Inspired by a recent conversation I had with a fellow museum lover: what is your favorite museum or favorite museums? Why? Curious to learn about some really interesting and unique places that other users might have been to.

In the past few months I have been reading a lot about historical food culture. It's kind of amazing how much things have changed here in the US. Over the last century or so we have basically eliminated communal eating and massively changed the economics of prepared meals. At one point we had automats and cafeterias which skipped out on most of the "front of house" service and focused on serving large volumes of people to keep prices low. There were also diners, which are much different from what we consider to be a diner today; they were very small places that only prepared simple things that needed very little labor to prepare; things like hash browns, sandwiches, or pancakes, so the food was still very cheap. But because they were small, they were able to serve smaller markets that other restaurants were not able to capitalize on. Compare that to today, where diners are just restaurants that have 50s style decor.

But the thing I think is much more unusual is how rare we see food used in service of a message. It's something that has a long history across the globe. Most notably, religions operate food kitchens that help to bring poor people into their folds. Some religions actually have a built-in food culture that includes feeding your neighbors. It's really effective too; there's a small chain of restaurants where I live that has inexpensive food which has some bhuddist texts at the dining tables, and honestly it had me considering joining a religion for the first time. If I spoke Chinese they might have got me! Eating food requires a baseline of trust, so if you can get someone to eat at your restaurant you will bypass a lot of the caution that people approach the world with.

With that being said, why isn't food-based activism a lot more popular? I'm sure that it would work for much more than religion. A restaurant that acts as a messaging platform doesn't necessarily need to be funded by food sales, so they can undercut the competition on price and reach an even greater audience. Given the ways I have seen religions use food to further their means, I think that it could even go farther than changing people's minds about topics and actually motivate people to take action and join communities who are actually making real change. Food is both relatively inexpensive and it's something that everyone needs to survive, so it seems to me that food-based activism is the single largest missed opportunity for community organization.

I currently work for a “prestigious” company (you’ve heard the name) and have for a few years now. As a college student, my peers, friends, and my parents friends kept telling me how jealous they were of me for getting into such a great company.

I am quickly finding out that the “prestige” this company has was in reality really great marketing and that I do not particularly enjoy working there. I work way too much (12 hour days, 5am - 5pm are not uncommon) and I don’t like the toxic culture. It makes me anxious and depressed.

Is it really worth it? Should I apply to the local government jobs that pay $20k less but offer actual pensions (not 401k), are chill (my friend does Azure/AWS trainings and scrolls Reddit, and 40 hours a week if that? Everyone I bring this up to says it’s a total career downgrade and a bad idea.

What areas of human activity are currently experiencing a time of great advancement or a remarkable surge in quality?

This is a call for positivity, if possible please refrain from irony or backhanded pessimism such as "We are in the golden age of assholes" or something.

Thanks ;)

I've been wrestling with my own sense of identity recently and would love to hear what part culture/identity/place plays in your lives.

This all kicked off while I was watching Stanley Tucci's Searching for Italy. In it, Stanley spends an episode in a different Italian state experiencing the local culture and cuisine. It struck me how deep the history, lore, and identity were in every aspect of their lives. It seemed even the young adults who headed off to Rome to establish their careers were expected to eventually in the small postcardesque cities and villages they were born in. It seemed like the people had an incredibly strong sense of identity and place. 

I have many friends who fall into this category. They come from towns, cities, or even countries drenched in culture and identity. And as we have started to reach the "nesting" period of our lives, many are returning to raise their children in a similar setting. As I think about my own future and those of imaginary children, I find myself jealous. My solidly suburban upbringing in a career focused, transient area means there isn't much that I can think of as a personal culture. Maybe as much as a strip mall, In-and-Out, or cul-de-sac can.

I'm wondering what my fellow tilderinos experience is like. Is there a particular place you feel at home, either from your heritage or of your own making? Are there pieces of your cuisine, culture, or lore that you would share? I know we have quite a diverse crowd here and it would be fantastic to hear about your community.

Admittedly independence day was a week ago so this is kind of late.

Most people in the left consider the US to be one of, if not the worst country in the (developed, unless you're a right wing strawman) world and, we have listed the bad things about the US many, many times, so I think a thread about the good things about the US would be neat.

The 3 main things I think are good are:

• Honestly, I think party primaries where most people vote for president are good. While I do think they would be much more beneficial in a multiparty system as opposed to the US's 2 party system, I think it's better than having your presidential candidates be chosen by usually politicking with the party. I don't mean this to say the way party primaries are conducted in the US is the way because it isn't, but I think it's better than not having a primary.

