Yes, a pair is far easier to keep balanced in my pack.

I’d say they’re twice as experienced, and will be able to examine possibilities twice as fast. It’s still possible they just can’t do whatever thing, like speak Klingon or solve a Clay problem, though. Basically, 0+0=0.

A pair generally is fine, but as you add more you start getting problems with overhead and miscommunication, and more and more things will start to scale sublinearly. And, if it’s something where broad agreement is important, more people is often worse.

FWIW Pong was the 70’s.

Yeah, but how much drama and weird cliquishness is there? And it’s just not large; you tend to run into the same people a lot even in a major city.

But doesn’t being factually correct matter more than being comfortable? (I’m honestly not sure, asking that, whether I’m showing my ass, or if everyone sees it the way I do)

You’re right that is based on observation. The prestige of something depends on the wealth, competence and cultural identity of the people seen to be doing it. Great (and now dead and uncontroversial) thinkers through the ages have read paper books. Posh people are depicted enjoying wine, and I’ve known rich people who like whisky. It’s hard to afford rare arcade machines, but anybody can get hooked on candy crush.

For example, if you like reading about history on Wiki, you can say “I like to learn about history”

Yup. People may or may not also enjoy history or whatever else, but it’s a valid answer and there’s no “wet fart” kind of reaction.

Another one I use is “I like anything that can be learned from a book”. It sounds smart, and it’s not untrue, since the medium could be either. The fact I don’t use paper books very often doesn’t come up unless they ask for details, and nobody has to date.

TBF Lemmy selects for eggheads like that. If you have normal, balanced interests you stay on Reddit.

Like fully a third of the population is into it, but the stigma is so strong that the IRL community is tiny and weird.

When was that? Like, the mainframe era? Pong was a commercial product.

It seems more like people intrinsically like it once they try it, and anything that becomes popular will become less stigmatised.

I just don’t observe that myself, though.

If that was the way it worked, it would make sense, but in reality it’s all about some kind of social pecking order and posing within it.

This isn’t the hypersonic kind, to be clear. And I kinda doubt it will matter given how long they’ll take to deliver and how on the ropes Iran is.

Depends which kind you mean. They have rockets, but this is a cruise missile. Technically a Shahed is a cruise missile, but it’s not jet powered and it’s definitely not supersonic.

Yeah, depends on whether OP means problematic in a relative or absolute sense. It’s not different from buying other overpriced brandname things, but I’m not really sure any of it is something to be proud of.

Yeah, but one person’s “drinking” is another persons “collecting and curating vintage wines”. There’s a whole lot of leeway with the “unacceptable” hobbies depending on prestige. Gaming itself has a spectrum there; candy crush isn’t really a hobby, a collection of rare arcade machines definitely is.

And I don’t necessarily get a great reaction to my productive hobbies, either, if they’re not correctly culture coded.

Edit: Somehow me deep diving on Wikipedia doesn’t count, but the next person over gets plaudits for trashy novels, because they’re on trees. That’s a pretty direct inversion.

No. It’s like the most common hobby at this point, easily.

When I say I don’t really game I get a bad reaction.

Hmm. I wonder if it’s like dancing or figureskating as a man, where people look down on it, but it brings massive romantic opportunity.

Trains in particular probably are at about the level of nerd stigma as Warhammer.

We didn’t get kicked out until we said “everyone, step to the left”.

Illegal porn, if you’re in Saudi Arabia.

You joke, but ideas about what you can and can’t do with animals are genuinely all over the place. Pigs? Yummy. Dogs, well that’s totally different somehow.

I mean, there’s entire cultures built on hunting deer. If you include alternative game as well, it used to be all of them.

Maybe all people are cruel and violent, I suppose that’s a self-consistent interpretation.

Hmm. I’m guessing not North America?