This is super tricky to navigate. I think a lot of it depends on the depth of the conversation and the familiarity of the listener with your line of work. I always try to find something innocuous to describe the work, something very neutral. Working on healthcare policy = making health insurance less expensive. Reducing energy carbon intensity = helping people make their own energy instead of needing to buy it. Something real short, relatively simple, always positive, and always politically neutral. Most of the time people just “cool” and want to move the conversation on.

Wait till you hear about marine mammals

It’s the National Capital Region Santa Intercept System or “Nic-R-Sis”.

You forgot the best part, it reverses direction!

Your tribe is larger south of the river.

Even easier than that, errata are formally published documents by a journal saying “actually, we messed up, please ignore that last thing we said”. It attaches to the underlying work forever. It’s closer to an appeals court reversing a trial courts decision: pretty hard to miss and very clearly marked every time.

Edit: first redditor to tell Zotero gets the big bucks.

This would be a comparatively easier task too.

Difficult to imagine an actual, real life, flesh-and-bones human being saying this out loud.

Welcome home! Same sort of thing happened to me, it’s nice to finally be voting.

So nat sec.