Minimum Table Manners

When I was growing up, my parents and grandparents were tyrannical about table manners.  It was far too much, and importantly, completely unnecessary.

But is there a minimum level that will suffice?  Let's make a list.  Obviously this is not a list for very informal dining in one's own kitchen.  But if you have guests, are attending a dinner party, or any group, or are dining out, these rules apply.

I have written about this before, but let me just again state that this list applies regardless of culture.

• General principle:  Respect and observe the sanctity of the table.  Maintain decorum, which includes the below rules, and perhaps others as required.  Manners are not for yourself, but for the others at the table.  People who cannot abide by these rules deserve to eat alone.
• Eat/chew with your mouth closed.
• Always use utensils (knives, forks, spoons).
• As a host, you may well provide chopsticks for the comfort of your guests, but never use them yourself.
• Do not put anything into your mouth that has not first been cut into a size that will fit in your mouth.  Actually, quite a bit smaller.  Good manners start with small bites.
• Do not speak with anything in your mouth.
• Smartphones should always be silent, and in fact largely kept away from the table.  Calls should not be made or taken while at the table.  If absolutely necessary, quietly excuse yourself, and take calls away from the table and/or outside of the restaurant.  If other guests abuse this rule, and they will, do not yourself add to the disruption.
• One should always remember that eating together is not about eating.  You can do that alone in the kitchen.  Rather it is about socializing with the others at the table.
• Do not begin eating until everyone at the table has been served.  The only possible exception to this rule is if a restaurant is incompetent and delays one or more entrees.  In which case, the unserved diners should insist that the served diners:  Please, do not let your food get cold.
• It is perfectly acceptable to be the first or last to finish, but try to be roughly in sync with everyone else at the table.  Adjust accordingly as the meal progresses.  If it is a multi-course affair, this rule applies to each course.
• Do not reach.  If you can reach something on the table without standing and without reaching over someone and/or their plate, really without reaching through the airspace of their entire place setting, then fine, help yourself.  Otherwise, politely ask someone to pass the item or dish to you.  Always pass salt and pepper together.
• Supply and use napkins.  If you are the host, supply more napkins than needed.
• Babies do not belong at the table.  Children can be brought to the table only once they have mastered these basics.  Never arrive with uninvited children.
• Only eat and drink or not eat and drink what is provided.  Never make special requests.  As a host, in order to insure maximum comfort for your guests, you may well ask about dietary restrictions or preferences.  But if this is not initiated by the host, let that be the end of it.  If you cannot abide by this rule, you should decline all dining invitations, and only yourself host.  Other people are not responsible for your idiosyncrasies.
• However, if you are hosting a vegan dinner party or some other such misadventure, make sure that your guests know in advance this is what you are doing.  Being the host also does not make other people responsible for your idiosyncrasies.
• In a restaurant, it should be extremely rare (maybe once in a lifetime) to send anything back to the kitchen.  The reason for this rule is that some people use this tactic, and often that is exactly what it is, to assert their dominance.  It is a low class move.  If the food is not up to your expectations, the way to deal with this is to not return.
• Similarly:  Rarely, if ever, complain about anything.  Simply keep a stiff upper lip and do not return.  No, not even a quiet word to the manager on the way out; no, not even after you have paid the bill.  No matter how discreet you are about it, the restaurant is going to believe you are looking for something for free.  This is not really about restaurant assumptions; it is about how in fact other people behave.  Do not contribute to the nonsense.

Are there more?  Of course; people write books on this stuff.  The more esoteric rules are full of nuance and context and require more study and practice than a simple list can provide.  But here I have tried to distill the basics.  Because as I look around me, even the basics seem to be lost.

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Great Britain: The Natives Are Getting Restless

Louise Perry talks with David Betz on the coming British civil war

I think this analysis applies to a large swath of western Europe, and to both Canada and the United States.  Several western nations, certainly Britain and France, have reached a point where there is an elite decision making class largely unaccountable to the public and largely immune to the repercussions of the decisions they themselves make.  Betz says that civil war is now unavoidable.

They mention Tommy Robinson, jailed for telling the truth when a British court and the entire British establishment so clearly lied.  Robinson's film, Silenced, received over 166 million views before he took it down to avoid further contempt of court charges.

They say everything lives forever on the internet, but I bet this film will disappear completely.  This lie is just too important.  In any case, the film has been reposted to BitChute, for now.  We'll see how long that lasts.  Here is a copy on Youtube.  Here it is on another Twitter account.  It is worth noting that the film has already been pulled off of the Internet Archive site.

