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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   3103 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for December 19, 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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A passage from Cryptonomicon which had me laughing out loud on the train this morning (no spoilers):

Nevertheless, there are three messages from Kia, Epiphyte's only actual employee, the administrative assistant for the whole company. Kia works in a totally alienated, abstracted office in the Springboard Capital corporate incubator complex in San Mateo. It is some sort of a federal regulation that nascent high-tech companies must not hire pudgy fifty-year-old support staff, the way big established companies do. They must hire topologically enhanced twenty-year-olds with names that sound like new models of cars. Since most hackers are white males, their companies are disaster areas when it comes to diversity, and it follows that all of the diversity must be concentrated in the one or two employees who are not hackers. In the part of a federal equal-opportunity form where Randy would simply check a box labeled ᴄᴀᴜᴄᴀsɪᴀɴ, Kia would have to attach multiple sheets on which her family tree would be ramified backwards through time ten or twelve generations until reaching ancestors who could actually be pegged to one specific ethnic group without glossing anything over, and those ethnic groups would be intimidatingly hip ones — not Swedes, let's say, but Lapps, and not Chinese but Hakka, and not Spanish but Basque. Instead of doing this, on her job app for Epiphyte she simply checked "other" and then wrote in ᴛʀᴀɴs-ᴇᴛʜɴɪᴄ. In fact, Kia is trans- just about every system of human categorization, and what she isn't trans- she is post-.

This book came out in 1999. Intellectually, I was aware that what we call wokeness was previously ascendant in the nineties, at which time it was called "political correctness". Still though — if you didn't know better, you would assume that the passage above had been published in the last ten years.

There's also the minor subplot about his woke ex-girlfriend in academia. Including him getting dressed down by her academic friends for his privilege enabling him to learn a technical skill by reading a book and practicing. He made the mistake of trying to explain his technical skills as a result of study and practice rather than unearned privilege.

It is like mockery of tumblrinas, but 15 years early.

It is like mockery of tumblrinas, but 15 years early.

To quote another famous science fiction author, “the future is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed yet”. Those lines of theory were percolating within academia for years before they breached out into the body politic.

Those lines of theory were percolating within academia for years before they breached out into the body politic.

An interesting example of this is Mrs. Bridge from 1959, where the author is basing much of the background of the novel on his upbringing in semi-affluent KCMO in the 1920s-30s. There are asides and comments from background characters espousing views that wouldn't explode nationwide until the mid-to-late 60s, or even the 70s, yet they were already circulating in non-academic circles by the 50s (assuming the author heard them in the 50s and had his characters say them even though they didn't really say such things in the 30s, but who knows, maybe he's being fully accurate and those ideas really were the talk of upper middle class white people in the 30s).

Serves him right for trying to mansplain away instead of acknowledging his technical privilege.

That article is right on point and 15 years later on the dot. Neal Stephenson called it, yet again.

PCU dates back to 1994 and the whole film is about a character avoiding a cancellation mob (multiple actually) while trying to party in a fraternity. The screen writers wrote the film based on their experiences in college (one graduated in 1990). A character even proposes funding Bisexual Asian Studies by taking space and funding from the STEM budget.

The debates we're having about diversity in the workforce and affirmative action date back in more or less their current form to the 1970s at least.

I'm reading Eig's biography of Mohammed Ali right now, and it's fascinating how there are a lot positions that got mainstream news media coverage in the 60s and 70s that we would consider utterly absurd today. Black Nationalism, earnest black people who really did publicly believe in black separatism, were given TV coverage and newspaper op-eds. Two Yankees pitchers traded families in the 70s. There were huge socialist and communist organizations with broad support from the 1900s to the 1980s in America.

Even just watching sitcoms from the 90s, you see a lot of less traditional values that are constantly thrown in your face. Frasier, which I love, stars a divorced dad who is totally absent in his son's life. And this is not presented as a crisis, it is at most a minor personal problem every ten episodes. We would never accept that today.

Wokeness might be a local peak of leftism in 2020, and over time we can argue that Cthulhu always swims left, but there have been in certain ways higher peaks, and post Reagan we are more conservative than we were before.

Two Yankees pitchers traded families in the 70s.

Could you elaborate on this?

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., March 5 [1973]—Fritz Peterson and Mike Kekich, the Yankees starting left‐handed pitchers disclosed today details of an exchange of families. The pitchers, who have been the two closest friends on the team for several years, said they and their wives began discussing last July the possibility of an exchange and that they put it into effect at the end or last season in October. At this time, Peterson is living with Susanne Kekich and her two daughters, Kristen, 4 years old, and Reagan, 2, and they plan to be married as soon as they can divorce their spouses. That would be next October at the earliest, Peter son said.

Both pitchers, in separate interviews after the Yankees disclosed the basic details, stressed that there was nothing sordid about the situation and it wasn't a matter of wife‐swapping. “It wasn't a wife swap,” said Kekich, who married Susanne in 1965. “It was a life swap. We're not saying we're right and everyone else who thinks we're wrong are wrong. It's just the way we felt.” “It wasn't a sex thing,” Peterson emphasized. “It was not a cheap swap.”

The two Yankees and their wives began discussing the possible exchange last July 15 on what the pitchers said was a high plane and amid “a tremendous amount of affection and compatibility.” While remaining with their own families, they spent a lot of time together and individually —each player with the other's wife. There was such harmony, Peterson said, they even thought about having a double divorce and a double marriage and they discussed the possibility of dividing the children so that the older in each instance would go with the father and the younger with the mother.

