site banner
PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   3236 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for April 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.

India has like at least 30 distinct ethnicities, and people from the different corners bear about as much resemblance to each other as a Norwegian does a swarthy Spaniard with Moorish ancestry. Or they do to with a Pacific Islander or Australian aboriginal, or the fucking Chinese. People from the North Eastern regions are far closer to the Thai, Nepali or Bhutanese in terms of looks than they are to me.

It's a fucking diverse country, not that I expect Westerners to be able to make out finer distinctions than North vs South Indian, or maybe Punjabi if they're wearing a turban.

So yes, Pakistani girls, while overlapping with Indian girls from across the border (said border being largely arbitrary at the time of independence), do look notably different, and what else but genes would account for that? I think they're super hot, but it's not like I don't know hot Indian women from my own particular ethnic group or any other.

To be honest, I can't even tell North or South Indian folks apart. Then again it's not like people wear a badge saying what part of the country they are from, so unless you know the differences already it seems like it would be hard to suss out. The only thing I know about different regions of India is that a friend at a previous job (from Chennai) used to talk so much shit about North India, lol. I always took that with a grain of salt but it was pretty funny how much trash he would talk about North Indians.

I can't even tell North or South Indian folks apart

Neither can they, will frequently get immigrants open conversation with me in Hindi. 2nd gens like myself are even worse, most can't even tell I'm south Indian after hearing my extremely Dravidian last name.

Ah, accursed Northern/Southern Indians! They ruined India!

Yeah, the North and the South are usually locked in something between friendly rivalry and a bitter bloodfeud. They don't speak the same languages or even similar ones, when they do communicate it's mainly through English, which is the lingua, uh, franca, and the younger ones down south have picked up Hindi too.

But you need an ophthalmologist if you can't tell us apart dawg haha, though I'm somewhere in between given my own cultural background, but closer to north Indian in terms of culture and language. At least we can sorta understand them, and vice versa. Then there's also an east west axis, though that's not quite as jarring.

Oh right. Kind of a stupid question on my part, in retrospect.

Nah it's not a stupid question, quite a lot of people don't even realize that India, Pakistan and Bangladesh were once continuous and you couldn't tell you were somewhere else until you were several hundred kilometers past the border.

A lot of the changes was people fleeing in the tens of millions during the Partition, but even then, the populations across the border don't diverge that much. But at least if you go far enough west in Pakistan, you can tell they're closer to Afghan than what you'd think of as Indian.

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