Nightmare Party Planning from the Mid-Century; Tuesday, Third Period [08/13].

[somethingwithturquoise]

When the students came into the classroom that Tuesday, there weren't any cloches on the counter in front of Summer, which might have been equally a relief and a concern, except that they were, instead, replaced with several cases of 7-Up soda. And once everyone was there, Summer smiled and placed a hand on one of those cases.

"So," she said, "this week, I was planning on actually doing a bit on beverages to serve at your nightmare party, especially since, you know, the whole bartender thing, that's sort of my whole jam? And the crux of that was this really popular mid-century recipe for what sounds absolutely awful if you ask me and that's 7-Up and milk. Like, they were promoting just giving that shit to literal babies. But then I found out there was a whole 7-Up cookbook from 1953, and, like, this was a thing a lot of advertisers did back then? Those of you who were in my last banana class found out that a lot of the recipes were taken from cookbooks released literally by Big Banana corporations. Because Big Banana was a thing. Most of the ubiquitous mayo in everything was because Hellmann's knew how to fucking work that marketing grift.

"And so, today, in honor of corporate cookbooks to push certain products, today I want to explore 7-Up specifically and have a 7-Up party, and you're making the menu! Of course, I've got several recipes from the cookbook to share with you all, and also a couple from the '60s, but I also also encourage you to be creative and see if you can take some inspiration from them and come up with something all your own. And remember: coming up with something actually good is nice, but something terrible is actually way more fun."

The Wonderful World of Pizza, Tuesday Second Period

[carbsliftthespirit]

"The island decided to mess with me," Raiden grumbled. "I had a place all picked out for us in Santa Monica, did quality control and everything," by which he meant he ate a ton of pizza, "but now we're back in Maryland, so I guess we'll have to go to Tokyo instead." Because that progression made sense.

"The pizza scene in Asia in general is really interesting. It's sort of a developing scene, with people trying out new forms and flavor combinations, and it leads to some really exciting ideas. And some kind of weird ones--every now and then a pizza from somewhere like Domino's Japan will go viral among Westerners. So today we're going to go to what's considered one of the best pizzerias in Tokyo, Pizzeria da Peppe Napolistaca Kamiyacho, to try it out for ourselves! Let's go!"

More Earth Tourism, Tuesday

[unusual_sith]

"First let me apologize for last week," Lana said. "Something came up at home that I had to help deal with. But this week we're back to our traveling, so let's head out."

She led them through the portal and to a rather striking building.

"This is the Taj Mahal. It was built around four hundred years ago by a ruler as a tomb for his wife and eventually himself. We're in India, by the way, which is in Asia, for those of you keeping track. This place is considered a World Heritage site, meaning that it is important to the culture of the world. It's considered an excellent example of architecture of its type. If you look around, you'll see that it's actually an entire complex surrounded by walls, and most of it is built from sandstone, though the main mausoleum is marble."

She nodded to the guide that would be taking them through. "We'll get shoe covers, water bottles, and maps when we get inside. No eating or any flame is allowed, keep your phones on silent and your voices down, don't take pictures inside, and don't touch anything; they're very protective of it all, and it is after all someone's tomb."

It was fascinating; Earth didn't seem to go in for these massive tombs for the most part, and Lana was feeling a bit nostalgic for Korriban, which was something that didn't happen often.

"Let's go!"

Practical Philosophy, Tuesday

[endsthegame]

"Empathy," Ender began, "Is a skill that is fundamentally neutral in nature. We like to perceive it as 'good' - as if to understand another means we will immediately be kind as well. But those two concepts are completely separate from one another. You can be violently emphatic and yet utterly violent to someone at the same time."

Hem.

"Over the years, many philosophers have busied themselves with the study of what empathy truly is, and whether we should care for it," he said. "For instance, Nietzsche, ever cheerful, described empathy as 'to imitate another's feelings within ourselves'. To act on it with compassion was little more than putting a pretty face on pity."

He picked up his bottle of water. "Meanwhile, Edmund Husserl sees empathy as a form of awareness; an intention to observe the feelings of those around you, and being able to do so without necessarily having experienced or experiencing those feelings yourself. He sees a difference between this kind of intentional, intuitive observation and the observations of science. We see the other person as another person, not as a thing to be studied, when we practice empathy."

He took a sip of his water and sat back. "Nietzsche gets at the heart of something called simulation theory: the idea that empathy is what happens when we observe an emotion and try to reproduce it in ourselves, so we might understand the other person. Theory of Mind, on the other hand, is the idea that we all have some rules in our minds for how people ought to think and feel, and we practice empathy by applying those rules to another person and coming to a conclusion. This is also known as 'cognitive empathy'."

"How do you feel when you emphatize with someone else?" he asked. "Do you do it cognitively, reasoning through why they must feel that way? Do you attempt to reproduce what they might be feeling? Or do you simply observe and assume? Can you remember a moment where you looked at another person and knew, intimately, how they felt and why? What is empathy to you?"