BillyClark

I have wondered the same about scammers. Like, if their mother knew they were going to do that with their life, she’d probably regret all of that wasted effort raising them.

it’s important to have verifiable studies to cite in arguments for policy, law, etc.

It’s also important to have for its own merit. Sometimes, people have strong intuitions about “obvious” things, and they’re completely wrong. Without science studying things, it’s “obvious” that the sun goes around the Earth, for example.

I don’t need a formal study to tell me that drinking 12 cans of soda a day is bad for my health.

Without those studies, you cannot know whether it’s bad for your health. You can assume it’s bad for your health. You can believe it’s bad for your health. But you cannot know. These aren’t bad assumptions or harmful beliefs, by the way. But the thing is, you simply cannot know without testing.

One of the things that’s generally effective when I feel nausea is to wipe my face with a cool cloth. I imagine that spraying water on your face might do similar.

Although I speak some Japanese, I am not an expert in Japanese. I have never heard anybody say nii-kun. It’s a common failing of people in my situation to think that because they personally haven’t heard it, that it doesn’t exist, so I’m not going to say that, but even if it does exist, I don’t think -kun would be used.

“-kun” like you said indicates closeness and familiarity, but it also is commonly used for a business subordinate. Like, if you were at work, your boss might refer to you as “pivot-kun”, even if you weren’t that close. I don’t think Big Brother could ever be seen as a subordinate.

With my limited knowledge, if they wanted to use a Japanese word and not an English loanword, I think they’d use aniki or maybe ani-ue (although I’ve only heard these words in anime, I think people might actually still use aniki? It sounds like a Yakuza sort of word to me). These convey a respect that I think would be necessary for the mental image of Big Brother.

The primary reason that I’d put forward is that Japanese people place a lot of importance on social hierarchy, to the point that even between twins, it’s important to know which is the older sibling. Because it’s used in everyday conversation and in referring to one another (although not quite as much with twins, I just brought that up for emphasis).

The point is that the Japanese version of these words are used a lot more and have a lot of extra meaning compared to the English phrase “Big Brother”. So, it’s actually a worse fit. Japanese people use enough English loanwords that they probably understand the English phrase, anyways. So, the meaning gets through without the extra unintended baggage from the translation.

It’s one of the many pitfalls of translation. Often, there are words that mean “the same thing”, but they still aren’t the right words because either the extra connotations in the original language or the extra connotations in the target language can throw off the translation.

I think the Japanese translation is fortunate that, in this case, the Japanese language already has so many English loanwords… although I’m not sure whether that was exactly the same case when the book was first translated. It was published in 1948, I think. My recollection is that the English loanword boom started after WW2, so that would be somewhat contemporary.

On second thought, maybe I don’t want tastebuds just inside my asshole.

“-chan” is a diminutive suffix that indicates affection when used. These two factors mean it would never be used in the context of Big Brother.

Even with little knowledge, you should at least come up with alternatives like nii-san, onii-san, onii, nii-sama, etc. Those still wouldn’t work well. I’d think that a lot of people would also think of aniki, which is getting closer. But it’s definitely the best option to just to what they actually did and just use the English “big brother” like a loan word.

There are a lot of vegans and vegetarians who don’t make it their raison d’etre, so I’m sure there have been some who climbed Everest in the past, even if we don’t know about it.

Japan is a shoes-off country, but they often have slippers that they wear indoors. They just change their shoes like Mr. Rogers, but with less singing.

Whatever bad shit I want to say about Henry Ford, at least he understood the basic idea that people could only spend the amount of money that they have or make. That’s one of the things he’s famous for is that his factory workers could buy their own Model Ts.

We now live in a stupid reality where the world is controlled by rich people who see others as slaves and who are wanting to keep slave labor in perpetuity, even when the labor doesn’t need to exist.

Assume for a moment that AI really was taking all of these types of jobs, which by the way, almost certainly includes CEOs. It would only be a matter of time before robots take those other jobs he’s talking about.

A normal human of normal intelligence would see that and conclude that people simply wouldn’t have to work anymore. And that therefore, everyone should have their basic necessities taken care of by their governments.

People would be free to do whatever they want, whether it be “humanities” work or creating things or whatever. We’re no longer constrained by the fact that our lives depend on our usefulness in jobs to the ruling class.

Only a member of that ruling class would see themselves as indispensable and others as slave labor.

“After seeing you enjoy good food as it was intended, I don’t think I want to continue this. Everyone knows food must only be eaten after you upload pictures of it to Instagram and get a certain number of interactions.”

I have heard that beached marine mammals are often too sick to swim properly and that rather than pushing them back in, it’s better to call wildlife rescue for advice.

It was part of the paperwork requested by the person who arranged my loan and there were no follow up questions.

I once had to “explain the gap in my CV” when applying for a loan. And apparently, “I didn’t feel like working for those 6 months,” wasn’t a good enough explanation. Even though I think literally everybody personally understands the concept.

I ended up saying that I spent the time taking care of my parents, since I did spend some of that time taking care of them.

Exactly. It’s sad, but in America, if you say something to a cop, and the cop, for example, “misremembers” and says that you confessed to a crime, you can be in hot water. If you simply don’t speak to a cop, then it’s more difficult for the cop to “misremember”.

That’s an extreme example, and it’s getting less likely with cops wearing more bodycams, but there’s simply no reason to take the risk of talking to a cop.

I wouldn’t go for this. Even in Victorian times, the catapult was outdated technology.

Now, then, if it were a trebuchet, then you’d really see how far that baby could go.

Oh my, I hope he didn’t get rid of my private collection.

You can tell from the background that this isn’t my attic.

The admins vary by server.