[HN Gopher] The vital art of talking to strangers
___________________________________________________________________
The vital art of talking to strangers
Author : abhiminator
Score : 155 points
Date : 2021-07-12 10:54 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.economist.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.economist.com)
| renewiltord wrote:
| Perhaps the problem with social media is that it's not social.
| It's actually oratorical media. In a physically social setting,
| people do the thing the article quotes: they recognize that
| interaction with diametrically opposing viewpoints is possible if
| they exercise tact to eschew controversy until having built
| common ground.
|
| That isn't possible at scale because there is no common ground at
| scale. And online, everything is at scale. You are definitely
| talking to everyone.
| jcims wrote:
| Totally agree.
|
| Even without the opposition, there's a similar issue about
| having vulnerable conversations. I had a buddy over last night
| and he relayed an experience he had in NYC a few weeks ago. He
| was at a bar and saw this guy that just looked like he was in a
| bad place. He debated for a while whether or not to say
| anything but ultimately decided to break the ice and offer him
| a drink. The guy said he had to pace himself b/c he was going
| to be there a while. My buddy's intuition was that this guy was
| close to walking in front of a subway train, so he said
| something along the lines of 'hey I'm happy to give you your
| privacy but I guarantee I'm a great listener'. The guy then
| proceeds to say that he and his oldest son were what he called
| 'vocal twins'. They sounded identical to each other in timbre
| and phrasing and mannerisms and everything. Well, six weeks
| prior, his son committed suicide while away at school.
| Obviously devastating to him and his wife, but eventually life
| has to start to resume. The guy was just getting started back
| at work and was on a call. Meanwhile his wife had just arrived
| home from grocery shopping, and upon hearing him on the phone
| immediately starting screaming and running into the room
| thinking her boy was back.
|
| Talking it through, this guy and his wife decided that he would
| leave for a bit...but he wasn't sure how to know when it was ok
| to go back if his voice was going to trigger her that much.
| After that, my buddy and this guy proceeded to talk for another
| two hours about kids and life and work and I can't imagine the
| guy felt worse after.
|
| My buddy is a natural extrovert and 20 years of being a lawyer
| in NYC has tuned his social instrument to a level that's rather
| magnificent to behold. If you tried to repeat this scenario on
| Twitter or in a subreddit or here on HN, all of the non-verbal
| cues that started and sustained the (IMHO very intimate and
| vulnerable) conversation would be completely absent.
| abhiminator wrote:
| Beautiful story. Please pass on my gratitude to your lawyer
| buddy for making that stranger's life better. Gosh, HN can be
| wonderfully soothing sometimes! :)
| dQw4w9WgXcQ wrote:
| From my experience these sorts of conversations come much
| more easily in rural diners and country grocery stores than
| NYC bars (or at least places where people aren't generally
| trying to "be" someone). And it really doesn't take much
| tuning of any personal social instrument, just a willingness
| to lay one's own instrument down and enjoy the unique sound
| of another's.
| downWidOutaFite wrote:
| I'm trying and failing to imagine how one would strike up a
| deep conversation with a stranger at a grocery store or at
| a diner, except maybe one of those diners that has counter
| seating which resembles a bar. As for the rural part, I
| have no idea why it would matter.
| renewiltord wrote:
| A fascinating story. Thank you for sharing. I love these
| tales of human interaction. The thing I find surprising is
| that if you stop and interact with random people, you'll have
| a plethora of these kinds of stories.
|
| That is, they sound rare, but in reality they are super
| common. And the only thing stopping you experiencing them is
| playing the odds.
| holdenc wrote:
| Brilliant story. This is the NYC that I remember.
| taeric wrote:
| I would love to read more in this vein. I've complained that so
| much of Twitter is talking to the crowd by nature of yelling at
| people. I did not know the term oratorical.
| throwkeep wrote:
| Yes, it's a public performance more than a conversation.
| the_snooze wrote:
| It's also a smaller distance to close to find common ground in
| meatspace than online. In physical spaces, you gain a ton of
| information about social connections and interests just by
| who's where. If I'm at an academic conference (the regular in-
| person kind), odds are very high that the other attendees have
| similar esoteric research interests to mine. And if I see a
| friend talking to someone who's a stranger to me, it's likely
| that "stranger" is only two degrees of separation from me.
|
| >That isn't possible at scale because there is no common ground
| at scale. And online, everything is at scale. You are
| definitely talking to everyone.
|
| The term for this is context collapse:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Context_collapse
| renewiltord wrote:
| Cool! Thank you for the terminology info.
| munificent wrote:
| I have a hypothesis that almost all of the US's current cultural
| problems would be solved if once a month we all cooked and shared
| a meal with another randomly chosen family.
| iammisc wrote:
| We used to call this going to church. When literally everyone
| of all political stripes attended the same churches, going to a
| church potluck was basically being paired randomly.
|
| However large political factions have made church membership
| out to be undesirable.
|
| We are reaping the rewards.
|
| I realized yesterday reading about cornel west, that even
| though I disagree with his politics, I see from his
| Christianity we have the same concerns, and values. I can't
| honestly say that about other people
| nicoburns wrote:
| It's religion not politics that makes church-attendance
| undesirable for most non-church-goers. Having said that, I
| agree that we are missing something that modern secular
| society is missing something that used to take place in
| churches.
|
| I'm not so convinced as you that the religious aspect is
| required to make it work. Shared purpose maybe, but there are
| lots of ways of creating that. In another comment you
| mentioned "might as well be a community centre", which I
| think is interesting because community centres are one of the
| other places I've this sense of well... community.
|
| One thing that churches have other than religion which I
| think often gets overlooked is money (in particular they
| generally own the building they use). I've seen more than one
| excellent community centre closed down because they ran out
| of funding and couldn't afford to keep paying the rent. I
| would love to see a concerted effort at government funded
| secular churches designed to serve a parish-sized community.
| iammisc wrote:
| I doubt I'd participate in a secular community center, so
| I'd be interested in seeing this as an outside observer.
| But honestly, I doubt it'd work. Without any common values,
| it'll be hard to get a diverse set of people.
|
| In my experience, when secular people start this, it ends
| up being a club for other secular people 'like them'. In
| America the starkest examples of this are when these
| community clubs founded by whites end up being essentially
| white only, or black-only if founded by a black. Not due to
| any racism on part of the founder but simply that, without
| an explicit shared value system, no one quite knows what to
| believe except those 'already in the know'.
|
| I notice this with my own in-laws, who are white WASPy
| types. I am a Catholic obviously, and not white. Sometimes,
| they'll talk in ways that make me feel out of place and
| that I can't relate to. On the other hand, when white
| Catholics talk about Catholicism, I feel we're on the same
| wave length.
|
| > I would love to see a concerted effort at government
| funded secular churches designed to serve a parish-sized
| community.
|
| I think it's sad we have to replace grassroots
| decentralized community efforts with centralized government
| funded ones in this day and age. It's like we've regressed.
|
| That's my observation. I'd be interested in seeing this
| thing come around, and i'll continue to watch from the
| sidelines with interest. Maybe I'll even show up after
| church.
| munificent wrote:
| _> Without any common values, it 'll be hard to get a
| diverse set of people._
|
| The fundamental premise of the United States is that a
| body of people can have shared values without shared
| religion.
|
| A supernatural deity is not required to believe that all
| people are created equal and deserve the right to life,
| liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
| iammisc wrote:
| There's a big difference between living in the same
| country as people I don't share deep values with and
| actively seeking out their company.
|
| I sincerely doubt most hn readers are seeking active
| companionship with someone from rural Alabama.
|
| Of course I have shared values with almost every
| american. That small set of values is just not enough for
| deep friendship even if it's enough for civic patriotism.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| The fundamental premise was not an absence of religion.
| Most of the founders and certainly all of the original
| colonists were religious. The premise was no state-
| endorsed or mandated religion.
| majormajor wrote:
| You have gone to very different churches than I grew up
| in. The secular groups I was in at public school,
| college, and then as an adult were all MUCH more
| accepting and diverse than the churches I was in as a
| kid, and the private school I went to for the first 9
| years of my education.
|
| "If you stay Catholic you're going to hell" was a
| memorable thing one of my teachers told one of my
| classmates...
|
| They really didn't like me much when I started asking
| questions they didn't have answers for other than "you
| just have to have faith," either.
| amelius wrote:
| > We used to call this going to church.
|
| Elementary school was the same.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| > When literally everyone of all political stripes attended
| the same churches
|
| The mere act of belonging to any given religion pre-selected
| certain ideas about how the world works and should work.
| Hardly "all political stripes".
| iammisc wrote:
| Okay but if everyone attended church, as it used to be in
| this country, then by definition, essentially all political
| stripes of any import would be represented in them, and
| people would have to confront people who disagree with them
| physically.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| It sounds a lot like what you're saying is "only
| christians matter", or worse "everyone should either be
| christian or pretend to be", because I can't see that
| working any other way. If jews go to temple and
| christians go to church, and muslims go to mosques, then
| they don't have to be exposed to each other's opinions.
| If jews and muslims pretend to be christian and go to
| church then they can't expose any opinions that go
| against christian worldview.
| iammisc wrote:
| I think this is a valid criticism, but seeing as that
| we've replaced church with ... nothing, I still find it
| difficult to imagine that my vision of society would be
| worse than the one we're living in.
|
| The truth is that despite decades of trying, the secular
| regular get-together groups for people without any
| unifying interests or socioeconomic status have utterly
| failed.
|
| For most people, church is the only place they're going
| to be exposed to others that may share absolutely no
| interests with them and be of widely different
| socioeconomic status and yet still be acquaintances.
|
| Our neighborhoods are segregated by socioeconomic class
| and increasingly, by profession. Our 'clubs' are non-
| existent, and where they do exist, cater to special
| interests and hobbies.
|
| We need something that works, not something that is
| perfect. I still maintain that church, temple, mosque,
| etc is the best thing.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| Church attendance isn't about "unifying interest" or
| socioeconomic status? The unified interest is obvious:
| salvation through christ, and churches tend to serve a
| relatively small community which is likely to be of very
| similar socioeconomic status. That's not even to mention
| the abject racism that led to black christians having to
| set up their own churches (which white people often
| subsequently burnt down).
|
| The olden days where "everybody" went to church every
| week still had tons of social problems.
| iammisc wrote:
| Salvation through christ is -- from a secular perspective
| -- such a nebulous interest, it might as well be a
| community club.
| mcavoybn wrote:
| >the secular regular get-together groups for people
| without any unifying interests or socioeconomic status
|
| Unfortunately, I don't think what you are describing ever
| existed. Every "get-together-group" I can think of has
| some kind of common interest, even if its something as
| simple as drinking coffee or reading books. I think your
| attachment to the church has a lot more to do with your
| emotions than thinking rationally. The way I see it, the
| cat is out of the bag with regards to organized religion.
| It is well known that there have been many corrupt
| religious organizations and heinous acts committed in the
| name of religion. To make the argument "The economy was
| shut down last year and there is a massive issue in our
| society with depression and loneliness as a result, but
| it's what those liberals deserve for leaving the church!"
