VB Knives

@SPFCCMT Does she find it unbearable?

@Empty_America Likewise, my grandmother’s top floor apartment in even cooler Copenhagen is unbearable until same time if it’s sunny and warmer than 65F during the day.

The average nighttime low in Geneva during mid-summer is under 60 degrees. The natives probably couldn't conceive of why you would want mechanically refrigerated air instead of opening a window. This is a *unique* and *exotic* level of Ameri-delicacy.

Some claim that "No Country For Old Men" is the great 21st century novel, but notice that it's set in 1980.

It’s very odd that despite all the abundance of this century, it still lacks an aesthetic, no major non political and purely artistic movement, no "new avant garde," despite all the complains about individualism, conformity and "community" have never been so overwhelmingly present, weird. Maybe some movements are taking shape and I don’t see them yet.

Ultimately the cry of "decline" and "nothing happens" will only be silenced by stuff like massive extra-planetary industry. Being able to talk to a "brain" in your phone that outperforms you on 75% of things doesn't even register beyond the first couple times someone does it.

@malmesburyman I'm reading "The Recognitions" by William Gladdis. It's sort of the prototypical overly long post war novel that purports to have great literary merit. I'm not yet sure whether it does have such merit.

I want to read an American postwar novel of high literary merit and I really don’t want to hear that I should read Cormac Macarthy. What should I read?

@akarlin We don't need artificially large muscles where we already are.

@Empty_America We won't need sexual reproduction where we're going.

An enlightened regime would impose the most severe penalties for trafficking in steroids, perhaps even death. This is because they sterilize promising young men. In some cases the long term effects are far worse than mere sterilization . . .

@rwelhner I use a #3, hairstyles also doesn't matter for me (but for the opposite reason!)

@Empty_America I am just like Brad…I use a #2 on my head and no guard on my back!

His hair cut is kind of funny. "I'm Brad Pitt, it doesn't matter, just use the #2 clipper."

@MariGO2thepolls Extremely few UMC boys actually go to jail. Other than some throwback to the genetics of great grandfather, most simply aren't bred that way.

@Empty_America You also wanna minimize probability of visiting your kids in jail

Male children are risky for this caste. The odds of having a child who is incapable of or refuses the office are far higher with males. UMC would rather abort than have one who doesn't succeed at career.

@ChristianHeiens Good post, I grew up in a big Gothic revival house, my grandparents sometimes called it a "white elephant" and didn't value it like we do now. It hadn't been updated and basic comfort like heatability was really low versus even the most humble post war ranch house.

There's an interesting story about how Victorian mansions, and particularly the Second Empire style, became synonymous with haunted houses. They were extremely popular in the US from the 1870s through the 1890s, but were hard to maintain because of their large size and opulent style. Many of the families that constructed these homes lost much of their fortunes in the Panic of 1893 and the crash of 1929. Others remained wealthy but didn't have the means or desire to maintain large staffs of maids and servants to keep them running. So, one by one, Second Empire homes across the US were sold off and continued to change hands rapidly until, by the time the 30s rolled around, thousands of them were left vacant because no one could afford to maintain them. And not just maintain, but preserve them. The typical Second Empire house was around 50 or 60 years old by the 1930s. They needed upkeep just as much as a house built in 1970 would need repairs today if no one had lived in it for 10 years. As a result, many of them were bulldozed or burned down to make way for newer homes in the 40s and 50s after World War II. And the entire point of Second Empire style was for them to be grouped together like a bunch of trophies, so tearing down a whole bunch of abandoned and decaying mansions but keeping the ones that were in relatively better condition only made them stand out more. By the time the late 40s and early 50s rolled around, they had almost universally gone from being considered the crowning architectural achievement of the Gilded Age to being synonymous with urban decay. The artists and writers of the 60s were growing up as kids in the 40s and 50s, thinking to themselves, "that old house down the lane that has been sitting empty since I was born." So when they got jobs in Hollywood writing scripts for TV shows, they carried those memories with them, and the Second Empire style entered the collective consciousness of pop culture as the default "haunted house" for the next 60 years. The sad thing is, these homes are priceless. You can see it when you find a rare one that has been well-preserved or restored. But we've degraded ourselves so much that it would be nearly unthinkable to construct a home like this today.

@Cary_Bleasdale On the other hand, the persistence and ubiquitousness of this idiotic way of speaking really points out how the public just cannot mentally adjust to ever rising prices and wages.

@Empty_America Anyone who says "Bread used to cost FIFTEEN CENTS" needs to be banned from voting

It's the inflation. Americans never really accepted the *inflation based* monetary system. It doesn't matter that the houses and cars and everything material gets bigger and more luxurious every year. They need to figure a way for the nominal prices to stop increasing.

It's never bad to have a fan but the American house has a greater need for water vapor evacuation in general. Our building methods and materials are the most water sensitive on earth (Euro houses are brick/block based) and also we shower rather than bathe, and shower a lot more

@Empty_America another symptom of mass afluence?

@steppedenizen Color on houses is mostly just a ethnic and white UC thing. Poor whites don't paint at all, the great middle is color phobic, everything must be gray, etc. Mexicans and very rich gay dudes with restored Victorian houses plain them bright colors.

@Empty_America I’ve seen people argue that color on/in houses is indicative of level of class. While I do think that New Orleans has its own parallel rules regarding the matter. Do you have an opinion on it more generally?

In New Orleans, everywhere you turn there are pops of color. ———- Could you live in a zone or an HOA that requires you to paint your house a boring color?

If you have an actual, real, group of people at a certain grade of morale and unity, you can do stuff like move to foreign countries and build colonies. They actually let you do it.