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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   3528 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for January 9, 2026

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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Is there anything more American than finding something new, civilizing it for the masses, only to lament and resent that the newly civilized space has no place for you? It's the plot of John Wayne's McClintock, where the old cowboy who killed the Indians and built the town regrets that both the daughter of his body and the son of his spirit can't experience pioneering the way he did, and the musical Rent where the hipsters who made the Village cool bitch that New York is cool now and they might have to pay money to live there.

Not really the same thing. It's more like shooting all the bison and wistfully remembering the days of the great bison herds without feeling any personal responsibility.

On a more culture-war and less FFT basis, I can argue there's a difference between what my wife did and the modern scene.

I am a discerning arbitrageur that leverages deep knowledge of the value of clothes with Gucci and Prada labels, you are a casual thrift store flipper, he is a drooling, smartphone scanning, drone NPC bugman.

As part of the above, the level of stuff involved is different. Mrs FiveHour would find the odd piece of Gucci or Prada and buy it for $10 and sell it for $300. Nowadays it's Banana Republic and Abercrombie getting sold at Goodwill for $20-25 and then resold marked up to $30-40.

Ironically, the first thing is obviously way worse. You're okay arbitraging away the opportunity to save 96% but think that arbitraging away the opportunity to save 17% is just going too far.

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