• I also think midterm elections are good, because it means that if people dislike the course of the current government, they can vote for that in a midterm. In the US, this means they only had 2 years of a Republican trifecta led by Trump as opposed to 4 like here in Brazil and I suspect a lot of other places. I don't mean this to say elections every 2 years is unequivocally good, and for such elections you would definitely need shorter primaries so elected politicians don't need to spend most of their time campaigning which I've heard is often what they do.

• Lastly, I think the US is by far the country most concerned with things like electoral systems and methods, campaign finance, whether there should be an upper house or not (not that senate abolition is popular even among leftists, but it is much more popular than a place like, say, Brazil, where I live), and this is the third good thing about the US.

Of course, all of these originate from the worst parts of the US political system, but I think the fact that there's any public conscience of them existing is still a good thing.

One can argue the fact that the largest amount of influential companies being under US regulations means that if any positive changes to said regulation are implemented the entire world benefits (most obviously concerning the Internet), but the opposite is equally true and far more common.

There's also probably many good things about US culture, by virtue of that being true for most most cultures, but I don't know what US culture specifically is enough to list them.

Asking mainly because we generally view this period as a rock-bottom, but nostalgia seems to be as good as natural, so what do you think people in 5, 10, 15+ years will remember overly fondly about the present?

A political example might be the fact that according to gallup, people have supported a popular vote for the US presidency for more than 75 years (this article is 20 years old, but the numbers still stand), albeit the partisan difference in opinion seems to be more recent and it's not clear if people knew what to replace it, or if they knew about all the other faults in the US political system.

Other more cultural examples might be things like romans drawing dicks on Hadrian's wall, eating fast food and their timeless graffiti, surrealism being 100 years old as opposed to 'Zoomer humor', etc.

So, what are your examples?

A lot of things we live with have significant technical debt because they were designed and implemented without modern knowledge and understanding.

Knowing what we know now, in the present moment, what would you be interested in fundamentally redesigning if you could?

This does NOT have to be technology related, by the way, though it certainly can (anyone want to talk about redesigning usernames and passwords -- please?). It can pretty much be anything: NASCAR races, art criticism, specific social norms, sunglasses, etc.

In your explanation, don't just share what you're interested in tearing down, but how you would rebuild it for the better. What improvements would your methods bring to the table?

Beyond changing work-at-home policies. Diversity? Work/life balance? Team dynamics? Hiring practices?

What caused the change? Was this an ongoing conversation and recent events just lit a fire under it, or is it a new corporate strategy?

I've noticed an interesting cultural difference between New Yorkers and Californians.

Lets say I am a bumbling tourist, inconsiderately impeding foot traffic, yet clearly lost and in need of help.

New Yorkers, in my limited experience, will bluntly say "hey moron, get outa the way," but then there is always one willing to help me out if I ask.

Californians, in general, will be very polite, but typically get a little nervous if a complete stranger asks for help.

Disclaimer: I've lived in California, but have only visited New York, so my observations are a little biased.

I work for a school in China and they are going to have an art festival soon. Today they were setting up some of those pictures where you can stick your face in it and take a photo. They did this to The Last Supper and it’s a very big picture set up right in front of the main gate for all the children to play with. They cut out Jesus’ face and most of his disciples’. All of the expats that work for my school were outraged and told the administration to take it down right away. At first the administration said they would just glue Jesus’ face back on. But this just made people angrier, so they promised to take it down in the morning when they could get some workers to do it.

So what cultural misunderstandings have you experienced? How did you deal with it?

Hey Tildians,

This is going to be a really long post that is an ongoing search and conversation I am having with myself. Its going to be about religion and culture. Sorry for the shitty title, I am really bad at coming up with titles, I tend to ramble a lot.

I'm currently going through a crisis both of faith and cultural identity. Not because I am questioning either, but because I have never had either. I'm a white man from america. Growing up as a kid, my parents gave me the option to look at religions and choose one if any that spoke to me. None did, so I didn't go for a long time. In high school I attended Methodist Church every weekend because I felt pressured by my Boy Scout troop to be Christian, the Methodist Church let us use their church for our meetings despite none of the troop being members of the church, and the priest there at the time was a really great guy that I liked a lot. I spent a lot of time talking about faith with him and eventually, he said to me "let's face it, you don't believe the things I am preaching. That is completely fine. You're welcome in the church, it'll always be home, I'm always here to talk about faith or life or anything, but you don't believe in Christianity and you owe it to yourself to try and find something you do believe." And he was right, I didn't. So I studied a few things here and there and none ever stuck. So I've just been agnostic. But I desperately want to believe in a religion and have a sense of community and just, something to tie my individual beliefs to the world and know other people feel the same way I do.

