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!

I was having a conversation with a friend today about the economics of art and the potential cost of purchasing an idea. It got me thinking, what are some other things relatively cheap to create but expensive to purchase?

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 weekend. Did you make any plans? Take a trip? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

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!

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?

Rules

1. Please identify your city, and post a link to Wikipedia if the name is ambiguous or not well know. If you do not wish to provide this information for privacy reasons, you can provide some general informations about your city or nominate a similar one.

2. Your funds are unlimited, but you're limited to a maximum of 3 projects. The projects can be as big or small as you want. And try to give a reasonable amount of detail. This is not intended for comedy or fictionalized speculation. Please submit ideas that you think are actually viable!

3. You must increase any metrics included on or related to the Human Development Index^[1] of your city.

4. The projects don't need to focus on your birthplace or where you currently live. Any city you have significant knowledge of will do. But it must be a single one.

5. Both consequentalist and deontological ethics must be observed. The projects must not contradict the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In other words, be excellent to each other!

6. Unlike my previous ~talk thread, in this one I won't play a jackass genie or anything like that. The purpose of this thread is to have a healthy discussion on urban development by sharing our aspirations for the cities we love.

Example of areas to improve

• culture
• education
• internet access
• employment
• transportation
• water
• environment

^[1] This is only a starting point. There is space for subjectivity

This is presumably unanswerable for anyone whose handle here is known by anyone in their real life, but I figured I'd ask it anyway, as there are likely a good number of us for whom our Tildes names are fully separate from our real life identitires.

• What are you willing to share with internet strangers but not people you know in real life?
• Why is it important to you that it is not shared with people you know in real life?

As noted in the question, I'm looking for stuff you're comfortable sharing. I'm not trying to fish for deep dirt here.

This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their week.

If you have any plans, goals, accomplishments, or even failures, whether they be personal or work related, I'd love to hear about them. This is a place for casual discussion about your week, past, present, and future.

A list of all previous topics in this series can be found here.

So, what (or how) are you doing this week?

This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their weekend.

If you have any plans, things you want to get done, things you have done, things you haven't done, or even if you just want to talk about how you're doing this weekend, this is a place for casual discussion about those things.

A list of all previous topics in this series can be found here.

So, what (or how) are you doing this weekend?

The mission

You have been tasked with the mission to kill Hitler. The mission is mandatory and you cannot decline it. You have access to a state of the art time machine: a simple Casio wristwatch in which you enter the time, date and location where you wanna travel to. It can travel to any point in past Earth's history, and it is programmed to automatically and safely return you to the present time as soon as the mission is completed.

You have access to all weapons available to humankind in the present day, but you can only take what you can carry.

You also have access to technology that will make you look ethnically German complete with Nazi uniforms, and a perfectly functioning universal translator.

How this thread will work

I will try to come up with a negative outcome for every answer in jackass genie style. Others are welcome to do the same!

This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their week.

If you have any plans, goals, accomplishments, or even failures, whether they be personal or work related, I'd love to hear about them. This is a place for casual discussion about your week, past, present, and future.

A list of all previous topics in this series can be found here.

So, what (or how) are you doing this week?

I didn't know tildes has trending topics.

I'd either pick the rise of the bolsheviks in Russia (You can replace them with the mensheviks, who wanted to abide by democracy.), The division of the HRE (A united germany in 900CE would be very consequential.) And the rise of the hapsburgs in what would be Austria-Hungary, since it meshed a dozen linguistic groups together.

Hey there people!

Seeing how last post I could find on the topic was posted almost one year ago and how my question is a bit more specific, I thought a new one could be worthwhile.

Admittedly, I am not an assiduous podcast listener - what I'm mostly looking for is a show to 'scratch the itch' every once in a while which features good chemistry between its hosts, exploring whatever topic with humorous tones; bonus points if said topic is interesting.

To exemplify, some of the best podcasts I can think of on the spot are How did This Get Made (I can particularly recommend the episode dedicated to Mr. Nanny), or How to Fuck Up an Airport.

The first one is a serie that analyze extremely poor or obscure movies, while the second one unveils the debacle surrounding the 20 year old (and still aging) Berlin Brandenburg Airport project; I know this last one might sounds boring, but it's a baffling and hilarious journey - surely and by far my favorite Podcast.

