocre life in a country that is in visible decline, hoping it beats the comforts of home (and the horrors of postgraduate training here).

I see people doing things out of sheer tenacity and drive, whereas I've mostly done things because I had to, or because I find the default path unbearable.

I don't want to live alone. It seems overwhelming. I don't want a job that saps me of all my energy and interest in doing anything else, let alone doing that while giving yet more exams.

I feel, for the lack of a better word, broken. I was moderately depressed, a feeling kept at bay through overwork and stimulant consumption in the hopes I'd achieve a brighter future, but they're dimming the lights as I speak. Shutting doors ahead of me as soon as I stepped through the ones behind.

If you think the stimulants help with that? A little, I guess. I wouldn't have made it through med school or all the exams since without them. But it doesn't solve the problem I see of being entirely unmoored, and I am not quite ready to resign myself to this life. Ritalin does not make what I've spoken of seem any less daunting. And the anti-depressants didn't work in the first place, and I tried a bunch of them.

I want the energy to explore alternatives. I want a job that pays well and treats me like I'm a skilled professional. I want to run a house without feeling overwhelmed and letting it go to rot. I want to be a father, and a good one, an even better one than my dad was to me, because he sacrificed his life outside medicine to give me the option of choice later.

If anyone has any advice, please share. My tether, while not quite fraying, gets ever tauter. I want executive function god fucking dammit, and nothing has helped. I just want something to look forward to, a route to a world where I can be, if not happy, content.

This isn't fun, more wellness, but I am going to abuse the immense power invested in me by virtue of being an admin and post here anyway.

I'm not sure it makes sense that people are much less likely to post something Fun on Tuesday or a Small Scale Question on Thursday. Maybe the current system serves a function by making people actively try to come up with things based on the prompt of fun / wellness / question and they'd post less in a 'general weekly whatever thread'? Maybe we should just stop using the reddit post system for what are essentially permanent threads? idk.

It really doesn't matter at all, people post whatever they like in the non-cwr thread and the mods don't care, I've done it before I was a mod.

At most, it's more like a mild suggestion/prompt, but I prefer to use a fresher thread with more eyeballs on it if it is not obviously the wrong one.

My suggestion? Choose violence.

There’s almost nothing more empowering than learning how to turn your body into a weapon, pick a martial art and start learning it, join a training gym and get good enough to spar on a regular basis. Nothing fancy, I recommend good old western boxing to start.

“b-but MaximumCuddles, I’m a lover not a fighter / I’m gentle at heart / I don’t like fighting / blah blah blah”

Good news! If you’re an adult man*, you’re almost certainly wrong about yourself. You come from a long line of sex-havers of which some portion had to resort, sometimes multiple times, to extreme violence to live long enough to bust a nut. It’s quite literally in your blood.

So, you want to feel empowered? You can quite directly empower yourself physically, with time and luck the mind will likely follow.

You want to feel driven? Avoidance of pain and the pleasures of adrenaline, physical power and mastery are incredible motivators. It’s very easy to motivate yourself not to get punched in the face.

It’s important to remember that you are, in fact, still a wild animal and that all the guardrails you perceive aren’t actually real. And, more importantly that your body means something, it’s just through the modern way of life that most people have forgotten why they have a body at all. Nothing brings it back into clear focus like violent physical struggle.

I saw somewhere else a suggestion of travel while slumming to drum up that feeling of total freedom, and while it’s not a bad idea, the discipline and pleasure of building a physical skill that strengthens your body far outstrips the quintessential “backpacking through Europe to like, find yourself man”.

That guy who hung around here who is probably dead in the Alaskan wilderness wasn’t wrong, he was dead right about needing physical struggle to have a full life and get laid on the regular. He just went way to far, it’s pretty easy to toughen yourself up, you just need regular access to mock battle with real, but mild consequences.

So what are you waiting for? Chop chop! Blood for the blood god!

*(If you’re adult woman, also good news, you’re probably wrong about yourself as well. It’s just not likely as cut and dried.)

Ps- I say this as someone who has fully diagnosed ADHD out the ass and dropped the stimmies a long time ago, and my life is pretty good! So I feel like we have an overlap of experience.

I have an intuitive sense that this isn't true - that doing BJJ won't make him work harder at being a doctor. Going through a list of people I know and whether or not they do combat sports, those that do combat sports don't seem to be much more 'agentic', 'driven', or 'accomplished' in other areas of life. Obviously there are a bunch of directions the causation could go in and selection effects or confounders, but still.

Well, if you define the success state of simply being a better doctor than this won’t help directly.

But it sounds from the OP that they are suffering from more general spiritual/psychological malaise, and I know from personal experience that strong & consistent physical training in pursuit of a series of difficult yet achievable goals does wonders to keep the mind sharp and the darkness at bay.

Really the point is that I’ve found the greatest counterbalance to depression is feeling goal oriented and physically empowered, and learning and practicing an aggressive combat sport is just one of the most extreme yet mundane examples of that.

Plus with ADHD brain, the sedentary modern world is a double enemy as we’re akin to hunters in a world made for farmers.

A physical discipline that requires full mind-body activation for extended periods of time acts as a powerful tonic to lift the spirits. Doesn’t have to be fighting, it’s just the thing that is the most direct path from A to B.

Downhill skiing, mountain biking, trail running, Olympic wrestling, judo, mountain climbing, are all activities that could possibly scratch the same itch.

There’s a reason it’s a known archetype for high powered businessmen or other such high achievers under a ton of stress to lean into stuff like this (or the yin to the yang, meditation.) It works and really takes the edge off.

I do technically have a yellow belt in Karate, so I'm something of a martial artist myself 🙏

(What a fucking meme martial art, I don't understand why it was so hyped up in the 90s and early 2000s, even in India)

Then again, I haven't thrown a punch in anger in about 10 years, I'm lucky enough to be a Big Guy (for you, and my BMI, though that has indeed has dropped from stress and bad life decisions), so I haven't needed to.

You know, while not quite the same thing as what you suggested, one of the many reasons I wanted to go to the US was because of gun ownership. As in, let's fucking go, I fucking love guns, let me pimp out an AR-15 please please please. I want a service length silencer that both resembles and exceeds my chode, I want an LPVO with all the cool dials, an EO-Tech if I'm rich, a Holosun if I'm broke, tactical lasers with all the fun pressure pads. NVGs so my 10 year old self can feel good about his life, the list goes on

Punching people in the face is a bit old fashioned for my taste, I'd rather shoot them. All a LARP, of course, I'd very much rather not have to shoot someone unless I absolutely have to (and I'm sure you agree with the same in your hobby). But yes, I do agree with you that I would much rather be a pacifist than harmless, though I would wager I am already not as bad as the latter.

Blood for the blood god!

Skulls for the Skull Throne!

Milk for the Khorne Flakes!

Well, I'm sure the neuro surgeons are ticked off that a mere wannabe psychiatrist has anything to say about skulls, but the orthopeds? They're all about the milk baby, let it flow.

*(If you’re adult woman, also good news, you’re probably wrong about yourself as well. It’s just not likely as cut and dried.)

If I thought I was an adult woman, there's no "probably" about the there haha. I would disagree that cutting and drying the relevant genitalia would suffice.

Ps- I say this as someone who has fully diagnosed ADHD out the ass and dropped the stimmies a long time ago, and my life is pretty good! So I feel like we have an overlap of experience.

Good to hear from someone doing better. I don't think all of my problems arise from just my AHDH, it's likely it, in combination with my depression, that holds me back. I only take my ADHD meds when I need to something as unpleasant as learn medicine, which is a sad necessity for a doctor. But I do get by otherwise.

At any rate, I appreciate the advice! The quality of martial arts educations is crap in India, but I'm sure, if I end up in Britain, there must be something within the limits of acceptability. Or at least lots of bar fights haha.

(What a fucking meme martial art, I don't understand why it was so hyped up in the 90s and early 2000s, even in India)

That has to do with US-Japan relations and immigration laws. Basically Karate movies got some traction in the 70s and a bunch of aikido teachers moved to LA to open schools.

Hollywood has a lot of influence.

I don't know what the gun laws are in India, but I appreciate your lust for our gun laws. They're pretty cool. That being said, you can own some guns in the UK. I know shotguns are pretty easy to get, and I think you can convince the government to let you have a .22 for target shooting. It's not as bad as a lot of countries that will let you have nothing at all, save for airsoft.

I wish I had some advice for you on your doctor thing. Becoming a doctor is a lot of work and it's extremely hard to justify throwing away so many years after you don't like it/it doesn't get you where you want to go. I would wonder if you could maybe get citizenship in the UK as a doctor for some years and then work on transitioning to something else. Getting citizenship in the US would probably be easier from the UK, as well.

My man, I am the most Patriotic American who is technically not an American.

Just look at some of the things I've written, without a shred of irony:

https://old.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/s/wU84Yxg320

Or if you want the version on the Motte:

https://www.themotte.org/post/565/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/116844?context=8#context

I would wonder if you could maybe get citizenship in the UK as a doctor for some years and then work on transitioning to something else. Getting citizenship in the US would probably be easier from the UK, as well.

It is indeed easier for a British citizen to become American than and Indian to do directly, but even then it'll take me 6 years to become a Brit, and my ability to become an American citizen is contingent on my ability to find a job that'll hire me.

As I've been moaning about, I cannot legally work as a doctor in the US, or even sit the exams to prove my competency. Not even if I meet the British standards or complete their courses. The problem is at the root. As for switching careers? While I'm not old, I'm approaching 30, certainly wrong side of my 20s. Finding an entirely new career is enormously risky, all the more because I expect every career to start getting the squeeze soon enough.

That being said, you can own some guns in the UK. I know shotguns are pretty easy to get, and I think you can convince the government to let you have a .22 for target shooting. It's not as bad as a lot of countries that will let you have nothing at all, save for airsoft.

See, I am an unabashed tacticool milsim LARPer. If it's not a tricked out rifle in 5.56, 7.62x51, or ideally something like 6.8x51, when that's more available, I don't want it. Just a shotgun fit for partridge or a plinker to keep foxes at bay doesn't cut it.

As I told someone else who made a similar suggestion it's like telling someone who is a muscle car fanatic that he should be happy with a Japanese micro car. It's got 4 wheels and takes you from place to place doesn't it? Though I'm sure you understand my objection far better than she ever could.

Yeah, I totally get it. And I like your writeup. I guess I am surprised there exist women in India that hold basically the same views as a progressive American college student. Personally I live in a ban state right now (Illinois's PICA went into effect January 1st) so I'm trying to learn to appreciate the other stuff. No restrictions on (pump) shotguns, bolt actions, SKSes without detachable mags, pistols without threaded barrels or magazine capacity over 15 rounds, etc, etc. I hope you figure something out. I'd help you get here if I could, way better to have someone like you that actually likes the country than the throngs of suburbanites who hate it.

Alternatively, see if you can get into the Czech Republic. I'm sure it has a lot of the same downsides most of Europe has, but at least they share our gun culture.

I appreciate the kind words and well wishes. It does mean a lot to me, that many individuals Americans appreciate my genuine love for their country, and would happily have me there, if it wasn't for minor procedural fuckups and regulations keeping me away.

I guess I am surprised there exist women in India that hold basically the same views as a progressive American college student

If this was a Civilization game, America won the Cultural Victory decades back. I hold incredibly American views. So does she, it just happens to be that many Americans hold anti-American views.