| is asinine.
|
| >Church is the only place they're going to be exposed to
| others that may share absolutely no interests with them
|
| Are the bible, history of the church, the nature of
| reality, and developing a community not shared interests?
| Also, was the point of the article to only talk to people
| without shared interests? Isn't one of the first things
| you do when you get to know someone is try to find a
| common interest?
| iammisc wrote:
| > Io make the argument "The economy was shut down last
| year and there is a massive issue in our society with
| depression and loneliness as a result, but it's what
| those liberals deserve for leaving the church!" is
| asinine.
|
| What? I never made that argument. You're putting words in
| my mouth and calling me asinine. Please actually respond
| to what I wrote.
|
| > Are the bible, history of the church, the nature of
| reality, and developing a community not shared interests?
|
| Nature of reality is more than an interest in my view. If
| you can't agree on reality, then no amount of shared
| interests can cover that gap.
|
| As for the bible, history of the church, and community
| development... I guess those could be shared interests.
| But if you've ever met many Catholics, few are interested
| in the bible, even fewer in church history. We do like
| drinking and eating together though, so we got that! But
| other than super uppity social clubs, I've never really
| seen a dinner group achieve the success of the church, so
| i'm forced to conclude the religious aspect has something
| to do with it.
| shkkmo wrote:
| You realize that political battles between catholics,
| protestants, puritans, etc have historically been far
| more partisan and violent than what we see happening
| today. Church attendance is absolutely not a panacea for
| social cohesion with a country.
| evilduck wrote:
| The United States was basically created because of
| religious splits in Europe and an unwillingness to agree.
| Constitutional freedom of religion, something baked into
| the founding tenants of the country, exists solely
| because religious people clearly can't get along.
|
| To see a Catholic espouse church and faith as a social
| solution in the US is some next level irony.
| bsanr2 wrote:
| "At 11:00 on Sunday morning when we stand and sing and Christ
| has no east or west, we stand at the most segregated hour in
| this nation." It's difficult for me to justify buying into
| the idea of Christian social life as the source of American
| unity when 10 years ago participating would have seen me
| bombarded with the reasons why my homosexuality would see me
| burn in hell for all eternity, or when 200 years ago it would
| have seen me bombarded with all the point of scripture that
| justified my being treated as property. This is as someone
| whose grandfather was a deacon; I can't imagine what people
| whose families don't have a church tradition at all must
| think of this suggestion.
|
| I do think that the segregation of social life is at the
| heart of much of this country's ills. However, perhaps that
| has more to do with things like, say, Bill and Sally's
| frankly hysterical fear of sharing a street with the
| Freemans. How to reduce social division in America in the
| long-term: ban private schools, fund public schools at the
| national level, and do it quickly, utterly, and irrevocably.
| I don't know if you would end up with a single, continental
| American nation, but the part left still known as "The United
| States of America" would be profoundly united.
|
| Even if you disagree, you must understand that the notion
| that everyone must attend church for America to achieve some
| measure of unity is about as radical. The focus must be on
| the bringing together of disparate communities, secularly.
| war1025 wrote:
| > How to reduce social division in America in the long-
| term: ban private schools, fund public schools at the
| national level, and do it quickly, utterly, and
| irrevocably.
|
| We tried this to tame the savages [1], and I don't think
| people really look back kindly or positively on that
| choice.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_American_India
| n_sch...
| iammisc wrote:
| > The focus must be on the bringing together of disparate
| communities, secularly.
|
| Except the 'United' states of America has never been about
| that kind of community. That's more of the fraternite of
| the French revolution than the spirit of America.
|
| American unity has been due to the result of multiple
| different organizations and factions all participating in a
| common undertaking, rather than one centralized
| organization doing the planning and execution (as would be
| the case if we 'nationalized' education and did away with
| private schooling).
|
| My view of America as one in which everyone can belong to
| different organizations, but still work together is the
| historical norm.
|
| In de Tocqueville's 'Democracy in America', written at the
| founding of the USA, de Tocqueville (an outside french
| observer) writes:
|
| > Americans of all ages, all stations in life, and all
| types of dispositions are forever forming associations.
| There are not only commercial and industrial associations
| in which all take part, but others of a thousand different
| types--religious, moral, serious, futile, very general and
| very limited, immensely large and very minute. > >
| Americans combine to give fetes, found seminaries, build
| churches, distribute books, and send missionaries to the
| antipodes. Hospitals, prisons, and schools take shape in
| that way... In every case, at the head of any new
| undertaking, where in France you would find the government
| or in England some territorial magnate, in the United
| States you are sure to find an association.
|
| By asking the government to 'fund public schools at the
| national level' you are making America like France or
| England rather than what it historically has been, which is
| highly decentralized and disjointed, but still unified.
|
| This in my opinion is the great disconnect between
| 'progressives' and 'conservatives' (for lack of better
| terms). There's a certain type of person that, when they
| see a problem, immediately asks how government can be
| leveraged to solve it. Whereas, for me, personally, and
| others I know, my response would be ... how could I get my
| local church men's club to help out. Because I can't
| control the government, and by the time I lobby and
| campaign, the problem will still have affected a bunch of
| other people. Whereas it's pretty easy to gather a group of
| guys to fix it.
|
| One obvious example of this is -- as you mentioned --
| schools. Before public schools were a thing, catholic
| communities all across the country pooled together parish
| money to start affordable schools, with great academic
| results. In response, the government started the public
| school system so people wouldn't have to deal with the
| church. That's fine and dandy, but we need to accept the
| fact that private organizations worked better than the
| government to immediately provide the service of education.
|
| The same is true of hospitals. Go to any US city of any
| import, and you'll be sure to find a Catholic hospital.
| Where is the government if it's so useful. Even in Europe,
| where the healthcare systems are nationalized, half the
| hospitals used to be ones run by the Church. It remains to
| be seen how these nationalized healthcare systems will play
| out over the long-term (thousands of years), but we know
| how it works when the Church runs them... they stay around
| for a long time.
| gilbetron wrote:
| > That's fine and dandy, but we need to accept the fact
| that private organizations worked better than the
| government to immediately provide the service of
| education.
|
| There's much wrong with what you have posted here and
| elsewhere, but I'll just focus on this one. There are
| numerous studies looking at private vs public schools,
| and public schools are just as good as private if you get
| rid of confounding factors (private school students tend
| to come from wealthier families, for instance).
|
| There are many, many sources for this, here's a good
| start:
|
| https://www.upworthy.com/public-versus-private-school-a-
| stud...
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherrim/2019/07/03/wh
| y-w...
|
| https://www.hepg.org/hel-
| home/issues/31_1/helarticle/turning...
| iammisc wrote:
| You are arguing something completely different. I pointed
| out that before public schools, there were large networks
| of private schools. Public schooling started as a
| response to the success of catholic schools.
|
| I am not arguing for superiority of one over the other.
|
| I'm just pointing out that decentralized, distributed
| decision making led to people's educational needs being
| met before government got with the program.
|
| Also, your articles are on public v generic private.
| Catholic schools are outliers in the private school
| space. They tend to be significantly cheaper, have a
| different set of outcomes, and tend to be more
| socioeconomically representative of society at large.
| edmundsauto wrote:
| This is a rosy view of religion, although I accept that is
| your experience and perspective, and thank you for sharing
| it.
|
| To me, church attendance is about making the in/out group
| very clear. You may feel close to different political views
| based on your single church or flavor of Christianity, but
| that's still a pretty limited group.
|
| I think church membership has become undesirable because 1)
| fewer people believe in the supernatural and 2) the stated
| positions of many major religions on issues of abortion and
| inclusion.
| iammisc wrote:
| > To me, church attendance is about making the in/out group
| very clear. You may feel close to different political views
| based on your single church or flavor of Christianity, but
| that's still a pretty limited group.
|
| It's not really though. I mean, being Catholic (and
| honestly, I know so little about Protestantism that I don't
| really feel qualified to speak to it), there are a lot of
| politics in the church.
|
| In 'the Big Sort', the author Bill Bishop talks about how
| Americans are dividing themselves up by geography, religion
| (or lack thereof), jobs, education, etc. It's like we're
| splitting in to two different worlds.
|
| I've noticed it at church too. Frankly, the left-leaning
| Catholics have all left. We chock it up to things like
| abortion and sexual ethics but I don't buy it. Many right-
| leaning Catholics have severe disagreements with church
| preaching, especially on the topics of aid to foreigners,
| the responsibility of society with regards to health care,
| views on death penalty's usefulness, etc. The only
| difference to me, is that conservatives tend to value
| authority and order more, and thus remain catholic even
| when the church preaches things they don't like.
|
| > 2) the stated positions of many major religions on issues
| of abortion and inclusion.
|
| I guess, but man you should see my conservative friends
| after the priest gives a homily on immigration. If they
| left the church because of this, I'd accuse them of
| idolatry -- placing their views on immigration as more
| important than God. I accuse my leftist friends who leave
| because of abortion of the same. Independent of the
| religious and spiritual aspects, it seems to me to be
| abandoning your community, that has supported you for many
| years, simply because of one issue we disagree on. That's
| like leaving your wife because you can't agree on which
| style of house to buy -- at some point you need to
| compromise.
|
| It's weird because my left-leaning friend's parents are
| often still Catholic and have the same view as my family
| does on remaining part of the church even if what they
| preach is hard. Whereas my younger friends all left.
|
| The sad thing though is that I feel there is a lot of
| missed out opportunities for shared understanding. Despite
| classifying these parents as 'left-leaning' and myself
| being more 'right-leaning', I'd consider these people to be
| intelligent, thoughtful, and friends. Whereas with my own
| generation, if you label yourself a leftist, all of a
| sudden right-wingers are supposed to hate you, and vice
| versa. It just seems dehumanizing.
|
| I'd rather chat about politics in a friendly manner with a
| shared set of concerns over a doughnut on Sunday morning,
| than in an angry social media screed. But it seems like my
| generation prefers the latter. And frankly, from my
| perspective, it feels like my left-leaning friends simply
| left while we stayed behind to talk.
| bittercynic wrote:
| For the people who left the church because they found
| some of the teachings abhorrent, I would assume they were
| rejecting the church's authority, not rejecting God. From
| their perspective it may be the church who split with
| God, and they are trying to stay on the path by getting
| away from the church.
|
| This is coming from an areligious atheist, so I must
| acknowledge my lack of experience with this even though
| I've read about it and given it some thought.
| iammisc wrote:
| > For the people who left the church because they found
| some of the teachings abhorrent, I would assume they were
| rejecting the church's authority, not rejecting God.
|
| If every conservative that rejected the church's
| authority decided to stay at home from church, the church
| would be empty.
|
| I get you don't like the church... like I really
| understand this viewpoint. But why reject the church
| goers? The pope, the bishops, the priests, sure I can see
| not liking them. But if you show up and talk to the
| church members, the ones who you grew up with, etc, what
| exactly is wrong with that?
|
| Man I can't tell you how annoyed we've been with our
| priest, our bishops, and yes the pope. I've gone through
| periods of extreme doubt. I still show up for the
| community. Always have, and likely always will. Just
| stick around.
