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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2547 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for October 31, 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.

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Do we do quotes here? I have some goodies from my commonplace; I'm skipping the Culture War stuff.

Never believe in a meritocracy in which no one is funny-looking.

Teresa Nielsen Hayden, comment #209 on "Plagiarism and the mechanics of privilege", in Making Light (2010-11-16)

BELKAR: People don’t just change who they are in an instant. It doesn’t work like that. It takes time, so you don’t even know you’re changing. Until one day, you’re just a bit different than you used to be and you can’t even tell what the hell happened.

Rich Burlew, Order of the Stick #957, "Takes One to Know One" (wiki) (2014-07-04)

It’s easy to mistakenly believe that you have learned something well enough to reason and solve problems when you are not actually made to attempt those things.

For the same reason, many people mistakenly believe that they can outrun a bear.

Justin Skycak on Twitter (xcancel) (2025-04-27)

Never believe in a meritocracy in which no one is funny-looking.

Isn't this inherently Culture Warrish for differing values of affirmative action and whatever one considers to be 'funny looking'?

For what it's worth, I read it as noticing when you say you're optimizing for one thing, and you coincidentally optimized for another, uncorrelated, thing, but maybe you didn't notice because of the halo effect.

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