Personally I live in a ban state right now (Illinois's PICA went into effect January 1st) so I'm trying to learn to appreciate the other stuff. No restrictions on shotguns, bolt actions, SKSes without detachable mags, pistols without threaded barrels or magazine capacity over 15 rounds, etc, etc.

What in the absolute fuck. That sound even worse than Cali, and their abominations. I hope it gets repealed, and soon.

Alternatively, see if you can get into the Czech Republic. I'm sure it has a lot of the same downsides most of Europe has, but at least they share our gun culture.

Nobody ever suggested that to me, so I'd have to look it up. Gun laws are hardly the only consideration, they'd need to have decent wages and ideally let me work in English. But I appreciate the suggestion and I'll be sure to take a look!

I'm going to suggest the most basic-bitch thing I can think of: Travel, on your own, for like 2 months straight on a threadbare budget. Have you done this before?

Nothing else will prove more effectively to you that the rails are imaginary. You don't have to live here, and work in this career, and marry her, and have x kids, collecting y salary. Nothing is actually stopping you, short of having enough food to drink and water to eat every day.

This youtube movie is incredibly precious but has great cinematography and shows you what I mean. You may not be nearly the rolling-exoskeleton fanatic I am, but also tries to get that point across. The first step to independence is reminding yourself that the freedom exists and is there for the taking.

I say this all as a person very much living out the script. I go camping 3 weekends a year and cause my body controlled pain through endurance sports to stay sane. The script is great, most the time, but you should figure out what parts of you actually want to keep.

I appreciate the advice, though I'm not sure it's for me.

I never really got the appeal of traveling, or at least I'm largely ambivalent on undirected wandering of the nature you're suggesting. I used to be against even going on vacation, but a few years of being an actual worker did teach me to appreciate the benefits of kicking back at a beach and sipping a drink.

Travel, on your own, for like 2 months straight on a threadbare budget. Have you done this before?

Not really, the very idea stresses me out! I'm not kidding when I say I'm a homebody, if I didn't have friends or a girlfriend who insisted on occasionally asking me to go places, I would be perfectly content to stay indoors indefinitely.

I very much enjoyed my family trip to Thailand, quite possibly one of the last I'll have before emigration or professional commitments make it impossible, but while I could more or less afford to do something like a backpack trip solo (or at least in India itself), it really isn't appealing.

If I burn out completely, I'll quit my job and pester my family to visit some other place, and probably feel a lot better for it.

Nothing else will prove more effectively to you that the rails are imaginary. You don't have to live here, and work in this career, and marry her, and have x kids, collecting y salary. Nothing is actually stopping you, short of having enough food to drink and water to eat every day.

I mean, I do understand all of that. If all I want to do is eat, drink and find shelter, I could work indefinitely at the same level I am right now, in India, and coast through till I die.

I would very much prefer not to. My general laziness and risk aversion is only being overruled because I very much am gravely concerned about my future financial and physical wellbeing. I think my job is doomed (then again that's the case for almost everyone). I think India is ripe for deep unrest or even a breakdown (I can't give anything but deeply subjective probabilities, but I think the risk is unacceptable). I see either becoming the citizen of a wealthy First World country (whether the UK counts becomes more dubious by the day) a necessity solely for the small degree of security that provides.

Basically, everything I've done for the past 2 or 3 years is because the sheer stress and panic I feel about the future outweighs my preference to do nothing at all. My family is well off by Indian standards, even if hardly uber rich. I could mooch off my parents, marry someone arranged for me, those are all options.

They happen to be options I reject, in a relatively considered manner, after weighing the pros and cons.

Stress is not inherently bad, or else humans wouldn't have evolved to have it. It constitutes a sign of potentially real danger, even if in excess it is obviously detrimental. Stress and fear has motivated me to do quite a lot, to do much of anything at all, given that I am absolutely not the typical Type A personality you'd expect from a doctor.

My career is probably the best I can opt for, given my personality and talents. I am not bad at it. I even considered switching, moving into SWE or even ML, but the fact that I'm Indian, and the ongoing layoffs and general tightening of visa restrictions, means that I decided it was probably a bad idea. Too much competition, too little time, for increasingly uncertain dividends. What could be better for me? I want money, both for what it provides and some degree of security. I want not to waste what I feel is very limited time to earn some before I become obsolete.

I want to marry and have kids, and raise them well, and be a good dad and provider. You can see that my opinions are heterodox enough that if I didn't want to, I'd buck it like any of the other societal defaults I reject.

It is possible that I am caged by my own expectations, but I hold a knife to my back because it motivates me to keep on moving forward.

I wish it were otherwise. I wish I didn't have ADHD or depression, though I have never known anything else. I wish I was more self-directed, but at least I know I am doing something proactive to fix things. It might make me more unhappy in the moment, but happiness is not my only terminal goal, and I reject something along the lines of Buddhist desires to liberate one's self from desire or expectations.

My post was a plea for help, but if nothing else, my profession tells me that not all pleas are answered or help forthcoming. I'll just try and keep on rolling till the wheels fall off.

Nonetheless, thank you for your suggestion, if all else fails, I'm sure it couldn't hurt, if only to let me decompress for a bit. I have my exam in about 36 hours so no time to watch the video (not that I should be here at all), but I will promise to watch it as the least I can do after you went to the trouble of making a suggestion you consider in my best interests.

If you'll forgive a little prod here - the advice could be considered generic. In many ways it is. But I think it's a better fit than you may be seeing. Your prompt:

How do I become more independent?

Quite simply, you must untether yourself from support and get practice at surviving and thriving when in that position. There are several ways to skin this cat, but all of them will bump up against your nature as a homebody.

Solo travel will accomplish this in several ways. You'll be forced to appreciate the social connections you do have right now, close at hand, once you have far fewer. Once you find your level of actual need and want for these connections, you'll also be forced to develop them, a valuable skill. Perhaps most importantly, you don't have to exclusively travel via primitive camping and just a backpack's worth of supplies, though a stint doing so is advised. You'll be able to find places where you can find a job that treats you like a professional, run your household the way you see fit, and find a reasonable alternative to staying in India.

The consequences of following through on this plan include delaying marriage and family by some amount, spending resources faster than they can be replenished, and the potential that your viewpoint on your life as it stands today could become more negative. You'll also face a very difficult decision with your romantic relationship.

My only qualifications to provide life advice are twofold: I've uprooted myself twice to positive results, and I have friends who are the older version of you (down to some surprising details). I'm, of course, making some assumptions about your ability to solve problems and speak to people over the vast gulf of textual internet communication. If they're reasonably accurate, though, I believe you could do this successfully.

It might hearten you to know that I just traveled for the first time entirely solo to the other end of the country and made it back intact. Not quite literally the only time I've traveled alone, but certainly it involved figuring out quite a bit on my lonesome for several days with nobody to hold my hand if I ended up fucked in a city where I knew nobody and barely spoke the language.

It wasn't nearly as scary as I thought, and that makes me more positively predisposed to take t your advice, even if this was business more than pleasure.

In terms of finding a job and doing something, the main issue is visas. Westerners, especially Americans, really take for granted being able to do largely whatever they want, wherever and whenever they want. And medicine is a heavily regulated profession, almost uniquely difficult to just wing it. If you have suggestions for the kind of thing I could do to pay my way, I'm not averse to hearing it!

But I have leaned more towards the idea of just fucking off somewhere for a bit, more than I was inclined before toh suggested it, so I am thankful for you taking the time to help me!

I'm in a fairly similar boat. I honestly feel like I have so little drive, desire, or passion for anything. The only thing I care about in my life I'm terrible at.

I would say I am quite good at my passions, but they don't happen to be particularly lucrative ones. Most people don't make a notable amount of money from writing, even online.

It is a shit state to be in, the world is very much built by driven type As, we're squeezing by.

  • I can't go the country I wish to dwell in more than my own

Are there any other countries you can go to that, even if they're not your first choice of the US, are still better than your current option?

See, the same reason that I can't go to the US also locks me out of Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

It boils down to a single US company/non-profit that accreditates international med schools. Mine happens to meet the legal requirements for India, namely being recognized by our national regulator, but they skimped out on this one, since barring me and a handful of others, few of the previous graduates had any aspirations for going abroad, and those that did chose the UK. This was something I wasn't aware of when I joined, or I'd have dropped a year and tried for someplace better.

So imagine my gut-wrenching horror, years down the line, when I discover I'm locked out of the States, with no recourse short of the med school getting certified, and retroactively too to cover my batch. Which might still be possible. I consoled myself by thinking surely the UK can't be that bad right? But the more I learn about it, including from interacting with the locals, the lower my opinion of it goes.

In terms of alternatives, well, there's Germany and Hong Kong, maybe a few other weird places. None I wish to live in, for one reason or another.

At any rate, the UK still holds some pointless and misplaced sense of pride about its place on the world stage, hence them ignoring that US organization for the large part, even if they're used to verify the credentials of applicants. So that does so far seem the best option.

There might be some places like the Middle East, but I would despise living there, and I need to get more credentials under my belt before it's worth the effort.

What are the reasons you don't want to live in other european countries? While I'm not terribly happy with the direction of the EU or my home country, they do seem clearly preferable compared to the UK. Especially most of north europe has some in my opinion critical perks:

  • Parental money is pretty good, so having a family is quite easy
  • (medical) doctor income is pretty good in several of them AFAIK
  • objectively much better building standards
  • a bit more subjective, but just visibly not in as much decay; London - and even moreso the few smaller cities I visited - just outright disgusted me at times at how it looks and feels like a third world country. Run-down buildings with smashed windows, barbed wires around the nicer places, cars that are scratched all over, non-capital crimes go de-facto mostly unenforced, streets with mounts of trash and the occasional literal human shit, erratic junkies on most trains and busses. Fairly blatant antisocial behaviour is also quite normalised.
  • Food quality is imo also better, but admittedly a non-european may see it differently

I visited London a few years ago and didn't see any of those things you mentioned. Streets were pretty clean, I didn't see any smashed windows or barbed wire, and in like a week of wandering and taking busses and the chewb I only saw one belligerent junkie (on the street). Probably some neighborhoods are worse than others but I didn't avoid anywhere on purpose.

Hmm, it is not that I categorically rule out out other European countries, it depends.

Many of them are even more fucked than the UK is, at least when it comes to wages, even adjusted for purchasing power parity. France is slightly worse, Italy is pretty bad.

Germany is arguably better than the UK, even if only modestly so. It is actually a breeze to get into, but I would need to learn German and then practise in it, and while that is hardly the end of the world, the very modest bump up in wages makes it a borderline case.

(Switzerland is amazing to work in as a doctor, but very hard to get into, in addition to language requirements)

What other places do you envision, in Northern Europe, if not Europe as a whole? I can tell you that France is probably a no-go. Germany? I don't see any obvious advantage over the UK, like it's slightly better. Belgium? No idea, but I can check.

I should look into the Nordics, though I suspect language will be a problem again.

But I don't consider than in unsurmountable one, I can hold my nose and try not to gag while consuming surstromming if it's worth it haha.

a bit more subjective, but just visibly not in as much decay; London - and even moreso the few smaller cities I visited - just outright disgusted me at times at how it looks and feels like a third world country. Run-down buildings with smashed windows, barbed wires around the nicer places, cars that are scratched all over, non-capital crimes go de-facto mostly unenforced, streets with mounts of trash and the occasional literal human shit, erratic junkies on most trains and busses. Fairly blatant antisocial behaviour is also quite normalised.

