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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   875 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 17, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Oddball future predictions, anyone?

Kilts become A Thing in at least some blue tribe cities by 2050. Sneered at by minorities and the red tribe.

More hippos in South America than Africa in 2100. Trophy hunters shooting them are a notable thing; periodic rumblings about introducing lions, saltwater crocodiles, tigers, bears to try to control their population have enthusiastic support from the dwindling number of locals but are opposed by everyone else.

Sailing returns as a low-value bulk cargo shipping mechanism.

Someone, probably China, introduces affirmative action for mothers in the workforce, 2040, and the idea spreads like wildfire. It is promptly used mostly for fraud, both on a corporate and individual level.

Faking AI-generated video/images. In other words someone somewhere will film/capture something but for reasons of legality, morality, or popularity will claim that the captured moment/thing is AI-generated, when it is not, in fact, AI-generated. To some degree you already have people pretending to be robots, so this, only more so.

I guess the play would be to release an actual AI generated version of the same picture, so that everything is confused as to what they're looking at and what was the original.

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