| abeyer wrote:
| > I still show up for the community. Always have, and
| likely always will. Just stick around.
|
| Why would I choose to do this somewhere that the
| leadership rejects me and tells me I will burn in hell? I
| know that many individuals within the church may not
| agree, but plenty will, and culture is set from the top.
| It's not like there aren't more social/community options
| than I could possibly find the time to participate in
| that _don't_ have religious ties.
| iammisc wrote:
| > Why would I choose to do this somewhere that the
| leadership rejects me and tells me I will burn in hell?
|
| Because of the people in the church? Because of the fact
| that 'the leadership' is just the guy preaching, whereas
| the actual community is run by everyday people (well in
| my experience it is).
|
| > It's not like there aren't more social/community
| options than I could possibly find the time to
| participate in that _don't_ have religious ties.
|
| Well that's exactly it. People say there are myriad
| options and then don't participate, because they don't
| have time. Whereas in a church, you have to go. It's an
| obligation. Which makes it easier for people of all
| backgrounds to show up.
| abeyer wrote:
| You seem to be simultaneously arguing that it's ok to
| ignore the religious trappings and just treat the church
| as a social club, but also that the church is better than
| just any social club because of the religious trappings.
| iammisc wrote:
| You've summed up my position pretty well.
|
| If you're not religiously inclined, then you can treat
| the church as a social club and ignore the religious
| trappings. It would behoove you to keep your atheism to
| yourself though, because the church is better than just
| any social club because of the religious nature. While
| some number of public doubters can be tolerated without
| negatively impacting the group, if it gets to be too
| large a number then the main benefit of community and
| fellowship would go away.
|
| I am making a position without reference to the truth
| value of the religious claims because I'm not going to
| get into a debate on HN over whether Christanity / theism
| is right or wrong. I personally think that even if you
| are a committed atheist, church probably is a good idea
| anyway. If you're a western committed atheist, some
| denomination of Christianity is probably best
| hluska wrote:
| Sorry to have to say this but anyone who tells you you're
| going to hell isn't a Christian. I left the church over
| similar feelings so I identify. But for the record and
| the benefit of anyone else who might need to hear this,
| you're not going to hell.
|
| The biblical Jesus (he's the Christ in Christian) hung
| out with sailors, prostitutes and a tax collector. The
| fact that xtians tell people they're going to hell in
| that person's name is a disgrace. It's not the biblical
| antichrist but it's sure anti everything Jesus said and
| did.
|
| If anyone reads these words and feels pain, feel free to
| reach out. You're incredibly loved, at least by me and
| I'll have your back no matter what.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| No man can tell anyone how God will judge him. You seek
| forgiveness of sin through Christ and try to live
| accordingly. If your church is telling you you will go to
| hell (or guaranteeing you will not) you should find
| another church. That's not the same as condemning sin and
| trying to guide people away from it though.
| bittercynic wrote:
| I don't think you have to reject the churchgoers to
| reject the church. Some of the people I feel closest to
| are devoutly religious. When we eat together I pray with
| them as a matter of respecting their tradition and
| participating in the culture, and it is an enjoyable
| thing to do.
|
| The church has gone out of its way to be unwelcoming to
| many people, and I just don't want to be part of it. I've
| been to one church service where the preacher spent a
| large fraction of the sermon vitriolically condemning
| atheists. I'm not going to argue with him, but I'm also
| not going back for more.
|
| I'm not trying to mess up anyone else's tradition, but if
| churches are shrinking and losing power I don't think
| that is necessarily a bad thing.
| hluska wrote:
| I'm an ex-Catholic and am likely one of the left leaning
| people you're talking about. I left the church because
| frankly, the actions of the church and its policies are
| so far from Jesus' teachings that I could no longer
| reconcile a belief in Christ with mother church.
|
| > We chock it up to things like abortion and sexual
| ethics but I don't buy it.
|
| Homophobia != sexual ethics.
|
| After my goodbye confession with a good priest I'm still
| friends with, I never thought I'd have to say these words
| again. But here we go. Outright homophobia is not about
| sexual ethics, it's about hatred and closed mindedness.
| Can you point out a section a single section in the
| gospels that indicates that this is okay? Can you point
| out a single statement that Jesus made that implies there
| is anything wrong with being gay?? I can't, yet mother
| church won't cut the homophobia.
|
| Or take the church's silly little pro life movement. Do
| you notice that it's directed against women? Pro lifers
| never take out billboards that say 'Men, don't have sex
| with women when they're drunk. That is called rape.' But
| they sure like to harass scared, pregnant women and/or
| people who have had abortions with their shitty
| propaganda. Can you show me one thing in the gospels that
| suggest that is okay??
|
| You can't because it's not. None of this is okay. Jesus
| would not have approved of much of anything. Crap, you
| don't even have to read too far into Matthew to realize
| that Jesus would not have been accepting of any of this.
|
| Catholics are supposed to worship a dude who stopped a
| woman from being stoned with the words 'let he without
| sin cast the first stone.' And here we are, stoning the
| gay, stoning the activists and stoning reproductive
| rights without so much as a thought about it. Has the
| church sinned?? Hundreds of thousands of abused children
| point to the fact that yeah, the church has sinned.
|
| Who is the Catholic church to cast stones, particularly
| when the dude we're supposed to follow was really against
| casting stones? And why should I stick around something
| so actively disrespectful? Frankly, I'd rather find a
| community of people who think love is the solution rather
| than find a community who preaches love unless you fall
| into one of about 15,000 boxes.....
|
| Edit - Here's another example that really gets my goat.
| My own archdiocese excommunicated a woman who was
| ordained as a priest. I know her, in fact, my Mom used to
| work with her. I even went out on a couple of dates with
| one of her daughters and she is an absolutely wonderful
| person. But mother church excommunicated her because she
| was ordained as a priest? Why can't she be part of the
| community that she helped build? She worked within
| Catholic churches for decades, hence her work with my
| Mom. She was removed from the community and the priest in
| her own parish read the most disgusting letter about her.
| Do you know why???
|
| Her calling is not legitimate. Only a man's calling can
| be legitimate.
|
| Let's assume that God in God's wisdom subscribes to the
| Harvard Business Review. If God had an organization with
| a really serious sexual abuse crisis and if God read the
| HBR, God might decide it makes sense to bring some women
| into leadership positions. But oh no, the Catholics know
| God. They had a direct line to God when they were abusing
| all those kids or ethnically cleansing Canada of its
| indigenous population.
|
| I'm sorry but I can't even write this shit with a
| straight face. How is a woman's calling totally
| irrelevant to a point of excommunication when men can
| fuck children and just get moved to a new parish (for the
| 17th time)?
|
| Serious question.
| iammisc wrote:
| I appreciate your candor. You seem to have pretty set
| views, but I think they're caricatures. In particular,
| while pro-life work that is most visible is someone
| praying at a planned parenthood (and of course, the ones
| that harass are typically not even Catholic, since it's
| not just catholics in this 'movement'), the bulk of pro-
| life work is exceptionally boring things like collecting
| bottles, diapers, baby clothes, putting together mum and
| baby classes, etc. No one talks about this because it's
| not polarizing. Or take the issue of 'homophobia'. No
| doubt many Catholics will say insensitive things, but
| almost anything about the potential of homosexual acts
| being wrong is today conflated with homophobia. And you
| ask for Christ's statement on sexual orientation, but
| they are abundant in the gospels. You seem familiar with
| them, so let's start:
|
| Matthew 19:5: "For this reason a man will leave his
| father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two
| will become one flesh?".
|
| As you yourself said, Christ was certainly not afraid of
| breaking social norms of his day. Heterosexuality was a
| major norm at the time. Don't you think Christ would have
| said 'For this reason a man will leave his father and
| mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become
| one flesh? Oh yeah, and sometimes a man will leave his
| father and dad and be united to his husband, because
| that's the same thing'. The lack of teaching on that
| speaks volumes, as does Christ's strictifying of existing
| Jewish sexual ethics, rather than loosening (in his ban
| on divorce).
|
| The second thing that I see is a lack of understanding of
| repentance. Christ preventing the prostitute's punishment
| was because she had repented of her sin, not because sin
| is irrelevant. The same is true of the female priest.
| Should she repent, I'm sure she'd be welcomed back
| (otherwise your Gospel passage would be quite relevant).
| The priests who corrupted children... well this is a very
| long story and I know of no lay Catholics who really
| support the church's handling on this. But the existence
| of sinners doesn't take away from the utility of church.
| However I'll point out that the reason that happened was
| that the church bought too much into the mercy rhetoric
| that you seem to want it to buy into further. A lot of
| justification for moving priests was based on the
| assumption that (1) they had repented, (2) the church
| should be merciful, and (3) based on psychological
| understandings of sex in the 60s and 70s which were more
| radical than today, pedophilia was a condition that could
| be cured.
|
| Anyway, I'm guessing this will fall on deaf ears and that
| there is an impenetrable barrier that will keep either of
| us from convincing the other. So to end, I'll just wish
| you the best. I mean that. Thanks for the response.
| nine_k wrote:
| It's not about religion per se, but about a common religion
| which has rituals that make people meet each other more,
| piercing their bubble of like-mindedness (smaller than the
| religion).
|
| It's like going to a supermarket makes you see people more
| varied than your family circle and your chosen TV show
| characters. (It does not nudge you to talk to these people,
| though.)
| watwut wrote:
| The church I went in as kid was pretty tight socially and
| people in it were wery like minded. And by all I heard or
| read about, it is pretty much standard.
| edmundsauto wrote:
| I am not a religious person or church goer, but are the
| perspectives really that different? To me, it looks like
| a church is a self selected group of geographically
| proximate people who tend to look alike and dress alike.
| You don't usually see much ethnic diversity in a church
| photo.
|
| It's more diverse than sitting at home, but I think
| exposure to a few TV shows has more diversity of thought,
| ethnicity, sexuality, etc., compared to going to church.
|
| I'm not saying its bad for people to get together and
| talk. I see that church was an important mechanism for
| this in the past. However, I can't get past the negatives
| (supernatural belief, child abuse, kowtowing to
| authority, shame, ostracism) to believe it will continue
| to be a net positive.
|
| What we need is more of what I think the Unitarians are
| after - non denominational community.