TL;DR
So yeah, what are your most entertaining, hilarious, and generally fun podcasts?

This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their weekend.

If you have any plans, things you want to get done, things you have done, things you haven't done, or even if you just want to talk about how you're doing this weekend, this is a place for casual discussion about those things.

A list of all previous topics in this series can be found here.

So, what (or how) are you doing this weekend?

Specially those of you who attend courses on the field of humanities, in which I feel the amount of note-taking is even greater than most fields, given all the reading and talking that occurs during classes and out of them. How do you do it? Do you write on paper perhaps, or do you find that digital notes suit you better?
I'm asking this because I am about to start my studies (finally) and am curious about how other people handle this task which, honestly, has been a nuisance through all my life. I'm not the best at organizing my notes and I believe it harms my studying overall.

This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their week.

If you have any plans, goals, accomplishments, or even failures, whether they be personal or work related, I'd love to hear about them. This is a place for casual discussion about your week, past, present, and future.

A list of all previous topics in this series can be found here.

So, what (or how) are you doing this week?

This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their weekend.

If you have any plans, things you want to get done, things you have done, things you haven't done, or even if you just want to talk about how you're doing this weekend, this is a place for casual discussion about those things.

A list of all previous topics in this series can be found here.

So, what (or how) are you doing this weekend?

I sort of want to casually throw this discussion out there, because I feel like this is something people sometimes mention in the same conversations without agreeing on it's fundamentals. Especially when talking about sites, like Tildes, leaning too much towards one particular worldview.

What is the goal of having diverse opinions? Why do you think it is necessary or desirable? Is it for a practical reason, or for a more ideological/principal one? What is the barometer by which you measure whether or not the level of achievement of a such a goal? And do you think it could produce undesired secondary effects?

To perhaps give a concrete hypothetical: do you think Tildes would benefit from it if we had more members who are of the opinion that the Australian Bushfires were caused in large part not by Anthropogenic Climate change but by, deliberate malicious actors (arsonists)?

Or if you disagree with the example what would your hypothetical be?

This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their week.

If you have any plans, goals, accomplishments, or even failures, whether they be personal or work related, I'd love to hear about them. This is a place for casual discussion about your week, past, present, and future.

A list of all previous topics in this series can be found here.

So, what (or how) are you doing this week?

I'm always curious to see what languages people speak, especially given that most communication on sites like Tildes happens in English and as such it doesn't always come up.

At one point, I was pretty fluent in Spanish, but it's been about 4ish years since I've used it with any frequency and as such I am very rusty when speaking. I can still read and write it pretty well however. The big thing is that I have trouble these days recalling vocab I knew like the back of my hand... I should read more to stay sharp.

I also took some French in college and can read it at a beginner-intermediate level, basically enough to understand threads on not super complex topics. I can write too, but require a dictionary for anything remotely complex. Speaking I'm shit however - despite having great teachers I always had a tough time with pronunciation.

I (probably) have aphantasia, so I only dream when I'm actually trying to make my brain dream something, so I usually only dream to indulge in NSFW fantasies to jack off and despite this barely anything makes it into my mind. (I swear someone has said something like this before, I think they said they 'did it to embrace their kinks to improve mental health', which is quite unique and pretty cool.)

An odd question to ask, I'll admit, but I think it's worth asking.

It's hard to have a public conversation today about political or politicised topics because people will pipe up and tell you that you're crazy and your ideas are completely backwards. And the reason why people say this is often driven by conflicts between personally held values rather than the ideas themselves. As a result, these conversations usually end up with both sides arguing past eachother and no concensus is ever made; nobody is happy.

One of the more common reasons for these arguements is typically because one party believes in egalitarianism - the belief that all people should be treated the same - and the other one does not. It's particularly strange to see given that so many countries have egalitarianism as a cornerstone to their government and laws. Yet we still see many people trying to take away rights and freedoms from certain classes of people.

Regardless of any particular conversation, what do you think is the best way to convince someone in the value of egalitarianism? How do you convince someone that they're not part of a higher class who has power over another?

This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their weekend.

If you have any plans, things you want to get done, things you have done, things you haven't done, or even if you just want to talk about how you're doing this weekend, this is a place for casual discussion about those things.

A list of all previous topics in this series can be found here.

