[HN Gopher] Forces that fuel friendship
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Forces that fuel friendship
        
       Author : throw0101c
       Score  : 194 points
       Date   : 2022-06-12 11:31 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.theatlantic.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.theatlantic.com)
        
       | yosito wrote:
       | I clicked expecting to see some science-based research about what
       | results in good friendships. Instead I found an opinion based
       | listicle. Not necessarily a bad article for provoking thought,
       | but definitely more opinion than fact.
       | 
       | I recently went to cross cultural a meetup where friendship was
       | the topic of discussion. One thing I realized is that people
       | struggle to agree on a definition of friendship. There's an
       | especially noticeable divide between individualist and
       | collectivist cultures.
       | 
       | My own definition of a friend is "someone with whom I have
       | shared, positive experiences". But I do find that there's a
       | difference between fast-friends, and long lasting, deep
       | friendships. The six things mentioned in this article are
       | definitely good things to consider if you want to develop long
       | lasting friendships, but they're also not fixed formulas.
        
         | starkd wrote:
         | I thought kind of the point of the article is that there is no
         | hard and fast formula to it. Not something that can be
         | distilled in a series of steps. It also requires spontaneity.
        
         | multiplegeorges wrote:
         | To call this a listicle is technically accurate, but does a
         | large disservice to the experience of the author. She has
         | conducted ~1000 interviews with friends to determine the
         | content of the list.
         | 
         | While this is not a peer-reviewed work, I would bet that her
         | dataset and experience amounts to an easily publishable
         | qualitative sociology/psychology paper.
        
           | andreilys wrote:
           | If this is considered a publishable paper then the bar for
           | that publication must be quite low.
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | bradlys wrote:
           | 1000? I think it's closer to 100 - isn't it?
           | 
           | > That was more than three years ago. Since then, I have done
           | 100 interviews.
        
             | multiplegeorges wrote:
             | Ah, you are correct. It's 100, I remembered incorrectly.
             | 
             | Up to readers to decide if my point still stands. I think
             | it does.
        
         | pkdpic wrote:
         | Agreed, I was expecting more substance from this article.
         | 
         | I don't think its much of a stretch to view friendship as a
         | concrete social problem. Especially good friendships in our
         | professional spheres which are vital to career fulfillment and
         | health imo.
         | 
         | Anyway there was (sadly) nothing realistically actionable in
         | this article for anyone seeking something even vaguely science
         | or stat based.
        
           | phkahler wrote:
           | >> Anyway there was (sadly) nothing realistically actionable
           | in this article for anyone seeking something even vaguely
           | science or stat based.
           | 
           | Actionable to achieve what? It makes clear that there is no
           | fixed procedure for making friends, but there certainly are a
           | lot of suggestions.
           | 
           | I suspect the many linked stories have a wealth of
           | information and examples, but they will all be anecdotes
           | where none of them could be forced to happen if we tried.
        
             | starkd wrote:
             | Since a lot of HN followers work in tech, their work sets
             | their expectations for life in general. So, it's
             | frustrating when something in life cannot be
             | deterministically distilled into a series of steps. It's
             | probably one of the biggest blindspots we have.
        
         | throw0101a wrote:
         | > _I clicked expecting to see some science-based research about
         | what results in good friendships._
         | 
         | This article is one in a series. See perhaps "The Friendship
         | Researchers Who Are Also Friends":
         | 
         | > _This week she talks with two friends who also happen to
         | study friendship. They met at a conference back when very few
         | relationship scholars were focusing on the topic, and became
         | both friends and professional collaborators. They talk about
         | what they've learned from their research and how they've
         | applied those lessons in their own friendship._
         | 
         | * https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2022/04/how-
         | frien...
         | 
         | The series has been going on for a number of years:
         | 
         | * https://www.theatlantic.com/projects/friendship-files/
        
         | dominotw wrote:
         | > science-based research about what results in good friendships
         | 
         | Isn't research like this deemed totally bunk and unrepeatable.
         | Is it really better than a thoughtful 'listicle'.
        
