Curious Local Customs

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by malloyd

I don't think you do. Blood is about 85% water, but the other 15% should have roughly the same composition as the rest of your body, and organic material is normally around 40% carbon by weight, so you'd need something like 4 milliliters of blood per caret, and a 1 caret stone is a pretty reasonable size for a ring centerpiece. Certainly a typical blood donation volume (470 mL) will contain enough carbon to produce a diamond bigger than anything you could reasonably fit on a ring. It wouldn't be the world's largest diamond, but it would easily be in the top hundred.

I rather like this idea really - something to keep gems worth much of anything in settings where synthetic ones are increasingly easy (and perfect), or mined from other worlds with exotic conditions in ton quantities, has obvious adventure motivation uses, and known to have been made from the blood of somebody famous seems like the kind of thing that could hold value. Though how to preserve the chain of authenticity that actually holds that value through the looting process is a tricky question.

As it is with any other artwork.

Personally I don't think artifice will keep jewelry from being valuable in any event. After all jewelry is artifice in any event (there probably are places admittedly where it is popular to wear raw stones). Even if the technology exists to conjure up artificial gems that actually look well one can conceive a culture that develops the practice to such a level that it's gems are valued.

[Anders]

Roses are easy to grow, yet valued for their beauty. The artistry is arranging the flowers rather than growing them. Same thing for artificial gems.

[Varyon]

How about a culture where everyone runs, bikes, or swims to work? Those who live too far away for this to be practical typically run to the nearest tram station, take a tram, and then run from there to work. The injured and infirm utilize rickshaws, but a healthy person who does so would likely be shunned.

Everyone would be healthier, and businesses would have on-site showers and laundry facilities (put your running clothes in a laundry bag and toss it in the giant washing machine, switch it over to the drying machine at lunch, then put on the freshly-laundered clothing for your run home). Formal uniforms would be ubiquitous for businesses (everyone showers and changes into their uniform - stored on-site - once they arrive). There may be add-on effects, such as communal showering resulting in people having fewer hangups about being seen naked. Parkour may be extremely common (bonus points if the culture lives on a low-gravity planet or space station).

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Anders

Roses are easy to grow, yet valued for their beauty. The artistry is arranging the flowers rather than growing them. Same thing for artificial gems.

The Rothschild's who could indulge themselves on whatever the heck they wanted patroned a horticultural program that involved burning almost every seed in their garden, over and over again until they had absurdly elitist flowers.

A machete is easy to make and it has an obvious resemblance to a katana. But machetes are not katanas.

There is no reason there cannot be a society whose artificial gems do not have a cachet far more than the words "artificial gem" says. Moreover it need not be mere fashion. There could be a class of stones that have so much skill and tradition expended on them that they deserve a cachet even though artificial. Just like I am willing to pay gobs of money for a high end Swiss Army Knife even if it is just iron, plastic, and carbon plus some craftsman's labor which is one of the most valuable commodities.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Varyon

How about a culture where everyone runs, bikes, or swims to work? Those who live too far away for this to be practical typically run to the nearest tram station, take a tram, and then run from there to work. The injured and infirm utilize rickshaws, but a healthy person who does so would likely be shunned.

Everyone would be healthier, and businesses would have on-site showers and laundry facilities (put your running clothes in a laundry bag and toss it in the giant washing machine, switch it over to the drying machine at lunch, then put on the freshly-laundered clothing for your run home). Formal uniforms would be ubiquitous for businesses (everyone showers and changes into their uniform - stored on-site - once they arrive). There may be add-on effects, such as communal showering resulting in people having fewer hangups about being seen naked. Parkour may be extremely common (bonus points if the culture lives on a low-gravity planet or space station).

I am not sure there are many cultures that have no hangups. They just arrange hangups differently so that it looks like that to outsiders. Cultures that have public bathing for instance tend to separate the sexes for it or restrict times and places, or whatever. I don't see why someone would desire to take away hangups. Buttoning up, after all strings you along for when it is time to unbutton (just like you only slosh with fine wine when Maj Winters captures a Nazi grandee's palace). That is just my thought though. Be that as it may, I could see some of that stuff like livery, and commuting to work and so on.

My brother usually bikes to Facebook. One time he took a topple by going over a pothole downhill but apparently he can still manipulate a computer.

[jason taylor]

Outer clothes have to be unbuttoned to the last button solemnly after a wedding. This can be done in a sanitized and symbolic way or in a hinky way depending on your taste (in the European backcountry back in the day they took that sort of thing way farther than you might think).

Warriors coming back need to ritually purify themselves or the ghosts of their victims will haunt them. Perhaps a priest needs to intercede in case someone put a curse on them. They go through a day of fasting from-whatever. Then they go to the lord's house and basically party. Whether or not dependents, kin, and sweathearts are allowed to join is a matter of the worldbuilder's taste. Maybe they can have two parties, one being "boy's night" and one for the whole tribe.

Instead of fistfights, private quarrels are settled with each party having a whip. The one who cries "Uncle" first, loses.

There is an Alcoholic Olympics. Contestant's standing is measured by the amount of booze they can consume.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

There is an Alcoholic Olympics. Contestant's standing is measured by the amount of booze they can consume.

Ah, I see you too are reading the 90s nostalgia subscriptions and taking inspirations from real-life events.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Ah, I see you too are reading the 90s nostalgia subscriptions and taking inspirations from real-life events

The problem with drinking contests isn't that they are unlikely - informal ones after all happen all the time. It's that if you start making them seriously competitive, the life expectancy of players will be neligible.

It's *easy* to down more alcohol that will certainly kill you, anybody should be able to do that physically, so any competition scored on total consumption has as the victory condition set as "get as close to death as possible without going over". If that doesn't incentivize contestants to take too many risks (often while mentally impaired by intoxication yet), what does?

Since to do anything like an Olympics you will need multiple rounds, I'd assume most of the favorites going in won't be alive come the finals.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Ah, I see you too are reading the 90s nostalgia subscriptions and taking inspirations from real-life events.

The first two entries were from Golden Bough (different tribes have a variant of such). The third was entirely my own idea. The fourth was just a common and rather silly form of male headbutting in movies.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by malloyd

The problem with drinking contests isn't that they are unlikely - informal ones after all happen all the time. It's that if you start making them seriously competitive, the life expectancy of players will be neligible.

It's *easy* to down more alcohol that will certainly kill you, anybody should be able to do that physically, so any competition scored on total consumption has as the victory condition set as "get as close to death as possible without going over". If that doesn't incentivize contestants to take too many risks (often while mentally impaired by intoxication yet), what does?

Since to do anything like an Olympics you will need multiple rounds, I'd assume most of the favorites going in won't be alive come the finals.

The answer is to make victory determined by performing a not particularly difficult physical or mental task while under the influence. When you're impaired enough to fail, you're out.