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The recent reaction to the Rings of Power trailer and a thought-provoking video about ragebait from the Youtuber Arbitor Ian made me think about this topic.

Fan as Identity and Fandom as Tribe

We all know that guy who is an extreme purist about a beloved franchise. As they love to talk about it, they love the source material, or they love the originals. Any adaptation of or addition to these is seen as deviating from these "sacred texts". Especially if the more recent material produced significantly differs from these sacred texts, it has to be bad. So, you should watch or create hours-long videos nitpicking them.

This type of person accepts as a given that the original material they are talking about is sacred. Therefore, any change to it is bad. They are often known as a purist, however, I think the better term for it is conservative.

There is research that posits that fandom is basically a postmodern tribe and fan a postmodern identity (1, 2). The idea is not entirely new. Sports fandoms and fans have been noted for these qualities before (3, 4).

I think this makes intuitive sense to people who read both humanities and participate in a fandom. Fans take their fictional worlds to heart, and they strongly identify with the characters, the universe, the stories, the games, etc. Combined with the weakening of more traditional identities, and the rise of internet that has created the conditions to connect with people worldwide, it's not surprising that such postmodern identities and tribes would be born.

The Conservative Fan

I talk about conservatism here in the broad sense, meaning being biased toward conserving what traditionally exists, a standpoint that values tradition. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry about this is well-researched.

"Conservatism in a broad sense, as a social attitude, has always existed. It expresses the instinctive human fear of sudden change, and tendency to habitual action."

I think the "purist fan" fits this definition perfectly. Combining this with the idea that a fan is a type postmodern identity, we can assert that this type of fan is a type of postmodern conservative. Therefore, fandom purism is a type of postmodern conservatism.

The Reactionary Fan and Outrage Culture

There are a lot of descriptions of what a reactionary is, and there is no agreed upon definition. I'm going to use a definition that makes sense to me as a broader definition.

For me, a reactionary, in its broadest sense, is someone who doesn't analyze things much and instead opts to act on impulsive emotion, which is very often anger, resentment, hatred. They approach topics from a very bad faith position. They make short, quippy, and wrong statements.

Reactionaries often, but not necessarily, defend conservative or conservative-adjacent views, because conservatism is biased toward reacting to changes and seeing them as negative. This aligns with the reactionary mindset that is built upon heavily reacting to things. Since change is inevitable and will always create reactions, conservatism -which is about resisting change- is a perfect fit for reactionarism.

A relevant extension of this reactionarism is the outrage culture. A production can't be just bad or mediocre, it has to be awful. You can't just dislike it and move on, you have to feel outrage. You have to belittle it at every chance you get. It's because your identity as a true nerd, and a fan of [insert fictional world], is threatened. You have to act now! They are trying to take it away!

Ragebait being amplified by social media algorithms also strengthens this. However, pointing to it as the sole reason would be a mistake.

The Synthesis and Some More Considerations

The purist fan is a postmodern conservative. They attach their identity very strongly to some sacred texts (book, comics, movie, etc.), and they don't want them to change. Therefore, there is a heavy bias involved in discussing developments around these texts.

The conservative fan can also be a reactionary fan, but doesn't have to be. They don't have to go out there and yell at people, or condescendingly talk to their social circle, like a reactionary fan does. However, they often do.

It shouldn't be hard to see why conservatism and reactionarism, in the context of fandom, would be related to their corresponding ideologies in the classical sense of the words. While decompartmentalization exists, and people don't necessarily act the same way in different areas of their lives, it makes sense that a general attitude about change would affect one's approach to both fandom and regular politics.

I think this is a major reason why we see so many loud "purists" about fandom topics follow reactionary politics in regular politics. It also explains why the regular reactionaries can so easily convince fandom reactionaries to adapt their arguments. They come from the same attitude toward change and same attachment to conservative identity politics.

So, this is my analysis of this topic. Before closing, I want to raise a question that's been on my mind. The quote I shared at the start of the post, the fear of change, I suspect this might be one of the key underlying characteristics of these people, both in regular and fandom politics. People who get attached to certain periods of time in the past so strongly that they dislike any change, or even react violently—they are at the heart of this.

