I’m mot sure I understand what kind of answer you are looking for. What did the Whig historiography achieve? Or the Great Man theory? Isn’t Critical Theory an academic approach that allows people in the humanities a different theoretical framework to approach the problems of culture, history, literature, etc? It’s been pretty successful in that, and while I believe that academic scholarship has some influence on world affairs, it’s generally the political zetgeist exerts more pressure on academic thinking than the other way around…

The Queen apparently watched the amazing 80s Flash Gordon movie every Christmas. And it’s about overthrowing a tyrannical monarch…

I get the sense from your wording that you might be in the younger end of the spectrum. Although the world can feel pretty shitty and messed up, it’s often worth remembering “this too shall pass”. Obviously no one wants the world to be awful, and living through hard times isn’t desirable, but just like the good stuff never lasts, the bad stuff changes too. The Great Depression lasted a decade, the Nazis ran Germany for just a bit longer.

Those were presumably fucking dreadful times to live through. But the decades that followed were comparatively prosperous for the countries. What’s happening in the US is depressing as all hell, but it’ll change, and all you can do is the best you can to make it less dreadful, for yourself and the people around you.

I’ve used (and loved) Sleep as Android for yeeears. It’s a great app and the developer is always adding extra things, new wearable integration and stuff. So, I really don’t mean to bitch because I think it’s a solid app with solid support. But I recommended it to a friend the other day and they pointed out the unlock is now €69.99!! I~~ think it was a fiver when ~~just checked my email, it was €1.99 in 2013 when I unlocked it.

Defintely recommend, and I think the free version is still pretty amazing. But wow, even with extra features, that’s some inflation.

Thia is exactly the video I was thinking of. I only came across his channel recently, and it is an absolute pleasure.

Totally agree. Seeing how “Internet like” communication existed before the Internet is always fascinating to me. Whether it’s fanclubs, wargaming zines or Enlightened era correspondence, people have had written interactions with effective strangers for centuries. But it was incredibly different before.

The very act of sitting down to write, paying some money and effort to literally post it probably had a huge calming effect on idle bad faith takes. And I imagine that getting a letter with someone telling me names for thinking McCoy is better than Spock would probably make me feel derisively sorry for the poor nerd who went to the effort.

My take is that written communication is hard, unless a) you know each other really well, e.g. messaging friends, or b) you write carefully and with enough detail to help the other person understand fully your position, and they bother reading with the same care.

When you read an essay or article it of often begins by setting out the problem, giving some context and even defining their priorities and approach, before they make a claim or argument. They spend time addressing the obvious criticisms of their argument, and ideally admiting weak spots, and maybe even empathising with why someone might reject their position. This means that when you read an article like that, even if argues against something important to you, you don’t feel attacked. It’s calm, general reasoning, and obviously not a personal a attack on you as an individual.

But if you post an picture of the secondhand car you’ve saved for two years to afford, and the first comment is “fuck cars, they’re killing the planet” it’s easy to feel like it’s a personal and it’s aggressive. Or if you write a pretty reasonable but contraversial opinion, people might not have the time or will to break it down and explain why it’s wrong, but they don’t want other people to read it and think it’s okay, so they down vote and comment a quick “what is this shit ?”

I’m not sure I really understand the question. ‘this’ and ‘that’ are both used to tlsk about something when it’s obvious from context what you’re referring to.

Situation - in a bakery “i want that” (pointing at the cake on the shelf) “I want this too” (pointing at the bread by the counter) Next customer “i want the same”

Situation - you’re on a date in fancy restaurant, you’re date has just finished explaining she wants to have lots of children “I want that” (the children she’s been discussing) “but I want this too” (gesturing around at the adult single life you’re enjoying " " I want this too" she reassures you

I don’t think there’s much variation between the main English dialects / varities. This and that are key grammatical words.

As a non American, Thomas Jefferson is pretty famous as historical figures go.

Morris is defintely a first name in Britain. I went to school with a Morris Morrison.

That’s interesting. I’m not a film guy at all, and it certainly never occurred to me that it pioneered some of the key stuff in modern movies (although that totally makes sense). But I remember enjoying it! The pacing felt quite good, there were some mysteries and character drama. Not a top movie for me personally, but pretty watchable for a B&W movie.

Mostly just water, but defintely happy to have multiple drinks at the same time. Particularly breakfast, I can have coffee, juice, water and a Bloody Mary. But in general I want hot drinks hot, and fizzy drinks fizzy. So if I have a lot of drinks on the go I’ll have to drink them quickly.

Yeah, absolutely. But that’s surviorship bias. If my relationship wasn’t worth it, I wouldn’t stay in it. The real cost isn’t the effort getting there, it’s the daily effort keeping it working. Dealing with your own shit, and someone else’s can be exhausting.

But, for lots of lucky people it’s totally worth it. My partner brings me so much joy, at a deep level, and also a lot of silly entertainment like any good friend. And although it’s a lot of work, they also constantly make my life simpler and help me with the things I can’t handle.

And I don’t know your situation, but I never saw myself as being with someone. And then, pretty randomly, I’m my late 30s, having never ‘dated’ or been in a real relationship, I ended up meeting up with someone and now we’re married and have had many happy (and sometimes difficult) years together. I never expected it to happen, and I certainly didn’t expect to love it as much as I do. But anything can happen, as long as you remain open to possibility.

Also, loads of people lave and prefer being single. It’s just the ones in relationships are going to be (mostly) ones that it’s working for.

Tbf, I’m not sure many people succeed on industrial level Anglo-Saxon literature analysis.

Inductive reasoning. I don’t have any non-circular reason to believe that previous experience should predict future events. But I’m gonna believe it anyway.

Spot on with “lieing about having your shit together”, I’m in my 40s and in academia and almost everyone is “just pretending” to be a high functioning adult.

But you don’t need to spend your life in front of a computer. You can do all sorts of shit. But people like economic security and that makes “college > soul destroying job” seem appealing. But life can be all sorts of things, as long as you realise you’re in control of the choices not the results.

There’s a well established trope that at every age, people think there life is about to settle down and stop being as open and free. I was defintely the kind of person who felt that turning 21 was becoming ancient and tbat life was basically over. But each decade has been completely different and often wild, I’ve done lots of different things, lived in different places and even now I’m married and have a house and all the more “settled” things, I’m confident the last few decades will also be varied and interesting.

It depends. Mostly I care, a new baby is a big deal, I think about how it will affect them, what the child might be like, the fact that I will probably still be spending time with that child in ten years.

Holidays I care if they’re interesting. If someone goes somewhere I’ve always wanted to go I might have questions, if they’ve been somewhere I’ve been I might chat about what I liked. But when people try to tell you a detailed recount of some trip, it can be very boring. My parents are particularly bad at reminiscing together while notionally telling me, so they keep going “where was it we ate the second day? No that was the other place” it’s awful. But it’s a chance for them to feel happy about their holiday again, so I try to be patient, and I remember how many times my parents pretended to be interested as I explained how I was doing at some computer game or whatever.

But to answer your question, it sounds like you care less than most. But everyone cares less than the people who’s life event it is. There’s lots of scenes in comedies about people hating hearing about new babies, or being forced to look at holiday photos. So you’re not alone!

What foss do you recommend for email? I don’t love Gmail app, but I’ve not come across a better alternative yet (not tried very hard tbh) .

Must make turning corners, parking and dealing with hazards a wild experience.

Yeah, that’s how I felt about Jonathan Majors as Kang. “He’s great! Got this fun, wild, sensitive vibe, but there’s this dark and menacing core lurking beneath.” uhuh.