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SubstantialFrivolity

I'm not even supposed to be here today

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joined 2022 September 04 22:41:30 UTC
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SubstantialFrivolity


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
I'm not even supposed to be here today

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2022 September 04 22:41:30 UTC
				


				
					

					
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				Friday Fun Thread for March 27, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't think it's brain dead, it just means he doesn't have a reference point to compare to. @Corvos mentioned that would be 1/8 of all people on earth, but if you don't know there are 8 billion people on earth (I certainly didn't), then that doesn't help you as a heuristic. If you don't happen to know any reference point on which to base an estimate, and if you're being asked in a setting where you have to answer off the cuff (which he was, since it was on his show), then your answer isn't going to really have any bearing on how smart (or not) you are.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for March 27, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
If that's the case, that is dirty pool given he didn't say "misspellings don't count" up front. I chalked the misspellings up to test creator error, and picked them (except for one where there was a misspelling and the correct spelling both as options).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I saw a study recently that claimed that it's quite literally healthier to be a pack a day smoker with an active social life than a wellness guru who has no friends.




I seriously doubt that is true (the study's claim, not that you saw it). I would need a lot of evidence to be convinced of such an incredible claim, like years of studies repeatedly finding that to be true.




my parents did this to me as a child/teenager (now ~20 years ago, yikes!). Even back then, not having a blackberry/dumb cellphone was rapidly causing social issues as adoption pumped. And finally at the end of grade 9 my parents, realizing this, started listening to my pleading and got me a phone.




I mean I'm the same age or very similar, and I experienced no such issues. I think that part of growing up is learning to shrug off people who are jerks and who mistreat you for petty reasons. Yes, kids are super sensitive to being shut out of things, but they need to learn to ignore that to be well-adjusted adults.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Alcohol isn't required for social participation. I very rarely drink and I've never once had someone insist that I have to drink. Someone who makes a point of not drinking and gets sanctimonious will find himself excluded, but nobody cares about a person who just happens to not drink.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Sure, that's reasonable enough. My impression is that people mean the heroin end of the spectrum (not beer) when they make the comparison, but perhaps it will turn out to be more like beer.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The fucking problem with this shit is even if you don't let your kids have a smartphone with social media apps, if you send them to school, every single friend of theirs does and they use these social apps to communicate and bond and if your kid is the weirdo without one they feel unable to function socially and hate you every day for restricting them.




Kids have hated their parents for placing restrictions for their own good since time immemorial. Doesn't make it ok to give up though (to be clear: I'm not accusing you of giving up, just that many parents do seem to give up these days). If social media truly is tantamount to doing drugs in terms of the harm it causes kids (as I've seen alleged), then even being a complete social outcast is less bad for the kid than being on social media.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


God knows nobody is likely to pay much for pictures of my bussy




Aren't they into that kind of thing over on rdrama?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for March 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


"Content" is a very poor standard for the quality of a game: meaningful, interesting content is far harder to create than churning out procedural junk or trying to fake it with busywork.




Hard agree. I like to point to Chrono Trigger as a great example of this: yeah, the game is only 20 hours long, but it's tight. They trimmed every bit of fat off that game, so that you're never sitting around doing busy work or enduring an area that goes on long past when it's interesting. I'll take that any day over a game which is 100 hours but only 30% of that time is actually interesting.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 22, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Not AI itself, but I did see someone on HN claim they feel like they are finally good at programming because of AI... then go on to say that they haven't written any code in months.


I recently remarked to a friend that I probably wouldn't care about AI if it wasn't causing people to act retarded. Whether through stunning displays or ignorance like the one I mentioned, corpos shoving it down my throat when I never asked for it, or the insane tech industry push that you simply must use it for work, the hype train annoys the absolute shit out of me. But it's really not the tech's fault - if not for people acting stupid I would just go "meh, not very useful to me" and move on with my life. As usual, humans ruin things.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


isn't it safe to assume that the guy who made "because I got high" was probably in posession of narcotics?




He actually jokes about that in one of the songs he made. At one point the song goes "Why does the warrant say narcotics and - ok, I know about the narcotics (laugh) but why the kidnapping?".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Being physically attracted to someone is an extreme prerequisite for wanting to spend the rest of your life with them.