There is a related, very famous meta-analysis studying 22,818 cases (88 samples) across 12 countries. Political conservatism as motivated social cognition. According to the study, conservatism is negatively correlated with openness to experience (-.32) and positively correlated with dogmatism-intolerance of ambiguity (.34).

Returning to fandom context, what I'm trying to get at is that maybe holding so dearly to experiences we've had as kids or teenagers is maybe not that good. Sure, there is nothing wrong with nostalgia, and there is nothing wrong with enjoying things we did as kids or teens. But I suspect this overemphasis on being forever teens is turning people into dogmatic, reactionary people. Maybe it's time to grow up and accept change, even find ways to cherish it.

Very Important Note

This is not an endorsement of any change to stories and franchises. Obviously, some can be bad. In fact, many adaptations of source material lose some things, partially because of differences in medium and partially because of financial interests involved in movie and show production. RoP is a good example of mediocritization due to financial concerns.

As you can guess, I did not even like Rings of Power. But even though I've been a Legendarium fan since I was a kid, it wasn't because they changed the source material. It's because I think RoP was, to use a more modern term, mid. However, this did not cause me to go on a rant about how they are ruining the Legendarium. This is a key difference, in my opinion, between simply disliking and being a reactionary.

I guess I'll post another thoughtful analysis rant on tech trends. It has been mentioned here in a few threads already but I simply wanted to try to start a focused discussion.

Personally I first noticed significant degradation of search functionality around 2018 or so, while specifically Google was mentioned at least as far back as 2016. But it is not simply Google or even just general search engines. Any random site specific search functionality or discoverability algorithms on various sites share these trends too.

It really seems that the focus is simply on delivering as many results as possible with actual quality or even relevance being somewhere on the tail end of priorities. It is not even just lack of(useful, consistent) search operators, lack of transparency, lack of structured search possibilities, lack of sorting options, lack of granularity - it is the simple disregard for the basic intent of the query with some implementations sometimes being actually more accurate with fewer keywords with no option to modify this behavior.

It is especially damaging for(at least my) ability to research a topic. A decade and half ago I could go in with a topic I had no idea about and emerge two hours later with a very basic but likely mostly accurate and slightly in-depth overview by refining my searches. Now I'm lucky to get one single thoughtful blog post or discussion among dozens or tutorials, 10-bests and ads with the query being almost completely disregarded and keywords being straight up ignored to deliver this deluge of both low quality and mostly completely irrelevant results.

Are there any projects, search engines or anything other that aim to deliver actually useful, steerable, user directed results?

Hey everyone!

Do you have any experience with time blocking? Do you use any apps to help or do you do it all manually in your calendar? I recently watched a video I found on Tildes by Answer in Progress (https://youtu.be/vYaNiC4kchg?si=zh02N4bStqAhBBAe) about attention span. I have heard a lot about time blocking in the past, but always thought I never really needed it.

However, recently I've been starting to realize maybe I'm not doing well mentally..days can slip by on YouTube, or a video game, and the things I wanted to get done get pushed back to the next day..and the next day, and so on..or things I was passionate about, things I want to succeed in that I am good at..just sort of slip away, and I stop doing them and lose my drive. So maybe I need to block time to get it done... I'm not sure. So I guess I can try Meditation and time blocking..

Anyway, anyone have some suggestions if they do this? Have you found that it helped?

The well on our acreage has stopped producing much. It may come back after some rehabilitation but in the mean time I called out a local water expert and well repair tech to look at it.

He said it might be necessary to drill a deeper well. Then he pulled out two rods, bent at a 90 degree angle and held them loosely in his grip, letting the ends point forward and still able to move freely. He started walking, criss crossing our yard til at one point the two rods turned inward to point toward each other. He dug his heel in to mark the spot and moved on to find at least 5 other spots on the yard where there is water underground. This is well witching. And its been used for years to find underground water.

Dont ask me how it works. I have no clue. But he asked if I wanted to try it, so I did. Held the rods loosely and walked and sure enough, over a certain point they swung together. I was looking at them but very consciously not moving my hands or trying to manipulate them in any way. The rods were only about 1/8" thick and I wasnt gripping them tightly so it would have been impossible to make them turn. Did my hands turn in ever so slightly? Not that I could tell. I turned around and walked back over the spot and sure enough, the rods turned in at the same spot.