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| The Catholic Church is probably the single most
| ethnically diverse organization on the face of the earth.
|
| https://www.pewforum.org/2013/02/13/the-global-catholic-
| popu...
| edmundsauto wrote:
| Right, but the context here is in people attending their
| local church. Your point is like saying that America is
| so diverse - it is, but how much do the different
| ethnicities actually interact?
| iammisc wrote:
| Catholic churches are the most integrated denomination.
| And Catholics are the group most likely to intermarry
| between ethnicities. Speaking of my own family, my
| brother and I are both married to women of different
| ethnicities (and differing ethnicities at that).
|
| Sources:
|
| [1] https://www.jbhe.com/2018/07/americas-churches-are-
| becoming-...
|
| [2] http://blogs.thearda.com/trend/featured/the-ties-
| that-may-no...
|
| > The only exceptions were Catholics. Catholics were
| almost twice as likely to be in an intermarriage and
| Catholics who attended services more frequently were
| slightly more likely to be in an intermarriage, the
| researchers found.
|
| It's more than just your local parish though. When I
| visited Hungary, it was amazing to go to a church where I
| didn't speak the language, but still be able to feel
| totally 'at home', because it was a church, and they were
| saying mass. Even though it was in Hungarian, I
| understood exactly what was going on. Then when I visited
| India, which couldn't be further from Hungary, I had the
| same experience.
| edmundsauto wrote:
| The takeaway from those articles seems to be that even
| the most integrated churches are still trailing average
| neighborhood integration numbers (which are broadly
| considered problematic). There has been progress, but
| there is still a ways to go:
|
| > Despite progress in church integration, congregations
| remain far more segregated than the society in general.
| Dr. Dougherty, an associate professor of sociology at
| Baylor University, states that "congregations are looking
| more like their neighborhoods racially and ethnically,
| but they still lag behind. The average congregation was
| eight times less diverse racially than its neighborhood
| in 1998 and four times less diverse in 2012."
|
| The context here is whether churches are a good way for
| people of diverse backgrounds to engage and interact. I
| contend that they have unnecessary elements that make
| them worse than a non-religious community event
| (supernatural beliefs, explicit conformity of dress and
| thought, protecting predators, etc.)
| sunshineforever wrote:
| I am completely behind this as a person who technically
| might seem like a stereotypical radical to "one side".
|
| Empathy, the "Message of Christ", the Buddhist quest to
| end suffering, this is the fundamental goal and idea that
| drives my beliefs. The true revolution is to care for
| others with love.
|
| IMO the crisis of the USA is that there is so much
| selfish lack of awareness or empathy everywhere.
|
| Yes, Republicans are more famous for being psychopathic
| and heartless but if you think for a second that manyyy
| of the woke are not needlessly creul to others and uaware
| of certain aspects of reality than you're not seeing the
| full picture.
|
| I also think we need to abandon most all labels in favor
| of descriptive beliefs. The label is only 50 percent
| effective unless it comes with 100 other labels. We are
| truly never even one of them in our individuality.
| iammisc wrote:
| > Yes, Republicans are more famous for being psychopathic
| and heartless but if you think for a second that manyyy
| of the woke are not needlessly creul to others and uaware
| of certain aspects of reality than you're not seeing the
| full picture.
|
| It's funny because to most republicans, the democrats and
| the woke are the ones who are psycopathically cruel.
|
| This is why I can't help but feel there is an
| unbridgeable gap in our society.
|
| Each party not only thinks the others are misguided, but
| actually cartoonishly psycopathic villains. It's no
| wonder everyone's so mad all the time.
|
| > I also think we need to abandon most all labels in
| favor of descriptive beliefs. The label is only 50
| percent effective unless it comes with 100 other labels.
| We are truly never even one of them in our individuality.
|
| Except if you tell Republicans about democratic beliefs,
| they'll still think they're cruel (same is true vice
| versa I imagine). People actually believe in the things
| the parties stand for, even if it's not popular to
| mention that now.
|
| I don't understand the feel good centrism. People have
| real differences in opinion that are not due to what they
| listened to on Fox or read in Mother Jones. The trick is
| to both disagree and be decent. I personally believe
| we've lost that.
| airstrike wrote:
| I keep mentioning this video because it's just so good,
| but Roger Scruton argued that the world has turned
| selfish and with it we've lost _beauty_ , which in turns
| means life has lost its meaning. It's a powerful,
| profound view and one that I can't shake off my head ever
| since watching it.
|
| > Our language, our music and our manners are
| increasingly raucous, self-centered, and offensive, as
| though beauty and good taste have no real place in our
| lives. > One word is written large on all these ugly
| things, and that word is "me." > My profits, my desires,
| my pleasures. > And art has nothing to say in response to
| this except, "Yeah, go for it!" > I think we are losing
| beauty and with it there is the danger that we will lose
| the meaning of life.
|
| https://vimeo.com/128428182
|
| https://orthosphere.wordpress.com/2017/09/16/roger-
| scruton-w...
| munificent wrote:
| _> To me, it looks like a church is a self selected group
| of geographically proximate people who tend to look alike
| and dress alike. You don 't usually see much ethnic
| diversity in a church photo._
|
| I agree any given local church in the US is unlikely to
| have a ton of ethnic diversity. And, for obvious reasons,
| it will have almost no religious diversity.
|
| They _do_ tend to have a decent amount of professional
| and socioeconomic diversity, though, which is also
| valuable.
| socialist_coder wrote:
| Totally. As a devout Anti-theist I really wish I could join
| some kind of secular group that was identical to a church but
| without the religion. Go every Sunday with my family,
| socialize with the folks, have potlucks and events, help
| people out when they need it, etc. We need to bring back this
| sense of community.
| munificent wrote:
| You could take a look at Unitarian Universalism or
| fraternal organizations.
| teachrdan wrote:
| > However large political factions have made church
| membership out to be undesirable.
|
| This comment appears to be a dog whistle, so please do
| correct me if I'm totally wrong here. But this reads like
| "Democrats / the left have demonized belonging to a church /
| Christianity," which is a common right wing talking point. Is
| that what you're saying here?
| kian wrote:
| There is no need to violate the principle of charity or HN
| norms. Whether or not the gp meant Democrats, do you really
| think that atheists, agnosts, members of all other
| religions, scientists, artists, spiritualists, conspiracy
| theorists, and rationalists of all stripes form a
| monolithic political faction?
| iammisc wrote:
| I don't mean just the democrats no. It seems to me to be a
| large faction of people, including certain elements of the
| 'alt-right'.
|
| But yes, you're right in that I perceive the left as having
| demonized belonging to a church. This explains the growing
| disconnect between the democratic party and minorities, and
| why the GOP has started to make gains with them. The
| democratic party ignores religion at its own peril.
|
| It's especially weird since the democratic party used to be
| really into religion.
|
| This is hardly a 'right wing talking point'. My own parents
| left the democratic party because of this, well before they
| had ever tuned in to Fox, Limbaugh, or whatever. Labeling
| something as a 'right wing talking point' is just a
| democratic dog whistle to ignore real phenomena.
| ssully wrote:
| Yeah, I too long for the days past when the US had less
| cultural problems/conflicts due to high church attendance
| numbers.
| wavefunction wrote:
| There was a time in the US when good god fearin' church
| folk could gather together for traditional cultural
| expressions like extra-judicial lynchings of wrongly
| accused black men. You have to think America's lost
| something over the years. Thankfully.
| iammisc wrote:
| Oh please. It's not like only whites were part of
| churches. Blacks are more likely to be part of a church
| anyway. As usual, this is white people's faults.
| nate_meurer wrote:
| I know right? What happened to the good old days when the
| big mainstream church organizations like the SBC were
| fighting the good fight against evils such as interracial
| marriage and civil rights?
| iammisc wrote:
| > I know right? What happened to the good old days when
| the big mainstream church organizations like the SBC were
| fighting the good fight against evils such as interracial
| marriage and civil rights?
|
| You're just picking and choosing. In reality, religious
| organizations, like the Catholic church for example, were
| fighting the opposite fight. Perez v Sharp in California
| was orchestrated by the church:
| http://ccgaction.org/node/1011
|
| Of course, if we encourage community involvement, there
| will be good organizations and bad ones. For example, we
| provide 501(c)3 status to both Planned Parenthood as well
| as a pro-life organization.
| nate_meurer wrote:
| Good for them, seriously, but I don't think it takes a
| lot of "picking and choosing" to point out how
| influential "christian" churches were in the fight to
| preserve America's white supremist hierarchy.
|
| The SBC was and remains the largest christian
| organization in the US, and it was founded for the
| express purpose of defending slavery.
| iammisc wrote:
| > The SBC was and remains the largest christian
| organization in the US, and it was founded for the
| express purpose of defending slavery.
|
| The Catholic church is by far the largest christian
| organization in the united states.
|
| SBC is a distant second:
|
| https://theosophical.wordpress.com/2011/02/16/top-10-larg
| est...
| nate_meurer wrote:
| Ok, allow me to amend my statement:
|
| The SBC was and remains the largest _protestant_
| organization in the US, and it was founded for the
| express purpose of defending slavery.
|
| If you dismiss such things as mere "picking and
| choosing", you're unlikely to to be able to understand
| viewpoints to which you're inclined to disagree.
| iammisc wrote:
| > If you dismiss such things as mere "picking and
| choosing", you're unlikely to to be able to understand
| viewpoints to which you're inclined to disagree.
|
| You said the SBC was the largest Christian denomination.
| Then, when that was false, you changed it to 'largest
| Protestant organization'.
|
| I mean, you can restrict things down to anything to prove
| a point. Did you know my McDonalds down the block has the
| highest sales revenue of any McDonalds in inner NE
| portland between the hours of 5 and 7PM? It's just crazy
| that we're blessed with such a prestigious example of
| fine business in my area.
| nate_meurer wrote:
| Right, I acknowledge your correction, so I responded with
| an amended statement, with emphasis on the part that I'd
| gotten wrong. Let me know if you'd like something more,
| like a written apology or something.
|
| If your argument mainly focuses on whether the SBC is the
| _first_ or _second_ largest American religious
| organization, then I guess you win. Congratulations!
|
| It pains me to point out something so obvious, but the
| SBC was only one of the large mainstream Christian
| denominations to actively support slavery, and to later
| actively oppose civil rights for non-whites. But if
| you're able to dismiss the entire tortured and
| complicated historical relationship between American
| Christianity and racial oppression with a handy
| comparison to a neighborhood restaurant, then I guess you
| win again.
| iammisc wrote:
| SBC is not only not the first largest, it's a different
| order of magnitude.
|
| And my point was that it's a mixed bag. While a lot of
| support for slavery was nominally Christian, so was a lot
| of opposition.
|
| For example, the Battle Hymn of the Republic is just that
| -- a hymn -- and its words on slavery are absolutely
| brutal. You can say 'christianity was a force for
| slavery' but you can't say that while not also
| acknowledging christianity was behind abolition as well.
| watwut wrote:
| And these two sets of people killed each other in the
| process of settling their diffences. It not unity by any
| meaningful sense.
|
| And I mean, this even comletely ignores blacks who form
| their own groups definitely not united all that much with
| above.
| nate_meurer wrote:
| "Yeah but you weren't just wrong. You were wrong by a
| lot!"
|
| :)
|
| > _my point was that it 's a mixed bag. While a lot of
| support for slavery was nominally Christian, so was a lot
| of opposition._
|
| Ok, but that's not what you said. You objected, without
| qualification, to the notion that large mainstream
| christian denominations supported white supremacy. IIRC,
| you said such talk was "picking and choosing".
|
| Now, if the new location of your goalposts is their true
| permanent home, I'm happy to report that we agree with
| each other!