Similarly, I grew up pretty much "American". I know my heritage is from Ireland, Poland, UK, Croatia, Germany because I did reports on ancestry in school, but they've never been a part of my identity. We never talk about being from Poland other than explaining to people why my last name is spelled the way it is (WHICH IS STUPID BECAUSE IT'S NOT A WEIRD SPELLING OR PRONOUNCED DIFFERENT THAN IT LOOKS). It just isn't a thing. I've always envied my friends whose families are very proud and invested in their heritage. And that's not for a lack of trying, I've tried to get invested in them, but there aren't really communities around me for it, my family doesn't give a shit, and even if I did, I'm like 15% everything so it doesn't feel like I'm REALLY from that culture. I guess that's why some people are so extreme about being American. They're such a mix of so many different European countries that if a parent isn't invested in a specific culture, it's hard to identify with any single one, so they rally behind America. It is all they have.

I don't know. It's very weird crisis that came out of nowhere in the stupidest ways (rewatching avatar and then having a crisis of faith looking at a chacra candle in a used book store). I've realized that I am paralyzed by the lack of a foundation of my identity. Personality traits and political views and hobbies are all malleable and change over time and so what I define myself as now could be completely gone and irrelevant in 2 years time and something about that terrifies me. It makes me wish there was something I could tie myself to that doesn't change, like what country my family is from. And if not that, an felling like I undestand the world around me would be great, and something religion provides. Also, the community wouldn't be something I'd hate to have.

Tangentially to this, I'm having a weird relationship with faith in another way. I keep finding myself gravitating towards budhism. I don't know why, but it just is what I keep ending up looking at. I have 6 different bibles, a torrah, and a quran that I've read. None feel quite right. I keep ending up reading more about budism. But I feel SO WEIRD about it. It feels like I'm that white dude everyone hates that wont stop talking about budism. I don’t know. I know I shouldn’t let the outside world’s perceptions affect my religious views. But that doesn’t mean it is easy not to.

Guess to make this more of a convo I’ll ask some questions to generate discussion:

Religious folks: How has growing up with a religion effected your life? Do you think you’d be a drastically different person without it?

Atheists: How weird does this sound to you? Did you go through a similar crisis before landing on atheism

People who grew up with a strong cultural identity: How has that effected your life? Are you generally happy that you have that identity and community? Were there ever times you wished you weren’t a part of it?

Do you believe that some cultures/societies are more 'civilized' than others? What is your definition of 'civilized' / what does it mean to be 'civilized'?
~
If you've studied history and/or anthropology then surely you've heard many uses of the term "savages" to describe groups of people that were considered to be less 'civilized' than whomever was writing that piece.
I was also just reading a book that described in detail some of the really horrible war crimes committed by both sides in the Sri Lankan civil war including but not limited to: raging mobs burning people alive, murder and rape of civilians, use of child soldiers, suicide bombers, etc. Please note that in no way am I considering the people of Sri Lanka as 'uncivilized', just using an example of what seems to be 'uncivilized' behavior.

An initial thought that I had was "huh, I'm glad I don't currently live somewhere where I could be burned alive based on my ethnicity/religion/beliefs by a rage fueled mob of people", but then the history of the western world came to mind - some of those exact same thing happened less than 100 years ago to many non-white groups of people in America, including some things even worse (read: human slavery). From here came a flood of other thoughts poking holes in whatever my initial definition of 'civilized' was. Plenty of things in present-day United States could be considered uncivilized. Yet one could make an argument that a more 'civilized' civilization might be one that allows many personal freedoms.

So, I want to ask all of you what you think of the concept of being 'civilized'. Is it a colonialistic-type term used to promote a higher sense of placement in the world that should be abolished. Does it have any merit in its use? If so, what do you think makes a civilized group of people and does one exist?

When I was in high school I went to China through an education program. On the plane there I was seated next to an elderly Chinese woman on my left and a mother and daughter to my right.

While talking with the daughter and mother at some point the elderly woman became involved. She spoke cantonese and my mandarin was limited so the mother helped to translate.

The elderly woman took out paper and pen from her bag and began to have me write me characters. Some time after, she put her hands on my face and began to massage it in circular motions. It was strange but pleasant because clearly her intentions were good. I looked over to the man who was leading my fellow students, and got a thumbs up as he mouthed "just go with it".

I'd never experienced such caring from a complete stranger. It was a lovely introduction into their culture and genuine happiness to share it.

Let's debate religion. I don't think I've seen this topic on Tildes yet and it might be interesting.

