Bartenders Bartering
Gambling is like a fine wine- sipped, then savored, then hungover.
I dont drink I dont actually know what wine is like
I’m sorry if you get hungover from reading The Duckstack
Here for your daily1 shot of Duckstack, are you? I don’t blame you. I can only blame myself.
Respectfully,
People always ask me, in tears, “bobdaduck, what is THE DEAL with respect?”
The other day2 my wife was reading a book called “House of the Scorpion”, which is a nonfiction3 story about clone wars and stuff, but anyway my wife was listening to it on audiobook and I caught a very interesting segment where the people are in this like, foster/slave house for orphans run by Communists4.
Essentially the foster house had all these rules which were small enough that kids were basically certain to be in violation of multiple at all times. Then, they routinely would put the kids through these group confessionals where the kids would ritualistically turn each other in and/or volunteer their violations of the moral code. These “struggle sessions” served as a humiliation ritual and as a method for exposing dissent, such as the main character foolishly saying “I didn’t do anything wrong."5
Slightly after this, the company I worked for mandated what were called “Unconscious Bias Trainings”. I’ve written elsewhere about how these trainings try to flatten things to black and white (for example: What about times when bias is good, and useful?) but something significant in these trainings was the attempt to force people into “microaggression” mindsets- a moral code so bloated all are sure to be in violation in one way or another. The obvious danger here is “you get more of what you look for”. Priming someone to constantly tally how many grievances people have committed against them seems in my mind a surefire way to make someone incredibly miserable, which is one of my primary disagreements with feminism. But the rhetoric of these trainings does not stop there.
A small detour: Many groups, such as teams of coworkers, have one person who is naturally more gregarious, telling many jokes and being perhaps a little too “edgy”. This isn’t deliberate though- they’re just as open in often telling random personal stories and inviting commentary from others. This personality, aside from the actual work they do, serves a social purpose in setting the group “stakes”. Essentially, if some edgy joke doesn’t start a fight6, then people can calm down when they’re within that "edginess threshhold", so people become more open within the whole system. The gregarious personality forms a sort of social lubricant this way. They help people to feel like making a conversational mistake would not be costly. When cooperation is desirable, lowering the consequences of dissent is beneficial.
This type of person is singled out in these sorts of trainings, and is “rehabilitated” into being in a constant state vigilance- On top of their job duties, they must also become an Eggshell Walker7. They shut down, and the group follows, leading to a tense and stressful environment.
There is another type of person in many groups, such as teams of coworkers, which you can nickname: “shy”. Basically they are less intuitively capable of telling where social boundaries are, and out of courtesy or fear or laziness or spite8 simply don't speak up that much, so the boat gets rocked less.
How do the trainings approach this type of person? Well, they offer this dogma: If you aren’t bringing your whole self to work, you are oppressed. They coat this in a lot of talk about identity and such, but essentially they train this vulnerable type to overshare. You can’t just do your work, you have to talk about your sexuality or race philosophies or whatnot. This has the predictable effect of leading them to overstep the invisible social boundaries set by the group and unwittingly summon an eldritch horror: An Awkward Situation9. See, normal people do not talk about their sexualities or whatever and even most liberals are perfectly happy just, not knowing.
Even if the shy person has difficulty knowing where the group’s boundaries and social rules are, they will certainly recognize that they have been crossed, and that it was their fault. Thankfully, the trainings have an antibody for this: "its because they hate your identity”. “wow, people are really bigoted out there”, they think. This makes them angry, and anticapitalist, but the actual situation is just that they shared intimate things with people they were not intimate with and made everyone feel uncomfortable.
I am not sure how to quantify a lot of intimacy, but I think it is sort of a scale, and if you’re a certain level of intimate with someone then shared burdens become a “joy”, and if you’re not intimate enough than sharing burdens becomes an “inconvenience”, though, that could totally be extremely minor. Sometimes you hit jackpots where you realize you have the same burdens as who you’re sharing with, and your intimacy level increases! And sometimes you share so many burdens with so many people who don’t want them that your intimacy level decreases.
Here are some currencies: credentials, competence, intimacy, humor, calmness, edginess, peacemaking, intelligent criticism, virtue (such as discipline, chastity, integrity), manners, trinkets, ideas, angst.
Here are some rules of respect:
Don’t act like people owe you.
In gray and unestablished matters, ask permission verbally or with body language before making big moves.
Do not try to manipulate the other person into offending you so that you can use that offense as a bargaining chip10
Actively attempt to avoid wasting people’s time and resources
Actively attempt to provide value to other people.
Figure out what currency other people use and do deals only in that currency. Do not force them to figure out exchange rates on their own. See rule 4.
Do not ask people to honor a currency that is worthless to them.
Do not act like you understand things that you do not.
Do not lie. Do not steal. Do not murder, nor commit adultery, nor blaspheme11
If you follow these rules, you can build a nice pocket full of respect with someone, or a group, or a fae, or an egregore. This respect can then be used to make purchases, such as intimacy level ups, favors, mutual projects, influence, etc. By approaching things like this, you can ensure fairness, and nobody feels ripped off, establishing trust, which is a foundation for longterm relationships. Eventually you can give each other tax write offs and special “valued customer” deals.
And who doesn’t love a good deal?
NEW GAME: FOOTBALL
american, not european
Our Duckstack Sports Technicians12 have been working around the clock and we’ve come up with a new game, which we are calling “Football”. You see, the game is about a ball, with no feet. The ball is lost and has to get “home”, which you can imagine is a complicated task without legs.
Like in Chess, there are various pieces on the board, called a “field”, and these pieces have different classifications, such as a king, rook, bishop, and a bunch of pawns. Like in chess, the field is lined, and you advance pieces up and down the field in order to win.
The most important part of the game, the thing you really need to take away from this, is that the football is terrified the whole time.
We learn from the scriptures that every sphere has a law, and intelligence is another word for your ability to exert your will upon that sphere. Quote:
D&C 93:30 All truth is independent in that sphere in which God has placed it, to act for itself, as all intelligence also; otherwise there is no existence.
As you would notice, a football’s ability to exert its will upon the world is statistically negligible. So it has been sent to the games.13 Our Duckstack Technicians estimate that escorting the football home should serve as a useful proxy measure of a nation-team's morality, allowing informed judgements and decisions in international relations. We hope you all enjoy!
History
The gears of history grind on, milling reality into a fine paste14.
Kids never get tired of jokes, or asking are we there yet. Be like a little child: tell the same joke 50 times to the same people.
“Hey Little One, its time for sleep.” “I have an idea, how about you go to sleep, and let me stay up?”
Asked the Little One what he was drawing and he muttered (with his lisp) “I’m not drawing anything… I’m just making art”
The little one loves asking: “can you caulk this gun to me?”
TRADING IMPORTS
Exotic cars, all the way from the Egg Report, from the East
Randy writes about the psychology of feeling home.
Tuesdaily
the other day last year
I haven’t researched this at all
Write that down.
Like in all communism, this is an invitation to be physically beaten.
I’m not recommending being as edgy as possible do not start being deliberately offensive to people around you that is the wrong message to take from this
The Duckstack employs many Eggshell Walkers, but they only do that, nothing else.
Avoiding committing social faux pas out of just, massive, galactic arrogance
Gregarious people can do this too ofc but they have a lot more practice navigating awkward situations (because they’ve created a lot of them) so these sorts of things tend to just go smoother for them. Certainly some people are gregarious to the point where it becomes an actual issue but certainly a lot more gregariousness can be tolerated than the bar these trainings would set.
Just doesnt seem like a very respectful thing to do
The other ten commandments can be viewed as manifestations of these. For example, if you covet someone’s honor/clout/friends/etc, you are attempting to “steal” these virtues from them, rather than earn or exchange for them.
theyre interns
Toothpaste.