| iammisc wrote:
| I think we were objecting to different things. I broadly
| agree that large mainstream denominations supported
| slavery. I just pointed out that many equally large
| denominations did not. If we're talking about
| Christianity as a whole, it's a mixed bag. There's no
| reason the SBC should be singled out.
| [deleted]
| munificent wrote:
| Don't forget delightful religious advocacy fraternal
| organizations like the KKK.
| munificent wrote:
| I think church is great for mixing up people who differ
| professionally and socioeconomically. But at least in the US
| it has also very much deepened the racial and (obviously)
| religious lines between people.
| iammisc wrote:
| > But at least in the US it has also very much deepened the
| racial and (obviously) religious lines between people.
|
| Not clear at all. Catholics for example are the most likely
| group to marry interracially.
|
| Religiously, I don't see the christian sects as very
| divided, despite their many differences. There seems to be
| a large set of common ground.
|
| Even amongst religions, there is a lot of good will. I
| can't think of any widespread religious riot in the US (I
| could totally be wrong though).
| munificent wrote:
| _> Not clear at all. Catholics for example are the most
| likely group to marry interracially._
|
| Catholicism is an outlier here:
|
| _About half of people who attend church once a year or
| never said they had dated interracially; just 27 percent
| of respondents who attend weekly or more reported dating
| a person of another race, according to a study using data
| from the 2007 Baylor Religion Survey._
|
| http://blogs.thearda.com/trend/featured/the-ties-that-
| may-no...
|
| _> Religiously, I don 't see the christian sects as very
| divided, despite their many differences. _
|
| It matters less how you personally see this than it does
| how church-goers in aggregate feel and behave. Certainly,
| growing up in the South, it was abundantly clear that
| there were black churches and white churches and that the
| two very rarely mixed.
|
| The KKK is an explicitly anti-Black, anti-Catholic, anti-
| Jew, pro-Protestant Christianity organization. Its self-
| stated reason for existence is to push down members of
| other religions and races. You can argue that these
| members aren't "real Christians", but they are sure as
| hell going to church and their fellow church-goers think
| they are.
|
| *> I can't think of any widespread religious riot in the
| US (I could totally be wrong though).
|
| It has a Wikipedia category:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Religiously_motiva
| ted...
| iammisc wrote:
| Honestly thanks for the info on the riots. The KKK is so
| obvious that I'm embarrassed it didn't cross my mind.
|
| I will be the first to admit I have zero understanding of
| protestantism other than that most seem nice. They're
| like Muslims to me except they believe in Jesus which
| seems nice.
| scotu wrote:
| yeah, and please talk about social issues and that you have a
| partner of the same sex! just like in family meals that's going
| to go down super well! /s
| trompetenaccoun wrote:
| Food for thought: Maybe there's something wrong with your
| family if you can't share a meal together in peace.
|
| Like families, societies need shared values. If a third of
| the population is religious extremist, another third believes
| in freedom and liberalism and the rest in Communism, fascism,
| or something even different, there is no common ground. I'm a
| tolerant person but I can't sit with people who preach that
| we should be treated differently depending on what race or
| gender we are. Or that gays shouldn't be able to get married.
| Diversity is good, but under a common denominator. Unchecked
| multiculturalism breaks nations apart. Smart people get
| divorces when they realize their partner is a disgusting
| swine who abuses them. Free societies need to do the same
| with groups promoting ideologies incompatible to their core
| values.
| munificent wrote:
| A big part of why I think my hypothesis would work is that
| I believe we _have_ these shared values in the US.
|
| The problem is that these shared values have been obscured
| by disagreement on _how_ to attain them, and by focusing on
| group identities that mark us all as "Other" to someone
| else.
| trompetenaccoun wrote:
| I like your idea. At worst, you'd find out sooner or
| later if these shared values are a myth. Getting to know
| others is never a mistake.
|
| I met plenty of different strangers from around the world
| through Hospitality Club (the concept later copied by
| CouchSurfing) and never had a bad experience. Many of my
| friends and family thought it was dangerous inviting
| strangers into your home. And maybe today it is, I'm not
| sure. But back then practically everyone signed up there
| had the same open-minded spirit, they wanted to learn
| about people in other countries and further intercultural
| understanding and friendship. I've met lots of people
| from very different walks of life, people I might have
| never otherwise talked to. This is positive diversity,
| when there's a shared value and people can unite around
| it and trust each other.
|
| To give a negative example many people in Western
| societies, in their strive to not be racist, have bought
| into the false belief that all cultures are equal, that
| you're assigned one by birth and that you're not allowed
| to criticize the culture of "other" people. Which
| ironically in itself is a racist idea. This in turn has
| lead to political movements that consider it taboo
| discussing certain problems connected with topics like
| religion, culture and ethnicity. And it's given birth to
| the kind of laissez-faire multiculturalism where problems
| never get addressed and crime, mistrust and conflict are
| rampant. Because people either get divided among identity
| lines like you mention, or unchecked immigration gives
| these societies the death blow (the Western European
| model).
| atweiden wrote:
| In the early 20th century, "multiculturalism" meant
| northern, southern and eastern white Europeans living
| together. In the documentary Australia in Colour, vintage
| TV advertisements portray immigrant ships containing
| northern and eastern white europeans as being "good for
| Australia" -- a point of controversy at the time.
| Tellingly, what modern Australians would consider
| _actually_ multicultural, e.g. integrating with E.Asians
| or Australian Aboriginals, was utterly unthinkable.
|
| Yet in Australia and the United States today, the
| zeitgeist is that we've "always been multicultural". This
| is clearly only superficially true: multiculturalism was
| only recently redefined to mean the integration of non-
| white europeans into predominantly white european
| societies. In the documentary, they explain following
| World War II, it was feared that Australia would grow
| weaker than its Asian competitors oweing to Australia's
| low population, which many in government thought made
| them susceptible to capture by aggressor nations. This,
| AFAICT, was the real impetus for the Australian
| government becoming increasingly accepting of Asian
| immigrants.
|
| And more recently, during the pandemic, the Australian
| housing sector has been calling for more immigration.
| Apparently, immigration powers much of the Australian
| housing sector [1]:
|
| > A fall in migrants during the pandemic is causing a
| sharp drop in housing demand, with the sector urging the
| government to create a migration plan and extend
| HomeBuilder incentives.
|
| Modern multiculturalism seems to be primarily based on
| economic and militaristic concerns, and is in no way
| based on a desire for social cohesion. See also: One
| Billion Americans [2]. Some say the US should strive to
| increase its population size to one billion for more or
| less the exact same reasons modern day multiculturalism
| came about. These people were never concerned with social
| cohesion: they're entirely concerned with militaristic
| and economic might.
|
| [1]: https://www.sbs.com.au/news/lack-of-incoming-
| migrants-during...
|
| [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Billion_Americans
| scotu wrote:
| just clarifying I wasn't talking about my family, but yeah,
| I do think that some families have something wrong:
| bigot/religious extremist members is one of those problems.
| yaitsyaboi wrote:
| I think you're overstating this based on the internet. Sure,
| there are aggressively intolerant folks and maybe too many
| for this to work.
|
| But the vast majority of folks aren't going to get into a
| flame war over diner while staring into someone's face. They
| might say crude things but they'll probably also learn
| something.
|
| I think the only thing that makes this idea really
| questionable is the proliferation of firearms in American
| culture
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| I have at least 3 friends who were kicked out of their
| homes as teenagers for coming out to their parents. It's
| far more common than you'd think.
| alisonatwork wrote:
| It's a little bit different when it's outside the family,
| though. Inside the family, a homophobic parent might feel
| emasculated, or like a failure, if their kid turns out to
| be gay. But when meeting an adult gay couple at a social
| function, or working with a gay colleague, the same
| person will probably at least remain cordial, if not
| explicitly supportive.
| coding123 wrote:
| don't search for "angry public" on youtube, it may change
| your perception of the world.
|
| 99% of my problems in the world are related to the random
| public, not my family.
| munificent wrote:
| I mean, you're basically self-manufacturing bias and then
| claiming the bias reflects reality.
|
| If you search for "red heads" on YouTube you'll end up
| thinking everyone is a ginger.
| babblingdweeb wrote:
| This is wonderful. I have been studying communities and food as
| a way to rebuild trust...this sums it all up nicely. I have
| been looking to start up a local "potluck" type idea --note:
| not _my_ idea, many people do this already.
|
| I just thought a little rough organizing might be nice.
| foobarian wrote:
| Earlier on I had hopes that Facebook would implement "random
| friends" or "guest friends" in order to make the social graph
| denser and more diverse, thus making the world a better place.
| Not the direction things went I guess...
| war1025 wrote:
| You can gain the acquaintance of quite a few strangers by
| joining groups.
|
| My town has a general discussion Facebook page. I don't know
| that any of the people would recognize me on the street, but
| there are quite a few names I recognize now. This has been
| really handy since I didn't grow up here, and in small town
| America that often means people just won't get to know you
| because you "don't belong".
|
| Also my wife is involved in several interest based groups.
| Mainly related to sewing and thrifting and such.
|
| I don't know that it makes the world a better place, but it
| certainly can expose you to people you wouldn't otherwise
| ever have interacted with.
| socialist_coder wrote:
| You're spot on. Anything that increases your exposure to
| strangers and builds trust will be a boon to society.
|
| This is also the case with social clubs and sports leagues.
| Membership of these things has been in decline for decades and
| is now at an all-time low. Being in a bowling league or the
| rotary club with random members of your community did a ton to
| increase basic trust in society. Which in turn, makes
| everything else work better.
|
| Source: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/trust-me/
|
| This is why consuming video content, specifically streaming
| services with all-you-can-stream crap is so damaging. People no
| longer have time for shared dinners, clubs, or adult sports
| leagues because they'd rather binge watch a new series every
| week.
| siquick wrote:
| > This is why consuming video content, specifically streaming
| services with all-you-can-stream crap is so damaging. People
| no longer have time for shared dinners, clubs, or adult
| sports leagues because they'd rather binge watch a new series
| every week.
|
| In my experience it's not that people would rather watch
| videos than see their friends or do their hobbies, it's that
| they're working jobs which consume their lives to the point
| that watching Netflix is pretty much all they have the energy
| for. And before you know if you don't have any hobbies
| anymore so you watch more Netflix and the circle continues.
| munificent wrote:
| ...and it gets increasingly hard to coordinate with your
| friends because they're also all watching Netflix and can't
| be bothered to make time.
| mc32 wrote:
| This already assumes people are good and get along and are high
| trust.
|
| What if I'm in a crew am a nice talker and get to scope things
| out for my crew as we chit chat?
|
| It's the same thing that did in the lonely hearts clubs.
| Swindlers came in to the rescue and take advantage of a lonely
| set of people. In this case people who are open and inviting
| and trusting of random strangers.
| munificent wrote:
| _> This already assumes people are good and get along and are
| high trust._
|
| It does assume most people are good, but that is something I
| believe deeply in my bones. (A simple logical argument is
| this: if people were on average harmful, we would all choose
| to be hermits. Since we don't, it implies that in aggregate
| our human interactions are a net benefit to us personally.)
|
| It does assumes that people can _choose_ whether or not to
| get along and that most people will choose to do that when
| placed in an interaction with strangers. I think that 's a
| safe assumption for probably like 90% of groups of people.
|
| It does not assume high trust. You only need to trust your
| dinner companions enough to not poison you or attack you,
| which is not a very high bar.
|
| _> It's the same thing that did in the lonely hearts clubs.
| Swindlers came in to the rescue and take advantage of a
| lonely set of people._
|
| I think the stakes a low enough to not make the situation
| much of a honeypot for bad actors. There's little to gain
| beyond a meal and my hypothetical "game" would require all
| participants to sometimes be the cooks.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > It does assume most people are good, but that is
| something I believe deeply in my bones.
|
| I do too (although I'd say "fundamentally decent" rather
| than "good", because "good" is a spectrum. Nobody is 100%
| bad or 100% good.)
|
| I'm reminded of something I taught my children: most people
| are good, only a small percentage aren't. The trouble is
| that you can't tell which is which by looking -- so be both
| cautious and open with people.
| jvalencia wrote:
| The problem is that it only takes a small percent to ruin
| it for all. If one in 10 people is awful, and you have 10
| meetings with an even random distribution, then everyone
| will have a story about how they got swindled.