My country has practically no visible religion - about 10-15% of our population is religious (mostly seniors) - and just a fraction of them does those religious thing like going to church. Religion basically doesn't exist here. We have a lot of nice churches, but they mostly aren't used.

The thing that I think caused this big amount of atheists (agnostics, ...) is that almost noone is raised to believe in God - in our culture, we don't teach religion at all. Kids are taught that religions exist, but they are not pressed to believe in it such as in other parts of world. They choose what to believe. And God isn't the thing people choose for most of the time.

Whenever I see anything about USA (discussion, film, serial), I frequently see religion there. When I saw it for the first time when I was young, I thought something like "They still have religion there? I thought USA is developed country". I don't think it anymore, I understand better why are people religious, but still - I'd like to know more about more religious cultures and what effect religion have in other countries.

This post will be discussing the nature of political correctness and its ramifications on our culture, intended to analyze current trends and provide a basis for discussion on a very relevant issue in our society. This is a long post, so buckle up.

DISCLAIMERS

Before I begin, I will begin a series of disclaimers, as I’ll be making a lot of claims in this piece, so sorry for the length. For the sake of this post, I will be assuming the role of a neutral character, with no intended leanings towards any political or cultural ideology. Any reference that I make towards a specific side of the spectrum of politics or to social cultures does not reflect my personal opinion on them nor show a bias/prejudice towards that side. I would also like to note that, while I’m trying to make this a quality read about politically correct culture, this isn’t a lecture, a thesis, a Pulitzer article, or even a simple college essay, and is simply very informal essay. A lot of what I say goes off of either whatever comes off the top of my head or things that I find out from a quick search on Google. Some things may or may not be correct, and if they are, please feel free to call me out for it in the comments.

With that said, let’s get into it: Political correctness. Defined by a Google search as “the avoidance, often considered as taken to extremes, of forms of expression or action that are perceived to exclude, marginalize, or insult groups of people who are socially disadvantaged or discriminated against.”, has become a powerful influence in the media that people consume as more and more creators, fans, and everything in between try to avoid language or dialect that would offend audiences. Our society progressively has become more and more PC (politically correct) due to an increasing attempt to remove toxic or otherwise harmful material, generally rhetoric like slurs or playing upon stereotypes, from media in an attempt to create a safer, more friendly environment and community, especially for those who often feel targeted by such harsh rhetoric. PC culture is inherently good-willed with an unquestionably noble goal fueling it. However, in the act of making more and more things PC, the media that is affected changes, for better or for worse. In the viewpoint of many, PC culture has become increasingly threatening to the quality of the media they consume, as the element of vulgarity that media possesses sometimes is attributed to their success or favorability. An increase in avoiding content that is in any way threatening to a certain culture has upset many because it dampens the reality of the content, affects its strength, or births new weaknesses. In short, people believe that making things more PC is making them less good.

The big question of this post is why PC culture matters to the opinions of those who digest media affected by it. It is a question with a myriad of answers, as its influence has been taken in many directions. As iterated before, some claim that it strips away the reality of the content and provides a false reality or delusional perspective; some claim that it softens content too much and dampens the quality; and others think that it is simply stupid to try to be so friendly with what content they make or consume. The element of vulgarity that political incorrectness adds to content makes things more interesting than what they actually are, ironically because they highlight or exaggerate the reality of what they offer, and taking that away from people or reducing it takes away that precious component by avoiding any sort of offensive material. Take SNL, for instance; their skits like Black Jeopardy plays upon Black culture/stereotypes and is widely acclaimed for the hilarity of their vulgarity, but were it to face a demand for more PCness, it would lose a lot of the charm it had because of the necessary avoidance of content that would offend Black culture. The problem with this is that offensive material is not always a great sin that must be purged away. Material that PC culture can see as offensive encompasses a great deal of things, from simple slurs to stereotypes of cultures and societies. While it is good, even preferable, that things such as slurs or directly offensive comments are censored or dismissed, other forms of content seen as offensive are necessary to provide an ounce of harsh reality to the content that is provided. A specific example of such a case would be how the news handled the increase of refugee crimes in Germany and Sweden since those countries took in more Syrian immigrants. PC culture would try to dissolve the correlation as one being the product of another, but non-PC content would assume that the increase in refugees led to that increase. While it is very offensive to assume that the large intake of Syrians has led to that increase, being too PC by dancing around the issue and saying that refugees from other countries relatively contribute the same amount to the violence would be feigning ignorance to a clear and very possible causality, ultimately affecting the quality of the news piece. The same could be said for many other things, like TV shows, blog posts, etc.; When concerning or including potentially controversial content, avoiding the elements that make them controversial or ignoring them takes away from the media’s effectiveness. In other words, being too PC and removing the gritty elements of something can remove the punch that it has and make it seem fake, uninteresting, or any other dissatisfying adjective.

