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PaperclipPerfector  6d ago (text post)   2911 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 14, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Anyone have any experience with getting dual citizenship (US adding EU)? I'm looking at the "Slovak by Descent" program as a bit of a lark, and was wondering if there were any pitfalls (aside from the obvious "no longer able to apply for jobs that need a US security clearance"). Seems to me to be all upside, no downside.

This isn't likely to be persuasive to someone who doesn't feel it in their bones, but I don't think you should hedge when it comes to the land of your fathers, and I don't want to live in a nation surrounded by such hedgers. A class of trans-national elites with no particular loyalties to hearth and home is a bad thing in and of itself, and you shouldn't participate in its propagation.

I recognize this is probably at least partially a result of a character flaw of mine, but I'm viscerally disgusted by the idea of dual-nationals and think we should amend the constitution to explicitly prohibit American citizens from being citizens of any other nation.

It makes travel significantly more convenient depending on where you're going. A proper third-world passport is actually more useful than EU for this, since countries who have beef with one tend to have beef with both. And even if you're purely a US citizen you need two passports to travel to both Israel and much of the Middle East. Also worth doing if you're wealthy and have a second home outside the US, tourist visa limits can get inconvenient and citizenship can make dealing with homeownership bureaucracy easier.

You can 100% travel to Israel and the rest of the middle east on one passport, even in the same trip. I've done it. Israel knows the Arab states won't allow entrance to anyone with an Israeli stamp, so they just stamp a pos-it note they place on one of the pages and you remove it when you leave. And unless things have changed since the Gaza and/or Iran wars (very possible, my travel was a decade ago), Israel doesn't care what other stamps are in your passport. You might arouse enough suspicion to get questioned by security at the airport for a few minutes, but thats about it.

Also, do you really want to be travelling to a country that is hostile enough to your home country to deny you entry with your main passport? I would not trust in the anonymity of a foreign passport with today's technology. It won't be hard for the government to figure out you're a citizen of a hostile power entering under less than fully candid circumstances. As much as I'd love to visit Iran, I would not feel safe currently doing so as an American, regardless of whether I entered on an Irish or Polish passport. I guess there are wealthy elites and certain kinds of professionals with very idiosyncratic travel obligations for whom multiple passports are extremely useful from a practical perspective, but that's got to be a pretty small group (among holders of first world passports, at least). For the vast majority of people who don't live or regularly work in a foreign country, the bureaucratic hassle of obtaining a second passport is probably going to dwarf any bureaucratic hassle you save by having a second passport.

Didn't realize the Israelis had finally started doing that, good for them. I haven't been there in a very long time. And yes, many countries which are perfectly safe and pleasant to visit have visa-free travel for fellow thirdies while putting annoying/extractive requirements on westerners. It's often through regional associations like CARICOM, but also a general rule of thumb that their relevant government personnel see Americans as suckers to be fleeced and annoyed, whereas an exotic passport is "who is this guy? Best leave him alone." Particularly if you have local government contacts.

the bureaucratic hassle of obtaining a second passport is probably going to dwarf any bureaucratic hassle you save by having a second passport.

True objectively. But one kind of bureaucratic hassle can be done at your leisure when you have lots of time at your disposal, the other often happens when you're time-crunched, sleep-deprived, and have very limited recourse to outside bureaucracies.

Am I one of the only people out there that thinks traveling just fucking sucks ass? Straight up. I mean yeah, I’ve always wanted to visit the morbid, desolate and forbidden stay away zones your mother would never want you to go to as a sense of adventure, but not as a way to marvel and mull over the fact that they have toilets and take a shit “just like we do!,” all the way in China. I mean it’s more or less “like this” almost anywhere you go (where you don’t want to put your life at risk).

Bruh I'm going to Syria in three weeks. Loved my time in Iraq and Ukraine. You don't need to tell me about how libtard boomer/consoomer "wow they're just like us but they have the same food I can get in a restaurant at home" travel sucks, I'd rather blow my brains out than set foot on a cruise ship or take instagram stories in Bali. But if you have a serious interest in history, or in adventure, there's no substitute for travel. And usually countries off the beaten path are the nicest ones, or at least they're bad in interesting and likeable ways. Protip: if you're going to an otherwise boring country, dip through dive bars until you find an extroverted local who speaks English and roll from there.