       | isaacfrond wrote:
       | The friend app from the article:
       | 
       | https://bumble.com/bff
        
         | telesilla wrote:
         | I understand this is for self-identifying women. I've several
         | friends who have had success. I wonder what the conditions
         | might need to be for platonic male friendships to form, it
         | seems to be harder. Judging from my position as a woman who
         | easily makes acquaintances that occasionally become
         | friendships, and my partner who is very amicable to strangers
         | but doesn't care to make new friends.
        
           | swayvil wrote:
           | Is self-identification really a thing? Identity seems more of
           | a social artifact, emerging naturally from the collective
           | dynamic.
        
             | multiplegeorges wrote:
             | Yes, it is.
             | 
             | Someone can self-identify as a gender (among other things),
             | alter their appearance to present as such, and a kind and
             | empathetic society will (should) then regard them as such.
        
               | swayvil wrote:
               | It sounds to me like 2 different uses of "identity". One
               | for distinguishing an individual. The other for asserting
               | a narrative.
               | 
               | That's 2 quite different uses.
        
               | dmonitor wrote:
               | When you introduce yourself, you likely give a name. This
               | was probably a name given to you, but really it could be
               | anything you want. People call you that name out of
               | courtesy. You "identity" is heavily influenced by how you
               | want to be identified
               | 
               | Like your username. We call you by it because it is the
               | name you chose and present to us
        
               | swayvil wrote:
               | We use the name I specify because it's useful to do so.
               | No courtesy. Just utility.
               | 
               | And if I had a distinguishing feature, that would be used
               | to identify me too.
               | 
               | If I wear a big hat then I will be identified as a big-
               | hat-wearer. When asked to distinguish me in a crowd they
               | will say, "that guy with the big hat". Telling everybody
               | that I actually identify as a small-hat-wearer will make
               | zero functional difference.
               | 
               | That's how distinguishing features work.
        
               | ranjit_holmes wrote:
        
               | multiplegeorges wrote:
               | Interesting, I didn't think any part of what I wrote
               | would be seen as controversial.
               | 
               | > Someone can self-identify as a gender (among other
               | things),
               | 
               | I do this everyday. It happens to match my biological
               | sex, but it doesn't have to. This is probably what makes
               | some people uncomfortable, but a biologically determined
               | gender binary is hardly a universal human truth.
               | 
               | > alter their appearance to present as such,
               | 
               | We all alter our appearances to present in a way we find
               | most useful, pleasing, or comforting. This doesn't seem
               | controversial.
               | 
               | > and a kind and empathetic society will (should) then
               | regard them as such.
               | 
               | I would hope that this part isn't controversial and would
               | be something we all aspire to.
               | 
               | In contrast, I believe that the contexts you've provided
               | (prisons, sports, locker rooms) have been demonstrated to
               | be largely politically motivated controversies with very
               | little real-world evidence for the claimed harms.
               | 
               | A similar situation exists for the medical claims. I
               | believe you're alluding to medical interventions for
               | gender reassignment for young trans people. There have
               | been studies[1] showing that the interventions
               | significantly lower suicidal ideation:
               | 
               | > "Among transgender adults in the United States who have
               | wanted pubertal suppression, access to this treatment is
               | associated with lower odds of lifetime suicidal
               | ideation." [1]
               | 
               | [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7073269/
        
               | ranjit_holmes wrote:
        
               | swayvil wrote:
        
               | ranjit_holmes wrote:
               | I guess it's down to a mixture of it being a very
               | controversial issue (though I think it shouldn't be that
               | much, at least on the topics I mentioned) and one that is
               | currently being used by political operators to stoke
               | division.
               | 
               | On that note, I also find it quite interesting that both
               | the conservative right and the subset of the left that
               | are radical feminists and/or gender critical are taking a
               | similar stance on this issue. Though for fundamentally
               | different reasons of course. Some issues really are
               | bipartisan, I guess.
        
             | pizza wrote:
             | Just think of self identity as something that minimizes the
             | KL-divergence of description of one's self given the
             | outside + inner world.
        
         | zeroonetwothree wrote:
         | I tried this (as a male) and let's just say it's not exactly
         | the type of "friendship" I was hoping for...
        