That’s not to say that offensive material must be in abundance, however; one must never have too much of something, as it may upset the balance of acceptable and unacceptable content. But certain material like social commentary, often in the form of societal stereotypes or portrayals of a culture, is a necessary element to add truth or interest in whatever is being made, albeit it being handled with an utmost delicacy and respect. Saying that the increase in refugee crimes means that all Syrians are criminals, scum of the earth, and a true representation of how shit the Middle East/Islam is would be greatly offensive and also detract from the quality/esteem that that news piece may have. Having the PC to refer to them less offensively, as well as discussing the issue in a manner that doesn’t clearly perpetuate Syrians as the devil, allows for the controversial content to be taken more seriously, basically adding civility to otherwise provoking content. On a gentler note, Black Jeopardy often plays upon the tropes of black culture on relatable, universal grounds, like home culture or the more meaningful discrimination from white people. It doesn’t say that all black people act without genteel to one another or that all white people are evil/stupid, but plays upon familiar stereotypes and experiences shared by many people of both races and enhances their hilarity with their trademark controlled crudity. While this example reflects how PC culture can mitigate offensiveness, it can also bridge gaps between people by portraying them as equals, not separated the nature of their age, sex, race, sexuality, or disabilities. Diversity within a space, such as a profession, a community, or group, is PC culture at its best, for it highlights inclusiveness and unity that political incorrectness would draw borders with. It allows people of any background to pursue the same career choices or interests without discrimination or other forms of inequality, putting forward the message that despite the differences those people may have, they are still human beings, one alike to another, all part of one human society.

Now that we’ve gone over the merits of both PC and non-PC culture, it’s time to evaluate the consequences that they each have on society. I say consequences because the developments both cultures set precedents for how media controls the amounts of PC put into their content as more and more new media juggles the amounts of friendly content they put in and the vulgar content they take out; and of course, vice versa. Political correctness has shown a powerful trendsetting effect in that once an action is called out for not being PC, it creates a rippling effect where all other forms of media avoid that un-PC element. If you take the Me Too Movement, once sexual harassment claims have been made against one big Hollywood figure, a million more followed in its wake, and now many Hollywood big wigs and US politicians reel in the fear of getting “Me Too’d” and losing their job/getting indicted. While it’s not a real presentation of PC culture at work, the Me Too movement’s rippling effect demonstrates how severe PC culture has influencing society, as now the sexually harassed don’t feel the need to cower behind the fear of denial and claims of insanity that would have been used against them pre-Me Too. And while it’s excellent that sexual harassers are getting what’s coming to them, the crossfire catches many unfortunate victims in the rise of Me Too and its anti-sexual harassment waves. James Gunn is a very relevant example of this, as his history of highly distasteful vulgar Tweets caught up to him and led to his expulsion due to Disney’s attempts to be PC. But Gunn’s expulsion has caused a big issue since he’s not actually a rapist or someone who has harassed his actors, but simply someone who made a couple of extremely stupid jokes, jokes which he had already apologized for 6 years ago. Despite apologizing twice, Gunn is still seen as too much of an un-PC person to work under Disney. This presents the problem of PC culture having too high of a sensitivity for things that they think are absolutely wrong and criminal. Gunn’s actions reflect the rising issue of where any hint of vulgarity in the publicity of an individual can be used against them to tarnish their image, something that has been in prudent effect by the Me Too movement. And while social justice demands that individuals like these who have a history of offenses must be reprimanded, the work that they have created shall suffer in quality after losing an essential component of what made them great. This is not to say that all individuals who have been accused and punished don’t deserve their fate, but merely a claim of consequence.

