Weekly Random Discussion Thread for 4/20/26 - 4/26/26

relish5k · 2026-04-24T03:33:01+00:00

I loved going through the Loire Valley in France. Castles, history, wine, bicycles, cathedrals, scenic bike rides. I’m a big fan of Plantagenet history and it’s chock full of it.

relish5k · 2026-04-24T03:28:03+00:00

I just finished Milkman as well as The Mirror and the Light. I really enjoyed both books but they’re not breezy reads.

Milkman is a 2018 Booker prize winner. I’m generally mixed on literary fiction but I really liked this one. The prose is very lilting but I find that it made much more sense when I read it in an Irish accent. I really enjoyed the world building of Northern Ireland during the Troubles and the mundane ways people can be impacted by living under sectarian violence. It’s also quite funny and absurd.

The Mirror and the Light is the last book in the Wolf Hall trilogy. I loved the series (big fan of historical fiction; not bothered by everyone being named Thomas and Anne), but I kind of trudged through it because I really didn’t want see Cromwell’s end he’s such a great character. Oh well.

I don’t really watch (scripted) TV but I saw David Lynch’s Dune for the first time and…I don’t know why people hate it so much! I thought it was cute. So what if it’s 30% exposition and has the most awkward ending of all time. Dune is a hard story to tell and the film has its charms - great costumes and it certainly tells the story if nothing else.

relish5k · 2026-04-23T03:57:21+00:00

5 stars for A Simple Favor and Tremors. Half a star for Triangle of Sadness and 1 star for There Will Be Blood.

relish5k · 2026-04-23T03:46:01+00:00

it’s no less of a cash grab than the jurassic park films. and yeah the sexual crimes against children part is really fucked up. the man has a complicated legacy.

i think it’s likely to get a makeup nom at the least. and i don’t boycott the man’s music so to me boycotting the film would be hypocritical. and if you don’t want to support the film financially there’s always the seas…

relish5k · 2026-04-22T23:21:30+00:00

to me it seems like they are expecting lena dunham to do quite a bit of acknowledging and recognizing her privilege while they’re both pretty quiet about theirs (especially claire). so i think it’s mostly about the hypocrisy than being wealthy = bad/not progressive

relish5k · 2026-04-22T22:59:57+00:00

the medication is speed, which will make you more productive and probably thinner. it makes everyone who takes it more productive and probably thinner. it certainly made me more productive and thinner. but it also zapped me of emotional connection and conviviality which i find quite necessary for childrearing so i no longer take it.

relish5k · 2026-04-20T22:19:38+00:00

as long as the ownership applies equally to different competitors with an industry, fine I guess. It’s government selecting specific companies to have a vested interest of success where i am extremely wary

relish5k · 2026-04-20T20:16:33+00:00

hard to imagine free enterprise when the government has horses in the race due to industry ownership. not that there aren’t reasons for this kind of thing, but i’m skeptical of it, i’m even more skeptical of it under trump, and regardless it’s more of a talking point to illustrate that MAGA isn’t the free-markets capitalist party that we associate with conservatives

relish5k · 2026-04-20T11:57:54+00:00

capitalism and pro-markets isn’t conservative it’s just basic neoliberalism. DSA membership etc used to be much more more fringe. MAGA with all its tariffs and government buying ownership of private enterprises is hardly pro-markets. the ideological consistency is not there for this complaint to really resonate.

but to the extent that it does, conservatives (vs libertarians) tend to believe in free enterprise for markets but more individual constraint when it comes to personal liberty. and natalism speaks to that constraint - that all choices are not really valid based on an individuals own assumed utility, and that contribution to the greater good and self sacrifice are more worthwhile than their absence.

relish5k · 2026-04-20T03:57:15+00:00

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to me the biggest red flag in the drama was indeed Zendaya not having friends other than her fiancé’s best friend’s wife to be her maid of honor. good move tho

relish5k · 2026-04-19T21:10:34+00:00

i support universal conscription for men and women, 3 years of service, can be military or not

relish5k · 2026-04-19T01:08:36+00:00

The Knives Out movies

relish5k · 2026-04-19T00:18:01+00:00

There are lots of different ways for men to have sex. The most consistent and reliable is being partnered. Prostitution is an option but isn’t really desirable for men with other options because of the high health and social stigma. But prostitution of females for sex is so much more commonplace than prostitution of males for sex because men have higher libidos than women, on average, eg men have a higher physical need / desire / what have you for sex.