I'll be honest with you chief, I'm Indian, and whatever grime and dysfunction I noted in London, it is well within what I'm able to tolerate, if only because I have low standards. But in all honesty, I toured quite a bit of the city and it was perfectly acceptable to me.

My Airbnb was supposedly in a bad neighborhood, but there were BMWs parked outside, the odd door left open, no grills or barking dogs. Entirely unremarkable.

It might be worse in the smaller cities, I only got to visit London and Manchester, which were both fine. The Metro was totally acceptable, full of working poor to UMC finance types alike. Nobody but one cranky old cunt made a fuss, it was all fine, and I was there for several months.

I appreciate the suggestion, and I'll take a look at what me feasible for me!

Can the UK act as a stepping stone to the US? Invest a decade there, get credentials that are valid in the US, then hop on over?

Your success in the rest of the world has very little relevance to your career in the US, as in (barring vaguely remembered exceptions for pioneering doctors and the like), they don't give two hoots what degrees you accumulated outside, at most they care enough to check if you have a basic medical degree, which if accredited, entitles you to give the USMLE and do a residency program. So even a relatively experienced doctor, native to the UK or not, is largely shit out of luck even if they've reached the highest level of certification outside.

This seems to be true after I looked it up, but either way, the reason I am screwed is because my base medical qualification (MBBS) is the issue (since my med school didn't bother to do the ECFMG thing, which is a proactive step and not something they'll just hand out without asking). This won't change unless the former does, even if I rack up an entire alphabet of additional degrees outside. My dad, nationally famous in his line of work, or the even more famous Director of my Oncology Department (widely recognized as the best in the country, or tied for it) would be in the same boat, as would almost any other doctor who didn't study in the US. You might have 30 years of experience and be at the peak of your niche, but in their eyes, you're required to jump through the same hoops as a wet behind the years grad from a US med school. And do another 3-7 years of training, even if your supervising doctor isn't qualified to teach you to suck eggs, you invented them.

If there are any exceptions, they're not worth noting, or at least not relevant in my case.

If it was just the US, I could moan and bear it, but quite a few of the countries that are better than the UK still rely on that US body I mentioned, in much the same manner most small countries are content to follow FDA regulations without really bothering to set up their own equivalents, or at least accept them uncritically. The UK just happens to be too proud to do that.

Please do not listen to English people talk about England. Particularly online.

I'm not english but lived in London for a while and concur with what he writes. London is allegedly one of the best places in the UK but still sucks for long-term living unless you're either a well-earning childless professional or among the super rich, also doctors afaik objectively earn very bad by western standards in the UK.

I suppose it depends on what you are looking for. London, as visualised by this rather excellent FT graphic is somewhere that is stereotypically inhabited by those in their twenties to early thirties. When it comes to having children, many professional couples chose to move to one of innumerable picturesque towns or villages that encircle the capital.

Sure, I have personal friends who have chosen exactly this path. And I'd maintain that unless you're elite enough to go to oxbridge or similar, you're better off going to another country altogether. The apartments/houses are lower quality while also being more expensive than comparable places on the mainland, parental money/day care subsidies suck in the UK while income isn't as high as the US to make up for it, and the areas are also generally more decayed.

Who else am I supposed to listen to? I've been following along for years, and I know they've got a point.

There's a difference between earnest bitching like on /r/Residency, and seething discontent and rage, including regular striking, and I have heard much the same from people I personally know.

Have you considered Singapore? Developed, English-speaking, short flight to India for visiting relatives, great food.

I have considered it, and it's for all practical purposes outright impossible. They take only the top 0.1% of doctors, imagine just taking the Harvard Med Graduates from the US.

Otherwise I would have happily taken it up, it's a pretty cool place.

How hard is it to get the credentials now?

So far, the ECFMG has been less than helpful, including when my med school reached out to them, but in my personal correspondence, they told me that it was possible, including retroactively certifying me and the other graduates if there was conclusive evidence we met the same standards.

I have been busy with work and studying for the UK, but the moment I get a time to breathe, I'll try and corral a bunch of my juniors and pressure the Admin, though I have tried before, it was only just a handful of us, and I've heard the kids are far more keen on getting the fuck out of here than my complacent peers.

All hope is not lost. I just don't know how much remains.

Is there any way to get a degree with another medical school within a reasonable amount of time?

Is it possible? With enormous difficulty, maybe.

Most people don't end up in the peculiar situation I find myself in, so there's no streamlined route for it. "I'm dissatisfied with the med school I went to, I want to do the whole thing again at a better one" is an extremely weird thing to do, so nobody does it, at most people might end up transferred while in their course. Or study extra hard to get into a good training program, which I am doing, but it doesn't solve the root problem.

I believe even having a medical degree makes you ineligible to apply again, at least in India. Because why would you do that?? And in the US, well, getting into med school is tough enough, I doubt my rationale would convince the committees.

The closest is say, someone who is a refugee. Maybe your med school in Ukraine/Syria/Gaza got blown up, so you plead your case directly and potentially have some requirements waived. My med school is sadly very much intact, it just hasn't done something that is simultaneously expected and also optional.

But even if I could, I don't think it's a good idea. First of all, repeating med school would suck. More importantly, at the bare minimum that's 4 years gone, maybe 5 or 6. I'm already worried about being made obsolete before I finish my full training! There's no way to just fast track med school, and even alternative/parallel careers like nursing/PAs take time, and while I bitched about PAs before, I don't think becoming one is a net positive.

In a very different universe, say if I was to jump back in time a decade, that might be something I could begrudgingly consider, but right now? I'm sure you see why it's a bad idea, at least if you agree with the issue of AI and unemployment.

You could go for a masters or something and do research?

I have considered that, but thank you for suggesting it. The main issue is that a Masters would take about 2 years, and research doesn't pay well, be it in the UK or US.

In a vaccum, I don't think it would have been a bad idea, but for example, I think a Masters in Data Science probably needs more in the way of previous experience, so does something like ML/CS.

They all cost money, they all take time, and while I can grudgingly handle the former, I can feel the clock ticking.

Something like stats or CS could help, maybe in me making a lateral move from medicine to pharmaceuticals, in some kind of advisory or managerial role, but even then the competition is getting stiff.

More comments

I absolutely love port wine. Cabarnets and other dry reds are okay, but damnit port is in a league of its own.

I’m not sure if there are many wine drinkers here, but if so, what is your favorite vintage?

I put down a bottle when 2011 was so universally praised. Hoping to open it up to celebrate my retirement in a couple decades. So this is my favorite vintage, even though I've never had even a taste.

Personally I love burgundy reds, but try to be varied in the bottles I'll be drinking within the year.

I’m, quite literally, a wine expert. A paid wine professional.

I fucking love port, in the wine world it’s very much that bell curve / midwit meme where wine noobs love it because it’s sweet, midwits over correct against sweet wine because so much of it is trash, and certified wine geeks and fanatics circle back to it and have no choice but to admit how awesome it is.

Because of the blending involved and the fortification process it’s not as subject to as much vintage variation as a typical dry wine, so honestly just go crazy on the vintages. Most of them are certified bangers.

I highly recommend Churchill’s, that’s my go-to port producer. All things being equal they have longer fermentation than the big houses which means less residual sugar and less Brandy needed to get to the required alcohol by volume. So it’s less syrupy, less hot, and much fresher.

It’s still sweet but you can dome an entire 6oz glass without getting a tummy ache.

If you have a child and are of means, the old tradition was to get a lion’s head cask of the vintage of your children’s birth year and sit on it until they’re 18 or 21, and give it as a birthday present. I’m too poor to do that but if you have the money, space, patience and storage ability (needs to be in a cool place) to buy several cases of vintage port to keep for your kid, it’s an awesome tradition.

My parents received a bottle of expensive whisky when I was born, and left it in a closet. Well, it's been over two decades, but your guess is as good as mine if it's going to be drinkable considering Indian temperature and humidity.

Whiskey is completely bottle stable, and doesn’t develop in the bottle over time so any time is a good time to drink it.

I am agnostic about wine. Or at least skeptical that the expensive ones are any better than mid market, until you go down to boxed-wine territory. When I drink the local fancy wine (by Indian standards), I feel profundly cheated. How the hell was that worth the salary for a day or two? Then again, I drink to get drunk, and my preferred vintage of liquor is Ethanol Factory 2022, with added flavoring to keep the kick down.

Funny story, we bought mulled wine from ASDA and drank it as was, only discovering a bit later that you were supposed to mull it over a fire, or at least warm it up. Still tasted pretty sweet! Literally and otherwise.

Or maybe the time I didn't realize that orange cordial was not orange juice and was deeply confused as to why it was so strong.

Even for a heavily Westernized Indian who rejects his native land, culture shock can hit you, not that it hit me very hard.

Good wines may be had at $15, great ones at $30 and truly excellent ones at $60. It’s fun to spend more, and a few regions are (sometimes much) more expensive than that price range. But that’s a luxury, good wine is not expensive.

I appreciate the advice, but I studiously refrain from inculcating more taste than I have, it's an expensive hobby.

Vodka gussied up with soda, juice and other mysterious mixological magic? Good enough for me. Or $3 bottles of beer will do.

I am losing my mind from studying. The only positive is that I'm also losing weight, quite a bit of it. Turns out a diet of pizza, prescription stimulants and stress is effective for weight loss, not that I'd recommend it.

The exam I have to give in order to get into psychiatry training in the UK was originally designed to be administered to GPs, but COVID made quite a few other specialities adopt it because they couldn't conduct the standard interviews and couldn't be arsed to make their own exams.

I am absolutely sick of memorizing facts and figured that will be of zero relevance to my (hypothetical) career in psychiatry, something has gone very wrong if I'm confronted with a child with haematuria and a purpuric rash while working in that profession. ECG? Never heard of her. The worst part about those fucking things is that I manage to learn how to interpret them passably, usually before an exam, and then forget entirely a few months later. Of course, it is tradition that in some specialities, like orthopedics, the first thing that a Consultant does on being shown an ECG for their patient is to hand it over to the Reg with some excuse, who then sheepishly shows it to the most junior doctor at hand because they're the ones most likely to remember what the fucking squiggles mean. Or bleep Cardio directly.

Oh well, at least if I do make it this time, I will gladly accept it as a license to forget everything I've ever had to learn, in lieu of memorizing the myriad interactions of antipsychotics and anti-epileptic meds.

Don't get me started on the Situational Judgement Test, a cursed ethics component of the exam that involves guessing the correct way to order 5 options for handling an ethical dilemma, with no guarantee any of them will be remotely sane or relevant options. Especially when the GMC guidelines so utterly castrate and infantilize doctors that I am sometimes blown away by the fact that they take those dictats without coming to blows. Indian doctors don't give a shit what our regulators have to say, and even American ones aren't so utterly castrated.

Ah, my aunt comes to me begging for morphine because she's in acute pain. I recognize that's a bad idea to prescribe to her, even just on the grounds she's family, but no, even taking a look at her medical history and suggesting over the counter pain meds she can take while she's desperately searching for an out-of-hours GP or contemplating the >8h wait at the ER is somehow a bad choice.