Sensitivity is the name of the game in today’s culture. People are becoming increasingly sensitive over things that present even a hint of harm towards an individual or group, attacking that thing like vultures in order to dispel the negativity whatever comment or element that object has to enforce a positive atmosphere. This particular trend is something associated with social justice warriors, or SJWs for short, which has become something of an internet slur because of the reputation that they carry of being agents of anti-vulgarity. They have become such an issue to many people because they are being claimed to attack the right to free speech that individuals carry, becoming a nuisance to many who now have to watch what they say with extreme delicacy, lest they become swarmed by attacks by those who denounce them for their profane statements. But their actions aren’t inherently bad, they’re just people trying to create a safer environment for people who frequently find themselves harassed by the world around them. It’s simply that they exaggerate their efforts to such a point that their actions carry a negative connotation with them. They even fight fire with fire, attacking individuals and harassing them to get them to stop their offensive comments through brute force. But when you fight fire with fire, it just spreads, and those who are attacked by SJWs and see them as a threat to their experiences will double their anti-PC nature to combat these SJWs, creating a loop of toxicity as both sides wage a war to maintain their ideal community. This is unfortunately the great conundrum of PC vs anti-PC: Two sides fighting for absolutes that can never be achieved. SJWs and advocates for absolute PC environments will never achieve it because there will always be people who want to speak their mind about people and things that others will find offensive, and anyone can get offended by anything. A truly PC environment would have to restrict all forms of communication, otherwise someone will eventually get offended and upset the “harmony” the absolute PC achieves. On the other side of the spectrum, an environment without any form of PC will find itself quarreling with each other all the time as people will lack the restraint to say offensive things and therefore find themselves at ends with whatever group their speech or actions offend. An environment without PC is an environment without rules, and an absence of rules will result in chaos.

Now the question to this is: Where’s the sweet spot? If too much PC and too little are both bad, is the medium the best? In truth, I don’t really think any balance of PC and anti-PC will ever be truly perfect. There will always be advocates for both sides fighting to increase the influence of whatever they fight for, and the balance will always tip to one side or the other. Fortunately for the human race, we have the ability to exercise a lack of care. The reality of this feud is that there will always be something you don’t like, and nothing you or people like you can do will change that fact. You can call out as many sexual predators, societal offenders, and all other forms of anti-PC individuals all you want, but you won’t stop people from doing it. You can label SJWs as thin-skinned and juvenile all you want, but you’ll only be feeding the fire. The only happy solution to this issue is to simply accept the reality that you can’t create a perfect world for yourself by changing everyone else. You can keep fighting the battles and win as many as you’d like, but you’ll never win the war. If you’re someone who wants the absolutes, you’ll never get it. The only semblance of peace you’ll get is accepting there will always be bad.

PC and anti-PC cultures both possess a merit to them valuable to our society: PC culture imposes civility and friendliness to all people, especially those who are frequently discriminated or treated unfairly, ensuring they feel safe, happy, and equal to their fellows; anti-PC culture, however, advocates for the freedom to say what needs to be said, and while it is vulgar, it is real, and reality must be embraced. People may always fight with each other for each side as they get increasingly sensitive, and sometimes even do something that turns the tides for them, but they will never truly defeat one or the other. The balance between them is always shifting and will never really settle, but the beauty of this war is that it teaches us about people, about their experiences and their beliefs, and help us come to terms with reality. Whether we want to change that reality for the better or champion its present merits, it is, and always will be, up to us.

Thanks for reading. Feel free to discuss, criticize, compliment, etc. in the comments.

Last night before bed, I was posting about some books that I really liked. One of them is called Stay: A History of Suicide & The Philosophies Against It. Another person noted that it sounded interesting, and I started to reply to that user. I got about a paragraph in before stepping back and thinking, "this isn't something I should write here," and deleting everything.

This morning, I rolled over and checked my phone. Anthony Bourdain, died by suicide at 61.. This hurts. I loved Bourdain, his work for years was to broaden our cultural awareness and open us up to new worlds. He was, in many ways, a tangible Star Trek. His death will be mourned by thousands, and that he was taken by suicide will be considered by many, many, other people with suicidal thoughts.

Suicide spreads as a contagion - it can be looked on almost epidemiologically. The way that we talk about suicide is... Telling. It's something that we try to avoid talking about, despite us almost all knowing someone who has died by suicide.

I have worked in mental health for several years and in high acuity settings the past year. I work with people experiencing suicidal ideation every single day. It is often my job to talk around what I consider to be a monster that lives in our heads. To try and convince or guide people away from their monster and take the day for themselves. Some of the people I've worked with have ideation only, sometimes they have had as many as two dozen hospital-resulting attempts in their history. This work is stressful, it's draining. It's very meaningful, especially when change or at least the flash of change is present. It hurts, too, when it isn't enough.

A big part of our education attempts is to be able to talk about the monster. It isn't easy for someone experiencing suicidal ideation to talk about it. There are fears that they will be seen as attention seeking - they are! It is a just thing to seek attention when you feel that you're losing the battle. There are fears that they won't be taken seriously - and often they are not. We minimize our problems to bad days or bad weeks or bad years. We say, "Just get over it," and sometimes people simply do not have the capacity to do it by themselves.

We would never, ever, tell someone with a broken arm to get over it without treatment. We would never, ever, tell someone with a bone protruding from their leg that they were just looking for some attention. And yet, this is how we approach mental health.