       | Gustek wrote:
       | I think there are only 2 questions you need to answer to decide
       | if someone is your friend.
       | 
       | 1. Do you trust them?
       | 
       | 2. Do you care about them?
       | 
       | Ideally it should reciprocated. The hard part is getting there,
       | usually it comes naturally as you spend more time with the other
       | person out of your own volition. Just because you are meeting
       | someone everyday at work does not mean they will become your
       | friends, do you trust them? do you care about them?
       | 
       | Once you friends you don't need to meet often as long the trust
       | and care is still there. You can become friends in short time as
       | well if you decide to put the trust early into the other person
       | and they reciprocate. Point is, there is no formula or plan to
       | follow.
       | 
       | When I say friend I mean a true friend, not colleagues or
       | acquaintances. Were these meanings mixed into "friend" word
       | before Facebook as well?
        
         | alexpotato wrote:
         | Lou Holtz [0] used to use these questions and one more as the
         | three questions you ask leaders in general.
         | 
         | The other one was "Are you committed to excellence?" which he
         | sometimes described as "Do you have high standards and do you
         | strive to live up to them?"
         | 
         | I always liked his ending statement whenever he talked about
         | this:
         | 
         | "Think of someone you respect. Now think of those questions.
         | Odds are the answer to all three is 'yes'. Now think of someone
         | you are having problems with and, again, think of the three
         | questions. I would bet the answer to at least one of them is
         | 'no'".
         | 
         | 0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lou_Holtz
        
           | AtlasBarfed wrote:
           | ...A college coach who participated in grift and bribery,
           | indirectly or otherwise, in a system that exploited young
           | athletes to play a violent sport with lifelong consequences
           | for health mentally and physically and offered no long term
           | health care and virtually no monetary reward.
           | 
           | No successful NCAA coach is a moral paragon. John Calipari
           | used to be held as the bad boy, but actually he was the most
           | honest of the bunch.
        
         | mbg721 wrote:
         | If those were the only criteria, making friends would be easy.
         | People have more built-in tribalism at the very least; the
         | article reads like a '50s science fiction novel about robots
         | making friends.
        
           | Gustek wrote:
           | Is building trust and growing genuine care for someone easy
           | for you?
           | 
           | Trust is always a gamble, at extreme you are putting your
           | life on the line and you never know if the other person will
           | decide to betray you next time regardless of what they did in
           | the past.
           | 
           | Caring about someone is even harder as it is not a conscious
           | choice we are making, it is feeling. You can't just decide
           | from today I care about this person so they are my friend.
           | 
           | My point was, how do you know someone is your friend not how
           | to make one. There is no method to make friends, at best some
           | tips or guidelines.
        
             | mbg721 wrote:
             | No, it certainly isn't easy to do on purpose; that's a big
             | part of why raising kids is hard.
        
           | starkd wrote:
           | I trust you are being genuine when you say that, but what an
           | odd comment. The article seemed like a very profound an
           | interesting commentary on what friendship means. I fail to
           | see any kind of science fiction in it. The article even seems
           | to suggest friendship can cross tribal boundaries, but it
           | takes work.
        
             | mbg721 wrote:
             | I guess trying to explain how friendship happens seems
             | weird to me? It's obvious enough as it's happening that
             | being forced to spend time together (as with school)
             | generates friendships. Maybe I'm being too critical.
        
         | tshaddox wrote:
         | What if you trust someone and care about them, but don't
         | particularly enjoy their company? I suppose it would still be
         | normal to call that person a "friend," although you'd be
         | missing a key part of what most people think of when using that
         | word.
        
           | shard wrote:
           | The cynical word for that could be "family".
        
       | GuB-42 wrote:
       | I recently saw a video about the "Sex Raft".
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acali
       | 
       | It was a social experiment involving putting a bunch of people on
       | a raft and crossing the Atlantic. The idea was to create an
       | environment that promotes sex and violence, instead, everyone
       | became best friends forever, except for the experimenter who was
       | on board, everyone hated him.
        
       | perlgeek wrote:
       | yay for listicils! Didn't Hackernews require you to remove that
       | from the title?
        
         | notacoward wrote:
         | I think you're overusing "listicle" here. Yes, the article is
         | structured around six discrete ideas, but it has the general
         | structure of a traditional essay and all fits on one page.
         | That's a far cry from a true listicle which requires you to
         | keep clicking to see single paragraphs interspersed with ads.
         | Just having a number in the title doesn't make it a listicle.
         | Also, read the guideline about shallow dismissals.
        