FML, I'm going to RETVRN to my ancestors and till some fields first chance I get.

Especially when the GMC guidelines so utterly castrate and infantilize doctors that I am sometimes blown away by the fact that they take those dictats without coming to blows.

During COVID a bunch of UK doctors refused to come back to work:

Seventy-one said they would not be happy to return to work, with many expressing their reluctance in vehement terms. “After the way I was treated I would rather shove a rusty six-inch nail up my backside than return to my old job,” said a 67-year-old former staff nurse from Manchester.

It sounds like the NHS is a complete shambles. I saw an article saying that more was spent on litigation and payouts over maternity than maternity itself: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/maternity-payouts-twice-cost-of-care-times-health-commission-svdhsjhqk

I don't really know much about the NHS, never having worked there or experienced it. Sounds like a terminally ill bureaucracy in action.

The NHS is dysfunctional and sclerotic. Doctors are so unhappy with the state of affairs that they're striking regularly for almost a year now, primarily for pay as well as the terrible conditions. Salary raises have been sub-inflation for about 15 years.

Training is unnecessarily long, in comparison to international standards, and largely because the rotational aspect lets them shunt doctors over to subpar hospitals to meet staffing quotas without paying market wages.

The quality of care is going down the toilet, ER wait times are ridiculous, elective surgeries can take years. A psychiatry consultation for an ADHD prescription would take me about 2 years to get if I went through the NHS.

It's no surprise you heard that from an elderly medical professional. They remembered when doctors were respected and also decently paid, returning to the NHS must have been a shock (though this person is a nurse, but they've suffered too).

Many of the locals flee to fairer pastures, such as the US, or other Commonwealth countries, hence the NHS is propped up by international doctors for whom the terrible conditions are a step up still (like yours truly, not that I'm now sure it's an improvement). They're too scared to complain, accept subpar wages to get a foot in the door, and in general accept more abuse. At any rate, if I ever fix my USMLE issues, you can bet my pitstop there will be temporary. If not, well, it is what it is.

Christ. What does it take for the US healthcare industry to be considered greener pastures?

I guess close air support bags of money really do cover a multitude of sins.

You're approaching the US healthcare system from the perspective of someone who is consuming it, not as someone working within it.

Sure, Residents are paid less on an hourly basis than they would make it they worked at McDonald's, given that 70 hour work weeks are hardly unheard of (though my understanding is that in Psychiatry it's far more reasonable), but if they have any reasonable level of temporal discounting, they have a median income of $250k to look forward to at the end.

A more litigious environment, the headache of dealing with insurance companies, annoying EMRs, these all pale in comparison to quite reasonably expecting to be a millionaire in a decade or less.

Whereas a UK postgraduate trainee can look forward to 7 years of training to become a full Consultant (2 if they want to be a GP), and along the way, thanks to sub-inflation raises from a monopsony employer, likely make less money each year right until the point where they become a full Consultant and get a modest pay bump, with better options for working locum or private. Even then, a typical Consultant in the NHS makes $120k. So a relatively linear progression from $44k at the entry level to maybe 80k (swallowed up by inflation) after 6 years, followed by that bump.

So you take about double the time to make half the money in the end, with relatively limited scope for making a great deal more unless you're a specialist in great demand or willing to take on a lot of extra hours.

This is compounded by the sheer lack of respect UK doctors get, the vagaries of rotational training, and a lack of many of the creature comforts that doctors in most countries take for granted.

In contrast, Australia, New Zealand and Canada pay a great deal more, if not quite US levels, and recognize UK credentials without the need to repeat the USMLE and Residency.

If I had to make a subjective judgement, I'd say either the US or Australia offer the best tradeoffs in terms of money, WLB and consideration for doctors, 3rd World countries bottom out, and the UK is only modestly appealing to someone living in the former.

And all of this is assuming business as usual. I strongly suspect that I will not be employable as a doctor in 7 years, certainly not at those wages, because of the pace of progress in AI, as well as the profession being undercut in the UK by the NHS using NPs/PAs/ANPs to undercut doctors, and then gradually expanding their roles and authority.

A new PA makes more money than a fully qualified junior doctor post-MBBS, has better hours and fewer responsibilities since they can't prescribe at all, and only went through 2 years of a Masters course as opposed to the 4+2 a doctor takes to get there. Even my existence as an IMG, treated without any disadvantage compared to native UK grad, suppresses their conditions, though I can't complain about that for obvious reasons. In contrast, the US is far more protectionist, but thankfully psychiatry is a relatively friendly subject for foreign doctors looking to make the cut.

If I was currently eligible to give the USMLE (and I'm not, for no fault of my own, but it may or may not be fixable), then I wouldn't even consider the UK for a second longer, as opposed to grinding for the USMLE or at least Aus/NZ. Even if I manage to get into psych training, the moment I might become eligible I am going to go to Manchester and take a steaming shit in front of the GMC offices, and then fly off home to study anew.

@Throwaway05 is welcome to chime in if I'm misrepresenting the situation in the States, though of course he can't really compare conditions in the UK or India.

From what I can tell the U.K. is basically all downside - poor resources, poor autonomy, poor respect, poor pay. Great location if you don't already live there and want to get to the West. That's about it. The frog was boiled 30 years ago.

In the U.S. the frog is still being boiled - pay is down, respect is down, autonomy is down, documentation burden is up, malpractice is a joke, but pay is still fucking great (especially if you want to hustle), job security is absurdly rock solid (post-training....alarming during training), and we have the most resources and ability to do interesting shit, research, etc.

There's no doubt that almost all doctors in the world who aren't moored to a specific location would head over here in a heartbeat if given the chance.

But it's also worth considering the opportunity costs. Poor pay hurts less in Western Europe where nearly everyone's jobs are shit.

In the U.S. people in medicine feel like they are missing out on lucrative careers their peers are doing. You can argue they are overconfident in this, but it's not really arguable that doctors (at least during residency) are the hardest working professional class in the U.S., and you do frequently see them roll out into other fields like tech or consulting and kill it.

So yeah the U.S. miserable but it still has some benefits and I'm continuing to work here. If you snap your fingers and dump me in England? Shit I'm going to go farm or something instead.

Back when my dad telling me the UK was a nation in decline, my rejoinder was that it's better to move to a rotting edifice that is several decades ahead of us and only stagnating, than to sit back here.

In a similar vein, whatever problems American doctors have (I'm sure they do have problems, there's nothing perfect), they are experiencing a decline from a peak the rest of us have to crane up at in awe.

But it's also worth considering the opportunity costs. Poor pay hurts less in Western Europe where nearly everyone's jobs are shit.

In the U.S. people in medicine feel like they are missing out on lucrative careers their peers are doing. You can argue they are overconfident in this, but it's not really arguable that doctors (at least during residency) are the hardest working professional class in the U.S., and you do frequently see them roll out into other fields like tech or consulting and kill it.

Being poor, or just mediocre, sucks, even if you don't have the same degree of unhappiness from comparison.

UK doctors make similar complaints, pointing to their friends who went into finance, consulting and so on and make double the money, in half the time. They feel the contract was broken, that the promise that as some of the most talented students who went through a rigorous training program of many years and made them highly skilled workers, they should be paid commensurately.

Some of them do jump into finance, but the sheer cramped smallness of the UK means there really aren't all that many places to go or ways to win big. The country itself constrains their options. I consider trying to apply for jobs in Pharma, as a medical lead or liaison, but my nature as a foreigner diminishes my worth to them, primarily as it stands in wrangling regulations and knowing the right people to push things through. Or I considered learning ML, but then that's become even more saturated.

So yeah the U.S. miserable but it still has some benefits and I'm continuing to work here. If you snap your fingers and dump me in England? Shit I'm going to go farm or something instead.

And here I was talking about giving up and returning to till my ancestral farms, if the people who stole the land and genocided the village won't ask too many questions haha.

Every time I tell someone I am part of the Veterans Affairs health care system in the United States, I use the joke "I protected you from socialized health care, so now I get...socialized health care."

It has never failed to get a laugh.

You guys got any dinner plans for this weekend? I plan on making teriyaki chicken again, now that I made it once, with TWICE the amount of chicken.

Also do people around you know how to cook? I work at a gas station on weekends and I think there's a fair amount of people that just buy easy dinners and cook those most of the time. This is in rural Midwest America, though. I think most of the younger generation is getting worse at cooking.

Also do people around you know how to cook?

For me, there are three levels of cooking knowledge:

  1. You can't cut an onion to save your life.
  2. You can follow instructions.
  3. You can create original recipes.

Chiming in, as always, with another Indian perspective:.

Modern Indian men are no better cooks than their dads and grandads, and the younger women are maybe worse, though who knows if it's because of a lack of experience or they just don't see it as a priority.

Though of course they all know a far larger diversity of cuisine than before, at one point all you could get in India was Indian food. You know, what we just call food.

What did strike me as mildly funny was that back when I lived in my college dorms, none of the ~200 male med students cooked. Not even for occasions.

On the other hand, the separate female dorm, was redolent with the aroma of the girls getting right at it, within the limited confines available. Someone's birthday? Let's make her something special! Whereas for a guy? Hey buddy we got you just about the most expensive whisky we could afford, all $20 of it.

In fact, it was the other way around, whoever was celebrating the occasion was supposed to treat their buddies.

I’m learning. I think it’s a skill that’s been vastly over complicated by modern cooking — exotic ingredients, multiple pans, and so on. If you want to learn I recommend getting old cookbooks from the 1970s or 1980s that teach classic recipes. I like some Asian style cooking as well, and most of it isn’t too fiddly unless you want to make Korean pancakes or Japanese rice balls or something.

I’m not even sure that Gen Z or Gen α are really that much worse at cooking than their elders at similar ages, they just have really upped the expectations of what a home cooked meal should look like.

It's going to be cold so I'm going to cook either chili, 15 bean soup, or some variety of lentil soup. The 15 bean soup in particular is a totally idiotproof way to produce something that's reasonably healthy and tasty with no real work or skill. Chili is also idiotproof, but then I have a tendency to want to stuff a bunch of crackers in it that undermines the "healthy" part.

My biggest weakness as a cook (aside from general mediocrity and occasional intoxication) is a tendency toward making things cheap and healthy at any cost, and figuring out the flavor later. Sometimes this makes for weird things that horrify my friends (savory oatmeal, for example), but that taste fine IMO. On that note, I think I'm going to try buckwheat at some point.

My friends (SEC college townies) are a mixed bag but trend toward not great given how easily they're impressed by the stuff I make.

I’m going to shamelessly mooch off my parents. Er, visit them, which will also involve being well fed. My grandparents would always do it for them, and they’ll do it for me, and…well, it makes my childless self think.

I work at a gas station on weekends and I think there's a fair amount of people that just buy easy dinners and cook those most of the time. This is in rural Midwest America, though. I think most of the younger generation is getting worse at cooking.

Nice, you probably see me stop by every day for my usual. Thanks for keeping the pop dispensers clean.

Flattery will get you nowhere! I see you buying this overpriced shit every day! You're better than this! Stop making such a damn mess! Don't let your kids do that! Get better taste in food! Lose some weight! Good God, don't wear that in here! No pets allowed! For fuck's sake, don't park in the fuel bay if you're going to go gamble for an hour! Does this look like a grocery store? Is that why you're buying over $100 worth of this brand name garbage on food stamps? Maybe you could tell me when you spill gasoline all over the ground? For that matter, maybe you could stop blowing up my bathrooms over and over again? No, we don't make sandwiches anymore! Stop asking! We're closed!