Definitely agree that the hoe scaring countries off the beaten path are the nicest ones and tend to contain the most idiosyncratic and interesting things. Also they're not crawling with tourists and souvenir shops trying to sell you tack shit, or if they are it's in a very unique local way that's still of interest to an outside observer.

Overcurated leisure experiences like cruises, resorts, very guided tours and so on are overpriced and negate so much of what I like about travel that I barely view it as an option.

Traveling can give you a sense of perspective on the world like nothing else. Have you ever seen me deny that? It’s a tragedy of anyone thoughtful to look at two YouTuber’s like serpentza and laowhy86 who basically walked out of China with essentially all the same western prejudices they walked in with. Nathan Rich is a guy who clearly harbors a hidden persecution complex and dislike of his own society for not appreciating him, but at least to his credit he’s had the ability to understand and appreciate a different perspective on life than the one he grew up with. Experience is only what you ‘take’ from it. It isn’t where you ‘go’. I don’t dislike “travel,” I dislike “travelers” more.

I mean it’s more or less “like this” almost anywhere you go (where you don’t want to put your life at risk).

Out of curiosity, where have you actually been? I grew up in Malaysia and now live in Australia, I've travelled all over Europe and Oceania, been to North America and most recently have been exploring Asia, and could not disagree more with it being "like this" almost anywhere you go.

To be blunt, I find many westerners to be overly scared by countries that have been marketed to them as "third world" and as such overwhelmingly travel to a restricted range of relatively culturally similar places, though I actually often find them (particularly the Asian ones) safer and more pro-social than much of the West is today.

I mean yeah, I’ve always wanted to visit the morbid, desolate and forbidden stay away zones your mother would never want you to go to as a sense of adventure, but not as a way to marvel and mull over the fact that they have toilets and take a shit “just like we do!,” all the way in China.

"Morbid, desolate and forbidden" are the last descriptors I would apply to China, and I am going again this year. You're not going to be arbitrarily detained unless you want to sell drugs or something. There's extremely rich history, fantastic infrastructure, some really great food (outside of Beijing at least), it's very safe and cheap, albeit the digital ecosystem there can be a pain and people there smoke like it's 60s America.

Frankly, out of all the places I've been I would use that word to describe urban Canada. In other words, there's a lot of places I would deem as viscerally different while still being very safe.

Yeah. China's fine these days, maybe a bit of issues with sameyness in their urban renewal but it's also absurdly cheap and comfortable in the vast majority of places I've been in the country. Most of the places in the world I've been to and felt like I'm unsafe/witnessing urban decay have been in the West such as New Orleans and Belfast (Yes, I'm sure I could go find worse places in Asia but like no real desire to do that).

What's wrong with Beijing food? It's not my favorite regional cuisine but I've had some great meals there.

My perception was that the flavour profile of Beijing food had a good bit less depth and spice than the other regions of China I visited (such as Shanxi, where I really enjoyed the food), and I crave spice to an absurd level. Admittedly I've not spent too long in Beijing, just four days so I probably haven't had the chance to try too much; I had kaoya, zhajiangmian, Beijing-style shaomai in the Qing dynasty restaurant that spread these dumplings throughout China and a small handful of other regional specialities, I'd say they were fine but not great. I'm sure there's great food there though and am happy to accept recommendations for the next time I go.

Agree with most of your points. There's also lots more traditional practices going on in China than most people tend to think, IMO. People almost seem to believe all culture got supplanted by Communism - I've seen people assert that communist China "destroyed" things that a 5 minute Google search would prove still exist - but honestly it's quite clear visiting Mainland China that a lot of varied regional practices remain extant and have flourished heavily under liberalisation (sometimes you can find some seemingly really improbable things still being practiced, like the hermit lifestyle in the Zhongnan Mountains that stretches back all the way to the Qin dynasty). Aspects of traditional stuff actually seem to be cool among the younger generation in China unlike most other places in Asia I've visited, and as a Malaysian Chinese much of what I saw felt rather familiar to me.

I agree that Beijing food is a bit nonspicy/plain compared to other Chinese varietals but I wouldn't call it bad perse. There are countries where the baseline is a lot worse.

