Hey love this idea! Random shit to start a convo: I just lost my job today (not great but I’ll be ok). I am maybe turning the corner w/ a longstanding chronic pain condition, after which I’m gonna get back to my hobby of fighting people in the park.

Also, if you feel like playing too: what have you been up to today?

Ultimately, we’re discussing two different styles of communication that I don’t see as any better or worse than each other - everyone finds what works for them in their circumstances and environment and your style probably works great for yours!

There’s a fair bit of hostility and harassment I encounter in public for various reasons, and I also have some inherent difficulty processing speech and verbalizing. As a result, I take a pretty blunt approach to communication - one in which I do not mind showing that I’m angry, because that is a necessary thing to be sometimes.

I practice mindfulness a lot and do not generally feel required to say the first thing that comes to mind. But if a drunk asshole is following me home, I’m not looking to outwit em. I’m looking to stay focused on my safety while letting em know that I see em and I’m probably more trouble than they’re looking for.

In serious conversation with people I care about, I do swear, but it’s because phrases like “I’m so fucking sorry that happened to you” come naturally to me and are effective. The emphasis that a little bit of swearing can add in moments like that is pretty useful.

This all doesn’t have to be your thing, like I said this is all down to personal preference - but it would be a mistake to assume that people who swear aren’t communicating as meaningfully. It’s just another tool that we have at our disposal.

My answer too.

And also for the benefit of anyone who’s just played the base game: the DLC is basically a sequel, and I found it even more impactful than the base game!

1. why is letting off steam indicative of a weak character? I think that when under stress, it’s actually indicative of someone being emotionally intelligent to recognize they need to let some stress out and find an avenue for it. I can’t explain exactly why, but swearing has always been a pretty effective way for me to let out some stress mid conversation while staying focused on a problem.

2. some contexts call for aggression. i.e. If someone’s making me or someone I care about uncomfortable in public, it can be pretty useful to bare my teeth back. A simple “fuck off” doesn’t require me to engage with any of their bullshit at all, gets the point across, and carries it with a mild aggression that actually does make people fuck off much of the time.

3. it is imprecise, but in many contexts it’s precise enough to convey displeasure and dismay enough to get the point across. In fact the power of “fuck you” is in how concise yet universally applicable and understandable in so many situations.

For some reason most of my partners have ended up being Cincinnati refugees. So I think I can second this. “it’s a good place to be from” is a common refrain.

as a Colorado native I’ve disliked most every other person I’ve met from the state elsewhere, no particular reason outside luck of the draw I think

Much of the time communication isn’t about being creative or coming off smart. It’s about effectively conveying meaning with the tools you have. Sometimes that means simple, crude language is more effective at conveying something than all the wit in the world.

So when I’m in a situation that calls for its use, I don’t care that “fuck off” is a dime-a-dozen phrase that doesn’t make sense. It’s never misunderstood, it’s cathartic to say, and I don’t need to think on the spot to figure out something more eloquent - my mind is on, y’know, who or what needs to fuck off instead.

I lost my chance to stop years ago

Especially considering a lot of the creative talent behind Valve’s acclaimed single player catalog are no longer at the company. Valve is a different company now and so their games will be different too.

Detective Costeau hasn’t figured it out yet, you haven’t even met him yet, he’s still sleeping off his last bender. Kim, on the other hand, already had your pronouns in his notes alongside a comprehensive psych eval

Sure, but broadly reducing red meat consumption is a pretty good idea for a lot of reasons. I think you’re acknowledging this re: factory beef farms, but I think it’s important to call out and also to note that a like 80% plant-based diet can be nutritionally complete, not ridiculously expensive, and more sustainable.

Hmm… usually I prefer push-in 😇

Gotta say I’m glad we can be and date any genders we like these days with much milder pushback (on average) than used to be the case. Really does help zoomers be a lot healthier imo, even if we’ve got other issues in the internet age.

young men have been told that white men are the worst thing to be.

Ok, but try not being a man and see if people think that’s any better…

That’s been my experience with GPT - every answer Is a hallucination to some extent, so nearly every answer I receive is inaccurate in some ways. However, the same applies if I was asking a human colleague unfamiliar with a particular system to help me debug something - their answers will be quite inaccurate too, but I’m not expecting them to be accurate, just to have helpful suggestions of things to try.

I still prefer the human colleague in most situations, but if that’s not possible or convenient GPT sometimes at least gets me on the right path.

[Outer Wilds cycle end music intensifies]

they had to change the motto because it got too cumbersome to set up the drum machines when they wanted to say AUDIOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO [synth riffage] VIIIDEO DISCOOOOOOOOOO

ooh I fell in love with Taking Water by Billy Strings a day or two ago and it’s been in my head since

I will say, these days it’s more or less impossible to release a game that’ll run perfectly on every system and it’s a good thing we’re able to fix crashes and patch issues as they come up. This has naturally had its downsides as publishers squeeze devs for tighter releases, but outside of that it’s a very good thing for devs and players.

Np, thank you for asking!

That’s a good question! It’s definitely very rare that a birth name is entirely necessary to use in conversation, but an occasional situation comes up where I’m talking to an old friend about someone who’s since transitioned and I need to use a deadname to let them know who I’m talking about. Generally I say something like “so I ran into Denise, you knew her as Brett back in the day, etc etc etc” and just use Denise from there on. If the person I’m talking to isn’t caught too off guard by that, it’s a very smooth and natural way to handle that as a matter of circumstance and move on to using the preferred name quickly.