Its a weird phenomenon. Have no idea why it works but it does work. I've seen witching used at a friends house with a very long pole held in one hand that would dip down when the witcher walked over the water, and it produced a successful high flow well. This guy even said he could find gas lines using the same technique.

Can't wait til the wife gets home and I let her know she married a witch. lol

I noticed that Tildes has had no previous discussion of Andrew Hickey's wonderful music podcast A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs. So I thought I'd write a little about it, in case it might bring as much joy to someone here as it has brought me. It's easily my favourite podcast, and it might actually be my favourite work on music history in any medium. It's really that good.

The podcast started something like six years ago, and like its name suggests, it presents a history of rock music. But not just the "four white guys and some guitars" rock music of the 1970s and beyond, but a far more in-depth exploration of where the genre came from and how it has evolved. This is not one of those podcasts where a host or hosts have chosen a topic, done some light resarch and then talk about what comes to their mind. Instead, each episode is thoroughly researched, pre-written and edited. It is a high quality audio lecture delivered by an excellent and witty storyteller who knows what he is talking about.

The first episode was on "Flying Home" by the Benny Goodman Sextet, a jazz and jump blues track released in 1939, and therefore naturally not really a rock song, but something that works as a good starting point in the wider discussion of the genre's evolution. From there, episode by episode, Hickey has told us about the (or rather "a") history of rock music chronologically, taking us through the 40s and 50s, and currently heading towards the end of the 60s. He has indicated that just as 1939 was a somewhat arbitrary starting point, his 500-song history will end with a song that was released in 1999. Looking at his current pace, it may be a while until we get there.

The latest episode is song #174, "I Heard it Through the Grapevine", first released in 1967. It's part one of a two-part narration, with the current episode concentrating on the song's early history and its writers Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong, while the upcoming episode two will look at Marvin Gaye's version and career at that point.

Hickey has in fact recently started to split some songs into multiple episodes, and he did it also with the previous song, song #173, Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower", first released in 1967. That one had Part 1 that concentrated on Dylan's version, and then Part 2 that covered Jimi Hendrix's version. Although, when I say that those episodes concentrate on Dylan's and Hendrix's versions of the song, that's not exactly true. It would be more accurate to say that Part 1 concentrates on Dylan's career in the late 60s, as well some related subjects and artists from the era, while Part 2 looked at Hendrix's career at the time, as well as subjects and artists related to him around that time.

And this is actually an important point to make. While the episodes certainly tell you a lot about the song that they are discussing, they are not solely about the song in question, and they never really aim to give you a subjective interpretation of the song or anything like that. Instead, you are given plenty of historical facts, you hear a lot of interesting stories, and you find out how the song and the people who were involved with it fit into a larger narrative of rock music. And you also get to hear excerpts of some really good music along the way. Hickey is very much an expert in the topic, a great storyteller, and seems like someone who knows how to do his research.

The podcast's early episodes were shorter, about half an hour or so, while some of the more recent episodes have become much longer, some reaching over four hours, which is the reason why Hickey has started to split some episodes into multiple parts. In addition to the main podcast, there are also Patreon bonus episodes which are not part of the main narrative, but which I can highly recommend. They function as companion pieces to the main story, and typically last between 10 to 30 minutes; for instance, the bonus episode for the first "I Heard it Through the Grapevine" episode was on the song "Bend Me, Shape Me" by Amen Corner. And so, although he is officially just at song #174, Hickey has probably covered well over three hundred songs so far.

The podcasts are free of ads and fully community supported. You should be able to find the podcast on all the main podcast providers, and it has a dedicated website at 500songs.com. If you don't know where to start, the double episode on "All Along the Watchtower" that I mentioned earlier could be a good way to check if the podcast is for you. Or, if you have some favourite artists or songs from the 40s, 50s or 60s, check out the tags on the website to see if he has made episodes on them. Or you can of course just start from the beginning, like I did.

Last year, Hickey was also a guest on Rick Rubin's podcast, and that interview could also be a good introduction to Hickey and his work.

What have you been doing lately for your own fitness? Try out any new programs or exercises? Have any questions for others about your training? Want to vent about poor behavior in the gym? Started a new diet or have a new recipe you want to share? Anything else health and wellness related?

