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    1. What have you been listening to this week?

      What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as...

      What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)

      Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

      You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

      http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

      Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

      4 votes
    2. What did you do this week?

      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...

      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!

      19 votes
    3. Tell me about your RPG campaign

      Hey folks, I haven't posted in a hell of a long time and thought why not get this going again. So when I last posted I think my Paladin had just been basically killed off and I wrote up a druid....

      Hey folks, I haven't posted in a hell of a long time and thought why not get this going again.

      So when I last posted I think my Paladin had just been basically killed off and I wrote up a druid. Well this one has been amazingly fun to role play, being that he has lived most of his life in solitude he has no social skills and tends to do things that can be a little off at times. Our merry band of misfits had cleared a small towns problem warerats who turned out to be a family of Gnomes who lived there, while trying to console the final member of the family Rolen (my druid) felt the best way to give emotional support would be to congratulate the young Gnome on becoming the head of the family. This actually broke the whole table for about a minute, the DM sat in silence for a moment, laughed, tried to role play the distraught girl but failed epically.

      We have also got another campaign going with a few of the same guys as the bigger campaign, this one is mostly homebrew. The first character I made I really wasn't happy with so spoke to the DM and we worked out how to kill her off and introduce the new character I made, completely homebrew this one and it's again been far more fun. He is a Dwaf Shaman whose ancestors speak to him constantly, sometimes good and sometimes not so much.

      So what has been happening in your RPGs? anything big, fun or just want to chat about? painted anything cool? got new dice? anything at all.

      18 votes
    4. Star Trek: Picard S01E02 Maps and Legends

      Picard begins investigating the mystery of Dahj as well as what her very existence means to the Federation. Without Starfleet's support, Picard is left leaning on others for help, including Dr....

      Picard begins investigating the mystery of Dahj as well as what her very existence means to the Federation. Without Starfleet's support, Picard is left leaning on others for help, including Dr. Agnes Jurati (Alison Pill) and an estranged former colleague, Raffi Musiker (Michelle Hurd). Meanwhile, hidden enemies are also interested in where Picard's search for the truth about Dahj will lead.

      8 votes
    5. What's a widely criticized thing that you feel is worth defending?

      Anything is fair game: from a movie seemingly everyone panned to a company seemingly everyone hates. Give us a justification for why you think, say, nails on a chalkboard is actually a delightful...

      Anything is fair game: from a movie seemingly everyone panned to a company seemingly everyone hates. Give us a justification for why you think, say, nails on a chalkboard is actually a delightful sound or why Ringo is the best Beatle.

      With that said, I'm interested in genuine answers, not just people playing devil's advocate, so please only submit something you actually believe! Also, while my examples are light-hearted, serious answers are welcome too.

      Guiding questions:

      • What are the common criticisms for your chosen thing?
      • Why do you feel that it's worth defending, even in light of those criticisms?
      40 votes
    6. Is the Roadmap still useful?

      Clicking on "Roadmap" at the bottom of any Tildes page brings up an issue board. I'm wondering if that's still being maintained and whether it's worth keeping? The items listed under "in progress"...

      Clicking on "Roadmap" at the bottom of any Tildes page brings up an issue board. I'm wondering if that's still being maintained and whether it's worth keeping?

      The items listed under "in progress" don't look like they are actually in progress. For example, "Add sticky / pinned topics" is marked as "In progress" but in fact it's a year old and there's been no activity for four months.

      6 votes
    7. Do you think a ~community would be helpful?

      I personally think it could be helpful as a group for us to attempt guiding ourselves to cooperate and do stuff like timasomo. Alternatively it could end up being swallowed by petty drama and be...

      I personally think it could be helpful as a group for us to attempt guiding ourselves to cooperate and do stuff like timasomo. Alternatively it could end up being swallowed by petty drama and be really horrible.

      2 votes
    8. What are you reading these days?

      What are you reading currently? Fiction or non-fiction or poetry, any genre, any language! Tell us what you're reading, and talk about it a bit. Previous topics Previous topics are listed in the wiki.

      21 votes
    9. Fitness Weekly Discussion

      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...

      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?

      4 votes
    10. Is sex work bad?

      Prompted by a recent tildes post about vice, and also this from the bbc, and a conversation with a colleague who just went to a strip club, I keep thinking about this issue. I have a stake in...

      Prompted by a recent tildes post about vice, and also this from the bbc, and a conversation with a colleague who just went to a strip club, I keep thinking about this issue.

      I have a stake in this, despite being cis male: I have mother, sisters, wife, and most importantly young daughter. And I am a feminist, on simple moral grounds.

      My baseline position is that whether a woman chooses to engage in sex work is, and should be legally and socially supported as, entirely her own choice.

      The only question I have any business answering, or participating in finding an answer, is whether my patronage of sex work is inherently exploitive, to either the woman whom I am patronizing* or to other women individually or to womanhood and general issues of gender.

      And I just can’t come up with a good answer. I do look at porn, but increasingly, as with meat, the potential ethical problems of it are reducing the enjoyment. I have tried to ease my conscience by limiting myself to cartoons and stories, but those wouldn’t stop the harm that is caused by the mere existence of porn, if any exists.

      As a purely practical matter, the existence of the industry leads to opportunities for exploitation of individuals, and the advancement of a culture of gender exploitation. But as the war on drugs has so ably demonstrated, any attempt at prohibition only increases the level of exploitation, while smart regulation decreases it. Regardless, though, there’s plenty of exploitation to go around the world, I heard there’s thing called #metoo.

      I come from a sex-suppressing, fundamentalist “Christian” background. The quotes are there to indicate that I think much of the practices were anything but christ-like. The principles there swirl through the culture around me in varying degrees of intensity, and they inform and direct my choices (sometimes against my will and my better hopes and ideals). I have to be open to the notion that any objection I have to sex work, or my participation, is entirely a cultural construct. And while I don’t think it is true, I cannot dismiss the notion that morals themselves may have no possible objective existence, having relevance and utility (if at all) only in very time and space limited scopes.

      It is what I believe the sociologists call a “wicked” problem. It involves really complicated normative stances, and there’s no data analysis that can provide any guidance. For myself, I expect my participation to continue to wane as I mature. I only hope that whatever I do only further enables and empowers the women in my life and everywhere.

      • I almost stopped myself from using this word when I realized potential implications, but ultimately left it in because it (and the fact it was my natural inclination to select it) really highlights the issue for me and hopefully others

      Bonus hypothetical: If porn is somehow wrong and harmful, even drawings and writings, are sex fantasies also wrong?

      30 votes