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| But the other 9 uniting against the 1's craziness might
| actually be more effective than having 10/10 good people.
|
| "We just need an alien invasion to unite humanity."
| munificent wrote:
| Only if you let that one person define your entire
| experience as "ruined".
| Invictus0 wrote:
| Sad to see so many cynical replies. When I was at RPI, we had a
| club that organized dinner parties much like you describe. You
| can check it out here:
| https://thedinnerpartycollective.com/about
| tclancy wrote:
| Ha, I thought of trying to build an app for this, even if just
| to get neighbors to share a meal. No one feels like cooking
| every day but if we could share the burden thusly it might help
| foster a sense of community.
| deregulateMed wrote:
| That sounds like fun.
|
| Although I hope you are ready to meet lots of Christians and a
| few alcoholics every year. Just remember that the 90% doesn't
| like talking about their jobs. Hope you know the latest
| sportsball news...
|
| That being said, there's usually other commonalities to
| discuss.
| munificent wrote:
| I've met lots and lots of Christians and a decent number of
| alcoholics. Most are very nice folks, just like all the non-
| Christians and non-alcoholics.
| deregulateMed wrote:
| I think the alcoholics depend on what time of the night you
| catch them.
| Kye wrote:
| People can be very nice and polite while saying horrible
| things. I've heard plenty along the lines of "I'll be your
| friend, but I'm going to miss you after we die since you're
| going to burn in hell." Said with the kindest, gentlest
| tone you've ever heard.
| munificent wrote:
| I don't think most things are intrinsically objectively
| horrible or not. The speaker's context and intentions and
| the framework you use to interpret end up saying much
| more than the words themselves.
| fidesomnes wrote:
| Even as a non christian I find your lack of tact pretty
| uninteresting.
| stolenmerch wrote:
| Depends on if this proposed program is voluntary or
| involuntary. I suspect the folks to self-select to sit down
| with a random family to cook and share a meal may not
| identify with the demographics you point out.
| iNane9000 wrote:
| Certainly the Mormons won't show up, nor JWs with their
| watchtower pamphlets./s If there's one thing Christians
| love, it's inviting strangers to dinner. It's biblical.
| They will also pray for you and thank God for the good food
| and company. Some find this "do good always" attitude
| horrifying, but probably because they've never been exposed
| to good Christians. Remember, most humans are good, even
| the Christians!
| war1025 wrote:
| > Although I hope you are ready to meet lots of Christians
| and a few alcoholics every year.
|
| Always good to lump the Christians in with the alcoholics.
| deregulateMed wrote:
| No offense to the christians. I was just trying to think of
| groups that compose more than 10% of the population.
| war1025 wrote:
| Fair enough.
| tclancy wrote:
| Oh, I thought they meant it the other way around. At
| least when one of us gets too into wine we don't start a
| crusade.
| iammisc wrote:
| They're just jealous that christians have more fun.
| Notanothertoo wrote:
| I do believe the modern (us) conservative evangelical "back
| to basics" movement started in the 30s/40s as a response to
| rampant alcoholism from the great depression. Church of
| christ and similar denominations. They take a (claimed)
| "hyper" literal approach over a few key issues, like
| alcohol, sex, drugs, taxes, tithing, homosexuality.. Recent
| history was the 90s abstinence movement.. And in the last 7
| or so years these have been the churches taking the brunt
| of the exodus and have been largely deflated, with churches
| across the nation dying due to lack of new young people.
|
| I would wager good money that most modern conservative US
| Christian families have a male alcoholic relative not too
| far removed.
|
| The alcoholics and Christians go together.
| war1025 wrote:
| > I would wager good money that most modern conservative
| US Christian families have a male alcoholic relative not
| too far removed.
|
| I think that has more to do with the pervasiveness of
| Christianity and alcoholism independent of each other.
| abeyer wrote:
| Or reverse causation, even... I've known more people
| turned alcoholic to cope with their christian family than
| people turned christian to cope with their alcoholic
| family.
| ww520 wrote:
| There should be an app like table-for-six to let strangers come
| together to have lunch, not for dating but just having a meal
| together.
| amoorthy wrote:
| There's a startup doing this :-)
| http://www.makeamericadinneragain.com/.
|
| They were profiled on NPR a while ago I recall.
| coding123 wrote:
| if forced, be prepared for a lot of murders on those nights.
| munificent wrote:
| We will sort out our differences one way or another!
| galfarragem wrote:
| You may like: https://nautil.us/issue/62/systems/eating-for-
| peace
| silicon2401 wrote:
| Your hypothesis is based on some utopian assumptions. I can't
| tell you how many people whose views or mannerisms I hate, and
| who I can't stand being around. Forcing me to eat with anyone,
| let alone strangers, would only make me dislike them more and
| cause tension. My utopian solution is for people to have more
| space and be farther apart, rather than everybody crammed up in
| cities.
| hluska wrote:
| We're all different and if this is who you are/how you're
| most comfortable, congratulations on figuring yourself out.
| My experience is different than yours - people are
| tremendously interesting, especially over a meal.
|
| I'm not sure that anyone involved in this is making utopian
| assumptions. Rather, we're all different and just know
| ourselves. I'm likely as 'correct' as you are - we've both
| figured out how we're happiest around others! That's a net
| win for us.
| munificent wrote:
| _> I can 't tell you how many people whose views or
| mannerisms I hate, and who I can't stand being around.
| Forcing me to eat with anyone, let alone strangers, would
| only make me dislike them more and cause tension._
|
| I think you are either an unusual outlier or are very much
| underestimating how well you can get along with people
| different from you when sharing a meal with them _in person_.
|
| People are not who they appear to be online.
| watwut wrote:
| You never spend dinner with people who spent that time
| being condescending or insulting something close to you?
|
| You can get along with them easily. But then it ends and
| you are happy it ended and never want to be there again.
|
| Because getting along with them requires you swallowing all
| above, pretending it is ok. Acvepting situation in which
| they talk and you are silent or submissive.
| munificent wrote:
| _> You never spend dinner with people who spent that time
| being condescending or insulting something close to you?_
|
| Oh, sure.
|
| I've probably also inadvertently been the one who was
| condescending or insulting before too. People are
| fallible and some fraction of them are pretty shitty.
|
| But my experience is that the fraction is low enough that
| it's worth rolling the dice to find new connections with
| the larger fraction of people that are generally pretty
| good.
|
| _> Acvepting situation in which they talk and you are
| silent or submissive._
|
| I think human interaction is a lot more varied than a
| binary choice between arguing or rolling over.
| [deleted]
| maverick-iceman wrote:
| I struggle with this a lot.
|
| I keep thinking: "Those who are really great and relevant, they
| don't need to go talk to strangers, it is strangers who go and
| approach them"
|
| This fuels negative thoughts about not being relevant enough so
| it's better to postpone any active social approach towards
| strangers up until I'll be relevant enough that they'd be
| approaching me instead.
|
| I somehow feel that this is a consequence of teenager me being in
| awe of Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Metallica, Guns n Roses and
| Aerosmith. Getting the aforementioned attitude: "If you are good
| enough they'll come to you and you'd not have to do anything"
| Noos wrote:
| I dislike these kind of books, since they are designed to
| overcomplicate things by appealing to the mids and upper-mids
| needs to follow authority, defer to expertise, and use checklists
| and systems to try and remove any unpleasantness from
| interactions. "This common thing is really important! Because of
| science! Here is a study! Here are the health benefits! Let's
| also tie this into reducing climate change! I have used my big
| brain to give you a blueprint of how things should go! It's all
| good, because someone on the book jacket is wearing a lab coat!"
|
| I honestly await titles like "The Lost Art of Petting a Kitten,"
| and "Outdoors; the Secret Benefits of Putting Your Laundry
| Outside to Dry."
|
| I'd also suggest the authors to follow the nifty trend of
| profanity in the titles of these self-help books. "I Don't Give a
| Fuck: The Vital Art of Talking to Strangers" and "Badass: The
| Power of Strangers" might help sales among certain demographics.
| holycrapguys wrote:
| This is so true it hurts. I've wasted so much time on shitty
| books like this.
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| I'm thinking about the Tube right now...
| andreyk wrote:
| Has literally anyone on this thread read the actual article?
| Seems pay walled to me...
|
| I don't view it as an issue, but maybe HN should start allowing
| "Let's Discuss" type submissions without a link to an article?
| That seems like what happens in many cases anyway.
|
| Anyways, on the topic of this article, yep it's important!
| OJFord wrote:
| It's not disallowed, you can post a text submission. 'Ask HN:
| Ever had an interesting conversation with a stranger? Recommend
| it?' or something.
|
| (The body can contain URLs, so you could still link 'this made
| me think about it, but for x reason didn't think it was a food
| submission itself'. I think the reason it doesn't really happen
| is probably that the only value for x that really makes sense
| is 'the article is broader than that and I want to discuss a
| more focussed point within it'?)
| renewiltord wrote:
| Mate, we have subscriptions to The Economist but the comment
| pinned at the top is a paywall bypass. Of course we read it.
| Moodles wrote:
| For awhile Sweden had Call a Random Swede
| https://www.theswedishnumber.com/ where if you called the number,
| you would literally be paired with a random Swede to talk about
| whatever you want.
| culopatin wrote:
| In the US that would end up in a lot of unwanted phone sex
| mudita wrote:
| Here they call the number in the British television show QI:
| https://youtu.be/zUrYRdIxYp8
| webo wrote:
| Is that much different than chat rooms or Omegle?