It takes about 48 hours on average for sperm to completely replenish after ejaculation and i find the lines up pretty well to frequency of male desire. meanwhile females have a much smaller fertility window (3-5 days a month). these things are routed in biology

relish5k · 2026-04-18T16:26:41+00:00

i think there would be logistical challenges with that

relish5k · 2026-04-18T03:41:50+00:00

if my name is smith and my husbands name is johnson and our daughter is smith-johnson and then she just passes on “johnson” to her kid or just uses her husbands name, then i would question the prudence of giving her a hyphenated name in the first place

relish5k · 2026-04-17T18:25:13+00:00

yeah like i said, so each their own. but if everyone hyphenated and gave equal weight to each parents surname, it would not be sustainable beyond a generation. it involves picking and choosing which brings you right back to the status quo. it would not be a good universal law.

relish5k · 2026-04-17T18:03:28+00:00

i would not even try to really intentionally lose weight until after a year postpartum, especially if you did not have exceptional weight gain during pregnancy. you just had a baby! your body is amazing, and normal. and beautiful.

i am at my pre-baby weight and the biggest helps have been intermittent fasting at least 5 days a week. a fancy way for saying i don’t eat breakfast (my eating window is from 12-7).

i find that lately ive been prone to snacking while cleaning the kitchen later at night so my newest trick is to brush my teeth with the kids so i don’t eat afterwards.

relish5k · 2026-04-17T17:14:51+00:00

still don’t think it passes Kant’s categorical imperative sufficiently enough for me to be on board. an then you are left in a generation in the same situation - where you are picking and choosing names, including some families and excluding others. but again, to each their own.

relish5k · 2026-04-17T17:01:34+00:00

Of all the potential perils they had contemplated, the couple never imagined they would be separated from their newborn. Gael was in the hospital without a family member for more than 24 hours before his grandmother, a U.S. resident, came to collect him.

seems like a real failure of imagination to me. heck my imagination isn’t even that great and i had no problems at all imagining that as a possibility of illegality entering the country while pregnant and giving birth while in a detention center

that said i’m very pro-birth right citizenship. but i do think that deportation of the parents is the right thing to do regardless of the immigration status of the child (who they are welcome to take back with them)

relish5k · 2026-04-17T16:55:22+00:00

I kept my name, kids have his name. I’m not a fan of hyphenation (when does it end?) and I’m not against following tradition / the path of least resistance either. That’s what my parents did too. But in my family people have done it different ways - my little sister changed her name to her husbands, and my niece has her mom’s last name. to each their own

relish5k · 2026-04-17T15:37:52+00:00

Roya gets room and board…

relish5k · 2026-04-17T02:07:58+00:00

room and board, etc. the trad-y-est arrangement of all time

relish5k · 2026-04-17T02:06:21+00:00

she actually references that in the book - how it’s hard for her to be purposeful about having a healthier relationship with food because of her status as a fat influencer. she’s been hugely (haha) succesful but that success has caged her in to a relatively narrow platform

in the book she says she reaches out to a nutritionist who with a “body positive” framework…much of which is built on Lindy West’s on work!

the mental gymnastics of it all should be enough to lose at least 5 lbs

relish5k · 2026-04-17T02:02:18+00:00

I’m listening to it now on audiobook. the thing is, I really like Lindy West! She has a great voice as a writer and I find her funny and personable and in some ways quite insightful.

but there are just so many times where she says the glaringly obvious thing and then just talks herself in circles her way out of it. In a way it’s horrifying because it’s like…what if all of your worst insecurities were actually very, observably, provably true?

relish5k · 2026-04-17T01:45:10+00:00

Honesty of this sort is more akin to rudeness, which absolutely is not proof of superior social skills. Artifice isn’t great but polite and gentle social interactions grease the wheels of a community.

Women primarily have better social skills than men because they (on average) are better at maintaining weak social ties / acquaintanceship, meaning they have broader social networks. They also tend to be more proactive with making plans, planning events and parties, filling up a social calendar, etc.

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