       | mlatu wrote:
        
       | notacoward wrote:
       | Where there's a pattern there's a strategy. This is surely not
       | the last word on the subject, and it's not meant as a how-to
       | guide, but it's a thoughtful and well presented set of
       | observations which people can use - if they wish - to increase
       | their success rate at making friends. That seems like it's a good
       | thing, worth a couple of minutes to think about.
        
         | gretch wrote:
         | Based on the principles in the article and some of my anecdotal
         | life experiences: Take some adult classes or lessons.
         | 
         | It can be anything, as long as you are genuinely interested in
         | it. You don't have to be "passionate" (no one goes from zero-
         | to-passion instantly).
         | 
         | Drawing. Cooking. Tennis. Yoga. Video editing.
         | 
         | Chances are you can meet someone in the class that you vibe
         | with and the routine of working together to make the best of
         | the lesson is a good way to make a friend.
         | 
         | If you get along well, try to convert to a friendship outside
         | of the classroom by inviting them to get a smoothie afterward.
        
       | wfhordie wrote:
       | This article makes me feel sorry for straight people.
        
         | zeroonetwothree wrote:
         | It's rough
        
       | cies wrote:
       | I learned there are only 2 pillars under friendship: shared
       | interests and trust.
        
         | mapcars wrote:
         | One person whom I consider wise said "Friends are people who
         | support your limitations" if that helps
        
           | arolihas wrote:
           | That's a very cynical perspective that seems to encourage
           | self isolation and an emotionally barren life. Not sure if
           | that's wise.
        
             | pure_simplicity wrote:
             | I think the OP meant that friend support you in overcoming
             | your limitations. They support you where you are weak, not
             | they perpetuate and grow your weaknesses.
        
               | arolihas wrote:
               | I hope so, the way it's worded implies the opposite.
        
               | em-bee wrote:
               | or they accept your weaknesses and support you despite
               | them.
        
               | dirtybirdnj wrote:
               | This is how I chose to interpret it as well.
               | 
               | If you can't handle me at my worst you don't deserve me
               | at my best is a cliche way of saying the opposite.
        
         | swayvil wrote:
         | Empirically speaking, I learned from a wise old friend that a
         | party requires 4 things : Food, music, drugs and games.
         | 
         | And people at parties are similar to friends.
         | 
         | For what that's worth.
        
           | zeroonetwothree wrote:
           | I would say rather that it requires any two of those. You'll
           | get very different types of parties depending on which two
           | you pick.
        
         | forvelin wrote:
         | I think you can solely sustain a relationship with trust, lack
         | of common interests can freeze it but does not necessarily
         | extinguish it.
        
       | wruza wrote:
       | _A new friend could be waiting in the comments section of an
       | article you're reading, on the other side of a Google Doc, or in
       | an elevator_
       | 
       | I _loved_ talking to strangers in a slow-operating 20-story
       | elevator. Surprisingly, they are good and friendly listeners. You
       | don't want to spend five minutes with someone you rejected, do
       | you? My current home doesn't have an elevator, but I hope the
       | next one will.
        
         | pavel_lishin wrote:
         | As an introvert, your scenario is a nightmare to me. Please let
         | me enjoy my elevator ride in peace.
        
       | throw0101c wrote:
       | https://archive.ph/pjtIk
        
       | photochemsyn wrote:
       | American society at least is highly fractured these days, along
       | all kinds of lines, and this seems to have resulted in high
       | levels of distrust across those lines - ideological, economic,
       | racial, gender, and probably a host of others.
       | 
       | This tends to push people into clusters where they all share the
       | same ideological viewpoints, which is a depressing situation. My
       | idea of a great party has always been one where a group of people
       | from widely different backgrounds are put together in a big room
       | and 'forced' to interact with each other, but these days I'm
       | afraid that would lead to a bloodbath of some sort.
       | 
       | To quote from Frank Herbert, on the subject of limiting your
       | relationships to those who share all your identitarian tick-
       | marks, _" I can think of nothing more poisonous than to rot in
       | the stink of your own reflections."_
       | 
       | As far as "close deep meaningful relationships that you can rely
       | on through thick and thin, a friend who will always come to your
       | aid in times of trouble, and to whom you will always offer
       | support" ... that sounds more like a military alliance between
       | independent city-states in ancient Greece than your average human
       | friendship. Don't expect too much, in other words.
       | 
       | Here's a related (novel?) concept: don't try to leverage
       | friendships for personal economic gain, for access to a job, for
       | growing your multi-level marketing business, etc. That's called
       | 'networking', not 'friendship'. I suppose it has its place,
       | humans being human, but don't confuse the two.
        