Add awesome game deals to this topic as they come up over the course of the week!

Alternately, ask about a given game deal if you want the community’s opinions: e.g. “What games from this bundle are most worth my attention?”

Rules:

• No grey market sales
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If posting a sale, it is strongly encouraged that you share why you think the available game/games are worthwhile.

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I am looking for ideas or recipes to make with chicken thighs. I bought some for a barbecue chicken recipe that I really liked, but no one else in my family enjoyed. It seemed to be the different texture of the dark meat. Now I have several pounds in the freezer I eventually need to use for something.

I have been looking online, and most chicken thigh recipes are some variation of cooked chicken thighs whole, baked or fried, with some kind of sauce on them.

I am wondering if anyone has recipes that use them in a way that the texture of the meat is less obvious or maybe ways of preparing them that would make them less chewy. I love the richness of them, and they are cheap, so I hope I can find ways to keep making them.

Is anyone here using https://nebula.tv? Multiple creators I watch are on there, and I'm considering getting a subscription, but I'm just not sure if it's really worth it. Most channels on there don't seem to upload any exclusive content, so I'll basically just get the same videos but for $5/month instead of for free. I've also heard that the app and UX isn't that great.

People who use the service, what makes it worth it for you? Is it just a way to support the creators more?

Hello everyone.

I am planning to get back into Linux development after working with Mac only for almost a decade. On Mac, one of the most important lessons that I learned was to always use Homebrew. Using various package managers (e.g. Homebrew, NPM, Yarn, Pip, etc.) creates situations in which you don't know how to uninstall or upgrade certain pieces of software. Also, it's hard to generate a complete overview.

How do you Linux folks handle this?

Bonus question: How do you manage your dotfiles securely? I use Bitwarden, and it's a bit clunky.

If that helps, I want to try Mint and always use Oh My ZSH!.

Hello, every now and then I find myself looking for open-source "self-hosted" (VPS accepted) Google photos alternatives.

I have searched every now and then but I have never found something I felt that suits my needs.

I don't mind setting it up myself with command lines and stuff from an empty VPS as long as the monthly fees are pushed to a minimum.

I do have a certain set of constraints and I was wondering what would be the best app to do it. Any app that I end up trying fail one of these somehow. Or it is an app that I couldn't test adequately on my 2GB RAM VPS. Should I be upgrading first and then testing them?

Here are my constraints:

I would like to be able to share photos privately to friends and family. Like maybe a secret link to share photos or albums with friends.

I would like to be able to view photos on mobile, using Internet. I don't mind opening a mobile web app but I would like to be able to show it.

I would like to have some privacy-respecting face recognition. This also opens up the question of what RAM of VPS I should be using.

I would like to leave the file and folder structure untouched. I have already somehow arranged the files into albums by using folders so bonus points if the app figures that out. However, I would bite the bullet if there is a good solution that asks to "copy" the files into a new folder thereby doubling the storage needed. But I hope to avoid it.

Any help towards the right direction would be appreciated!

Random thought. What if we taxed property based on the area per person of the property, as opposed to sale value?

Edit and quick intro to those who mostly rent: most real property in the US, especially residential property, is taxed yearly based on some variation of something called "fair market value," usually assessed by a local tax assessor's office

I'm proposing that a property would be taxed for every square meter of space per person in the designated property unit. It can't be totally simplified, but should be fairly straightforward. There could also be progressive brackets. It might not make make sense to apply it strictly per person, but rather for a typical use. That is, we would assume "single family residential" properties to house 3.4 (totally made up number) people per house and property.

The goal of this is to find a fair, market-driven incentive to build density into urban cores.

A similar approach could be applied to commercial space (but probably not industrial).

It could be coupled with a sales tax (currently missing in most real property tax regimes, at least in the US) to capture runaway property valuations in certain jurisdictions.

Alternatively, we could drop the property value based tax rate (but not eliminate it), and then add a per person-area surcharge.

It's not meant to increase revenue, although it could certainly be used that way. It could also be use to decrease revenue, and maybe that would be a good way to sell it. But at the end of the day, developers and residents would both have an incentive to pursue as dense development as possible, even if there is not a density driving pressure of desirablity, which only exists in a few really cool urban cores.