Quantum physics, theoretical alien biology, the alleged obsolescence of battleships... Do these all count as small talk? Because this is the stuff my wife talks about with me.

I'm in this picture and my SO doesn't like it.

Absofuckinglutely. This is what I do, and what she does, though our methods of exploration vary.

haha I just small talk to appease social standards. In my ideal reality, intelligent beings are creating and doing greater things themselves every day and viewing it like a wasted day if they have not. I could, right now, talk about my design decisions I'm coding in to this editor today and what some of the plans are for it as of now. I wouldn't talk about Why I'm focusing on the editor before the game because I've already been over that so there would be little gain for the ultimate quality of what I'm making in that conversation. And, with my ideal type of person, the conversation could easily drift in to what groundbreaking realms they are in too. It should be like this every day for an individual to be considered healthy. Comparatively, small talk is a waste meant to give vocalization options to beings fulfilling low to medium potential roles that cannot enter any realm of novelty themselves ~followers that cannot be waymakers. I know I say this in a realm of 90% people who are just fulfilling a low potential role while otherwise 'passing the time', just like the person in the post. So downvote me. You know it's true tho and it isn't the smalltalkers who are the next feynmans, einsteins, etc. Where do you aim for yourself? 'passing the time' 'smalltalk' level or higher?

Yeah, that's pretty much how it looks like for me

I love small talk. It's just noises that communicate emotion or very basic information, and it has a script!

I think no matter what we do most of the things are outoff our control