I'll probably make a Japanese-style chicken curry. The store-bought seasoning mix makes it quite easy, though I try to make each batch unique by adding some additional spices and things like grated fruit, cocoa powder, different vegetables, etc.

I went from being a subpar cook to a decent one during the covid lockdown when I had nothing better to do at home, mostly by messing around in the kitchen trying to recreate things I had eaten and liked in the past. I'd say most people around me are worse cooks than their parents' generation, though this is more pronounced in the children of immigrants, where you typically go from someone with a deep knowledge of their ancestral foodways to someone with a shallow knowledge of a half dozen cuisines with a limited ability to recreate any of them.

Nothing too fancy planned this weekend. We have some frozen fish fillets. Maybe I'll make tonkatsu. My wife has ingredients to make her favorite potato salad.

I like to think I'm a good cook, with or without a recipe. I make a great sucre à la crème. My wife is a good cook too. My brother is a great cook. Most of my friends are at least decent.

Nah. I'm going to cook something, as there's nothing in the fridge for next week. Probably roast some pork.

I learned to 'cook' when I stopped having access to subsidized student food.

Started with various lentil soups, later goulash stew, later started roasting meat or made schnitzels (way too much work for me). Following a recipe isn't difficult. If I'm lazy I just make myself one big 3-4 egg omelette a day, down it with beer.

I'm told I'm good at it at home, by both parents. Once you get some practice you start to have some instinct what the food is missing. Salt/spices/acid etc. Once that's added, usually the end result is appreciated.

If anyone's got a suggestion how to make food more 'basic' (less acidic) without having to use the lye I keep around for cleaning drains, give me a hint pls.

most of the younger generation is getting worse at cooking.

It's sad. Cooking is not difficult, it's far cheaper than anything else.

Bicarbonate of soda (baking soda in American, possibly?), not baking powder.

thx. I use food grade citric acid instead of vinegar (doesn't spoil, easily crushed into powder in a mortar) but I sometimes overdo it so this'll help.

Good news, vinegar doesn't spoil and you don't even need to crush it in a mortar.

It does spoil. No one I know uses citric acid. I had like a liter of vinegar stored in the fridge and something started growing in it after a year or so. Why do you think I stopped using it?

That's not spoilage. That's the vinegar mother and it's harmless.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_of_vinegar

Harmless but disgusting.

Anhydrous citric acid never does this, that makes me happy. Plus, more place in fridge.

It's not even disgusting, it's literally the natural process of how vinegar is made.

If anyone's got a suggestion how to make food more 'basic' (less acidic) without having to use the lye I keep around for cleaning drains, give me a hint pls.

Dairy or baking soda. Much more often i just use sugar though, which while it doesn't actually reduce the acidicy, balances the flavours.

I have a particular aversion to sugar so baking soda it is. Thx!

I'm bad at cooking, but I'm also not a terribly picky eater, so it mostly works out. Some fun bachelor recipes:

  • Tamale pie. Get a shallow oven-safe pot or burner-safe pan, brown ground meat, toss in canned veggies (usually corn, green beans, cubed tomatoes) and beans, spice to taste or use a generic chili spice packet, simmer for five minutes while mixing. Smooth flat, then layer top evenly with cornbread, bake until golden brown. Top with sour cream and salsa. Serves well with spinach, zucchini, or watermelon salads.

  • Bachelor Risotto. Cook short-grained rice with beef, fish, or veggie stock at a 1:1 ratio, either stovetop or rice cooker. If stovetop, add two more unit stock as it boils down. Brown slices of kielbasa sausage or smoked sausage with canned sliced mushrooms and a bit of garlic. Dump them in with butter and a parmesian or cheddar cheese to taste. Serve with ricotta, goes well with roasted chicken or vegetables.

  • Skewers. Pick a red meat to your preference, marinade for about an hour. Whole mushroom, tomato, sliced onions, on a stick. Grill if possible, drizzle with oil and bake on a pan if not. Serve with browned naan or pita, fruit chutney if you can find a decent one.

  • DIY Sushi. Cook short-grained rice without rinsing it first. For each one cup raw rice, make a seasoning at a ratio of 2 tbps rice vinegar, 1 tbsp sugar, 1/2 tsp salt (or you can just buy pre-mixed as 'sushi rice seasoning'), mix it into the cooked rice. Spread over a nori seaweed sheet, add strips of smoked salmon, cucumber, cream cheese, (avocado and mango if in season), roll (you can get 'bamboo' mats specifically for this, but in a pinch a hand towel in a plastic zip-lock bag works as well or better. Cut into slices, or keep as a sushirito. Serve with pickled ginger and wasabi, soy sauce or eel sauce. There are dessert variants, but they're a little more finicky.

  • Shakshouka. LemonDrop does it fancy, but you can absolutely one-pot it like the Tamale Pie.

  • Savory pies. Either cut pie crust dough into pieces to make hand-pies, or spread all over one piece to make a single giant (and admittedly a little messy) pastry. I've got a version of this with chicken, apple, and goat cheese I like, but would recommend trying your own.

And yeah, for a lot of the last decade-or-so, it's been far easier to get away with ordering takeout all the time, especially for smaller families or singletons. There's just wasn't that big a margin between fast food or even some lower-end sitdown restaurants until recently, unless you make big batches.

Dude, I love DIY sushi. The first day I ordered takeout sushi I found out that it was like $10 for even a simple roll and thought "there's no way this shit costs that much to make". I've found some pretty simple salmon rolls (I cook the salmon, I'm no sushi chef) are pretty damn awesome for the extremely minimal effort put in. Only recently did I discover that we should have been packing in dramatically more rice than we were. To that end we've started cooking 4 cups of rice instead of 2, though we use medium grain rice to save some money. I use this sushi rice recipe. Also if your avocados are perfectly ripe, the more you put in a roll, the better it gets. Generally I try to not put any eel sauce or spicy sriracha on at least the first few rolls I make; I typically like to dunk about 25% of the piece I am eating in soy sauce. I also like shichimi togarashi or sesame seeds on mine.

I feel like your recipes are significantly more adventurous than most Americans are in the kitchen. Those seem like somewhat complicated recipes too, so I don't think I'd describe you as being bad at cooking if you made even half of those. If you really are bad at cooking, my condolences!

Yeah, sushi's a blast, and one that people expect to be a lot harder than it is. Even without a rice cooker it's pretty easy; with one it's almost set-and-forget.

There's a few types of commercial roll that are either extremely messy to make well (eg tempura spatters oil a lot), finicky to prep right (real crab), or just obnoxious to supply (good luck finding a variety of sushi-grade raw fish), but if you're working with cooked or smoked fish and vegetables, you can easily get closer to 1-4 USD / roll and be grinning the whole time.

I feel like your recipes are significantly more adventurous than most Americans are in the kitchen.

They're adventurous, but they're very forgiving. Wrong ratio of sushi seasoning to rice, or use long-grained rice? Still pretty good, if a bit messier to pack together. Forget the egg in your cornbread mix, or didn't preheat your oven for tamale pie? Will come out a little denser, but it's fine. There's a lotta goofs with risotto that will disappoint an Italian grandmother -- some purists will argue against meat or mushroom at all, and even to normal people overabsorbed rice is 'wrong' -- but it'll all still be edible and delicious. All of the recipes can be 'over'- or 'under'-spiced by at least a tablespoon and still have a decent flavor profile, with shakshouka's cumin being the most sensitive.

About the only one I'd have to warn about novice cooks about are the meat skewers: if you cube or slice your meat too thick, or don't preheat your oven or grill, you end up with a really narrow time window where the veggies haven't been charred, but the meat's not mooing(bleating, whatever). Dunking veggies in the marinade before skewering them helps a bit, along with adding some flavour to the mushrooms, but it is still a failure mode.

good luck finding a variety of sushi-grade raw fish

One trick I learned a while back, but don't know where my link is at the moment to get the specific temperature number, is that you can "cook" your fish in a sous vide, but at a surprisingly low temperature (something like 105-115), which will help with safety but retain that 'raw fish' texture. It then cools down a bit while you're finishing the prep, so it really does seem like it's just the same.

Also, IIRC, "sushi-grade" isn't really a thing. It depends on species, but for many species, all fish that is sold (at least in the US) is required to be flash frozen to kill parasites. I've seen videos of the commercial operations, where they have the fishing boats that go out and catch the fish, then, while they're still at sea, they transfer their catch to a processing boat. On this boat, while at sea, they do the flash freezing and cutting; I can't remember whether or not they included much packaging on the boat or if that was delayed. But the upshot is that for all of the fish that is caught by these large operations, it is completely impossible for you to get a non-frozen fish; it's frozen long before it comes to dock. You'd pretty much have to have a source that is a local, small-time fisherman who is willing to sell you stuff individually right at the moment he comes back in.

Dude, I love DIY sushi

I love my sushi deep-fried.

This is doubly a joke because I can't stand fish (or most seafood).

/images/17051482444709158.webp

The average Indian guy can't cook worth a damn. In all honesty, they don't need to, any place with a decent concentration of workers, be they blue or white collar, has an abundance of small stalls that serve everything from snacks to passable meals for cheap and cheerful prices. And they can always lean on their wives/mom, or if middle class, a visiting cook, if richer, a live-in one, and "tiffin" services that deliver meals to you at the workplace for lunch or dinner are popular, if you don't want to order from a restaurant.

Not that I don't know guys who can cook, but they range from being able to just about making a passable meal to being decent, and most of them were forced to learn it because they were living in dorms during college and couldn't tolerate the cafeteria slop or afford takeout.

I can't call myself a cook with a straight face, but I do know the absolute basics, and can probably serve something that doesn't cause food poisoning. I do intend to learn, especially if I have to live alone in the West. A median doctor's wage in the UK makes splurging on takeout, as I would prefer, fraught. I can get away with it today because I have no expenses worth the name and a respectable salary by Indian standards, but my girlfriend made it clear that she won't cook for me if I can't make some contribution to the process (well, when we were in the UK I did chop vegetables and made undercooked chicken noodles!), and it is entirely possible that due to the vagaries of mandatory rotational training we might not even be able to live together. Shame, because she's a great chef, though her attempts at biryani come out weird (still tasty, just not biryani), and the one time she made vegan biryani* for my vegan cousin and his British girlfriend, it literally brought her to tears from the spice, though she gobbled it down like a champ.

Well, I don't have particularly high standards, I'm happy with making myself spaghetti, bacon, steaks and so on indefinitely. Worst case I'll subsist off frozen pizza.

*An absolute abomination of a concept. If you think pineapple and sardines on pizza is abhorrent, you can't imagine my distaste for that travesty. It's worse than the South Indian predilection to put coconut in it.

As a man who has made biryani at home, I can't recommend an instant pot enough if you ever try it. It really helps.

Do you have a particular recipe to recommend? I have an Instant Pot and do appreciate a good biryani.

I am already sold on rice cookers, and ovens. For some reason the latter is a rarity in India, and after experiencing their charms in the UK, I want one desperately.

And probably an air fryer too, while I'm at it.

What kind of biryani did you make?