So, what (or how) are you doing this weekend?

It was mentioned, and I agree, that Tildes is a little serious. As such, let's tell some jokes! And not good jokes. What's the fun in that? I want your worst clean joke. Aim for the groan, the hiss of pain, the holding of noses while fleeing into the night! Be it short form or shaggy dog, bring it here!

I'll start with the joke I pull out as an icebreaker:

Two muffins were sitting in the oven. One muffin said to the other: "Boy, is it getting hot in here, or is it just me?" The second muffin said "Ahhh! A talking muffin!"

It's terrible, I know. Can you top me?

This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their weekend.

If you have any plans, things you want to get done, things you have done, things you haven't done, or even if you just want to talk about how you're doing this weekend, this is a place for casual discussion about those things.

A list of all previous topics in this series can be found here.

So, what (or how) are you doing this weekend?

Asked in the spirit of the new decade.

I am 14, so mostly growing up and realizing that the world is probably going to enter a recession when I reach adulthood which will suck for reaching financial independence.

Going through puberty, even if it's just the beginning of it and seeing one of my cats die from kidney failure and hearing that my grandma died from cancer, which is very sad :(

All of us know the feeling; some of us have felt it more intensely than others; some of us have to continue to live with it daily.

When was the first time you really became aware of it? What did it feel like? How did it play out?

I've commented on explanatory frameworks before. These are the unifying narratives that we use to make sense of ourselves, political concerns, economics, and even science and mathematics. Narratives are accounts of connected events or phenomena that attempt to express the connections in an explanatory story.

We're often afflicted with "just-so" narratives that attempt to reconcile or explain the way the world works with little or no evidence, like claiming inequality of inborn capacities, innate racial differences, or the intervention of supernatural entities and forces.

So this is everyone's chance to tell a story, at whatever length they find convenient, which explains something that concerns them. Possible examples of story topics:

"Why finding work is a struggle for me"
"Bayes' Theorem accounts for everything"
"Political parties can't handle reality"

These examples aren't about me or my beliefs - I'm just flinging things out there. This also isn't a college narrative essay exercise. So just tell a good story about something you care about, that's likely to engage others' interests and concerns.

Conspiracy theories are probably not a good idea here; the tendency towards them is a dysfunction of humans' ability to create, and desire for, narratives.

I ask that participants in the thread refrain from attempting to argue with or disprove others' stories here, but they can become jumping-off points for new Tildes topics.

If this exercise is well-received, it could become a monthly recurring thread. Feel free to advise on better structure.

This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their week.

If you have any plans, goals, accomplishments, or even failures, whether they be personal or work related, I'd love to hear about them. This is a place for casual discussion about your week, past, present, and future.

A list of all previous topics in this series can be found here.

So, what (or how) are you doing this week?

It can be anything: possible/impossible, material/immaterial.

I want the Ergodox EZ programmable keyboard. In my estimations, taking into account currency exchange, shipping and import taxes, it would cost R$ 2323.2 (2323.2 Brazilian Reais) to bring one home. That's 232% of our minimum wage.

So I bought some cheap games on the PSN and a 15 dollars vertical mouse instead.

I'll start by saying yes and no, but the reasons for my answer are personal and familial ,so if you don't like that skip my answer.

It's the last week of the year! Although I generally believe that self-improvement projects can begin at any time, New Year is a popular time to reflect and to plan for the future.

So for some New Year's Resolution inspiration:
1. What was the most beneficial habit you built in 2019?
2. What is one habit you would like to build in 2020?

This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their weekend.

If you have any plans, things you want to get done, things you have done, things you haven't done, or even if you just want to talk about how you're doing this weekend, this is a place for casual discussion about those things.

A list of all previous topics in this series can be found here.

So, what (or how) are you doing this weekend?

I post a fair amount of poetry to Tildes, with the hope of getting feedback or starting discussion.

Yet, as you can see from looking at the poem tag, there generally isn't any kind of discussion on poetry posts. Even Bishop's departure post only received six comments.

So, why is this? What stops you commenting on poems? I would like to have discussions about what I write with the people here. I don't know if there's something I can do to make it easier to engage with me regarding my work, or if there's something else preventing the discussion.