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| That. Is awesome. Sorry I missed it!
| chenster wrote:
| Isn't it an app for that??
| taxicabjesus wrote:
| The most important thing about learning to talk to strangers is
| practice. Taxi driving gave me lots of new people to talk to
| every day. Sometimes they weren't new. I didn't remember them,
| but they remembered me on account of my previous efforts to get
| information out of them.
|
| [edit: if I was starting this today I'd be a ride share driver.
| But I've learned enough, and don't feel the need to drive people
| around again.]
|
| > Here are other ways Nightingall suggests breaking a script.
|
| I figured out where my passengers were going, "Are you going
| anywhere in particular, or do I get to choose?" No one hires a
| taxi to take them to a random location.
|
| One lady, who was with her family, said "we can go anywhere you
| want." Two seconds later she said, "too late, we're going to the
| movies." 'DRATS! That was my chance!' Thenceforth I resolved to
| be prepared for when people took me up on my proposal of picking
| their destination.
|
| One woman said we could go anywhere I wanted, as long as she got
| to the bus station by 10pm. We had plenty of time, so we went to
| the 5 & Diner for dessert. When I dropped her off at the station,
| my passenger said it was the best birthday she'd had in quite
| some time. (I never heard from her again.)
|
| > If you say something generic, they will say something generic.
| If you say something specific, they are likely to as well.
|
| I assumed everyone was a native Arizonan. If someone was a
| transplant I'd ask "Oh, did you move here from [specific city in
| the upper Midwest]?"
|
| Strictly speaking, there are more people in Arizona from
| California than [specific city]. But California is 800 miles from
| Mexico to Oregon, and if they were from California they'd say,
| "Duh", whereas if they're from [specific city], they're usually
| either impressed, or they wonder how I knew.
|
| One fellow did not have that upper-midwest vibe, but I'd had
| experiences where I switched it up but would've been right. He
| said "no, bunch of damn communists from [upper midwest city], I'm
| from Oklahoma."
|
| "How'd you find your way to the desert?" IIRC that passenger was
| in the Army (Green Berets), and they needed an airport with a
| thick enough runway to support their operation (he didn't say 'in
| Central America', but I realized he was talking about the
| Iran/Contra operation). Scottsdale was their airport. He said
| something about Lt. Col. North getting crucified by Congress,
| iirc. [0]
|
| "Do you have any food in your apartment, to go with your vodka?"
| She did not, I stopped the meter and took a detour to McDonald's.
| That passenger is doing quite well now, and no longer suffers
| from prison-induced PTSD.
|
| Not all passengers got my usual script. I just got a call from a
| woman who I first picked up at her parents' house. The Phoenix
| Police officer said, "have fun with this one." She was in fight-
| or-flight mode, getting kicked out by her parents (who had
| custody of her daughter). As soon as we pulled away she broke
| down. She was a very expensive passenger. I hadn't heard from her
| for maybe 5 years (when she'd just been approved for SS
| disability). She found my number last week, it was nice to hear
| from her.
|
| [0] "North formulated the second part of the plan, which was to
| divert proceeds from the arms sales to support the Contra rebel
| groups in Nicaragua, sales which had been specifically prohibited
| under the Boland Amendment." -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_North
| haecceity wrote:
| You should be a writer or something
| taxicabjesus wrote:
| Thanks for your comment, it's appreciated. These anecdotes
| are what came to mind as I read the fine link.
|
| I originally posted diary entries to kuro5hin.org (RIP). They
| started out as 'these were my passengers today'. Later I
| picked themes to write about... I re-posted the diaries to my
| own domain, https://www.TaxiWars.org/ (Show HN:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12193273 ). My comments
| on the _Show HN_ picked out some of the more important
| pieces.
|
| There are some other stories in my HN posts. Maybe I'll mine
| those for a memoir. That reminds me: Michael Crawford (not a
| passenger) greatly appreciated my efforts on his behalf:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19489570 . Michael was a
| member here, but couldn't abide by the HN rules...
| haspoken wrote:
| https://archive.is/DFIdE
| emptyfile wrote:
| Yeah, talking to strangers is not a thing in my country.
|
| Can't say I care for it.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| _" talking to strangers is not a thing in my country. Can't say
| I care for it."_
|
| What country is this and how do you ever meet new people?
|
| Are you saying people in your country don't meet strangers at
| bars, parties, through participation in sports, at dance clubs,
| or special interest clubs?
|
| Also, while you say you don't care for it, you do realize that
| you're talking to strangers right now, don't you?
| upgrejd wrote:
| Judging by his comment history it seems that he's from
| Croatia but Croatia doesn't fit his description so I don't
| know...
| graeme wrote:
| I highly doubt this is true of any country. All countries are
| full of humans.
|
| Anyone making this claim has a severe sampling problem. If you
| personally don't talk to people, you can be under the
| impression that nobody talks to people. The people that do talk
| to people can read signs for who wants to talk and they talk to
| each other.
|
| The false impression is further reinforced if you go outside
| the country because as a foreigner people are more likely to
| talk to you, offer help, etc.
|
| Your evidence would be stronger if you were a person who did
| care to talk to people but found that in a certain country
| nobody replied.
| trompetenaccoun wrote:
| Agreed, but to be fair people rarely mean it literally when
| saying something doesn't exist in their country - it was
| probably more in the vein of that 'it's uncommon'. There
| certainly are differences and in some cultures it's a lot
| more common that people talk to random strangers as compared
| to others.
| Zababa wrote:
| People are people, but people interact differently depending
| on the country. Here in France, what we often hear about the
| USA is that they have very different social norm. The usual
| story is: someone goes to the USA, they are successful,
| everyone is nice with them, they have tons of friends, then
| suddenly something bad happens to the person, and all of
| their friends disappear/refuse to help. So from that I deduce
| that people in France in general (at least in my sphere) have
| less but deeper friendships. That's not a judgment of value
| of course, but that's one way countries can differ.
| popctrl wrote:
| I grew up outside of Detroit, MI. Talking to strangers does not
| seem like much of a thing there. The first time I spent more
| than a week outside of Michigan was in Oklahoma. I would be
| walking down the street and people would not just say hello but
| ask me how I was doing and then actually listen and make
| conversation. At first I thought they were trying to scam me or
| something. When they'd approach, I would step back, take a
| mental inventory of my pockets, and evaluate my surroundings.
| Eventually I realized they were just being friendly!
|
| People may have a different experience if they are more
| extroverted, but some places really are friendlier than others.
| beezischillin wrote:
| I grew up as a very lonely child so I struggle a lot with talking
| to strangers, usually the idea way more than the practice.
| Knowing that I'll have to call a stranger on the phone or go to a
| social event full of unknown people stresses me out to the point
| of often thinking of many ways of how I'd like to get out of
| them. In social situations I struggle to let go and have to put
| enormous amounts of energy to act 'normal', yet most people don't
| even pick up on it. I guess I'm good at pretending. Despite that
| I don't hate people and I quite enjoy listening to them when a
| topic that even mildly interests me comes up, I've done a lot of
| work to broaden my horizons so thankfully that list of topics is
| quite long. I often wonder if other people are even remotely like
| me or if all this comes easily and naturally to them at all
| times.
|
| It does have the advantage that there's no real difficulty
| increase between a very difficult social event or conversation or
| just am average one. Or I can drink quite a lot and still seem
| normal. I grew up thinking that I'm defective and need to keep to
| myself and I had to self reflect a lot to overcome that.
|
| Despite this, I quite understand and appreciate the need for
| socializing, crazy amounts more than I did as a child. I wish I
| could teach young me that because social situations resolve
| conflict and create opportunities and those create a healthier
| all around environment and often a better future for all those
| involved.
| JohnFen wrote:
| I'm fundamentally introverted, but one day I realized something
| that made it much easier to talk with strangers: they're
| strangers! So what they think about me is (usually) of no
| actual importance. If I make a fool of myself, no harm done!
| r6203 wrote:
| This sounds like the ,,textbook definition" of social anxiety
| which is understandable growing up lonely--and not learning
| social skills which many people take for granted later in life.
|
| Maybe you want to take a look at improving this aspect of your
| life so everyday tasks like calling a stranger etc. doesn't
| cost you that much energy.
|
| For me classic exposure therapy helped in that regard and
| reflecting on the specific situations that I was thrown into
| afterwards (calling someone, asking for something in the store
| etc.)
| dd444fgdfg wrote:
| you sounds like me. I think you're very normal if that helps.
| MarcScott wrote:
| I can talk to strangers for hours with confidence and honest
| interest in what they have to say, but only as long as the
| stranger and I have a pretext to be talking.
|
| Sit me and a stranger down in a room and tell us we have to talk
| about our opinions on package management, the best BBQ recepies
| or the latest Marvel film and I'm happy.
|
| It's the small talk crap that I can't deal with. When I'm in a
| line at a supermarket, I neither want to talk to my fellow
| shoppers or the checkout person. I don't want friendly banter
| from the person selling me beer at the pub. I can't be bothered
| with trying to turn a pleasantry, exchanged while holding a lift
| door, into a fleeting relationship.
| Aboh33 wrote:
| As a related anecdote, I used to perform experiments by dressing
| in particular ways while going out in public. If I wore a nice
| blazer-type jacket and generally looked more preppy, I would
| definitely notice different behavior as when I might dress with
| with a t shirt and long sleeve over it with long sleeve shirt
| unbuttoned. I attribute this partly to conditioning via TV show
| characters etc.
| tgv wrote:
| Or the tv characters dressed that way because of general
| perception, of course.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| I spent a day trying to smile at strangers. The result was that
| half of them gave me a "do I know you?" look, and the other
| half looked at me like I was crazy and backed away.
|
| Not encouraging...
| bittercynic wrote:
| I think this very much depends on the circumstances. Few
| working-age men walk in my neighborhood, and some people seem
| a little uneasy seeing me walking. They don't know what to
| make of me.
|
| On the other hand, if I walk a dog it is clear what I'm
| doing, and people are quick to share a smile. It seems like
| many people are uncomfortable unless your activity fits into
| a pattern they're familiar and comfortable with.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| I think that largely depends on where you are, and what the
| cultural norms are. I go out of my way to smile at everyone I
| see, and most people smile back, even if it takes them a
| double-take before they do. I'll never not smile at someone,
| because it's a known stress reliever to do so, especially
| when my smile elicits another's smile.
| zh3 wrote:
| I remember a teacher who cycled to work every day, along a
| coastal route. Because he saw the same people so often, he
| set himself a goal to smile at all he recognised so they'd
| smile back.
|
| Last time we spoke, he was still battling one obstinate hold-
| out (while reminds me of an old joke - 'smiles' is actually
| the longest word in the english langugage because there's a
| mile between the s's).
| sophacles wrote:
| If "smiles" is the longest, how do you explain "similes"?
| Invictus0 wrote:
| They must not have heard of beleaguered either.
| harpersealtako wrote:
| "I" am inbetween the s's, so from my perspective, the
| distance is at most half a mile to an S.
| AlexanderTheGr8 wrote:
| Interesting attribution to conditioning via TV show characters.
| What was the difference in people's behaviours?
| xcambar wrote:
| For many reasons, I grew accustomed to fit into many diverse
| social groups.
|
| It's not only about the way you dress, but also which "side of
| you" you present to others. I mean, what I've learned is that
| there are many "I" available in me (and everyone, please
| generalize at will), and too many people consider wrongly that
| they're "one and only" and that it's "being true to oneself" to
| only expose one side of themself.
