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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   19478 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026

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Do I actually care about how her day was? Eh, not unless something notable happened. But I will still ask because women like it when you do that. And they do the same thing.

You have inspired me to make an "I hate the Antichrist" comic edit depicting the disgust that I feel for such institutionalized untruthfulness.

I love the phrase "good morning".

As a young sailor in the navy, I loved going around ordering the nearby captains and admirals to "have a good morning" and dare them to either:

  1. obey me and internally admit my superiority
  2. call me out for disobedience and look like an asshole, or
  3. disobey me and have a genuinely bad day.

Done with the right attitude and the right other people in attendance, this is quite the power play.

Edit: Just read the post @HereAndGone2 and I do believe I found a meaning of good morning that Tolkien missed!

Such small civilities are the lubricant by which society functions. "Fuck you, I don't give a damn" leads not only to atomised individuals but societal breakdown.

There's a significant difference between open hostility, neutral tolerance, and Stepfordized pretense. And you are literally the same person who was complaining about being forced to mouth false niceties just a few weeks ago.

There's common social courtesy where everyone adheres to the same script, and there's "this is unreal but you have to pretend to believe it".

Coming in to work first thing in the morning and saying "hello, good morning" to my colleagues is not asking me to pretend up is down or fire is wet.

Doing things you don't care about for the sake of someone you love who does care is not institutionalized untruthfulness; it is the foundational element of a genuine relationship (romantic or not).

But it's not untruthfulness! I don't say "Hey, I really want to know about your day" or "I am really interested in what you did at work." I am just asking how her day was because it gives her an opportunity to talk (or vent) and I can show that even if I don't care about the details, I do care about her, and I want to know if she had a good day or a bad day. (And maybe, occasionally, something important really did happen.)

Do you literally not care about your partner at all? Maybe more men than I thought really do think of their women as sex appliances who annoyingly make mouth-noises at them sometimes.

On a more abstract level, your comic is inane. If my coworker says "Good morning," that is a social nicety. Social niceties are how people coexist in a crowded and complex society where a little pleasantness makes life more bearable. If someone (my wife, or a coworker, or a checkout clerk) asks "How was your day?" do I really think she cares deeply about how my day was and wants a detailed account of it? No, she is just being nice. Getting mad about that is like being mad when people say "Have a nice day" because you aren't, or "God bless you" when you sneeze because you're an atheist.

Goddamn, some people are miserable.

But it's not untruthfulness!

You literally just said that you don't care how her day was. Asking about how her day was is untruthfully implying that you do care.

I am just asking how her day was because it gives her an opportunity to talk (or vent)

She can vent to you on her own initiative, without forcing you to make untruthful implications about your own interest level.

If my coworker says "Good morning," that is a social nicety. Social niceties are how people coexist in a crowded and complex society where a little pleasantness makes life more bearable.

Saying "good morning" to a person is an abbreviated wish that the person has a good morning, and therefore falsely implies that you hope that the person has a good morning. A much more neutral greeting with no misleading implications is "hello".

A much more neutral greeting with no misleading implications is "hello".

Gandalf has entered the chat 🤣

“Good Morning!” said Bilbo, and he meant it. The sun was shining, and the grass was very green. But Gandalf looked at him from under long bushy eyebrows that stuck out further than the brim of his shady hat.

“What do you mean?” he said. “Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?”

“All of them at once,” said Bilbo. “And a very fine morning for a pipe of tobacco out of doors, into the bargain. If you have a pipe about you, sit down and have a fill of mine! There’s no hurry, we have all the day before us!” Then Bilbo sat down on a seat by his door, crossed his legs, and blew out a beautiful grey ring of smoke that sailed up into the air without breaking and floated away over The Hill.

“Very pretty!” said Gandalf. “But I have no time to blow smoke-rings this morning. I am looking for someone to share in an adventure that I am arranging, and it’s very difficult to find anyone.”

“I should think so—in these parts! We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner! I can’t think what anybody sees in them,” said our Mr. Baggins, and stuck one thumb behind his braces, and blew out another even bigger smoke-ring. Then he took out his morning letters, and began to read, pretending to take no more notice of the old man. He had decided that he was not quite his sort, and wanted him to go away. But the old man did not move. He stood leaning on his stick and gazing at the hobbit without saying anything, till Bilbo got quite uncomfortable and even a little cross.

“Good morning!” he said at last. “We don’t want any adventures here, thank you! You might try over The Hill or across The Water.” By this he meant that the conversation was at an end.