So far I know of Economics explained for economics and CaspianReport for geopolitics but neither has really convinced me of their credibility and these 2 subjects seem to be the dark sheep of educational content, due to being primarily speculative and subjective in nature and being quite niche for being such general topics.

Kitchen knives are frequently used to stab people. This results in serious injury or often death. Most stabbing murders are perpetrated with kitchen knives, reflecting the huge numbers of knives available (most homes have one), and where most murders happen (in the home). (I'm talking about UK here).

Kitchen knives have a cutting edge and usually a sharp piercing point. There's nothing that can be done to make the cutting edge safer. But we can look at the pointy tip.

Pointy tips are useful, but we tend to find that only professional chefs or experienced home cooks use them. Most people cooking at home don't use or need such a pointy tip.

There are some companies releasing knives without the pointy tip, and I'm interested to know what you think.

https://twitter.com/JohnHMCrichton/status/1209095901102387200?s=20

It seems that movies are getting longer and longer nowadays, and some people (like me) are incapable of holding their bladder for more than 1.5-2 hours, especially when movie-theater-sized drinks are involved. So this got me thinking: is it time to bring back the movie intermission?

I'm curious:

1. Are you for or against the idea of longer movies having an intermission? Why or why not?
2. How do you think adding an intermission to the movies would affect the experience? And how might it affect the film industry and the films themselves?

This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their week.

If you have any plans, goals, accomplishments, or even failures, whether they be personal or work related, I'd love to hear about them. This is a place for casual discussion about your week, past, present, and future.

A list of all previous topics in this series can be found here.

So, what (or how) are you doing this week?

With the year and decade coming to an end, I wanted to do a self interview/reflection. I'm basically looking for questions that address the past, present and future. Questions that help reflect or set goals are nice, but anything goes really. This was inspired by Vanity Fair's yearly interview with Billie Eilish, but I also love reflecting on the past and need for structure by setting goals for the future. Plus what better time to do this with the new year and decade coming up?

What I'd like to do is ask myself these questions on a yearly basis, but this one might be longer as I'd put questions that will address things 5 & 10 years from now.

As we come to the close of another year, I thought it would be a neat idea for people to give their picks for the Best/Worst/Most/Least [something] of 2019. Think of these like awards, although some of them are not necessarily in categories people would want to win.

There are no limits and no criteria. Examples:
Best Meme
Worst Tweet
Most Pretentious Startup
Least Surprising Box Office Bomb

Anything is fair game -- do whatever you want! Get creative and have fun! Winners can be people, places, or things -- all 2019 nouns are eligible!

While I'm intending this to be mostly for fun, it's okay to give serious ones too, so if you want to tell me about, say, the legit Best Movie or the Most Transformative Hashtag of 2019, be my guest.

Make sure you don't just drop your award winners' names in the thread. Be sure to explain why they're deserving of their title.

Also, it's okay for one category to be awarded with more than one winner, so if someone else has already given their pick for, say, Best Season Finale, and you feel strongly that another deserves the win, add your pick and explain your thinking!

First, I'll start with currency (although this isn't unique, exclusive or universal to developing countries.) In my country a real is 25 US cents and 22 European cents. This effectively means everything made by a US or European company (a lot of things and almost everything technological or of value) is 4 times more expensive for me than for an American/European. This means an iPhone costs 4 thousand BRL but our minimum wage is still around 1000 BRL monthly (4.30 BRL/hour assuming an 8-hour shift) meaning an iPhone costs 4 months of minimum wage in Brazil while in the US it costs less than one. For reference an Indian rupee is a 70th of a dollar and the minimum wage is 164 to 750 rupees daily depending on the state (4920 to 22k rupees monthly) but it still only amounts to 320 US dollars.

This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their week.

If you have any plans, goals, accomplishments, or even failures, whether they be personal or work related, I'd love to hear about them. This is a place for casual discussion about your week, past, present, and future.

A list of all previous topics in this series can be found here.

So, what (or how) are you doing this week?

I often run long distance as part of my workouts and lately I've been composing various axioms for how I should live. These are three axioms I find integral to my character which I try and place at the bedrock of my decision making.

0th - The thought which you cannot think is that which guides you.

1st - The world can be boiled down to two types of people: those who act and those who are acted upon. Be one who acts.

2nd - Defy social conformities via normative methods.