I've been feeling SO HAPPY this Monday, so I'm hoping y'all will be able to ease my light existential dread. That dread is based on cultural conflicts in the US and elsewhere, where people seem to want to have things their way or the highway and no resolution is in sight.

"Culture war" is a term that assumes at least two sides fighting out their differences in an effectively zero-sum atmosphere; one side wins, one side loses. It would apply tons of different questions, a couple which we've discussed here in ~talk already. I see a "Culture War" as any conflict of opinion focused on cultural values, rights, mores, etc., in which the participants feel there must be a clear winner and a clear loser to the conflict. Abortion, discrimination/affirmative action (of any kind to any group), and gun control/rights are the three big culture-war issues that I think currently divide Americans.

Escalating an issue to culture war status means that issue will likely not be resolved for decades. While other issues ebb and flow, the culture war issues persist largely unchanged. I think the main reason for the doggedness of these issues is there is no possible way to deescalate them. The participants want too badly to be right to hear many reasons for seeing things differently, and almost any act to persuade has "complete capitulation" in mind as the primary goal of the rhetorician. The result is that no one hears or respects the people who disagree with them.

I have very little reason to be optimistic about any of these issues being resolved in my lifetime. Too many people use these cultural issues to identify themselves. Too many people use these issues to identify "others," or people who don't belong in their group. The room for open discussion on any of these issues is nil unless the discussion is held at the horns by a determined and skilled moderator.

My challenge to you, if you choose to accept it: find me a realistic path toward deescalating a culture war once it has begun. Historical examples would be much appreciated, if possible.

Edit: Someone told me privately that I went too academic, so I've adjusted the wording to be easier on the mind. Mondays all around, y'all.

Inspired by @Marszalot 's topic about humor podcasts I would like to see you guys have any good recommendations about high performance mindset topic.

Recently I stumbled across Cindra Kamphoff's podcast at Spotify and I've been enjoying it a lot. Most of them are short, which suits very well my time to walk from home to the office (20 to 30 minutes), but it's weekly, so I'm searching for more sources to listen about high performance mindset / habits.

A long time ago I saw my friend watch a video while he worked on a second monitor at home. I thought wow, that's terrible, how can he focus?

Fast forward a few years, and these days I work from home. There is often a video of some sort playing on a tablet while I work.

Probably more commonly, most of the time when I'm watching a TV show or movie on a big screen I have my phone in my hand and I'm scrolling through some feed. It basically turns the HD video I'm supposedly watching into an audio book-like experience.

Does anyone else do either of these things? Any theories as to why we do this? What are the effects of this behavior? Are we basically doing 2 things terribly instead of 1 thing well?

edit: spelling: think=thing (I blame the video playing in the background)

So I am currently reading books to pass time but they aren't fictional books; rather they are books on philosophy, religion, politics, state formation and history. They do require some level of concentration as they contain concepts of varying complexity and most content is invariably causally linked to the previous content but I just can't concentrate. Like at all. I'd read a sentence four or five times and still wouldn't know what's in it because I lose concentration mid sentence. This not only slows me down considerably but is also annoying and causes me to lose interest. I have a bachelors in EE and didn't have considerable problems (only an year ago) reading course books and understanding what was in them and applying the concepts so I don't really understand what's wrong with me. Can someone kindly help me? Thanks.

I always look forward to fresh ingredients for substantial salads during the hot months of summer. Unfortunately, my repertoire is wanting. I make the same basic salad every time just changing a few ingredients depending on availability. This consists of greens, sometimes cold penne or other pasta, usually garbanzo beans, sometimes meat of some kind, tomatoes, cucumbers, celery, basil or oregano and/or mint and perhaps hard boiled egg, sometimes pickled beets.

Thanks for any suggestions or recipes.

I'm wondering if others are seeing as many "broken" thumbnail(favicon) images to the left of externally linked posts? I'm not sure if it's simply because my browser needs to have visited a site before it will show me the website's default favicon or something else? For example please see below:

Favicon missing

Apologies if this has already been asked/addressed.

Edit: I just tested visiting the site linked and then reloading Tildes and it doesn't update so I assume it's probably on the external site's "end".

It’s that time of year in the Northern Hemisphere- lots of sun and (often) inadequate sunblock usage.

What are your tried-and-true remedies, excluding aloe since that one seems common knowledge at this point.

Who are you rooting for? Who do you hope to see knocked out? After a rather unpredictable two matchdays anything can happen.

Personally I'd put my money on Germany despite their weak performance until now. But I'm also hoping see an underdog team make it to the finals.

Hey guys. I got MGSV on Xbox games with gold last month and I've been absolutely LOVING it but I'm not super creative with the game mechanics and I'm trying to branch out. They don't tell you too many advanced techniques, at least with how far I've been. I try to mainly go non-lethal with the occasional rocket blast (I'm addicted to Fulton capturing soldiers), but I would love to hear some stories and tricks you have used to great effect!

As someone who is relatively removed from the programming world (I do basic Python scripting and not much else), I'm curious to see an argument opposing what I perceive as the majority viewpoint. Those against the acquisition have cited examples of Microsoft "ruining" services such as Skype and Minecraft.