         | bnralt wrote:
         | > ... that sounds more like a military alliance between
         | independent city-states in ancient Greece than your average
         | human friendship.
         | 
         | It doesn't sound like your average friendship in modern
         | atomized societies. But it seems that it was the bedrock for
         | many societies throughout history, including close knit
         | societies today. I've heard it argued fairly persuasively that
         | this is why military insurgencies tend to be stronger in
         | societies where kinship groups are fairly strong (and there's a
         | strong possibility atomized societies wouldn't be able to
         | follow suite).
        
         | fny wrote:
         | > "don't try to leverage friendships for personal economic
         | gain"
         | 
         | Aristotle identifies three types of friendships.
         | 
         | 1. Friendships of utility, the types you exploit for gain
         | 
         | 2. Friendships of pleasure, the types you exploit to play
         | basketball
         | 
         | 3. Friendships of the good, true friendships
        
           | MichaelZuo wrote:
           | In other words, business partners, beer buddies, and true
           | friends.
           | 
           | I still clearly remember the feelings I had on the day when I
           | realized many who spoke of 'friends' likely not had a single
           | one.
        
             | more_corn wrote:
             | I went into business with my friends because I like
             | collaborating on economic gain with my friends.
             | 
             | Did I lose friends? I don't know. I still enjoy being
             | around them, working together, economically gaining
             | together.
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | notacoward wrote:
         | > that sounds more like a military alliance between independent
         | city-states in ancient Greece than your average human
         | friendship
         | 
         | Has it occurred to you that actual humans' ideal types/levels
         | of friendship might differ from your own? Most people want a
         | mix, with a few very strong friendships (of the author's type)
         | and many more weaker ones (of yours). Many are missing one or
         | the other. Some want something different entirely. If the
         | author's ideas about friendship don't resonate with you,
         | consider just moving on. Deriding it as something that's very
         | much _not_ true friendship by anyone 's definition seems like
         | exactly the same kind of condescending clannishness you
         | complain about (and "identitarian" is - intentionally? - a
         | marker of which clan BTW).
        
         | AtlasBarfed wrote:
         | Social media advertises far more of someone's "spectrum" than
         | it used to. So it used to be "dude/gal in a suit, polite, talk
         | about weather"... now you know political affiliation, religion,
         | music taste, the way they talk at length, can derive IQ,
         | whatever crazy thing they think (and we all have SOMETHING).
         | 
         | Capitalism and the rich are squeezing more and more money and
         | safety from culture, and exploits traditional values of
         | generosity and kindness in more and granular ways, and rewards
         | sociopathic and narcissistic behavior patterns in a nasty
         | feedback cycle. The internet enables all of that faster at a
         | far greater granularity and now with AI-assisted attacks.
         | 
         | Combine that with the fact that environmental dangers are now
         | starting to appear more tangibly on the horizon, and people's
         | beliefs and values and disagreements represent more perceptible
         | danger/evil to someone.
         | 
         | The internet, aside from isolated successes (mostly for very
         | isolated people), should have brought us together. You could
         | argue facebook WAS doing that in its earlier years, but now
         | that monetization is necessary, propaganda and dividing and
         | conquering of the rabble to serve the elite is what pays.
         | 
         | We live in the greatest amount of leisure and technology ever,
         | and yet almost everyone thinks the future will be worse. For
         | the current 18-30 demographic, they already are living the
         | prospect of their third economic downturn, this time replaying
         | the 1970s stagflation, and watching the current power elite
         | ostrich plant their heads over global warming and a host of
         | global environmental problems.
         | 
         | The internet really now just functions to inform someone of how
         | fucked up the world is and the nigh impossibility to change it
         | proactively via politics. We will place all our faith in hopes
         | in that which got us into this mess: technology.
        