It doesn't seem to be for women. I've seen too many instances of "woman falls in love for another reason, finds guy physically attractive now that she's in love with him" to chalk it up to coincidence. I don't know why, but it certainly seems to be common from what I've seen.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 15, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Check out Captain of Industry (light colony sim elements in that every facility needs people to work it and you have to grow food and provide housing for them), or Sweet Transit (the game is nothing but moving passengers around from place to place so they can go to their jobs and whatnot).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for March 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Honestly, I would ignore that provision if it was me, because it's unreasonable. I've used a ton of Command products (both the hooks and the velcro strips), and there's never been any damage to the wall from it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for March 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Working on finishing RDR2, hopefully I'll finish this weekend. I have found the game to be very overrated - the story is good, but it isn't uniquely so, the gameplay is worse than the previous game due to Rockstar pursuing "immersion" over fun in various ways, and the game is a buggy mess (at least on PC). I have enjoyed it well enough, but once I finish I doubt very much if I will ever play it again, and I certainly don't think it's as good as it gets hyped up to be.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 8, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I didn't say high school didn't fill that role. As it happens it didn't (I was home schooled), but you definitely read something that wasn't there into my post on that front. For the rest, see my reply to SkoomaDentist.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 8, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


How does college make it so "you are still surrounded by the same set of people every day, forced into constant, recurring proximity"?




Er... by doing just that? That is exactly what my college experience was like, I'm very confused by this question. I saw the same people every day, whether that was guys in the dorm or people in classes. And the people in classes were fairly consistent from term to term because the fellow students in my major were taking many of the same classes as me.




Hell, I barely even bothered attending classes after the first semester




Something tells me that this is a very unusual college experience. At any rate it is completely dissimilar to mine. If one cared about learning (to be fair I didn't cause I was young and stupid), you aren't going to learn without going to class. And if you care about passing, you are still going to miss out on participation points (often a significant chunk of my grades!) if you don't go to class.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 8, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


High school is notable because although you still have some decent latitude in terms of who you spend your time with, you are still surrounded by the same set of people every day, forced into constant, recurring proximity. However as soon as college hits, boom all of that reliable, predictable, forced social interaction suddenly dissolves.




What you refer to as the high school experience was exactly what I experienced in college, so I think it really depends on where you go to school.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Doesn't that make the actions un-American? Irresponsible?




No. A reasonable person can look at the situation in Iran and conclude that the best thing for American interests is to get out now. You obviously disagree with that, and that's fine (I'm not actually trying to take a stand on that point), but the contrary position is not somehow beyond the pale such that one can't imagine someone would take it up only in a bad-faith attempt to make our country worse off.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for March 6, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yeah, I never really understood that rule (being extremely unfamiliar with Magic)... until I started to play Dominion a bunch. Then it made sense to me.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for March 6, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Also - I'm getting the sense that a smaller deck with stronger cards is better because the deck keeps getting recycled over an over in combat.




That is generally true in deck building games, though IDK about StS specifically. Usually, having a small deck means you can have just a handful of high powered cards that you get to keep drawing over and over. It's not the only strategy, but it's often a good one.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for March 6, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yeah I also think it's hilarious. Another example I love is Thug Kitchen (or did love, back before they became lame about it and started to say it was racist to do that schtick). I also don't think it's a millennial thing per se. South Park uses that kind of tonal dissonance to great comedic effect, and Trey and Matt are GenX. I think the only real requirement is to not be uptight about swearing (so, I have a hard time seeing boomers appreciate it).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for March 6, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yeah they did. I was just thinking about this gem yesterday. I'm guessing it was too expensive to make those videos, but either way it's a shame they stopped. Almost every video they did back in the day was pure gold.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


These people genuinely are *better" than you and me. Smarter, more driven, more ambitious, and more willing to take risks. All men are categorically not made equal.




I think for that to be true, we would need agreed-upon criteria for how to evaluate goodness. Which I don't believe we really can achieve. Let's say for the sake of argument that Bezos is higher on all those axes than me, fine. But it's not clear that all of those things make someone good. Ambition is notorious for being a double edged sword as a character trait, and risk-taking is imo more of a negative trait than a positive one. And of course, Bezos has cheated on his wife more than me, and has engaged in unethical business practices more than me, both of which I would say are pretty strongly negative.


So who is better, Bezos or me? It is going to depend on whom you ask; we just don't have a set of values that everyone (or even most people) can agree upon to answer the question. I don't think one can correctly say, therefore, that Bezos (or any other billionaire of course) is better than me, nor that I am better than him. Nor would it be reasonable to say that he has more moral worth than me (which is what the "all men are created equal" line means). The only thing we can say with any real certainty is that he has more money and business success than I ever will, but that doesn't make one man better than another.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 1, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think both Matrix sequels are vastly underrated. Leaving out the weirdness that the Wachowski brothers put in because they were all into gay sex clubs, the movies are cut from the same cloth as the first movie. Also, Monica Bellucci.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for February 27, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I'm not going to sit and pontificate here; this is just my view.




I would love for you to pontificate! I always find your perspective interesting, and I think you have a great deal of wisdom in the things you say. But if you really don't want to, I understand.