site banner
PaperclipPerfector  23hr ago (text post)   619 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for October 24, 2025

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.

Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Are there new restrictions in place preventing ai from fetching threads? I was enjoying having ai summarize interesting threads and sub threads for me, but now it can no longer fetch the culture war threads

I'm a simple man, and this doesn't change my usual strategy, which is to copy-all and paste directly into an LLM when I need them to opine on something. It's not pretty but it works.

Wait... was it ALL YOUR FAULT?!?!!

Hey, if getting a robot to do all my thinking for me is wrong, I'll need to consult my robot to see how to be right.

Seriously, though, I only did it like 5 times over a month.

@ZorbaTHut I assume this is a consequence of your recent robot changes.

The Will Stancil Show animated partly using Sora is a pretty neat use of AI video that goes above and beyond the standard Instagram slop. What other transformative uses of this technology are you guys seeing? It's a bit disappointing that so far AI video seems to be mostly used for short form video clickbait. Maybe more open weight models will help over time, the high-end offerings right now have a high price tag, lots of content filters, and onerous ToS.

This is an oldie, and the use of AI boiled down to making the voiceovers, but I probably won't get a better chance to share it with anyone who cares, so here's a video version of my Eunuch Archive post.

Neural Viz makes some great stuff: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL14oiCokyIUWhPgCJej67myAN1n8umIap

I believe I have mentioned, at some point, an uncle of mine who is far more accomplished as a psychiatrist. For more context, I didn't even know I had a psychiatrist relative in the UK (there's nothing new under the sun) and he suspects it's because my parents didn't want me to be influenced and turn away from the noble profession of gynecological surgery. Jokes on them, it happened anyway.

Very nice guy, but he's getting on in years and is still single. He was a ladykiller in his 20s and 30s, but after a messy divorce from a BPD ex (he's just like me fr fr), he never settled down due to enjoying the bachelor life.

This won't do. I, a humble guest in his palatial house, have already had both of his parents attempt to enlist me in their crusade to have him marry and produce bouncable babies before they depart this mortal coil. I'd say that's none of my business, but he seems to genuinely regret not settling down earlier and is attempting to make amends.

Well, and here's the pickle. He's roped me into attending a single's event at some exclusive London club. He told me they put stickers on phone cameras and keep naked women in cages downstairs plus bona fide BDSM nuns of uncertain denomination(this is not a joke). The whole place isn't quite Eyes Wide Shut, I believe there is a perfectly normal dance floor, albeit with expensive drinks. We have both agreed that the judicious thing to do is to pre-game with copious amounts of liquor before making our presence felt, as we need liquid courage to talk to strange women in loud places. Also, we're cheapskates.

And our presence will be felt. He's not a fan of understated fashion, some of his suits are so loud that they attract noise complaints. He's kindly lent me one that is reasonable tasteful, on the grounds that my perfectly nice bomber jacket won't stand out.

So uh.. Advice? Suggestions? I've ticked off the "drink till I'm uninhibited enough to dance" option. I am mostly dedicating myself to being a good wingman, because I could do with attending a wedding at some point and because it will much easier to lean on him for job recommendations if I'm responsible for his newfound happy matrimony.

It is worth noting that he is also rather successfully convincing me to attend a speed dating event the next day. It's a heartening sign that all the ladies' tickets are sold out, even if the demographics are slightly older than me. But I have never been one to turn down a lady in distress due to something as paltry as an age gap. Any advice for that occasion? I'm mostly going out of sheer curiosity, I don't live in London, and I'm not likely to anytime soon. But it might be fun!

He's roped me into attending a single's event at some exclusive London club. He told me they put stickers on phone cameras and keep naked women in cages downstairs plus bona fide BDSM nuns of uncertain denomination(this is not a joke). The whole place isn't quite Eyes Wide Shut,

Is the password "oooorrrrggyyyy?"

It well might be, but I don't look rich/distinguished enough to know for a fact. I will keep an eye open for Latin chanting or naked women with knives.

So uh.. Advice? Suggestions? I've ticked off the "drink till I'm uninhibited enough to dance" option. I am mostly dedicating myself to being a good wingman,

This seems correct. Since this is your first night out together and they're family I'd probably avoid getting too shitfaced with them.

Spoilsport, he's the one who's convinced me to carry a discreet plastic bottle full ot South African wine. In all fairness, it was his idea.

Well, you didn't say you were going out with a man of culture!

Bona fide BDSM nuns is extremely dishonest wording. BDSM cos-players/performers dressed in a parody of nun attire is almost certainly what is there.