Dude it blows my mind that they don't have ovens in India. I used to work with an Indian dude who one time revealed he only ever kept pots in his, and was like "well we don't have them back home either so I don't really have a use for one". I use my oven so often I could not conceive of not having one in my home.

I made chicken biryani, using this recipe (@VoxelVexillologist, here you go). I did use white meat instead of dark cause I prefer white meat, but otherwise I thought the recipe was really good.

That recipe has my seal of approval, it looks like biryani, and probably tasted pretty good. Unlike some claims in the West about what biryani can be, which left me comatose haha.

Dude it blows my mind that they don't have ovens in India.

Easy mistake for outsiders to make. The whole country is the oven.

It's going to be cold here (single degree highs, negative single degree lows) so I'm going to make chili. It hits all the right notes: warm, tasty, and actually healthy (if you don't load it down with cheese and shit). That should keep me set for a few days at least.

I cook pretty well if I say so myself. I'm often too lazy to cook, but I can cook most recipes I've tried (even modestly technical stuff) and they come out pretty well. I often am pretty critical of my own cooking (in the way that lots of craftsmen are their own harshest critics), but my friends and family generally say they really enjoy what I make which is what matters.

Good choice. I also had a hankering for chili. That's partially because it's so cheap to make. I like to make a lot so it lasts for a long time, though, and this weekend we've got a couple other dinner plans for the house, so I guess I'll wait til next week to make it. The last one we made was one of my favorites, I threw in a can of chipotles en adobo and some chorizo and it turned out very well.

I think I'm the same as you. Every time I cook something, especially if it's for the whole house, I can name at least one thing I should have done differently, even if it's a dish I have a lot of experience making. There's always something to improve.

When I make chili it generally lasts for 3-5 days, depending on if my wife and I hit it up for lunch and dinner for those days. I make a fair bit because it's so easy to knock out a large batch (and like you said, it's pretty cheap).

I can definitely imagine the chipotle and chorizo chili going well. I pretty much always do the same chili, a recipe I've built up over the years. Ground beef, habanero pepper, corn (it's heretical but it really works), diced tomatoes, tomato juice, beer and spices. I will mix it up from there depending on my mood. Sometimes I add poblanos, sometimes ancho chile powder, sometimes other peppers, onions, etc. And I also cook up elbow macaroni to go with the chili, which is mainly because my mom always made chili with noodles and I grew to love it that way.

Chili is on the stove simmering, so I'm gonna eat good tonight. :D

The vast majority of people around me can cook, although it's notable just how much better the men are. I know one woman my age that is actually a good cook but every other guy seems to be.

One major difference seems to be that the guys cook even when they're alone.

Perhaps it's just the bubble I'm in.

Most women seem to learn cooking from their mothers, while most men seem to learn it from YouTube. Since most default YouTube chefs (Babish, Josh Weissman etc) are better cooks than the average mother of previous generations (who typically cooks whether she enjoys it or not and, even if she is a good cook, may not be a good cooking teacher) it makes sense that men on average are better cooks in my opinion. The young women I know who are great cooks either love cooking and consume much cooking related content online / in recipe books or they have good relationships with moms who are great cooks.

If I think about my grandmother, (who was a good cook and had actually worked part-time in a restaurant for a while) of the 20 things she cooked regularly 5 were excellent, 5 were pretty good, 10 were average or bad. But many of those bad or average dishes could have been completely repaired with some basic YouTube knowledge, or now even with chatGPT. It wasn’t a lack of mechanical skill, just of knowledge, of tiny mistakes compounded, of recipes that were blander than they had to be, because they were of another time. Perfectly mechanically decent home cooks spent decades making burgers with lean beef because popular knowledge that 20-25% fat works best just wasn’t there. A lot of home recipes for bolognese or chili or casserole or meatloaf are of course inferior to something derived in hours of experimentation by Kenji Lopez-Alt or whoever.

I’ve also noticed that men often cook special meals or weekend meals, but even in families where the man is a better cook it’s often the woman who does more weeknight cooking. Dad will cook a great lunch for everyone on Sunday that takes a few hours to prepare, but on Tuesday night when everybody’s tired and you just need to put something together in 20 minutes, it’s mom’s job.

My mom is a great cook, when she can be bothered to (maybe once every month or so). Though given what she does make, which is often a ridiculously greasy sphaghetti (this is the exact opposite of a criticism, I fucking love it), I doubt she picked that up from her mom. More likely to be the cookbook porn she enjoys, I see why Tumblr and TikTok cooking influences are only a continuation of previous trends heh. I used to get mad at her for buying so goddamn many of them, when she wouldn't make half the dishes, but I end up watching cooking videos on occasion on YT myself, which would probably have surprised the shit out of me if someone had told me that ten years back.

I will note that it is surprisingly common (at least to me) that a lot of middle-aged Indian men like cooking, at least for special occasions. Think of it as the equivalent of the suburban dad who likes to take the grill out on occasion. Beyond innate affinity, it's probably once again because they were forced to learn to do so in college. And of course, if it's a family occasion, everyone starts chipping in, even if an outright potluck isn't common. The host is expected to do the cooking and it would be mildly disrespectful (not that anyone would really complain) to bring your own food and upstage them. A nice bottle of whiskey or scotch? Or a hand in the kitchen? Now we're talking.

I certainly don't mind, I pay my respects to their culinary talents by finishing my plate and another two servings.

I've noticed this a lot in my social circle - in the couples it's almost always the guy who does most of the cooking and enjoys cooking a lot more than the girlfriend/wife. The guys also geek out together over recipe ideas, Kenji videos, and cooking products. It's a hobby for them, a way to experiment and tinker. It's also a way for men to feel like providers for women in an era when women don't need them to survive.

Working theory:

Median American / Western woman (especially before marriage) see cooking for her significant other regularly as some sort of 1950s housewife shackling and, therefore, have a highly emotional response to doing it. It's a "betrayal" to the ideas of modern feminism (however defined). But, a lot of these same women will do their best to throw down for Thanksgiving / Christmas / Super Bowl (any of the Big American Gluttony Feasts) when their own extended family is present and especially when a finacee's family is present. There's still something that whispers the necessity of nourishment providing in order to secure marriage approval. Maybe.

As for the over-representation in baking - yes, this is a thing. I often find it hilarious as about 50% of "bakers" are just freaking terrible and aren't producing anything better than the made-for-kids brownie packets I used to rock with my Mom on Friday nights in gradeschool.

My observation is that if someone only bakes desserts, it's almost certainly a woman (or a gay man). But for those who cook savory food and bake as well, it can be either men or women.

I feel like I can cook pretty decently. I'm not going to be impressing anyone with my foods, but I can follow just about any recipe we've had a Hello Fresh subscription for a while now. I can sometimes come up with my own creations. A few days ago I made a Quiche that turned out pretty well. The crust I made low carb by using Keto flour. Added Bacon and Sauteed Onions to it, because that was the spare stuff I had in the fridge that fit with a quiche.

I got an air fryer for Christmas, which has been pretty fun. Looking forward to roasting some veggies with it.

I've heard rumors that an air fryer is basically that one mode on the oven which I never use, which is oven + heavy air recirculation. (always paranoid it's just going to make stuff extra dry)

The rumors are true, but a they are particularly competent convection ovens. A lot of ovens are pretty shit and their size makes their job a lot harder.

Bah! Meal kits. I understand there are a lot of positives, but always my impression is that the person getting it is too lazy to go shopping themselves and they end up paying a premium for it. That being said, the one guy I know who gets a meal kit gets quite the variety. I was jealous of the tonkatsu package he got this week.

Air fryers are great. Ours handily replaced the George Foreman grill we were using previously to quickly cook up some meat for sandwiches and stuff. The thing I like to do best with the one we have that's like this is just throw in a pork tenderloin with seasoned salt, but it's been a while since I used that one at all. I used the other one we have just last night to finish off some sausages that I had partially grilled, but had run out of gas in the middle of cooking.

All that to say: good purchase! Lots of utility. The one that resembles a toaster oven gets more use from me, just because it's basically a lower cost oven that costs less to use if you're cooking less food.

too lazy to go shopping themselves and they end up paying a premium for it.

This is explicitly why we like the meal kits. Reduces the amount of shopping we need to do. And yes we pay a premium over doing our own shopping, but from experience we actually just order out more rather than shop more. So it still saves us money.

Ultimately that's what made meal kits worth it when I was alone: I'm low maintenance and I don't care too much about myself, so if I have a choice between having to shop and then choosing what to eat and finally cooking a good homemade meal and ordering out/eating frozen dishes, I'll go with the easy option. Meal kits are a good halfway option where the agonizing decisions are taken care of, there's no having to manage what to buy, trying to find out what to do with leftovers, etc... Not making your meal kit is a massive waste so you DO make it, and don't order takeout. But now that my wife lives with me we don't use them. The economies of scale are a bit better with "normal groceries" for two than for one. There's some recipes and cooking tricks I learned from meal kits I've integrated in my cooking though.

They're difficult to get right, but my favourite veggies to roast in the air fryer are broccoli and cauliflower, lightly coated in olive oil. You will really have to watch them the first time you do it though, because half a minute is the difference between delicious crunchiness and weirdly textured cardboard. On my air fryer they take 4.5 minutes at 200°c though, to give you a guide.

My least favourite veggies to cook in the air fryer are sweet potatoes - they just dry out too much. Imo the secret to good roasted sweet potato is charring - when the entire outside edge is black, but the centre is still moist and soft to touch, each piece is like candy, it is easily my favourite roasted vegetable in the oven. But oven cooking them is easy as - to make things easiest on myself I peel the sweet potato and then slice it into finger width circles, bang them in a freezer bag with sunflower oil and coat them, then lay them out on a tray and whack them in the oven at 190°c for about 45 minutes. When I pull them out they should be black around the edges and just dry enough in the centre that they aren't sticking to the baking paper - perfection. But in the air fryer they are constantly being blasted with air, so they seem to start to dry out before they're even cooked all the way through.

https://old.reddit.com/r/madlads/s/yV09R82gov

I came across this reddit post of a guy who cuts his books in half. I found it funny that this triggered people in the comments. Many people refuse to fold pages or write in their books. I don't see what the big deal is. To me a book is just a tool. I understand taking care to preserve semi-rare books, but these were books you can just walk into any bookstore and buy.

I used to know someone who would even try to avoid creasing the spine. But I've also heard about a guy who would rip pages of shlocky fiction as he read them to keep his place. Where are you on the spectrum?

I've always had a strange reverence for physical books, and the idea of cutting them in half seems macabre in some way.

I'd put myself somewhere in the middle. I treat all of my stuff with some degree of respect. I'm not like super cautious and offended if they get some wear and tear, but I'm not going to deliberately damage them.

Someone who cuts their books in half is comparable to someone who cuts their furniture or plates in half. Like, you're allowed to do that, but unless you're doing a very specific project that requires this, why would you? Now you have torn up damaged stuff instead of nice new stuff.

Cutting your books in half isn't really damaging them if you do it right. It's just turning a long book into two shorter books. Closer to something like removing the back seat from your car to save weight.

Cutting books in half...removing the back seat of a car...both are things that save weight--and that haven't been done in America since the creators of That 70s Show were teenagers.

I'm really lost, people remove the backseats of sports cars to save weight or from trucks/vans to improve cargo space all the time, and I cut a lot of texts in half in college to make them more useable (notably Don Quixote).