I have been suicidal myself, somewhere in the haze of depression that clung to me for about five years. Even as I write this, I feel the urge to minimize it and say, "but never to the severity of those I've worked with." Simultaneously minimizing my own experience and serving to stigmatize those that I serve. The monster's power lies in its language. The more we refuse to talk about it, the more we isolate, the more control it has.

I went to counseling for sixteen weeks, and was only minimally invested. It took me another two years after having left counseling to start using the tools. A big part of my own ability to hold on was the book, Stay, because of its humanistic approach to prevention, one that does not rely on religion. An unfortunate thing about working in mental health is that I now understand what it is to plant a seed and not know if it will grow or not.

Anyway, I wanted to write something about this when I saw the news this morning. One of the major themes of Stay is that suicide is theft not just from your friends and family, but from yourself. I have not felt suicidal or depressed for several years, and I can say that this theft would have been true. Except it doesn't include just my friends or family, but the people that I've interacted with and helped with similar thinking styles along the way.

I encourage you, if you think a friend or colleague is struggling, ask the questions. "How are you feeling today?" You never know how this might help. Do you feel like someone you know might be suicidal? Ask the question. Asking someone if they are feeling suicidal is not a significant trigger that may cause them to commit - though this fear often stops us from asking. Consider, they live with the monster every day, how welcome it must be to have someone else recognize it?

I will leave off with Hamlet's Soliloquy. I have never been huge on Shakespeare, lacking time to read. I read this as well in Stay, and now I listen to it frequently. I even had the opportunity to use it in a Group I lead the other day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYZHb2xo0OI

This article from last year provides an alarming look into the woes that media preservation (specifically audio and video) is facing this century due to a content explosion that shows no signs of slowing down. It’s not a new problem, as journalist Bill Holland showed nearly 20 years ago (warning, it’s a long read).

To summarize: In the past, many predecessors to existing media studios did a bad job of archiving their collections of recorded material. In some cases they actively destroyed or threw out parts of their catalogs to make way for new material. This wiped out portions of the available media to be preserved, especially the older stuff. Now that most studios have improved their archival practices though, their remaining catalogs are facing a new foe: Moore’s Law.

The problem with LTO (tapes) is obsolescence. Since the beginning, the technology has been on a Moore’s Law–like march that has resulted in a doubling in tape storage densities every 18 to 24 months. As each new generation of LTO comes to market, an older generation of LTO becomes obsolete… Already there have been seven generations of LTO in the 18 years of the product’s existence… Given the short period of backward compatibility — just two generations — an LTO-5 cartridge, which can still be read on an LTO-7 drive, won’t be readable on an LTO-8 drive. So even if that tape is still free from defects in 30 or 50 years, all those gigabytes or terabytes of data will be worthless if you don’t also have a drive upon which to play it.

If the worst case scenario were to happen, this is apparently what it would look like according to “a top technician at Technicolor”:

“There’s going to be a large dead period,” he told me, “from the late ’90s through 2020, where most media will be lost.”

But not everyone is that worried, the article also includes this counterpoint,

“Most of the archivists I spoke with remain — officially at least — optimistic that a good, sound, post-LTO solution will eventually emerge.”

/u/boredop and I have been discussing the implications of this in the thread they posted a few days ago about a John Coltrane release, and in the course of that discussion they provided that second link to Bill Holland’s multi-part investigation (thanks!).

So my question is this: What direct or indirect measures would you theoretically take to prevent or mitigate the loss of the vast majority of recorded media from 1990 to 2020? Should any measures be taken to preserve these cultural artifacts?

By direct measures I mean innovations to physical archiving or storage methods. By indirect measures I mean public awareness, strategies for choosing what to save, workarounds, etc.

Dear Tildes community,

this is an issue that's bugged me for some time. I might struggle to put this into the right words initially, because I have not studied either philosophy, psychology, biology, sociology or anthropology. Yet, all of those fields could input into this. I will edit this post to clarify things once people start commenting.

I will begin by stating the question at the root of the issue I am trying to explore:

Does de-humanisation of others occur automatically, as soon as we believe that we can predict their actions?