I think a reasonable reader will interpret my statement as a claim that I'm making it in good faith.

seems to genuinely regret not settling down earlier

attempting to make amends.

keep naked women in cages downstairs plus bona fide BDSM nuns of uncertain denomination(this is not a joke). The whole place isn't quite Eyes Wide Shut

I feel like one of these things is not precisely like the others. Perhaps I simply don't understand British culture.

I only lived in the UK for 2 years versus decades of life in the US and there's obvious confounders with my sampling but my experience was that Brits are way sluttier.

Which is funny because they don't come off as particularly passionate or sexy. More like .. unabashedly horny?

In all fairness, neither do I. I would have expected a pig and/or a Prime Minister too.

And our presence will be felt. He's not a fan of understated fashion, some of his suits are so loud that they attract noise complaints. He's kindly lent me one that is reasonable tasteful, on the grounds that my perfectly nice bomber jacket won't stand out.

So uh.. Advice? Suggestions?

I have no advice to share but I request, nay, demand that you write an extensive report after you have recovered from the event. For science, of course.

You're in luck, I'd probably do that anyway. I'm not sure I'll get to see the cages or nuns, I'm afraid, since that is very much invitation-only. Even my uncle has only been down there the once.

The only valid use of AI.

As someone who hasn't watched SpongeBob, that just looks like what I'd imagine a normal episode would be!

It’s almost identical to the real show and some of them do just look like normal scenes (except for when it completely glitches out).

Court opinion:

  • A person has been employed as a firefighter by a municipal government since year 2001, and also was a volunteer firefighter before 2001. First in 2018, and again in 2021, he is called upon to perform CPR on a baby, but the baby dies anyway. As a result of these two events, he develops PTSD, quits, and files for workers' compensation.

  • The municipal government does not dispute that the two baby deaths led directly to the firefighter's PTSD. However, it does dispute the firefighter's claim that baby deaths constitute "abnormal working conditions" that give rise to a valid workers' compensation claim, rather than being merely part and parcel of working as a firefighter.

  • The workers' compensation board finds that the baby deaths in question are not "abnormal working conditions" for a firefighter, so the plaintiff is not entitled to workers' compensation. The trial judge affirms. But the appeals panel reverses.

    We agree [with the municipal government's expert (Claimant's boss, a firefighter with 36 years of experience)] that, standing on its own, performing CPR on an individual, witnessing death, or responding to an emergency involving a child might each be an unfortunate but expected working condition for a firefighter. However, we must consider the specific factual scenario faced by Claimant, and we do not do so by looking to "unrelated component parts, where each part, standing on its own, might be safely determined to be a 'normal' working condition". Such a review would render our discussion a "potentiality with no relation to what happened in this case".

    The reality of Claimant's situation was that he performed CPR on, and witnessed the deaths of, two infant children within a 16-month period. It was the compounded effect of these two incidents that caused Claimant's disabling PTSD. There can be little doubt that firefighters experience a high amount of stress in their jobs. Nonetheless, we must recognize that certain events, even in high-stress professions, may rise to the level of abnormal working conditions. Claimant did not simply witness death at a usual call involving a fire or a motor-vehicle crash. Claimant was actively involved in attempting to resuscitate two separate unresponsive babies and witnessing each of their deaths. We cannot agree that Claimant's experience in this regard was a "normal" or "expected" consequence of being a firefighter. Indeed, in Claimant's 20 years' experience in firefighting service before the first event, Claimant had never before had to perform CPR on an infant. There is no evidence in the record that suggests firefighters in [this municipality] or even in [this state] routinely or normally perform CPR on infant children or witness the deaths of infant children. Furthermore, it is noteworthy that, of the three instances in which Employer called upon the county's Critical Incident Stress Decreasement Team between 2018 and 2022, two of those calls were in response to these two incidents involving Claimant and the infants. Certainly, this highlights both the rarity of these events and the potential for substantial psychological impact to the participants, which is further magnified by the fact that the same person, Claimant, administered CPR on infants on each occasion.

Series of court opinions:

  • On a road with one lane in each direction, a posted speed limit of 55 mi/h (90 km/h), an "extremely wide" shoulder, and heavy motor-vehicle traffic, a bicyclist decides to ride at 15 mi/h (25 km/h) in the middle of the lane. A police officer gives him a ticket for obstructing traffic. At trial, the bicyclist boldly asserts that he had "no legal obligation" to avoid obstructing traffic, and claims that the shoulder was unsafe. The trial judge disagrees, finds him guilty, and imposes a fine of 25 dollars. The appeals panel affirms.

