If it makes you feel any better, I always hear and appreciate the little countermelodies coming from the Euphs

Oh, don’t worry about that. The inflated egos are distributed across all the musicians too. It takes a special kind of personality to achieve that level of singular proficiency.

I think it’s one other reason to HAVE a conductor, is to have an ultimate authority on some matters where musicians egos get involved.

In many (most?) compositions, there are going to be some banger little licks in many different sections. It honestly kinda sucks sometimes when you’ve got one… but you gotta hold it back because it’s still just a supporting component. To you, as the musician… you might fall in love with it, wanna push it, take the opportunity to shine and generate some goosebumps. And, obviously, since you’re God’s gift to the world, you SHOULD. The composer was WRONG to hit you with a mp. Maybe the composer’s French Horns couldn’t lead with it, but they never envisioned your talent.

The trumpets shoot you a look to calm down? Fuck 'em. They always get the spotlight.

Having a structure with an ego to rule all egos helps (does NOT eliminate) these kinds of things.

At the highest levels of proficiency, knowing “when to play” doesn’t rreeaallyy require a conductor.

An orchestra of professionals mutates into this crazy combined organism. A hive mind, with thousands of signals being generated and consumed among the members. Negotiations all over the place.

The conductor stands in the front not just because it’s convenient, but because they’re in the best relative position to understand what the audience will ultimately hear. If I’m in percussion, positionally I’m getting a skewed take on the relative dynamics of the piccolos. As a professional, they’d have a good “gut feel”, but thier ears are simply not in the right spot to know for sure. The conductors are.

The acoustics of a performance space are drastically different when the seats are full of meat, too.

The conductor is acting as the source of truth and feedback for that hive mind, from a physical position which gives them the best understanding of the complete sound being produced. While professionals CAN do a very passable job of distributing that work, it’s an additional burden and with an imperfect set of inputs. Having one person set the tone and act as that authority frees up capacity on the individuals to do thier best work.

It’s incredibly one dimensional to say that people wanting to shop in a place where patrons extend basic human decency to one another would be only be popular because people want to … crush the poor.

If your only cognitive tool is a hammer, ever idea is going to sound like a nail.

I feel like you think I’m not understanding your position. I am. I hear it ad nauseum.

I’m challenging you to consider if your approach is so narrow that you can’t even comprehend the premise. “I don’t want to get mashed up by a cart” necessarily translating to “I want to suppress the poor” should be setting off warning alarms that you’re not engaging in the idea or discussion with a full toolset.

I could get behind you on this if the post was saying that all grocery stores must have that limitation. In the subway example, it’d be like saying that the only labour that exists is being a subway driver. The calculus changes when, like you said, it’s mandatory.

Oh my god I’m still stewing over that exact same post. It’s been like a week.

Fine. The person operating the subway train. Should they be drunk? Should they have needed to demonstrate competency in operating a subway?

That’s entirely true.

But that’s still a double-edged sword we’re playing with.

If you want to run towards a an “inevitable conclusion” in the one direction (resegregation… undesirable… are you even alluding to genocide?)

I think it’s fair to do the same in the opposite direction too. Is there no lower bound for human interaction and behavior? Is it wrong to set boundaries for how people treat you?

I like how hyper aware people are for things that could be turned into an avenue for bad things. I think that’s actually more than half the battle. Doesn’t always mean you toss the idea outright, you just know that you gotta watch out.

I, for one, am in favor of a minimal demonstrated set of awareness and capacity to operate a motor vehicle. I also am in favor of not letting people drive drunk. Someone might say this will inevitably turn into a tool of racism. And guess what, THEY’D BE RIGHT! But, the solution probably isn’t to ban cars, or to let anyone drive with no rules of the road and drive drunk.

In university my entire dorm floor was in on insisting to my ex that it wasn’t “Big Bird”, but instead “Big Bert” (as opposed to regular sized bert)

It came up for the 100th time at a party, and I was like “go ahead, look it up” and was able to get in an edit JUST before the page load. “Big Bird (Or “Big Burt” for Canadian rebroadcast)”

It lasted for maybe 20 seconds, but it was all we needed.

I thought it required energy to process wood into charcoal?

Carbon neutral?

People keep making this broad assertion and then not following up.

I’m not saying you’re wrong, but if there are many cultures for whom food is merely nutrition, could you name one?

From an anthropological standpoint, I’d be fascinated.

Like, this thread is full of jokes about how some cultures have shitty food, but that subjective assessment is very different than the idea that food’s mere purpose is nutrition. It implies it has no ceremonial use.

So, of the many, just even tell us one.

As others have said, the mailbox and booby-trap laws aren’t the same thing.

Setting aside basic morality for a second, and strictly from a societal organizational perspective of which is the purpose of law, they’re incompatible with the reality of society.

For starters, there is literally nowhere you can put one that society has agreed is off limits in all circumstances forever, which is important because the nature of a trap is that they can survive longer than whoever set it.

Consider your neighbor witnesses you clutch your chest and collapse in your home so they call 911, and the first responders get blasted by a tripwire shotgun. Consider you get hit by a car and die, and your next of kin come to gather your belongings and meet the same fate. Consider you booby trap a basement closet, get dimentia, and your homecare worker gets blasted because you forgot you even did that when you were young and insane rather than merely old and demented.

By nature of a booby trap, you can’t foresee who will trip it or why. You’ve surrendered contextual judgement. It strictly CAN NOT be proportional.

If my kid grows up to be half as good looking as his mother and half as lucky as his father, it’s already going to be a perfect storm. The forces at play would far exceed the power of any door.

Yeah! If you can find the manual for your microwave (can usually find a pdf one online) there should be instructions on how to do it. Usually a wacky sequence of buttons you gotta press and hold.

I did that once, and it was really jarring for people to see.

People have gotten completely desensitized to names like “ForceU2swllow” or “xXx_daRk_pRo_MLG_xXx”. A regular name, your actual name IS the most unhinged shit.

James

Really depends on your home, but a few that I had…

• If you have wood floors, a bulk pack of sticky felt pads for furniture you buy to not scratch them up

• Robot vacuum (or vac/mop)

• Basic power tools

• Electric lawn mower/weed whacker that uses the SAME BATTERIES as your power tools

• if you’re a nerd and wanna do “smart home” stuff, don’t buy smart lights, buy smart switches

• a touchless live-wire tester

• A label maker

• Big pack of furnace filters

• an accordion folder thingy for the billions of documents you’ll wanna keep (receipts/user manuals for appliances), property tax assessments, etc

• Bulk pack of lightbulbs with the same colour temperature (it looks idiotic if all your lights are different hues)

• nail-in picture frame hangers, wall anchors (they’re YOUR walls now!)

• keycode deadbolt

• most microwaves have a way to enable “silent mode”, do that

• water sensors (smart if possible), put under your hot water tank and dishwasher

• double check your laundry room drain actually has a slope to it, and isn’t the damn high point in the room

• if you’re not living with a romantic partner… I’d suggest not blowing your budget decorating… Let them have the space to feel like they can make the space thiers as well, and accept that means some of your decorations are going to be retired

Metal

Just buy it yourself. Don’t make a kid do it.