Also I'd agree on the cultural stuff as a white person living in a Malaysian Chinese family in Malaysia. I do feel that the average Malaysian Chinese adherence to cultural stuff is higher than the average Mainlanders, but also the sheer scope, regional focuses and population of China means that if you travel you'll see a lot more random showings of cultural practices that you wouldn't otherwise expect. A lot of the old temples have been overrun by XHS photo-takers, but sometimes you'll see people doing things the old ways. I accidentally walked into a closed temple (Somebody left a door open and I think the person watching it wasn't confident enough in their English to warn me from going through) on top of Taishan last time I was there and there was a lot more monks and elaborate offerings than I expected.

I think you’ve got a fairly wild interpretation of my remark. Here in the US it’s a common characteristic you’ll often find among parents, “learned people,” and the elite or “sophisticated” social classes of society that “traveling” and “experiencing the world,” is something only a healthy or well formed individual does. So much so in fact, that others will patronize and condescend to you endlessly and pathologize the type of person you are if you express no interest in it. It’s why you can find pockets of introverts, eccentrics, “shut-in’s” and autists (naturally, people who don’t enjoyably leave the cave) so hostile to the suggestion because of all the people it reminds them of.

Yes, it’d be cool to take a stroll across the Great Wall or visit the Forbidden City once in a lifetime. I don’t mean that kind of thing isn’t fun; that isn’t what I’m responding to. But traveling for the sake of traveling because you’re a rootless hobo who loves getting mistaken for some kind of bum urban nomad is my insult and giving of the finger to those the megaphone who always wants to tell me there’s something “wrong” with me because traveling isn’t a basic cornerstone of my life.

My description you cited wasn’t aimed at China. I was thinking of North Korea (which I do want to visit, so I can say I’ve been to the world’s last Stalinist dystopia), but in China, people eat, people take the train, people enjoy the night life, just as they world anywhere else. That’s my point.

I think you’ve got a fairly wild interpretation of my remark. Here in the US it’s a common theme among parents, “learned people,” and the elite social classes of society that “traveling” and “experiencing the world,” is something only a healthy or well formed individual does.

This is certainly a thing, and there are people who are extremely pretentious about it sometimes; I don't think there's something particularly wrong with someone if they don't want to travel. Just pushing back against the notion that things are broadly similar wherever you go or that it sucks ass. And the "I find many westerners to be overly scared by countries that have been marketed to them as 'third world'" wasn't exactly specifically directed at you, that was meant to be more of a tangent about other people I know.

I mean yes, there will always be similarities between people and places you come across based on the fact that ultimately everyone is human and will share basic human traits; you're never going to meet the heptapods from Arrival. But the specific differences have actually become incredibly apparent to me as life goes on, especially after having moved. I've come to believe that places in the world are not nearly as interchangeable as I would have initially thought, and that "settling in" culturally to a totally new country is in practice more difficult than it initially seems. "You can take the boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy" kind of deal. And all of these differences really matter to your QoL.

But traveling for the sake of traveling because you’re a rootless hobo who loves getting mistaken for some kind of bum urban nomad is my insult and reversal for the megaphone that always wants to tell me there’s something “wrong” with me because traveling isn’t a basic cornerstone of my life.

Thing is, I don't think this is a good mental conception of the people who really enjoy travelling for its sake. It really is just a difference in novelty preference and openness-to-experience. At least personally speaking, I find life gets extremely, painfully dull day-to-day, and while travelling isn't the only way to shake somebody out of one's routines and established mental patterns that get canalised, it certainly is a very effective one.

Some people don't feel the need to do that, some people enjoy the comfort of the daily routine and their familiar environment, and that's fine! But some people really prefer novelty, and perhaps they're typical-minding when they try to push others out of their comfort zone, but they're almost certainly not doing so out of malice or necessarily even superiority, and that retort is going to come off as needlessly hostile.

The way I see it you can choose breadth or you can choose depth. Choosing one means foresaking the other.

What can be problematic is when travelling broadly is presented as demonstrating one's depth. It's akin to stolen valour - the thing that makes those places exotic and interesting is that the inhabitants have spent their lives adapting to it and adapting it to themselves. On the flip side the thing that historically made travellers interesting was that they lived lives that necessitated travelling. The travelling was a means, not an end in itself. In both instances the origin is a type II or sometimes type III activity that is being repackaged as type I fun while clinging to the cachet of being type II/III.