For this and the grooming scandal, which in this podcast they refer to, more accurately, as industrial rape, and a host of other issues, Britain is now a powder keg.

In the United States, the elites, that is the people who run our institutions, education establishment, and media, are largely supported by the broad Democrat party and its voters.  So we are talking roughly half the country.  I do not know what the numbers are in Britain, France, and Canada.  But my guess is their respective elites also have sizable support.  That is to say, yes, there are large numbers of citizens in Britain, who obviously do not support raping children, but who are willing to turn a blind eye to it.  Just as there are large numbers of Americans who turn a blind eye to the growing cult of gender identity and its consequences.

So if there is to be a civil war, it will not only be a war against the elites and unassimilated immigrants, but also against their legions of support.  As Betz points out, this will largely be an urban/rural divide.

I must note the use of the phrase, the natives are getting restless, in the title of this post.  It is supreme irony that, today, we can use this supposedly derogatory phrase to describe former colonial hegemon, Great Britain.  But in fact, Britain is being invaded and yes, the natives are getting restless.

The British elites who orchestrated this invasion seem to believe that the lower and middle classes will bend over and take it, child rape and all.  Personally, I do not believe that is going to end well...for the elites.  If Betz is correct, they will richly deserve the Jacobin response coming their way.

Update, 3 July 2025

David Betz with Mary Harrington (Youtube video)

I am not the biggest fan of Mary Harrington, and I think Louise Perry did a much better job above.  But this is a more recent talk so I thought worth including.

Update, 21 July 2025

David Betz on Triggernometry

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The Gender Ideology Religion

Wall Street Journal Guest Column

Losing My Nonreligion, (Archive) by Jerry A. Coyne

30 March 2025

Coyne opines about the reason he left the Freedom from Religion Foundation.  

And here is my comment which the good editors of the Wall Street Journal rejected.  

The truth is, most Americans, certainly almost everyone on the left, and if the WSJ is anything to go by, a good number purportedly on the right, have lost all common sense.  Sure, Trump won.  But these people are not going anywhere.  Here I mean not only the gender confused, but all of those who support and enable their genuine insanity.  And of course, as Coyne infers, they will not be swayed because this is their religion.

It's ironic that Coyne left the Freedom from Religion Foundation because of the FFRF's in-house religion.  But these are the times in which we live.  He was a heretic, so he had to be excommunicated.  No, there can be no dissension from the dogma at the Freedom from Religion Foundation.

And what's more, I do not even believe that most of these guys are gender confused.  Rather, I think this is an advanced form of narcissism and a narcissistic power play supported by their large cohort of flying monkeys.  I have written more about this here.

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Astronaut Question

Here's a question:  If we are going to send women into space, can we not find women smart enough to use a hair tie?



And no, this question is not meant to be rhetorical, ironic, mean, or even sarcastic or funny.  It is just a simple, straightforward query.

For anyone who would argue that, intentionally or not, this is mean, I would say that it only seems mean because it is true.  She looks like Medusa, and either she is too dumb to realize it, or I suppose it could be a conscious decision.  Either way, question stands.

Here is one other question:  Is Butch, next to her, too unkind to tell her?  Hey Suni, maybe you should tie your hair back before we go on camera.  Maybe he is just living up to his name; laughing at her.

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Marketing is Not Dead

The forgotten art of an effective television commercial

Today, most British commercials are wholly uninspiring.  Like this, this, this, this, this, and this.  All currently running television campaigns and all dreadful.  I mean for the love of God:  Domin-oh-hoo-hoo.  What is that?  And notice the extremely light product focus in all of these commercials.

There is one Domino's commercial featuring a live hedgehog supposedly coming out of hibernation.  The unappetizing critter makes no sound, but the helpfully provided closed captioning offers his thoughts:  Dominos?  That's it, that's the whole commercial.  It is so bad that no one has added it to Youtube.

Then comes something else entirely.  Created by BBH (Bartle Bogle Hegarty), led by Creative Director, Felipe Serradourada Guimaraes.  Sure, it is an emotional appeal ad, but at the same time, it is entirely product focused.

Grok offers some background on the campaign.  Find the music here.

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Peterson's Message to Musk (and the rest of us)

On Tommy Robinson and Schools of Education

Peterson first discusses the abysmal treatment of Robinson by the government of Great Britain.  Britain has become a theocracy with dhimmi-servants running the government, the judiciary, and the police (my description not his).  Then Peterson moves on to our own nightmare, the university schools of education, which supposedly train teachers.  I have written about this existential threat before.