From the 1973 NYT reporting on the swap

This article from New York magazine was where I first heard the story. Bronx Zoo indeed

Fond of long, introspective conversations, Kekich was drawn to the thoughtful Marilyn Peterson, while Fritz, always in the moment, paired off with Susanne, a former cheerleader and cross-country runner. Gradually it became apparent to all four that perhaps they were married to the wrong people. “By American standards, I had a good marriage,” Kekich said. “But I wanted a great marriage. I was idealistic, I guess.”

By their spring-training press conference, Kekich and Peterson were hardly speaking to each other. Much had happened in the interim. The couples did “swap lives,” moving in with each other’s spouses in the fall of 1972, with differing degrees of success. Peterson and Susanne Kekich were happy. Kekich and Marilyn Peterson were not. The physical attraction between Marilyn and himself was strong, Kekich would say, but since they were “born under the same sign, we sometimes butt heads. She and I are on a higher pitch in our emotions.” Kekich claimed everyone had agreed that if any of them were unhappy, the entire deal was off. Peterson said they had already tried that (the couples had attempted to reunite for a time) and it hadn’t worked. In a statement, Peterson said he and Susanne were both now “free people” with “free minds.” It would have been perfect if things worked out for everyone involved, “but I don’t feel guilty.”

Kekich cut a far more sunken figure. The terms of the swap dictated that the kids would stay with their mothers. But now Marilyn Peterson was taking her children to her parents’ home in Illinois. His daughters living with Susanne and Peterson, ­Kekich was alone. Calling himself “one of the biggest soul searchers around,” Kekich said he would break up his family only “for love far greater than any I have ever known.” Now he was “dubious” such a love existed.

Asked if he expected to be traded, Kekich said, “I’m here. We’re still teammates. I only want to be where Fritz is.” It was “the only way I can be sure of seeing my daughters.” This was not to be. After pitching fourteen innings for the Bombers in the ’73 season (walking fourteen batters), Kekich was dealt to the Cleveland Indians. Still a Yank, Peterson finished the season with a dismal 8-15 record and was also shipped out, to Cleveland, though by that time Kekich had already moved on, to Japan. Still, when it came to the Trade, Peterson was generally considered to be the winner. After all, he and Susanne are still married today, with children of their own. This result was predicted by Dr. Joyce Brothers, famed TV psychoanalyst. “It’s very rare that a four-way swap ever works,” Brothers said.

I don't think we have anything quite that wild today. I guess the Musklings count, but he at least has the decency to try to hide it. There's the WSJ article I read today about a house built to accommodate a rich gay throuple, but this is a little more than that isn't it?

Supposedly for years Affleck and Damon wanted to make a movie about it, out of pure hatred for the Yankees, but to my knowledge it never got off the ground.

I think it's probably true that the Overton window from the 90s thru say 2016 was actually remarkably narrow. A good chunk of the western world had converged on...let's call it post-socialist bourgeois liberalism as The Way of Things. By contrast, in some ways the 60s and 70s were super left wing but you can find other public figures espousing equally right wing views, and being taken seriously. This was also the era of George Wallace and "segregation forever" after all. The Students for Democratic Society and The John Birch Society were formed within two years of each other. I think the 2016 election was less a harbinger of a rightward lurch in American politics as such and more an announcement that the consensus around narrowly defined norms of political/economic/social life had begun to dissolve - at least amongst the masses. It's taken the elites a minute to notice that however.

let's call it post-socialist bourgeois liberalism as The Way of Things.

I think the term you're looking for is Reaganism, Thatcherism, the Reagan-Thatcher consensus, or the Washington Consensus.

Some of it is a narrowing of the Overton window, but I think in other ways it's useful to see as a rising and receding of the tide, as a genuine improvement. For the divorced dad example: it was very common in the early years of no-fault divorce for dads to simply abandon their children after the divorce, and this was seen as fairly normal. Frasier is one example, another in James Clavell's Noble House (published 1981 and set in 1963) a character left his wife and kids and reflects with self satisfaction that they got "enough" money in the divorce that he doesn't need to be involved in their lives, the well researched portrayals in Mad Men are a contemporary example portraying the historical norm. This was normal, and not considered particularly noteworthy or blameworthy, divorce was considered bad but once it happened it was natural that the father would move on from the children. Today, we see that as bad, we see it as important that a divorced dad stay close with his kids, do his best to remain in their lives, or at the very least feel bad about it if he can't do those things.

I consider that to be actually good moral progress on the topic.

On a related but admittedly anecdotal note, it seems to me that a lot of men my age (mid thirties) prioritize family relative to career in way that earlier generations didnt, at least going by cultural depictions. Ive known more than one man in a "prestige" career - finance, consulting, military officer etc - say something to the effect of "if the wife could support us I'd be happy to drop out and stay home with the kids". I wonder how much of this is a change in default life scripts. At one point it was assumed you'd have kids; now this is no longer assumed, people who do choose to have kids are presumably more committed to the whole project. The decline in employment stability probably also plays a role. It makes a lot less sense to give your life to a company when you're not expecting a pension after 40 years

divorce was considered bad but once it happened it was natural that the father would move on from the children.

This is still commonplace in Japan. Even some married fathers, as long as they send money home, live in a different city from their family (Tokyo, etc.) due to employment, in a set-up called tanshin fun'in/単身赴任. The emotional aspect of a father bonding with his children (in particular dads with daughters) is not considered culturally salient (at least this is my own perspective.) Exceptions abound, no doubt.

A father divorced from his wife, though, yes, it is not uncommon to ask the young person where his or her divorced father is and to receive a shrug in response. Edit: Alimony as we understand it in the US is not a thing here.

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