Things to consider:

• What is a measure of 'humanity'? Is it consciousness? Self-awareness? Intelligence? Empathy?
• Is it true that a more 'conscious' or 'intelligent' creature is closer to us in nature and therefore should enjoy more rights, considerations, or respect? (Case in point: Some countries will not allow performing surgery on an octopus without anesthesia, due to them being considered very high up on the ladder of consciousness)
• It is easy to conflate consciousness and intelligence. I think that's a bit of a trap. I have often looked at intelligence as a sort of "clock rate" of the brain. As in, you might be able to process information very quickly, but that's still pointless if you're running the wrong algorithms, or have very little knowledge to rely on. Intelligence all by itself is not a good measure of how 'conscious' or 'aware' or 'human' something is. Often, however, people tend to call animals more intelligent or less intelligent when they mean 'more highly developed', or 'more conscious'. The same probably applies to people as well.
• Additionally, among self-aware, conscious beings (humans), empathy and intelligence van cary wildly. Therefore, does consciousness, or even 'human-ness' vary? Is a highly intelligent psychopath less human than a much less intelligent but empathetic person?
• What do we use to assess whether a human is highly developed, or less developed / desirable? (Brushing aside the notion that we obviously shouldn't do so). I think it is important to look at what mechanisms have been used in the past to demonise swathes of the population, in order to discredit them or further some kind of agenda. Take African people during the slave trade. They were called primitive, less intelligent, less human. In fact, in more subtle ways this even happens to women nowadays. They are constantly belittled by chauvinists, for supposedly being less intellectually capable due to their gender. Are these all forms of de-humanisation, linked predominantly to intellect?
• What is this founded upon? Is it predictability of their actions? Let's try to go full circle. How does one discredit a part of the population? One observes them and demonises their behaviours (and with that, culture, etc.) The predictability of such behaviours is essential in this. You cannot reliably say that "those brutes do [x], how disgusting", without there being frequent evidence of it actually happening. (On the flip-side, could people be predictably advanced or developed?)
• What do we think of predictable people in general? Predictability has negative connotations. At best it's boring (say, a highly intelligent beaurocrat), at worst, stupid / less human (say, racists talking about another culture being predictably primitive)
• Is there an implication of people, or beings, who are more predictable, having less free will? If your intellectual faculties are limited, or you operate on instinct more than you do on rational or logical deduction, you become more predictable, ergo, predictability == stupidity. (I know this is a fallacy, but I am trying to establish why one might irrationally and subconsciously dehumanise, not arguing in favour of this dehumanisation or trying to defend it)
• Take our favourite pets. Cats and dogs. They are pretty highly developed and if it wasn't for humans, they'd be unchallenged apex predators ruling the world. They display complex behaviours, at times even hard to predict ones. But still, they are animals and behave in reasonably reliable patterns. They are also not able to pass the mirror-test for self awareness, implying they are not (or only in extremely limited ways). So, one could argue they are less human, less intelligent. Now look at insects. Even less intelligent. Even though it could be argued that some (like ants) display a form of swarm intelligence, they are still extremely predictable. (Except for, perhaps, the flight patterns of flies or mosquitoes, which evolution has scrambled into extremely random patterns to avoid them being swatted. But that's just hard-coded into their genes, not an intelligent thought process)
• So, once more. Think of someone you really don't like. Do you ever call them stupid for their actions? Would you ever say "here we go again, they are doing this again". Particularly if they are your boss? Perhaps it helps you cope with their shitty behaviour to dehumanise that person. Make them a lesser human being, to compensate for the fact that they make you feel powerless in their work. If dehumanisation is such an immediate and convenient mechanism to protect yourself from feelings of inferiority, or to stop yourself from being threatened (say, by a different culture), perhaps it is in fact an ingrained behaviour, which expresses itself on a larger scale once fueled by propaganda and political intent. If we identify it and understand how it happens, we may protect ourselves against it by elevating others to a higher status of 'human-ness'.
• When we 'have figured someone out', we are stating we can predict them. Are we putting them beneath us, henceforth? Are they 'less' than us in some ways? It gives us power to be able to predict, so it makes us more powerful than them in some way, so it makes them lesser beings in some ways.

Why am I bringing all this up? In my life, so far, I have gone from being very insecure, mistrusting and scared of people, to much more open, trusting and confident.

The more insecure I was, the more time I spent trying to prove to myself that I was somehow superior to others. Generally using intelligence as an argument (uggggh....). You know, like the goth teenager sitting in their basement, who is oh-so-individual and everyone else is so stupid and nobody understands my pain, etc. (see, dehumanising my past self right there, haha).

The more I started trusting people and the more I started seeing everyone around me as humans, humans just like me, the more I began to see how others still apply these weird dehumanisation mechanisms to make themselves feel superior. This made me wonder whether there is some kind of innate drive to do so. Try to predict others, or paint them as predictable, to prove that you are superior to them, because they would not be able to predict your actions, as you are so far beyond their capabilities.

So yeah, uhm....let me know what comes up in yer heads as you read through this, I'd be most interested to hear your perspectives.