site banner
PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   1549 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for May 28, 2025

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

1
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I was up late last night on the phone with the girl I'm maybe sorta kinda seeing.

I think the conversation had somehow taken a turn into automation-induced unemployment, to which one of her comments were that if we did achieve that, wouldn't that bump humanity up on the "scale"?

What scale did she mean, I asked.

(Is she talking about the Kardashev scale? Could that possibly be the case, or are you deluding yourself, SMH?)

Well, you know, the one that goes from 1, 2 to 3. And measures energy right? I think humans are like a 1 or 2?

Yep. That's the one. You have accidentally activated my trap card, or at the very least my special interest.

I know that going on to deliver an impromptu lecture on the true meaning of the Kardashev scale, that energy use isn't the best proxy for technological advancement, that humanity is a paltry 0.73 blah blah isn't the definition of rizz, but I just couldn't help myself. Fortunately, she did tell me that she liked it when I went on infodumps.

(If you can't tell, I'm a nerd)

Fortunately, she did tell me that she liked it when I went on infodumps.

For guys with the inclinations we have, it is an absolute imperative to marry women that at least sometimes enjoy the infodumps. Having the desire to share information rejected as uninteresting is the kind of thing that a guy can only take so many times.

Women enjoy infodumps from men they like not because they like the infodumps, it's because they like these men.

These things are not unrelated. People like you more if your infodumps feel like stories than if they feel like condescending lectures.

This is a recipe for never getting married, because the kind of guy who enjoys nerdy infodumping considerably outnumbers the kind of woman who enjoys listening to nerdy infodumps.

Your wife doesn't have to share your interests, be your best friend, or anything like that; that's what your male friends are for. She needs to be good at the sorts of things a wife should be good at.

My last ex was someone who was a nerd herself. I must say that listening to someone else info dumping on the many ways that people have molested Roman or Renaissance statues and the legal statutes that prompted was an interesting experience.

I've also dated people who I didn't feel like sharing my interests with, but mostly because they weren't likely to understand in the first place. To be fair, those weren't very serious relationships, and I think I've made it years without talking about the Kardashev scale with pretty women.

Make the infodumps about a topic she really enjoys, or deliver it well. It's a performance, and you have to do them thousands of times over a marriage to keep each other entertained.

If she can't handle a 45-second rant about the Kardashev scale, I'd consider that a yellow flag of contempt.

When has an infodump been only 45 seconds?

To be more specific that's probably the longest you should monologue before getting some sort of audience interaction

I mean, my wife doesn't love it when I start in on an infodump, but she married me anyway and we make it work. She has occasionally quoted Jen from The IT Crowd at me, specifically making white static noise at me or saying, "I want to stop listening to this," to bring me back to Earth, a behavior that I have encouraged so that she doesn't have to get ever-more lost in what I'm on about.

IDK man, every girl I've been with has enjoyed the info dumps. I think if they think you're cute they're down for the excited babble.

You can also just have friends, but not gonna lie, it's fun to tell all the crazy shit I've been reading to the missus.

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