         | strogonoff wrote:
         | Thinking about the word "fractured", what turns merely holding
         | different views and letting them inform each other in a
         | friendly and fair competition into a fracture?
         | 
         | I suspect it comes down to fear and insecurity. When we
         | distrust the other, being afraid that their gain is our loss
         | and their agenda may hurt our (psychological, financial, etc.)
         | security, we start acting erratically. Fear manifests itself as
         | anger and contempt. We are not relaxed and watch every word
         | they say for signs of pushing their agenda. We are torn between
         | considering it beneath ourselves to spend effort arguing _with
         | them_ , and being unable to stay silent. We don't know when are
         | they themselves and when they represent their group.
         | 
         | You can truly enjoy friendship (and indeed love) if you are
         | secure on some fundamental level, and I suspect it is a hard
         | precondition.
         | 
         | I don't know where I'm going with this. Maybe we should look
         | into being more secure and relaxed? Pay heaps more attention to
         | mental health, our own and our society's? Learn to play non-
         | zero-sum infinite games? Release some part of us from having to
         | fight for survival if we are lucky to enjoy highest ever
         | standards of living?
        
         | pessimizer wrote:
         | > don't try to leverage friendships for personal economic gain,
         | for access to a job, for growing your multi-level marketing
         | business, etc.
         | 
         | But on the other hand, do whatever you can to give your friends
         | economic gains, access to jobs, and to grow their MLM. Do
         | things for them without hesitation that involve little effort,
         | loss, or risk for you, and consider about doing things for them
         | that involve some effort, loss or risk to you.
         | 
         | Authoritarian structures like capitalism and religion have a
         | goal of atomizing us all, forcing people to use them as an
         | intermediary. Please don't think that friendship is about
         | entertainment and work is about effort. Friendship is about
         | mutual aid, and work is about helping the boss in order to help
         | yourself.
         | 
         | Two friends get more accomplished than two people.
        
         | geodel wrote:
         | Many good points here. Especially
         | 
         | > Here's a related (novel?) concept: don't try to leverage
         | friendships for personal economic gain, for access to a job,
         | for growing your multi-level marketing business, etc.
         | 
         | A little personal story - Many years back I was living with
         | roommates and didn't have car. It would be easy way to ask for
         | ride since office really couple of miles from home and really
         | on the way of other guys commute. But I kinda made a point to
         | just walk to work and consciously avoid asking for ride.
         | Looking back I feel it really led to much better relationship
         | than it would be if I had taken convenient route.
        
           | renewiltord wrote:
           | I actually disagree with this one. I think you should ask
           | favours of and offer favours to your friends. It's part of
           | the enmeshing of one's life with another. If they are
           | willing, it shows intention and trust.
        
             | servercobra wrote:
             | There's a big difference between "hey, can you give me a
             | ride to the store to pick up this large thing?" vs "hey can
             | you give me a ride to work every day".
        
               | renewiltord wrote:
               | Okay, but I'm not talking about "Hey, can you give me a
               | ride to work every day?" but "Hey, can you give me a ride
               | to work?" every day. I think this might be a cultural
               | difference, though, because I live with two close friends
               | and they ask me this one often and I have no problem
               | doing it or not based on whether I can. If it's a small
               | deal, I might accelerate my morning routine so I can drop
               | them off on my way to work. If I can't, I usually just
               | say so.
               | 
               | I have a few different friend groups and I'm conscious of
               | different cultural mores, though. The group where this is
               | common has a certain low-social-distance norm.
               | 
               | In any case, I have lots of close friends and I usually
               | see people lament a lack of any, so I think it's better
               | to do what I do rather than what others do. But cultural
               | differences are cultural differences.
        
       | rationalfaith wrote:
        
       | bigChris wrote:
       | So basically. Turn off the computer, delete GitHub, delete
       | hackrank, turn off all my docker servers and swarms across the
       | multiple library networks and then go out and talk to NPCs?
        
         | bmacho wrote:
         | pls don't delete GitHub I have stuff there
        
         | everdrive wrote:
         | Not calling them "NPCs" is probably useful as well.
        