Sorry to be confusing--but I've genuinely never removed a seat from a vehicle that had seats that could fold down to make room for cargo. I wonder if it's because I was raised in the blue tribe?

It's more common with motorsports enthusiasts and blue collar workers. Motorsports to reduce weight, workers because even folded flat they take up room. While cutting a book in half is common with literature students. I can see where it would seem strange if you've never done it, like you're ruining it, but in those circumstances it makes perfect sense, you're making it more useful.

Most of my physical books were bought used and may already be damaged or contain writing, but I generally don't do anything to make their condition worse. Growing up I mostly read library books, so my habit has always been not to write in, fold, or tear them. Generally I find things like highlighting and taking notes on the margin a waste of time and unnecessary for my own comprehension.

Post a screencap perhaps - it's not accessible.

That reminds me of when I had to write the prompt for a creative writing group I was a part of, in which the prompt was to be inspired by a famous work of speculative fiction. I chose Fahrenheit 451, the prompt being to write a story in which the destruction of books was a virtuous act. I got kicked out of the group, the only people who didn't treat me like I'd suggested fucking each other's pets were the two members younger than me. I was very pissed off, I thought it was a great prompt.

It was a great prompt. Those people treated you very poorly indeed.

Historically I cared very well for my books, and I am intentionally trying to change that and become a margin writer because it seems fun/good/helpful. I did the "cut the book in half" thing for a lot of books in college though.

I was definitely raised to care for books, and I think this reflects a generational thing. I thought of books as important items to protect, both because they were expensive (at scale) and because the knowledge in them was valuable to preserve. Books were pricy, destroying them would be playing into the hands of the big corporate booksellers. Used bookstores existed, but before the internet buying books secondhand was so haphazard as to be mostly useless, and obviously you never write in a library book. I also have a natural prissiness towards damaging anything, one of my major flaws as a mechanic is a refusal to just smack the damn thing for fear of breaking it. Comedically, this comes out when my wife and I lift weights together. I rerack 350 silently, she reracks 135 like she's trying to make as much noise as possible.

Today, preserving the knowledge in them is achieved through digital means, and for various reasons books are cheap (I make more money, and any book I want I could download a pdf in a few minutes of search, and there are more classics I want to read on Project Gutenberg than I'll ever actually get through anyway). The risk, see @KulakRevolt 's latest, is that publishers will stop producing them, booksellers will stop selling them (who would have believed, watching You've Got Mail that Borders would be bankrupt and AOL irrelevant today?) the books I buy in print I am very intentional about as an act of supporting my local small bookstore. I'm not buying them to preserve the knowledge in them, but to preserve the supply chain of getting them to me, I want to give money to the local store that stocks it and the small publishers that produce it. So I'm much more amenable to destroying a book as I'm reading it.

At the same time, taking notes while doing something is a good way to jog memory. And a friend who lives far away and I have taken to sending each other annotated copies of books we loved.

And a friend who lives far away and I have taken to sending each other annotated copies of books we loved.

This is a genius level remote-book-club idea. If one were so inclined, it would probably be possible to set up a marketing blog explaining how to do this, inviting people to register which books they're doing this with, ranking the most common, and then dropping affiliate links to generate income.

Or some sort of variant of Reese Witherspoon's crowdsourced book-to-film audiences

I rerack 350 silently, she reracks 135 like she's trying to make as much noise as possible.

SAY IT WITH YOUR CHEST (NSFW Audio)

I am definitely of the "treat books well" persuasion. I would write in a book or otherwise damage it if I had a good reason to, but honestly I don't find there are good reasons to. Any notes I could take in the margins I can just as easily take in a notebook, I find highlighting useless, etc. Even if I could easily get another copy, I'd rather keep the $ in my pocket and just keep my copy in good condition.

My freshman year of college, I wanted to raise the bed in my dorm room to make some space for storage but didn't want to buy bed risers, and so when I noticed our local textbook store giving out free hardcover copies of old editions of textbooks (I think these were genuinely decades old, not ones from last year with some problem sets changed), I took a whole lot of them and used stacks of them as bed risers. No one was particularly triggered, but I recall at least one dorm-mate kinda being disgusted and saying that he felt it was like book burning, but he couldn't explain why.

My girlfriend and I managed to literally break the bed in an AirBnB we were staying at.

When we checked in, some poor bastard studying law had left a doorstopper of a textbook in the cupboard, and it was handily repurposed to keep it from sagging. It was a miracle the owner didn't try and bill us for damages.

To make up for our sins, we left a similarly sized pair of binders full of maybe a kilogram's worth of notes and clinical vignettes, it would have likely been cheaper to book the course again rather than try and pay for the extra luggage space.

I don't care much about preserving books, hell I don't care about physical books in the least, since I am perfectly content to read on my phone, though my iPad is a necessity for textbooks.

Fold them, spit on them, use them as TP, why should I care?* Unless they're some kind of historical novelty or rarity, in which case it depends on if you have ownership, and I certainly don't condone the abuse of books taken from a library.

*A little known fact is that most Hindu Indians venerate books to a degree, because they represent the goddess of knowledge. Stepping on books or placing them by my feet always got me scolded as a kid, though I think people care less these days.

Somewhere in the middle. When I was a kid I literally devoured some of my books. Yep, pica. Now I am much more careful, never write in my books and leave dust jackets on the shelf to avoid roughing them up, but I will crack the spine if it won't lie flat and won't worry about the corners of a hard cover book getting crumpled. I will put a soft cover book into a sheet protector (TIL it's not called a file in English) before putting it in my bag, though.

Just curious, anyone on this sub been watching The Curse from Nathan Fielder? It's culture-war adjacent, I suppose. Really I was blown away by how meticulous it was - every shot has a purpose. I never have cared much for Nathan Fielder's other work but this was really on a whole different level. It's still very much that cringe, awkward, mockumentary style that I don't generally care for but it's much darker, weirder, more acerbic. It's uncomfortable to watch and I can see why it wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea. But the whole premise is basically like skewering performative progressivism and it's really a character study of the people at the center of it. Highly meta, because the show knows it's a show about a show. Mostly I just appreciate something that keeps me guessing and where I literally can't predict what the endgame is going to be. I think that's pretty rare.

But those who watched it, was it too "on the nose", not subtle enough? Were you as frustrated as I was by narrative threads that were teased but didn't ultimately lead anywhere? The finale, without giving anything away, doesn't really resolve much. And while the structure of the finale was masterful, I was disappointed that it kept the focus on the main characters and didn't resolve some of those other side plots. But maybe that was the point of a show that was about two incredibly self-involved and performative people.

I thought it was incredible. Benny Safdie was phenomenal in it. Not entertaining in the HGTV sense, but definitely gripping television, and insightful well beyond the mockery of pmcs. The last episode was a bit on the nose though, a crazy upside down world where he isn't with whit and she didn't even have to tell him, just like he said.

My alternative hypothesis for the end, if you assume Asher actually did become woke, properly woke, the way Whitney could never, is that the weight of sin is the only thing that was holding him to the Earth.

A redemption arc? Nah, I don't buy that. To me, Asher was irredeemable because he had no convictions. I mean he was kind of a beta male, right? So insecure, so passive, just willing to roll over for just about anyone if he thought it would get him something or make him look good. I do think he was a bit aware of it and part of him wanted to be a "better person" but he had no clue how. In a way, his fate was sort of the extreme outcome of having no substance, no grounding. His "good deeds" have no impact, he leaves no trace, he's 100% half-hearted. Here I'm thinking of how he immediately takes back the $100 he gave to the kid, or his interactions with Abshir, who really just seems annoyed with him most times and is certainly unimpressed with Asher's feeble attempts to help. He pretended to change smoke alarm batteries, for goodness' sake. He's got all this repressed anger but he can't once take an unpopular stand and stick to his principles because he barely has any.

That finale just had so much in it to process though. Someone else pointed out that Asher's predicament puts him in the same position as the people he's been trying to help, and all the help that's offered to him is completely unhelpful and the opposite of what he actually needs. And he's trying to explain to them but no one's listening and just carrying on with what they think is best. It sounds blindingly obvious in hindsight but I hadn't picked up on that aspect.

Yeah I don't buy it either really, I mostly made it as an alternative because the obvious interpretation annoys me. That's a really good point about his predicament though, because that's such a huge part of the problem. And yeah, he can't explain anything, because he made himself not worth listening to - the jester.

What did you think of Dougie? Good lord I was pissed we didn't get to find out what happened with his wife. I mean you can piece it together, but it should have been resolved with more than that last scene of his, brilliant though it was. Did you catch the drone operator's bewildered smile while Dougie broke down? I have never hated a character on tv so much and yet also desperately wished to give them a hug. And speaking of hanging threads, what was Borat's manager doing in Abshir's house?

Haven't seen it, but Freddie deBoer wrote an article on it https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/the-curse-as-nathan-fielders-penance

https://thequantuminsider.com/2024/01/04/its-back-researchers-say-theyve-replicated-lk-99-room-temperature-superconductor-experiment/

If I wanted to bet that some variation of (refrigerated-room) temperature Super Conductors will be available in the next ten years, what would I invest in?

What use are super conductors? If they are used in computing and they'll drop the price of computation then Bitcoin or other computation limited cryptocurrencies could be a good idea.

Proof of work cryptocurrencies are, if anything, harmed by the development of cheaper compute. The compute difficulty is not a bottleneck, it's the POINT. When miners start solving the hashes too quickly the networks automatically adjust to increase the difficulty.

So if supercomputers got cheaper then all the miners would be forced to upgrade and otherwise nothing would change.

Nathan Fielder

You can't make more bitcoin, so price shouldn't go down unless stores of value that can't be inflated away become common.

There are plenty of factors that impact price besides total supply.

Yeah, if it gets banned or cracked down on. But US now approved Bitcoin ETFs, so that's quite .. unlikely now. It's also not great for crime either, so..

I don't really have any price thesis on Bitcoin, except that computation efficiency won't help it.

Generally, "electromagnets" as far as I know. So, cheaper/smaller MRIs, improved efficiency of motors and generators for everything under the sun, more viable mag-lev systems.

While there are probably some improvements for computers, I doubt it'd be a sea change, but a double digit efficiency improvement isn't terrible.

It depends on the kind of superconductor, particularly material properties.

Ideally it should be malleable and ductile, and I don't think LK-99 is that, so making wiring might be iffy.

There are heaps of other factors, such as maximum temperature for superconductivity (claimed to be very high by SC standards, as in an ice cream freezer works, you don't need liquid nitrogen or helium)*, the maximum amount of current it can carry, the amount of magnetic flux it can tolerate and so on.

In terms of computing, from what I heard speculated, LK-99 is probably not that useful, and besides, in Bitcoin the amount of energy needed to mine a single coin will increase as you make more, so it won't help.

*The Chinese replications claim it's still not quite room temperature, unless you live in Siberia I guess. Still an enormous big if true.

When you are recalling a past event, do you imagine the transpired events as a series of still images of as “clips” of videos? Or as something else?

When people who can’t imagine things vividly in their mind’s eye are recalling something from the past, what exactly are they recalling? Words?

Either stills of sensory experiences or as an entire sequence all at once, it's a bit hard to describe.

I can "look" at individual parts of that sequence if I wish but treating it like a video feels like I'm constructing a visual mental representation of my memory as opposed to it being my memory. I'm not really sure though.