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Grok on Covid

Fifteen questions for Grok

Grok currently allows users, with non-paid accounts, to ask fifteen questions every two hours.  So I thought, why not?  This is a follow up to my post last month, On the Faith of Atheists, which was my first discussion with Grok, and kind of interesting.

This time, I decided to edit it a bit more for clarity.  For instance, Grok now asks the user questions at the end of each response.  Probably trained to do so in order to maintain and encourage user engagement.  So I deleted any question that Grok asked me which I chose to ignore.  But again, there is a link to the original conversation at the end.

Anyway, here are my fifteen questions:

After Covid, I heard Zuby make the point that:  Most people would rather be in the majority than be correct.  Is this sentiment correct?

Zuby’s observation, Most people would rather be in the majority than be correct, taps into a well-documented aspect of human psychology:  The tendency toward conformity.  This idea is not new; it echoes what researchers like Solomon Asch found in the 1950s with his conformity experiments.  Asch showed that people often align their opinions with the majority, even when they know it is wrong, due to social pressure.  About 75% of participants conformed at least once when faced with a clearly incorrect majority opinion on something as simple as line lengths.

This sentiment holds up in broader contexts too.  Social media, like X, amplifies it, people pile into trending narratives, often prioritizing likes and retweets over accuracy.  Post-Covid, you saw this with debates over masks, vaccines, or lockdowns:  Many clung to dominant views, whatever they were locally, rather than digging into data or questioning inconsistencies.  Studies on groupthink, like those from Irving Janis, back this up, people avoid rocking the boat to stay comfortable in the crowd.

But is it most people?  That’s trickier.  It is not universal, some thrive on being contrarian, and others dig for truth regardless of popularity.  Zuby’s likely exaggerating for effect, as a precise headcount is impossible without massive surveys.  Still, the core idea tracks:  Humans are wired to seek safety in numbers, and being correct often takes a backseat to fitting in.  Covid, with its uncertainty and tribalism, just made that more glaring.  What do you think, did you see this play out around you?

Well certainly most people followed the experts advice in the response to Covid, even if it hurt their own health or even the health of their children.

On the Faith of Atheists

A Conversation with Grok

Early iterations of ChatGPT famously demonstrated the political leanings of its designers.  Grok, at least as currently configured, seems more neutral.  I would even call it somewhat agreeable.  I am not sure that is a good thing, but it is probably driven by market competition, which is a good thing.

This conversation has been edited for punctuation, fonts, formatting, etc.  No text has been edited or deleted.  But the writing style is very casual.  No doubt also due to market forces.  So I did clean it up quite a bit; just for my own readability.  Too many contractions and numerals and e.g.'s, etc.  Also, lots of yeah's, but I left those.

And I often notice that modern techie types tend to dispense with the two spaces at the end of a sentence.  I might have understood when storage space was at a premium, but I have no idea why they still insist on the single space practice today.  To my eye it crams the sentences together.  So I add back the extra space.  Again, for my own readability.  If you are interested, here is Grok's own explanation for the shift.

Anyway, if you prefer it, there is a link to the original conversation at the end.  It is not really a conversation.  I just asked a few questions.

[Start conversation]

Have there been any studies done on whether or not religious people are more credulous than non-religious people?

Yes, there have been studies exploring whether religious people exhibit greater credulity—meaning a tendency to believe claims with less evidence—compared to non-religious people.  One notable study, published in 2019 in Social Psychological and Personality Science, titled Religiosity Predicts Evidentiary Standards, investigated this question directly.  The researchers found that religious individuals generally required less evidence to accept both religious and scientific claims compared to their non-religious counterparts.  This suggests a broader tendency toward credulity among religious people, as they set a lower threshold for belief and a higher threshold for rejecting claims.  In contrast, non-religious individuals demonstrated greater skepticism, requiring more evidence before accepting claims and less to dismiss them.

The study involved 703 participants who were presented with scenarios—either a group testing a new medicine or using prayer to cure an illness—and asked how much additional evidence (for example, successful outcomes or failures) they would need to believe or reject the claims.  The results indicated that religiosity was linked to a lower evidentiary bar, pointing to a general pattern rather than one limited to religious contexts.