  • The state supreme court vacates and remands. The lower courts have been using a standard under which a bicyclist who is obstructing motor traffic always is required to get out of the way. However, when compared with the statute, which requires that bicyclists "use reasonable efforts so as not to impede the normal and reasonable movement of traffic", this standard is overly rigid. Instead, whether it is reasonable for a bicyclist to temporarily move to the shoulder (rather than, e. g., merely moving to the right edge of the lane) is fact-specific and must be determined on a case-by-case basis. But a bicyclist does have a duty to make a "serious, fair attempt" to avoid obstructing motor-vehicle traffic. (Two of the seven justices dissent. They think that the majority's new standard is too vague to give to bicyclists reasonable notice of what specific activity is lawbreaking, so in practice bicyclists will move to the shoulder in all circumstances, just as under the previous standard, due to fear of prosecution.)

  • On remand, the appeals panel affirms again. The police officer's dashcam video clearly shows: (1) the shoulder was perfectly safe; and (2) the bicyclist did not even once look backward at the cars whose passage he was obstructing, from which behavior the panel can infer that the bicyclist had no interest in making the "reasonable efforts" or "serious, fair attempt" to avoid obstruction that the law requires.

Love these posts, thank you

I now work in a legal-adjacent field and it's so interesting seeing how courts think.

I'm surprised that "abnormality" is a prerequisite for getting worker's compensation. Accepting for the sake of argument that PTSD is real, this is a real instance of PTSD, and it really prevents him from continuing in the same line of work, should "all firefighters experience this, and usually it does not result in them quitting with PTSD" be a sufficient argument to deny compensation? Does that mean that in cases like those radioactive watch face painters, where everyone in a line of work was exposed to a perhaps underappreciated probabilistic risk by convention, those who did get struck by it (the people who got cancer) have no claim to compensation?

to a perhaps underappreciated probabilistic risk

I think this is essentially pointing at the same thing the abnormality is. If you go into a dangerous job with full disclosure and knowledge that it's dangerous, you don't get special compensation because presumably you can ask for an appropriate risk-sensitive amount of compensation up front. If something extreme and unexpected happens, then presumably your original deal you signed was unfair. Underappreciated risks like radioactive watches or infant CPR deaths are the same general category of "did not really expect this or fully understand the risks"

That's not how the worker's compensation system is set up. As @ToaKraka notes below, the abnormality requirement only applies to psychological injuries, not physical injuries. As far as physical injuries are concerned, any injury that is work-related is eligible for compensation, and most of the litigation surrounding claims is question of either whether the claimant is too injured to do his job or whether the injury is actually work-related. If you wrench your knee climbing into the cab of the truck you drive for work, that counts. If you work with dangerous chemicals and are permanently disabled due to an explosion, it counts. If the workplace was seriously negligent, it counts. If it was an unpreventable accident, it counts. If the worker was injured because he failed to take required safety precautions, it still counts.

The idea behind the system is that traditionally, people injured on the job would have to sue their employers for lost wages, and the amount of time it takes suits to go through the courts meant that they could experience significant financial hardship even if their suits were successful. By eliminating the requirement of proving fault claims can be adjudicated in a matter of weeks (and subject to appeal if necessary) and claimants can receive benefits while they're actually out of work. The employer pays into the system like insurance.

The tradeoff is that this is the employer's liability is limited to what is available to the employee through the system. So if you're in an accident where the employer is seriously negligent (e.g. there's an explosion that makes the news and was caused by terrible safety practices) you won't get a multimillion dollar lawsuit but the relatively meager award based on a percentage of your average wage. The caveat here is that this only prevents suits against employers, so if you're injured on the job due to an accident caused by a contractor, you can still sue the contractor, or if you work for a contractor working at a steel mill and a mill employee does something stupid you can still sue the mill. The added requirements for psychological injuries is to prevent people from saying that they're job is too stressful so you should pay them not to work.

Should "all firefighters experience this, and usually it does not result in their quitting with PTSD" be a sufficient argument to deny compensation?

According to the state supreme court:

Abandoning the distinction between normal and abnormal working conditions would eliminate the element of causation. It would destroy the fundamental principle underlying the scheme of the Workers' Compensation Act—that, in order to be compensable, an injury must be work-related. Otherwise, a claimant would have to establish only that the employee suffered from a mental illness while employed and that the illness was a condition created or aggravated by that employee's perception of the conditions of his employment. That would reduce workers' compensation benefits to nothing more than a disability or death benefit payable only because of the employee status of the claimant—and not because the injury was caused by his employment.

There is a degree of uncertainty inherent in any employment situation, as in life itself, such that an employee’s individual, subjective reaction to ordinary vicissitudes is not the type of condition which the legislature intended to require compensation for because it is not, in the common understanding, an injury.

Does that mean that, in cases like those radioactive watch face painters, where everyone in a line of work was exposed to a perhaps underappreciated probabilistic risk by convention, those who did get struck by it (the people who got cancer) have no claim to compensation?

This standard is applicable only to psychological injuries, not to physical injuries.

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