This is a thread to discuss 2024 releases that have recently arrived on our doorstep, or been announced for the future. Feel free to share albums, singles, EPs or reissues that have caught your eye and interest, or share your thoughts about any new music that you've had the chance to listen to this week.

Discussion Points
Is there anything you've been looking forward to listening to?
Any releases that have surprised you?
Have you listened to any new music recently? What are your thoughts?
What have you enjoyed from these artists in the past? How does their latest work compare?

Links:
Pitchfork - Out This Week
AllMusic - All New Releases
Stereogum - New Music

~~ Feedback on the format welcome

This is a thread to discuss 2024 releases that have recently arrived on our doorstep, or been announced for the future. Feel free to share albums, singles, EPs or reissues that have caught your eye and interest, or share your thoughts about any new music that you've had the chance to listen to this week.

Discussion Points

Is there anything you've been looking forward to listening to?
Any releases that have surprised you?
Have you listened to any new music recently? What are your thoughts?
What have you enjoyed from these artists in the past? How does their latest work compare?

~~ Feedback on the format welcome

Hey, I would love some recommendations for games that works well for just two players but would also work with more.
I’d like to get less screen time and think tabletop games would be great for that purpose.
Do you have any recommendations for games you’ve really enjoyed, thank you!

This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant Israel-Hamas war content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.

Please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.

I think I first came across "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" by Ursula K LeGuin a few years ago. I read something else in conversation with it, but somehow had missed the original. Hugo Award winning and Locus award nominated, I thought folks might be interested in discussing it and its descendants.

LeGuin's original in pdf format

Omelas is a utopia in the middle of a festival. And as the narrator explains the city to you, they understand that you may not believe it is even possible.

Othe authors have written stories in conversation with this,

NK Jemisin's The Ones Who Stay And Fight is directly engaging with it.

The Golden Enclaves by Naomi Novik (the 3rd Scholomance book) engages with this idea too.

So I had read all of the above works and been mulling over the topic of Omelas, and then found this story today

Why Don't We Just Kill the Kid In the Omelas Hole

In which people, uh, start killing the kid in the Omelas hole. Sorry, not a lot of room not to spoil that given the title. I'll let you read the story for where that goes.

Risk of spoilers for the above works from here:
I think there is a lot about our society here. LeGuin herself said the story, "has a long and happy career of being used by teachers to upset students and make them argue fiercely about morality." Because what is the right answer? Novik, via El in the Scholomance series says to burn it down. Jemisin says there is a better way. I don't believe LeGuin is arguing that the ones who walk away are "right" in that they leave having benefited from Omelas and the child still suffers.

But I thought folks who hadn't read one or more of these might enjoy them, and I find they make me think and often won't stop letting me think.

ETA: ST:SNW did an entire episode using Omelas as an inspiration. I haven't seen it so I can't speak to it but wanted to add it here for reference.

Recently had a conversation with a good friend about dating, and it had me curious about how everyone on Tildes approaches dating. Tell me a bit about how you date! Here's a few prompts/thoughts I'm curious about:

• How long does it take for you to know if you're attracted to someone (sexually, romantically, emotionally, shared interests, etc)?
• What do you like to do when you date and does it change depending on how many dates you've been on or how well you know the person?
• Once you start dating someone, how long does it take you to understand whether you want to date the person long term or whether it's not going to work out?
• Do you only date people you meet in real life or do you use dating apps? How do you approach going from stranger to dating them?
• What's most important in deciding whether you want to date someone? Do they need to have an interest in activities you enjoy, shared values, emotional intelligence, a certain kind of humor, or something else?
• Is there something you don't understand about dating and want to share your frustration?

For those out of the loop, Steam Next Fest is a week long event (Feb. 5 - Feb. 12) celebrating upcoming games through demos and developer livestreams.

Which demos have you been playing, and which releases are you looking forward to?

What have you been watching and reading this week? You don't need to give us a whole essay if you don't want to, but please write something! Feel free to talk about something you saw that was cool, something that was bad, ask for recommendations, or anything else you can think of.

If you want to, feel free to find the thing you're talking about and link to its pages on Anilist, MAL, or any other database you use!

This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.

This is an inherently political thread; please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant Israel-Hamas war content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.

Please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.