I remember it as video, though I can also see flashes of still imagery. It is largely devoid of audio, or smell, I have to explicitly try and imagine that, though I will note my imagination for smell and taste is quite good.

My mind's eye is fucking myopic, with poor clarity and resolution. I still can recall the above. If we go by the commonly use image chart for comparing aphantasia to vivid imagery, I think it would be like a 1 or 2/5, you know, the red apple thingy.

My visual thoughts (whether remembered or imagined) are composed of still images.

I mostly imagine little 3-5 second "clips" that are each associated with ideas, impressions, and facts that I just sort of know without visualizing. For example, my memories of my college graduation involve a handful of little vignettes (a snippet of conversation with the girl sitting next to me, a snippet of getting dressed, a snippet from the restaurant my family took me to celebrate, etc.), none of which have much particular significance but for some reason stuck with me more clearly than the surrounding moments. Those are the only things I remember immediately and vivdly, but I can sort of work outward from these snippets to recall more details if I try. Sometimes those additional details are unlocked as more snippets, but usually it's just information that I recall the same abstract way I recall Pear Harbor was attacked on December 7, 1941.

After a few seconds of trying the only time that 'still image' is the best description is remembering seeing Notre Dame or other nice looking places, but I'm not sure how much of that is true memory and how much me recreating the place in my imagination. Some memories are almost purely emotional because nothing interesting was happening around me except for the thoughts I was having, at most I have my eyes closed or I'm staring at a book. I'm sure some of this is corrupted by my reliving that thought each time I think about it but it does feel like the original moment is still there somewhere. Most memories are clips of a sort, though they're not consistently vivid all the way through and with effort I can usually unlock more details and lengthen the memory.

One thing I've noticed about my memory is that I'll remember very random things at times where no trigger seems apparent, it's a fun game to ask 'why am I remembering this now?'.

Another interesting thing I've noticed is that in certain emotionally salient moments I'll take on a sort of 'life history' perspective of all the other moments when I felt this way. My perspective is narrowed so that I'm not looking back on things linearly but thematically, all the parts not relevant to the current feeling feel extremely short compared to this series of important moments. The present is experienced linearly, but I wonder if 'looking back on life' is more a series of concurrent themes that fall in and out of prominence? The feeling of 'has it been three years already?' makes a lot more sense when most of the time in between these important points is being excluded (even though it may become relevant in some other narrative), especially when being reminded of where you were only a year ago makes it feel long again.

The moments that trigger this feeling don't have to be extreme: the change in seasons takes me back to the long evenings of previous summers, a good book takes me back to my first books, the taste of beer after a period of sobriety ensures I'll have plenty of stories to tell in an hour.

I remember most of my memories in the same way that I remember that I remember the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. My memories are simply facts that I know, same as any other information.

This has the benefit that my memories have little emotional impact. The primary drawback seems to be that my memories have little emotional impact.

I will say that while my memory is quite good, my voluntary recall is very bad. If anything comes up that is even a few steps removed from being related to a memory, then that memory will come to mind, but if it doesn't, I have no way of actively thinking of memories in general easily.

I have a small handful of memories that play as videos, but they certainly aren't historically accurate videos.

Depends on how clear the memory is.

Some are like clips, with some being closer to full color and others being more faded. Some memories are more like still images, once again sometimes the colors are retained sometimes not.

For any memories that are just words, it's either a case of it literally being a memory of something heard or read or it's something that I used to have a more vivid memory of, but can now only recognize as a factual statement about my past.

I was kicking around a story idea for a super hero setting where all powers are based on speedster type powers. I went to ChatGPT to flesh out the idea a little, and get a condensed list of human cell types. I was originally going to have the list of cell types and then work out how the speedster powers applied to those cell types, but then I just went one prompt further and had ChatGPT do it for me. And I maybe accidentally ruined the whole exercise for myself. I realized I was basically outsourcing the fun part of creative writing and world-building. ChatGPT also did a good job at what I asked it to do, that its hard not to use it.

I also have an old story I wrote and never finished. I've been thinking about feeding the story into ChatGPT and seeing if it can drastically clean it up and then finish the story.

Are you going at this from a soft sci-fi angle or hard? I struggle to think how speeding up any cell types locally results in anything but disease states. Any rapidly dividing cell: tumors, CNS neurons: seizures, cardiac myocytes: arrhythmias, any endocrine cell: hormone imbalance. Not to mention, the increase in metabolic rate means your characters would need to be eating non-stop to keep up with energy demands. I could maybe see an argument for having all cell types uniformly and globally sped up might work (if you also locally distort time so things like diffusion rates for gas exchange in the lungs also increase), but going into specific cell types seems like a hard sci-fi coating on a concept that fundamentally only works as soft sci-fi.

More of a fantasy angle. But I like rules and limitations to power systems. Not sure if that counts as soft sci-fi.

There is bleed over for the "speed power". Its more that a specific cell type is regulating the use of the speed power, rather than the only thing being effected by it. Skin is one of the easier examples I'd thought of. Skin gets hit by something, the skin in that area can call on the speed power and be locally sped up so that the force of the impact is dissipated over a longer time period. So a bullet traveling 2,500mph with a time differential of 100x would hit the skin like a bullet traveling at 25mph. If it was literally just the skin cells it wouldn't really save anyone, it would just preserve a patch of skin on the surface while the force of the bullet travels through to the underlying flesh and does a bunch of damage anyways. So there is bleed over in the speed power. Anything that needs to get sped up by the skin can get sped up. There was also going to be some mechanism that intelligently applies the power without input from humans.

What on earth did it come up with? Natural Killer cells going out to fight crime? RBCs causing another mass extinction by sucking all the oxygen out of the air? Computers and LLMs replaced with cultured neuronal tissue conducting at 25,000 m/s?

Honestly I find GPT-4 quite handy for worldbuilding, though I find it terrible for making new and interesting superpowers. I usually use it to flesh out my hypothetical musings, translate to different languages, give me cultural context etc.

For example, I was too lazy to learn Jamaican slang, and had it translate something I wrote in plain English, and about 6 months later, I had a Jamaican reader express their surprise at how realistic/authentic it was. Or maybe I want a culturally appropriate name for an interstellar Chinese warship, or an appropriate pet name for a little Chinese girl, I find it enormously useful, even if only directed to flesh out what I came up with.

  1. Erythrocyte Envoys: Superheroes with the power of red blood cells, allowing them to enhance their oxygen-carrying capacity, providing incredible endurance and stamina.
  2. Leukocyte Guardians: Heroes with white blood cell powers might have the ability to rapidly heal injuries, resist diseases, and even manipulate their immune system for various effects.
  3. Neural Navigators: Speedsters with the abilities of neurons could control and manipulate their perception of time, enabling them to process information at incredible speeds and react lightning-fast to situations.
  4. Myocyte Velocity: Muscle cell-powered heroes could possess immense physical strength and super-speed, making them formidable combatants and rescuers.
  5. Epidermal Shields: Superheroes with skin cell-based powers might have near-invulnerability and the ability to heal rapidly, making them nearly indestructible.
  6. Adipose Accelerators: Fat cell-powered heroes could manipulate their energy reserves, granting them bursts of incredible speed and strength when needed.
  7. Osteocyte Defenders: Bone cell-powered characters might have super-dense and unbreakable bones, making them unyielding in battles.
  8. Hepatic Harmonizers: Heroes with liver cell abilities could detoxify poisons or chemicals, and possibly generate energy bursts.
  9. Cardiovascular Commanders: Those with heart cell powers could control their heart rate to achieve bursts of super-speed and heightened physical performance.
  10. Pancreatic Precision: Superheroes with pancreatic cell powers could regulate their blood sugar levels, granting them precise control over their energy and metabolism.
  11. Reproductive Resonators: Characters with reproductive cell abilities might have unique powers related to creating and controlling life.

Some of their ideas were similar to mine. I'd also thought of similar things for "Epidermal Shields", "Neural Navigators", "Myocyte Velocity", and "Leukocyte Guardians". I had slightly different ideas in mind for red blood cells, and had an idea of bone marrow as regenerative types.

I also didn't fully explain to the AI how I imagined the superpowers working.

That is useful to know where the AI helps and where it doesn't. I forget, do you tag your story as AI assisted on royal road?

Nope, since I only use it for idea generation/translation, and I don't think something along the lines of Google translate would cause a need for a declaration either.

There are AI generated images, but those are so obvious I doubt they need declaration, and I don't recall seeing any need for that.

I wouldn't let ChatGPT suggesting similar ideas to what you would have come up with put you off, it seems clear to me that if someone was to be prompted with superhero powers inspired by cells, they'd suggest taking the usual function of a cell, and ramping it up or making it macroscopic.

I think most of the fun comes from second order generation, including some aspects that might not be obvious. Think Acid Man, who spits gastric juices with a pH of 0.1 and melts your face off, Nephron Man who is immune to toxin and pisses high velocity jets of concentrated waste, Melanocyte Man who is uh, really black (and immune to radiation), Memory Cell dude who can identify any disease from a block away, Islet Cell Man who gives his enemies diabetes. The options at endless, even if some of them are obvious/convergent.

(I do think giving Adipocyte Accelerators super speed is a bit funny lol)

Then you could get even wilder, mitochondria man, ribosome dude, integrated transposon and ancient retrovirus lady, The Endogenous Opioid Antagonist as villains of the week. Don't let no chatbot put you off, originality, while desirable, doesn't matter nearly as much as execution.

Those are some fun ones. The mitochondria users I had in mind as the very top of the speedster hierarchy, since they basically have all of the other powers.

There was also some thought that there could be multiple cell types calling upon the speedster powers. A muscle and nerve user would look pretty similar to a traditional speedster.

It also did a thing where it tried to level out all the various cell types and powers, I wasn't planning on doing that. I was thinking there are very clear hierarchies of power. With some cell types being entirely useless, or even anti-helpful. Like sperm users that are basically just dangerously successful at reproduction.

That sounds good to me, I'm all for a hierarchy of powers, especially if you find inventive ways for the seemingly shitty ones to punch above their weight-class.

Maybe consider a God-like Ur-Superhero in the form of Totipotent Stem Cell Man, his sidekick Pluripotent Boy, you know, just because it would be funny.

You could look up a wiki article on all known cell lines and find something obscure, if you want to go beyond the obvious. Cells can and do overlap in functionality, if you want generic superheroes, or weird shit like Neutrophil Dude who swallows his enemies whole and digests them.

Teamwork is the main way they'll punch above their weight class.

I was also not gonna have the traditional hero / villain split that most superhero settings go with. More of a city vs city type model. And civilians are the resource they are fighting over. Your local city you protect, and other cities you attack and make life miserable for civilians, or kidnap/steal their stuff in an attempt to bribe them over to your city. Since there are factions the fights are typically dozens of speedsters. The speedster energy is limited on a personal basis and can take days to recharge, so defenders and attackers want to only use just enough speedster energy to accomplish their objectives.

I think nation vs nation makes more sense, but it depends on what your world looks like, the general tech level, whether superpowers just showed up or have been around long enough for things to adjust and so on. In the end, you can make anything work if you put in the effort to help users suspend disbelief (well, there's superpowers involved!)

The idea of balancing speedsters by making them high value, long cooldown assets is very interesting, especially when you consider things like strategic deterrence and first strike capabilities.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats