Popular Comments Across MetaFilter

By jy4m in "How to Spot a Psychopath" on MeFi

jy4m — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 19:39:41 GMT

Bad Person Disease and the diagnostic criteria are You Can Just Tell

By AlSweigart in "Paste Magazine: The 100 greatest songs of the 1980s" on MeFi

AlSweigart — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 01:54:30 GMT

YouTube search links:

100. The Stone Roses — I Wanna Be Adored
99. Iron Maiden — Run to the Hills
98. Laurie Anderson — O Superman
97. Boogie Down Productions — South Bronx
96. Bad Brains — Pay to Cum!
95. Arthur Russell — Being It
94. Squeeze — Pulling Mussels (From the Shell)
93. Beastie Boys — Shake Your Rump
92. Tom Tom Club — Genius of Love
91. Electronic — Getting Away With It
90. X — Los Angeles
89. Tracy Chapman — Fast Car
88. Peter Gabriel — In Your Eyes
87. Leonard Cohen — Hallelujah
86. A Flock of Seagulls — Space Age Love Song
85. The Pogues & Kirsty MacColl — Fairytale of New York
84. The Gun Club — Mother of Earth
83. Afrika Bambaataa & the Soulsonic Force — Planet Rock
82. Grace Jones — Pull Up to the Bumper
81. They Might Be Giants — Ana Ng
80. Siouxsie and the Banshees — Cities in Dust
79. Fingers Inc. — Can You Feel It?
78. Mission of Burma — That's When I Reach For My Revolver
77. Big Country — In a Big Country
76. Julee Cruise — Falling
75. Def Leppard — Photograph
74. Bruce Springsteen — Tougher Than the Rest
73. The B-52's — Private Idaho
72. Dinosaur Jr. — Little Fury Things
71. The Human League — Don't You Want Me
70. Diana Ross — I'm Coming Out
69. Pixies — Debaser
68. Fleetwood Mac — Gy***
67. De La Soul — Me, Myself and I
66. Fine Young Cannibals — She Drives Me Crazy
65. Queen & David Bowie — Under Pressure
64. Mariya Takeuchi — Plastic Love
63. Dead Kennedys — Holiday in Cambodia
62. Salt-N-Pepa — Push It
61. Marshall Jefferson — The House Music Anthem (Move Your Body)
60. Orange Juice — Falling and Laughing
59. The Specials — Ghost Town
58. Dexys Midnight Runners — Tell Me When My Light Turns Green
57. Tatsuro Yamashita — Sparkle
56. Glenn Branca — Lesson No. 1 for Electric Guitar
55. Judas Priest — Electric Eye
54. Jungle Brothers — I'll House You
53. Depeche Mode — Never Let Me Down Again
52. A Guy Called Gerald — Voodoo Ray
51. Echo & The Bunnymen — The Killing Moon
50. Cocteau Twins — Pandora (For Cindy)
49. U2 — Sunday Bloody Sunday
48. Sparks — Angst In My Pants
47. Ultramagnetic MCs — Critical Beatdown
46. Haruomi Hosono — Sports Men
45. Modern English — I Melt With You
44. George Strait — Amarillo By Morning
43. Minutemen — Corona
42. The Durutti Column — Sketch for Summer
41. Alice Coltrane — Jagadishwar
40. EPMD — You Gots to Chill
39. Fugazi — Waiting Room
38. The Blue Nile — A Walk Across the Rooftops
37. Slick Rick — Children's Story
36. Hüsker Dü — Celebrated Summer
35. The Jesus and Mary Chain — Just Like Honey
34. Soda Stereo — En la ciudad de la furia
33. Morrissey — Everyday Is Like Sunday
32. Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock — It Takes Two
31. Tom Waits — Downtown Train
30. The Clash — Police On My Back
29. Laura Branigan — Gloria
28. R.E.M. — Fall on Me
27. Michael Jackson — P.Y.T.
26. Luther Vandross — Never Too Much
25. The Go-Go's — Our Lips Are Sealed
24. Joy Division — Atmosphere
23. N.W.A. — Fuck tha Police
22. This Heat — Paper Hats
21. The Replacements — Kiss Me On the Bus
20. Bronski Beat — Smalltown Boy
19. Sade — Is It a Crime?
18. Talking Heads — The Great Curve
17. Big Daddy Kane — Ain't No Half-Steppin'
16. The Smiths — William, It Was Really Nothing
15. Whitney Houston — I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)
14. Prefab Sprout — Bonny
13. Neneh Cherry — Buffalo Stance
12. Keith Whitley — I'm No Stranger to the Rain
11. Sonic Youth — Teen Age Riot
10. Kate Bush — Suspended In Gaffa
9. Frankie Knuckles / Jamie Principle — Your Love
8. Public Enemy — Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos
7. New Order — Temptation
6. Janet Jackson — Escapade
5. Prince — Controversy
4. Tears for Fears — Everybody Wants to Rule the World
3. Eric B. & Rakim — I Know You Got Soul
2. Madonna — Papa Don't Preach
1. The Cure — Pictures of You

By eleslie in "Love to the Hmmph degree" on Ask MeFi

eleslie — Sun, 30 Aug 2026 09:02:26 GMT

I think, instead, that the meaning of the adage is that love is such a wonderful feeling and experience that it is better to have it and lose it than to never know that feeling or experience at all. I don't think the focus is on not wanting love again but rather on not ever knowing it at all.

By stilgar in "Retirement is Dead" on MeFi

stilgar — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 19:37:13 GMT

There is...to put it mildly...no end of jobs to do in this world. I would love to live in a world where the government spend trillions of dollars to employ people to....take care of the elderly, teach schools, restore habitat, do basic research, explore space, fix watersheds, do sustainable food production, capture carbon in ecosystems, clean plastic out of waterways, breed endangered species, remove invasive species, do controlled burns, make art, make love, build sustainable houses for people, install solar panels, rebuild infrastructure, do philosophy, create sustainable products, reconnect with nature, and on and on and on.

No only would this be useful work, that would better society, but it would give purpose to people that right now struggle daily to enrich a capitalist so they can just scrape by.

This work could BE the social safety net, providing for those people inside of it as they age.

I am fully aware of the many (many) barriers to this kind of thing but some version of it could and probably will happen at some point. I think as things get worse and worse and worse we will stop caring about fast cars, and stock prices, and be really very worried about food, shelter, and breathable air. I think the sooner we do it the better it will be for everyone, everyone except the super rich, they will be very sad that they just become normal people again, but I think that is a sacrifice the rest of us will be happy to make for them. It will honestly probably be better for them in the long run as well, being super rich seems to make you very maladjusted, and (delusions of flying to mars aside) they are all stuck on this planet as well.

By DirtyOldTown in "Retirement is Dead" on MeFi

DirtyOldTown — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 20:43:35 GMT

Some years ago, when Comrade Doll and I first got married and she was a Certifiably Good-Looking Young Thing but not a US citizen, people thought they were marvelously clever when they joked, "She only married you to get her papers, you know."

And now, we're powering through the last handful of years before we retire, which we can only afford to do in Europe. She's long since a US citizen, but she's still a Romanian one, too. And I'm only getting to go along because of that.

So now, at every opportunity, she likes to grin at the room and say, "Well you know, he only married me for his papers."

"I do like the long con," I tell them.

By aureliobuendia in "CALL FOR VOLUNTEERS: Community-Led Site Rebuild!" on MetaTalk

aureliobuendia — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 17:10:21 GMT

I suspect much of the metafilter community would prefer, or perhaps even insist on a much harder line against any use of LLM tooling in rebuilding the site.

I assume that the MetaFilter community at large is not going to have a voice on such matters, not if said community wants the site rebuild to happen any time this millennium. This is a decision to be made by a combination of MeFi Board's Tech Working Group, the Project Manager, and the Tech Lead.

By Joseph Gurl in "What's the word for this?" on Ask MeFi

Joseph Gurl — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 02:49:08 GMT

around a long time and ime it always meant posting insincerely with the intention of provoking others.

By AzraelBrown in "Construction Crew Rescues Kitten" on MeFi

AzraelBrown — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 17:54:06 GMT

I just imagine there's an entire department at Komatsu that has a warehouse full of various animal-baby-sized PPE, to keep up with all of the kittens/puppies/raccoons/ducklings that construction workers rescue on a regular basis.

*sirens go off*

SOME GUYS IN SHEBOYGAN FOUND A LITTER OF PUPPIES HIDING UNDER THEIR BACKHOE -- THIS IS A FIVE-OUTFIT ALARM, PEOPLE, FIVE OUTFIT ALARM

By Smedly, Butlerian jihadi in "The task is to understand what our fears reveal" on MeFi

Smedly, Butlerian jihadi — Wed, 02 Sep 2026 11:44:10 GMT

Interesting article. I think some on the intellectual left might idealize having lived in a time when a person could say they knew Adorno and Benjamin, but it's important to realize what a tragic story that was.

Having this conversation about media is always useful, in my opinion. I mean, now do cop shows, right?

To that point, Mrs. Smedly and I were watching a bit of televised entertainment last night and there was a promo for some private detective outside the law show (a quick search says this is "Neagley," which is apparently a Reacher spinoff). And I think there's a lot to be gained from looking at shows like this from a psychological point of view.

Shows like this tell us that Americans today feel disempowered, especially on a moral basis. We long to be able to have personal agency not granted in our social structures, and especially to enforce accountability on bad actors who are wontonly flauting the law. At the same time, the only language that is understood to be available to us is that of violence. There are few if any shows that focus on the power of argument, discourse or philosophy. Conflicts in American media are very rarely resolved in any way other than exercise of raw power.

That is all rather cliche to talk about. But another thing I have noticed is thing I have noticed is how rarely, in any type of show or movie, people are portrayed to make mistakes or especially to acknowledge their mistakes. Diffidence of any sort does not exist in popular media. People can be fooled, and come to realize it, but there is very little tolerance for moral introspection, conversation, or growth.

I don't know about diagnostic, but in terms of describing a situation, it's not great!

By cstross in "The solace of eternity" on MeFi

cstross — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 11:53:35 GMT

I was tapped to write the intro to this new MIT Press abridged edition, but had to back out due to health issues about 18 months ago.

I agree with cyanistes, this abridgement doesn't do the original text any favours—in addition to dropping the last five chapters it omits the first few as well. The result is a curiously plodding succession of hominin tragedies, where entire species stand as protagonists.

It's an interesting artefact of its time of origin (the 1920s), as Stapledon's handwritten notes (from his online archive) illustrate. In particular, modern cosmology hadn't really arrived, nuclear physics was clearly going to be a big thing (but it wasn't clear how), psi powers were also a thing, and it also took a remarkably sanguine attitude to the genocide of entire non-human sapient spcies, because obviously humanity needs to seize and terraform an inhabited planet or two when the sun changes luminosity, and fuck those pre-existing natives, okay? Stapledon was British, writing during the long Indian summer of the Empire, so this sort of attitude was par for the course, but it still leaves a sour taste in the mouth today.

It's really an exegesis about the eternal recurrence/cyclic nature of history and a refutation of all theories of human development predicated on humanity evolving to meet some nebulous future apotheosis.

And as such I think it's an important landmark in the evolution (heh) of science fiction itself, and arguably a philosophical statement—but really, most people who're not studying the history of SF in depth don't need to go there today.

By GenjiandProust in "damn the neighsayers" on MeFi

GenjiandProust — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 14:58:56 GMT

What is the anti-particle of a horse?

The Higgs bison?

By adrienneleigh in "I feel like I've abandoned a vulnerable relative but what else can I do?" on Ask MeFi

adrienneleigh — Sat, 29 Aug 2026 23:54:02 GMT

I would say that at the point where someone has physically restrained you from leaving a space (and yes, physically blocking your exit counts as "restraint"), you owe that person absolutely nothing. If it makes you feel happy and relieved to avoid them, please feel free to keep doing that.

By JonathanB in "The Unsettling Of America" on MeFi

JonathanB — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 02:28:44 GMT

I'm compelled to share my favorite. Seems rather timely as I read it again tonight.

The Peace of Wild Things
By Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Thank you, Wendell.

By signsofrain in "How to Spot a Psychopath" on MeFi

signsofrain — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 21:59:57 GMT

we really need to understand more about how we can inoculate people against being victimised.

I have worked with personalities like this. The solution is to remove them. People with these traits are sneaky and devious. They will do anything to get and keep social power. I worked with a woman who routinely told people lies about each other designed to drive wedges between them. A lot of people in the office knew she did this. Knowing didn't help. She eventually left of her own accord and I cannot adequately describe to you how dramatically the emotional landscape shifted in that office. Night and day.

By conscious matter in "KitchenAid mixer at 60% discount?!??" on Ask MeFi

conscious matter — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 16:33:33 GMT

They had three of them, each with identical standard Kroger "REDUCED" stickers with a barcode, and I bought one. I made sure it had undamaged packing tape top and bottom.

ms. matter is an accomplished baker – they had an easy baked oven as a young person and have never stopped – and her cookies and desserts are famous among friends. They had mentioned maybe buying one of these as a Christmas present.

Happy holidays, honey!

By DirtyOldTown in "Scientists say Australia is the best place to go in a catastrophe" on MeFi

DirtyOldTown — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 18:09:56 GMT

Looks like I might need to post On the Beach to FanFare...

By MeFiBoard in "2026 MetaFilter Board Elections: Setting the table" on MetaTalk

MeFiBoard — Sat, 29 Aug 2026 20:59:13 GMT

Although I always hope for more participation from people who have time and energy I also hope that everyone on the board is re-running as fits their lives because y'all are amazing.

We appreciate that! Probably a good time to note:

There is informal consensus among the board members who have privately indicated they intend to run again that no board member will declare candidacy publicly until self-nominations open on 21 September. (It could be an unfair advantage and, running or not, we are uniformly committed to a fair election process.)

By chariot pulled by cassowaries in "Are body language experts full of BS?" on MeFi

chariot pulled by cassowaries — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 00:59:16 GMT

Body language experts claim that lack of eye contact is a sign of lying.

It may sometimes mean that,

but lack of eye contact can also mean

a) A person is telling the truth about something that makes them feel emotionally vulnerable; or

b) A person is feeling anxious; or

c) a person is feeling mentally exhausted; or

d) that a person can EITHER think and listen, OR make eye contact, but not both.

By Runes in "The Butcher of Bosnia is no more." on MeFi

Runes — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 21:32:17 GMT

An appropriate place to repost Dee Xtrovert's comment about living through the Siege of Sarajevo.

By chasing in "Scientists say Australia is the best place to go in a catastrophe" on MeFi

chasing — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 18:27:03 GMT

These sorts of conversations are going to be much more difficult after everything in the world is renamed "America."

America will be better than America to america to if an American America americas all over the American region of America.