Other research indirectly supports this idea.  For example, studies on cognitive styles have shown that religious individuals are more likely to rely on intuitive thinking, which can align with credulity, while non-religious individuals tend toward analytic thinking, associated with skepticism.  However, these findings do not imply that religious people are universally gullible—credulity can have pragmatic advantages, like faster decision-making, while skepticism can protect against deception but slow down judgments.

The evidence is not unanimous, and some argue that context matters—religious credulity might be domain-specific rather than a universal trait.  Still, the available studies, particularly the 2019 research, provide a foundation for suggesting that religious people may, on average, be more credulous than non-religious people.  More longitudinal and cross-cultural research would help clarify the relationship further.

But are non-religious people more credulous about the efficacy of government?

The Path Out of Poverty

Maybe this path will not work for everyone.  But if you are reasonably intelligent and ambitious, this is the way.

• Get as much education as you can.
  
  
• At a minimum, you must learn and use proper English.  This is true no matter where you are.  If you are rich in Malaysia or Guatemala or Kenya, fine, you don't need English.  But if you are poor, master English.
  
  
• Get a job.  If there are no jobs, then you must make your own; find a need and fill it.  Do what needs done; haul water for your neighbors, plant the rice, whatever.  Do not wait for the work to come to you; you must go find the work.
  
  
• Do not have children.
  
  
• Find a partner doing likewise.  Do not look for a partner to raise your children.  Instead look for a life partner.  This is a subtle but important distinction.  Yes, children are a part of life; for many the most important part.  And no, it is not fair, but if you are poor, you simply cannot afford children.  And they will keep you poor.  So make your choice.
  
  
• Also regarding children, you must break from the mindset that only your children can and will care for you in your old age.  Once you breakout of the jail of the poverty-minded, you will discover that you can and should take care of yourself in your old age.  This view of children as retirement is a big part of what keeps people poor; because this mindset encourages people to have children they cannot afford.
  
  
• Get married.  But don't be in a rush.  Only get married if and when you find the right one.
  
  
• Still do not have children.
  
  
• Focus on your (two) careers; make something of yourselves.
  
  
• Never lie, never look for shortcuts.  These are popular strategies of the poverty-minded.  Be honest or stay poor.
  
  
• Along the way, read everything you can, both fiction and nonfiction.  You must learn to learn and learn to think.  These are skills that most poor people just never develop.
  
  
• Also learn to be considerate, grateful, friendly, respectful, and quiet.  Yes, be quiet.  If you think these attributes are beneath you, okay fine, stay poor.
  
  
• Do not surround yourself with poverty-minded people.  Leave them behind.  Leaving poverty most often involves leaving your community.
  
  
• Be faithful to your spouse.
  
  
• Only then should the two of you even consider children.

Yes, it is this simple.  If anyone tells you otherwise, they are lying to you – To serve their own interests, not yours.  The primary key to this path is to have children only when and if you can afford it.  If you cannot manage this, again okay fine, stay poor.  I realize this advice may run counter to the teachings of your faith and/or the desires of your family.  You simply must put these influences aside until you, and you alone, are ready.

And yes, of course this applies in the United States as well.  I have written on that specifically here.

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The California Death Cult

On the Los Angeles Fires

I have heard many people blame the local and state governments and their leaders.  I have heard people say, Well they're rich, they can afford it.  And I have heard others admonish them for saying that.  Rightly so.

But let me tell you what no one has the courage to say.  These residents, almost all of them, consistently voted for the Democrat politicians (state and local) and consistently supported the Democrat policies that led to this disaster.  For instance, just to take one example, how many dams in California have been dismantled?  And how much water storage was lost?

The politicians are who and what they are, and everyone knows who and what they are.  So if you vote for them, you deserve what you get.  And even if they do not deserve it, because of course no one deserves that inferno, the residents have no one to blame except themselves.

Everyone needs to understand this.

Here's a prediction:  When this is over, those same politicians and their media operatives will blame climate change rather than their own disastrous policies.  And those same residents will believe them and continue to vote for them.  Ultimately, their answer will be more government and higher taxes to pay for it.  Because, really, it is a religion.  The religion of government.

Climate change is but one of their doctrines.  But it is particularly valuable because if you are a true believer, the only possible response is more government and regulation.

The single-party Democrat government of California is a death cult.  But I should be more clear; it the government, of course, but also the media and the academy, and the lefty NGO's, and mostly it is your Democrat-voting neighbors, friends, and family.  The death cult is the whole left-of-center ecosystem.

No matter where you live in California, get out now.

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