“What a lot of things you do use Good morning for!” said Gandalf. “Now you mean that you want to get rid of me, and that it won’t be good till I move off.”

“Not at all, not at all, my dear sir! Let me see, I don’t think I know your name?”

“Yes, yes, my dear sir—and I do know your name, Mr. Bilbo Baggins. And you do know my name, though you don’t remember that I belong to it. I am Gandalf, and Gandalf means me! To think that I should have lived to be good-morninged by Belladonna Took’s son, as if I was selling buttons at the door!”

Looking it up, "good morning" as a polite greeting began in the early 15th century:

good morning
greeting salutation, c. 1400, from good (adj.) + morning. Earlier as good morwe (late 14c., from morrow), good morn. Compare good-night.

To whom þou metys come by þe weye,
Curtasly 'gode morne' þou sey.
["The Little Children's Book," c. 1500]

You literally just said that you don't care how her day was. Asking about how her day was is untruthfully implying that you do care.

I "don't care" in the sense that I don't care to hear the details or whether she had an argument with a coworker or it was unusually busy or the ventilation wasn't working so it was uncomfortable or the craziest thing happened at lunch or blah blah blah. That's stuff I listen to out of politeness. I don't literally "not care" whether she had a good day or a bad day.

She can vent to you on her own initiative, without forcing you to make untruthful implications about your own interest level.

Well, if I just silently glower when I come home and invite no dialog, she probably will not. Or I suppose I could say "I don't care how your day was, but you may tell me if you wish."

Jesus, dude.

Saying "good morning" to a person is an abbreviated wish that the person has a good morning, and therefore falsely implies that you hope that the person has a good morning. A much more neutral greeting with no misleading implications is "hello".

I mean, I probably do wish that someone has a good morning, because why wouldn't I, unless I have some personal animosity for this person?

You don't say "Good morning" because you think it's falsely implying you give a shit?

Jesus, dude.

Well, if I just silently glower when I come home and invite no dialog, she probably will not. Or I suppose I could say "I don't care how your day was, but you may tell me if you wish."

I am imagining that, in a perfect romance, the romantic partners feel free to spontaneously start conversations with each other at any time, without the need for invitations that ring hollow. For example, the man gets up from his computer and invites the woman over to look at the cool program that he just wrote, or the woman calls the man over to the window to check out the cute deer that has just pooped in their backyard. As a friendless virgin I have no experience with such situations, but that's what I imagine.

I "don't care" in the sense that I don't care to hear the details or whether she had an argument with a coworker or it was unusually busy or the ventilation wasn't working so it was uncomfortable or the craziest thing happened at lunch or blah blah blah. That's stuff I listen to out of politeness.

Again, I have no experience here, so maybe I'm exaggerating the true intensity of romance (or just "putting the pussy on a pedestal", as the redpillers say). But I am imagining that, in a perfect romance, even in such a banal conversation, you are thankful to have an excuse to bask in the presence and attention of your romantic partner (as long as the venting doesn't last overly long).

You don't say "Good morning" because you think it's falsely implying you give a shit?

Absolutely. My coworkers would say "good morning", and I would reply "hello".

As a friendless virgin I have no experience with such situations, but that's what I imagine.

But I am imagining that, in a perfect romance, even in such a banal conversation, you are thankful to have an excuse to bask in the presence and attention of your romantic partner (as long as the venting doesn't last overly long).

Look man, real life is neither grim redpill/blackpill despair nor a "perfect romance" where you are basking in each other's attention and affection. A functional and good relationship is one where you actually like each other and genuinely care about how your partner feels. Not one where you are playing roles from a romance anime, or just extracting money and sex from each other.

Absolutely. My coworkers would say "good morning", and I would reply "hello".

You do you, but to feel like you're engaging in intolerable social deception by saying "Good morning" is... weird.

As a friendless virgin I have no experience with such situations, but that's what I imagine.

Well, unless you hatched out of an egg or were found under a gooseberry bush, you presumably grew up in a family. Did you all just grunt at one another?

My memory may just be faulty, but as far as I can remember my parents' interactions with each other (and me and my brother) seemed, not friendly or loving, but just neutral (before they divorced around age 50). They definitely didn't have any hobbies to talk with each other about.

As a child, I would emerge from my bedroom to spontaneously tell my parents about some random Latin-translation or modular-origami innovation that had caught my interest, without needing to ask how they were doing first.

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