|
| This is wrong. I, you and everyone, we are all individually a
| multitude and using this multitude to get yourself what you
| want (friends, information, jobs, sex, you name it) is not only
| a skill, which would sound a bit too utilitarian, but also and
| most importantly, it is a way to acknowledge yourself and let
| the others know the multitude and complexity and diversity of
| you.
|
| And I think it's awesome.
| haecceity wrote:
| What were the differences???
| JSavageOne wrote:
| One's life completely opens up when one realizes that it's
| possible to talk to strangers and meet friends / romantic
| partners anywhere, anytime, in any situation. Sure most
| interactions may not amount to much other than sharing a moment,
| but every now and then you make a friend or even romantic partner
| that makes it all worth it and then some. Walking outside goes
| from being what may have been a mere mundane chore, to endless
| opportunity.
|
| I'm not a naturally social person - actually growing up I was
| extremely shy and lacking in confidence. But unlike many on here
| who seem to be content living like hermits, I was never content
| being shy and always had that curiosity and desire for human
| connection and social freedom.
|
| So even though it was terrifying at first, I forced myself to
| open up and talk to people when I felt the inner urge to. It was
| very difficult at first - my head would be racing with thoughts
| like "What if I'm bothering them? What if they don't like me?
| What will that random person who overhears the conversation
| think?" and sometimes my heart would literally be pounding. But
| on the other hand I knew that that if I didn't do it I'd regret
| it for the rest of the day, and that no matter what the outcome,
| I'd come out a stronger, more confident, less inhibited person.
| Funny enough, the last two people I ended up approaching despite
| my heart pounding, they ended up talking my ear off, to the point
| where it almost seemed they wanted to talk to me more than I'd
| wanted to talk to them! Not everyone is this open of course, but
| I'm learning it's a lot more than I used to think.
|
| I can genuinely say it's dramatically improved my quality of
| life. As a remote "digital nomad" solo traveler who's generally
| going to countries alone, it's an absolutely vital skill to have
| to meet people and live a more enriching life. Without this, your
| social circle is basically just limited to mutual friends and any
| in-person activities you participate in, which for me in any new
| city where I don't already know anyone is basically nobody.
|
| For anyone who's wanted to be more social but hesitated due to
| fear of rejection or other peoples' judgement, I highly encourage
| you to stop living in fear of others' judgement and just live
| life on your own terms and go for it. It'll make you a stronger,
| more confident, less needy person (eg. I think too many people
| cling on to bad relationships because they don't think they can
| find better, which if they have no friends, initiative, and
| social skills might be true). My only regret is not doing this
| sooner. By not taking initiative, your social life is at the whim
| of other strangers who take initiative.
| HeckFeck wrote:
| If I may share a personal anecdote, I went through a lot before
| I even had the courage to do this. Then one of those chance
| encounters with strangers led to a great friendship. So I'm
| commenting to verify your story.
|
| Though I need to do it more, it is very difficult to break this
| old habit which I believe was developed as a necessary survival
| strategy in my young days. The cynic inside me believes that I
| was broken in an effort to keep me around, from people who
| otherwise had nothing positive to offer. I sometimes wonder how
| many other people are being held at emotional gunpoint for the
| same reasons...
| JSavageOne wrote:
| I don't know the details of your experience, but one thing
| I'll say is that we tend to take less crap from other people
| when we've got alternatives. One should never tolerate
| disrespect from anyone whatsoever, but it's a hell of a lot
| easier when you've got other friends who treat you well, or
| at least you know that you can meet such people as opposed to
| having (extreme analogy here) some "forever alone" scarcity-
| like mindset.
| vuciv1 wrote:
| You can say you don't enjoy interacting with strangers, but I
| realize you should realize that you're taking the time to comment
| on an anonymous social platform.
|
| Even if you're just reading the comments, you're listening to
| what strangers have to say
| stronglikedan wrote:
| I think Mike Tyson managed to eloquently sum up the Online vs
| IRL interactions with strangers when he said, "Social media
| made you all way too comfortable with disrespecting people and
| not getting punched in the face for it."
| watwut wrote:
| Threat of violence amd violence is not actually improvement
| over people talking angrily.
| deregulateMed wrote:
| The difference is choosing to engage or closing the web page.
|
| Plus, I have no problem talking with programmers about their
| jobs and hobbies.
|
| Compare that to talking to a program manager who's hobbies are
| comic book related... I'm not sure what to talk about with
| them... Maybe virtue vs hedonist philosophy? (They do comic
| books, they are clearly hedonists)
| KittenInABox wrote:
| > They do comic books, they are clearly hedonists
|
| Are comics significantly more hedonistic than other media?
| (I'm genuinely asking; I've never been interested in comics
| but I've also never heard that they were all that different
| from other entertainment media.)
| deregulateMed wrote:
| It could be argued that HN, news, and Reddit are less
| hedonist because they provide education.
|
| Although, my long term plan is to eliminate those in favor
| of non fiction books and personal projects.
|
| The best "pro comic book" argument I've heard is that
| science fiction can help you consider potential futures of
| humanity. This can reduce being surprised by biotechnology
| and AI events. This could help humanity vote better and
| make more ethical software. (or so the argument goes)
| verall wrote:
| It could be argued, but I think its a pretty weak
| argument.
|
| HN, Reddit, news, comics, manga, TV: its all a dopamine
| drip. The specifics can be impactful: a movie that
| changes your perspective, a great article on HN that
| helps you accomplish a goal better/faster/stronger. But
| usually you are just slamming your preferred dopamine
| drip. SciFi books or comics don't "help humanity vote
| better", they are enjoyed, the same way some people enjoy
| reading Reddit and HN.
| hluska wrote:
| Are you sure you want to say that people who like comic
| books are hedonists? That's an overly cut and dried
| argument and people aren't nearly that simple. Isn't it
| more charitable and accurate to suggest that people like
| what they like? I like running obscenely long distances.
| First, what business is it of yours how others spend
| their time? Second, what possibly qualifies you to claim
| people are hedonists because they like what they like??
|
| There's nothing wrong with recreation or having fun. Life
| is very short and no matter how hard you work or how much
| you learn, you're going to die.
|
| Live your life. Don't let others call you names for being
| you. The converse is that when you don't understand how
| others live, don't call them hedonists. You just don't
| understand because you're you, not them.
| deregulateMed wrote:
| Hedonist is the proper name for the philosophy. Maybe I
| read too much philosophy because I was merely saying the
| proper term in the dichotomy between virtue ethics and
| pleasure ethics.
|
| Maybe I should stick to talking sportsball.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Your definition of hedonism leaves a lot to be desired.
| There's a decent argument that even stoics are hedonists
| using your definition since they enjoy being stoics.
| hluska wrote:
| Or maybe just read more about hedonism? By your
| definition, you're a hedonist as well because
| intellectual pleasure is still pleasure.
|
| Instead, I argue that that is a loaded term, we're all
| individuals and we like what we like. It's really
| nobody's business and certainly nobody's place to add a
| term (especially one with such negative pop connotations)
| to people who like what they like.
| underseacables wrote:
| Is there a non-paywall version? I can't read the article but my
| gut reaction is this: talking to strangers is dangerous.
|
| https://xkcd.com/642/
| renewiltord wrote:
| Haha this is totally just social anxiety. Both ends actually.
| The belief that the girl next to you on the train is thinking
| you're cute and ignoring her and the belief that she's gonna
| react like that.
|
| A real version of that comic would probably have her thought
| bubble be like "I hope the meeting at five doesn't run over.
| I've got to go pick up that camera lens from Best Buy. And
| what's traffic going to be like. Should I just get it shipped?
| Hmm, I wonder if it'll make it here before the weekend. But I
| want an excuse to get out of the meeting. Is that too much?
| Maybe." or something like that. You know, the same stuff you're
| thinking.
|
| I have stranger-interactions all the time and most people are
| actually fairly eager for them. In fact, about the most you'll
| ever see is lack of interest, which occasionally happens but
| will manifest as them being minimally civil.
|
| Most people don't want discomfort anywhere in their vicinity so
| they won't confront you. Like they will barely confront you if
| you cause them harm, they _definitely_ won't confront you if
| you're neutral.
| watwut wrote:
| I dont know why this was downvoted. It sounds to me
| completely realistic.
| bittercynic wrote:
| I've noticed the same pattern - people are usually very
| polite if you address them - and it makes me more reluctant
| to strike up a conversation with nearby strangers. If they
| really don't want to interact with me they might not give me
| a clear signal, and I might be causing extended discomfort
| for someone even though they are acting like they want to
| continue the interaction.
|
| I'm trying to get smarter about reading social signals, but
| for now I just try to make sure not to corner people. I will
| not attempt to interact with you unless I can see that you
| have an easy way to get away from the interaction.
|
| Are there classes or something available for people who know
| they're lacking in social skills and want to get better?
| 0xcde4c3db wrote:
| > Are there classes or something available for people who
| know they're lacking in social skills and want to get
| better?
|
| I've looked for something like this before, and haven't
| really found a good option. The main things people tend to
| bring up are:
|
| 1) Toastmasters. This is is adult-oriented and widely
| available, but is largely for people who want to improve at
| public speaking and "leadership".
|
| 2) Social skills training. In principle this is exactly the
| thing you're looking for, but the field is _heavily_
| focused on working with children and adolescents; genuine
| resources for adults (as opposed to self-help / content
| marketing fluff) seem scarce.
| bell-cot wrote:
| Try disabling javascript in your browser. At least in the
| U.S.A., that lets me read most paywalled articles linked from
| HN. (Yes, cool multi-media content is lost. Parent's complaint
| was "can't read the article".)
| nafix wrote:
| I'm not sure how you came to that conclusion, but that's a sad
| way to view the world.
| e40 wrote:
| That's not the message of the cartoon at all. Quite the
| opposite.
| bordercases wrote:
| Go away. Stop talking to us. We don't know you.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| "I didn't read but I will make assumptions and pass judgment"
|
| Please reconsider your behaviour on the internet; this is one
| reason why there's so much misinformation around.
| [deleted]
| underseacables wrote:
| Gosh that really made you upset didn't it.
| borski wrote:
| Yes, because it is no different from "didn't read the
| article, but I heard vaccines contain chips and so I don't
| want one."
|
| Point is: read the article. It makes an argument. Think
| about that argument, and then if you'd like, respond with
| derision or excitement or anything else, but get informed
| about the topic first. In this case, the topic is the
| contents of / arguments the article makes.
| phpnode wrote:
| I'm surprised to see this reaction from a sales person, isn't
| this a major part of your job?
| underseacables wrote:
| Actually it's not, and there's a difference between talking
| to strangers for business, and talking to strangers in social
| situations.
| borski wrote:
| On this, I'd agree. Plenty of salesfolks are quite
| introverted outside of work.
| nimih wrote:
| This is true. The average person on the subway or in a
| restaurant has no real malice or ill intent toward their
| fellow traveler/patron, whereas the average salesperson or
| business associate on the job is actively looking to
| hoodwink you.
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