Also I feel like seeking novelty by partaking of foreign people's native mundanity contributes to the starving of novelty in one's own culture. Cultural output requires the boredom and appetite for change that motivates people to organise and take action. If that's dissipated into activities that occur elsewhere it diminishes the energy available to produce or support the production of local cultures both old and new.

The travelling was a means, not an end in itself. In both instances the origin is a type II or sometimes type III activity that is being repackaged as type I fun while clinging to the cachet of being type II/III.

But leisure travel is old, it has been an end in itself whenever conditions became stable and there was any slightly sizeable middle-to-upper class; ancient Romans travelled all through Greece, Asia Minor and Egypt for fun (and sometimes left reviews of their experiences on the historical sites). Tourists would travel to the pyramids and the ruins of Troy, motivated by the concept of otium, or "self-realisation time". Temples would derive significant portions of revenue from tourism; they charged fees, contained artefacts for sightseeing and often claimed to house some legendary figure's remains. There were tourist resorts in Baia and Naples. This isn't particularly limited to Rome either, Chinese literati engaged in landscape tourism, going to mountains to gather herbs and appreciate scenery.

I'm also not certain the "stolen valour" hypothesis works very well here to explain the cultural cachet travel currently holds. Merchants who would have travelled heavily in the course of their work were not considered particularly high-status people in many historical societies (Greece, Rome, China, early medieval Europe all considered them a disreputable, parasitic nonproducing class). A lot of times travelling becomes vaunted once it becomes a pastime that the wealthy are willing and capable of participating in, when the empire is stable and it can be portrayed as a form of self-cultivation and source of worldly enlightenment instead of a job performed by the lowly for money.

Also I feel like seeking novelty by partaking of foreign people's native mundanity contributes to the starving of novelty in one's own culture. Cultural output requires the boredom and appetite for change that motivates people to organise and take action.

That is quite the opposite of my take. Cultural exchange has shaped societies in many novel ways over the years; it's far more often that novelty via partaking of foreign people's native mundanity results in that novelty being exported back to one's own society and syncretising in interesting and new ways. To continue with the Roman example from before, after the annexation of Egypt and significant travel there Roman Italy gained a large market for Egyptian-looking artworks and syncretic pieces of art that the well-to-do put in their homes. And while not so related to travel, the development of European chinoiserie largely was caused by coming across porcelains and textiles from China, in other words partaking in "foreign people's native mundanity", and it resulted in many new art styles such as Rococo.

Right, and I get all that. I’m no stranger to the fact that most people aren’t like me and that isn’t a sin against anyone, it’s just who they are. To some people the words “habit” and “routine” imply feeling like a caged animal. Likewise to me, when I hear words like “travel” and “change” I think of “chaos” and “instability.” I like predictability and security and traveling just never had that zenith tier payoff people try to promise you. I’m not being cynical about it, it just doesn’t impact me the way it does others. I’d like to visit a few foreign, distant locations at some point in my life, but the whole “traveling as lifestyle,” horseshit, as if it’s some kind of personality quirk grates on my nerves when I have to hear about it.

If you’re someone who just enjoys traveling or wants to get out of the house from time to time, more power to you, have at it. In that regard I’m the same way. Several years ago one of my uncle’s had a complete random chat with two Chinese men walking on the street who taught him basic Mandarin. The very next day, he hopped on a flight and went to Hong Kong. Just completely randomly. That kind of thing is awesome. When I was younger my friends and I would randomly go and explore abandoned parts of cities and travel don’t streets people always told us to stay away from. For me it was less about travel and more about adventure; like we’d stumble across Pandora’s Box in a manhole or something. If someone wants to expose me to their traveling experiences I’ll happily listen. If they’re up my ass about it, they’ll turn me off pretty quick.

but not as a way to marvel and mull over the fact that they have toilets and take a shit “just like we do!,” all the way in China.

Have you used a squat toilet before? I hear they're less common in China than they used to be, but this actually is something different parts of the world do differently.

No I haven’t. But it’s not like I couldn’t just take a dump on the street if I wanted, either.

Am I one of the only people out there that thinks traveling just fucking sucks ass? I mean, it’s more or less “like this” almost anywhere you go (where you don’t want to put your life at risk).

I agree.

I mean, yeah, I’ve always wanted to visit the morbid, desolate, and forbidden stay-away zones your mother would never want you to go to as a sense of adventure

I disagree.

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