           | BossingAround wrote:
           | We all know "friendships" are just successfully completed
           | quest chains.
        
             | skipants wrote:
             | The article says they are more like daily quests :P
        
           | beckman466 wrote:
           | yeah it's a just way to covertly (by the videogamer crowd)
           | call other people stupid.
        
           | postsantum wrote:
           | Nah, despising an out-group is a bonding experience
           | 
           | https://xkcd.com/610/
        
           | johnchristopher wrote:
           | Or "normies" while we are at it. A recent trend I am noticing
           | more often on HN.
        
             | MarcelOlsz wrote:
             | Hilarious considering hackernewsians are the normies of the
             | online world.
        
               | emsy wrote:
               | That's Reddit. On HN I sometimes find people with niche
               | interests and expertise in all kinds of fields, which I
               | like. It's also relatively civilized. You don't need to
               | be a 4-chan edgelord to be not-normie.
        
               | throwaway0a5e wrote:
               | Reddit is just HN with lower standards of communication,
               | puns, one word rebuttals, all that stuff is fair game
               | there.
               | 
               | Being able to follow cultural norms of the local group is
               | just about the least remarkable thing about any given
               | group of humans. HN is not special.
        
               | Mountain_Skies wrote:
               | HN broadly participated in the moral panic over lab leak
               | theory being allowed to exist. This place is far more
               | 'normie' than it likes to believe itself to be and is
               | nowhere near as independent thinking as it pats itself on
               | the back for being. But it does exceed Reddit in the
               | percentage of posters who confuse their wealth for
               | wisdom.
        
               | 1123581321 wrote:
               | Most people here also belong to other communities and
               | code switch how they write.
        
               | A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
               | It is an interesting comment in itself. Does HN ( and
               | other online communities ) have their own peculiar jargon
               | and it is used to identify in-group? I definitely noticed
               | some recurring phrases, but it does not appear to be..
               | say.. as obvious as 4chan or imgur.
        
               | b3morales wrote:
               | It's less jargon and more tone. Whereas a sarcastically
               | snarky retort might fly on most forums, here it's more
               | likely to net you downvotes. But the same content
               | expressed without the sarcasm will be better-received.
        
               | hoseja wrote:
               | What sort of online world are you considering here? Does
               | it include facebook, twitter and reddit? Or do you mean
               | the deep, niche autism-adjacent online world?
        
             | zeroonetwothree wrote:
             | I thought this was used typically for people "off the
             | spectrum".
        
             | cehrlich wrote:
             | Agreed, "normies" is a fine shorthand for "people who are
             | not concerned with the niche thing we're currently talking
             | about", but seeing people who think of it as an actual
             | category that they judge people by is a dangerous mental
             | model that a lot of people on here seem to fall victim to.
        
               | tomjakubowski wrote:
               | Yes, absolutely. People are multidimensional. Most people
               | may not care for your particular captivating niche
               | interest, but some will find your excitement about it
               | interesting and enjoy your excitement about it. And you
               | can reciprocate that feeling towards their niche
               | interests (almost everyone has at least one). Toss
               | everyone who doesn't care about your thing into the same
               | "normie" pile at your peril.
        
               | fartcannon wrote:
               | We are amall group primates, it's our nature. Us vs Them.
               | In and Out groups. Everyone is a victim of it.
        
               | ironmagma wrote:
               | It's also our nature to beat each other up on occasion.
               | That doesn't mean we _have_ to be victim of it.
        
               | javajosh wrote:
               | Maybe _your_ narrow-minded group believes in in- and out-
               | groups, but not mine!
        
               | antisthenes wrote:
               | You will burn in sparrow-hell!
               | 
               | https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EF3JLYwXUAAqDPP.jpg
        
               | javajosh wrote:
               | Not sure how it applies, but it is funny in its own
               | right. I mean, it's a good example of in- and out-groups,
               | but it's not a good example of a group that denies the
               | existence of out-groups (which is admittedly more self-
               | referential and weird. You know, like an xkcd cartoon.)
        
               | erklik wrote:
               | Ahh. You mean your "in-group" of people who don't believe
               | in "in-groups".
               | 
               | This is tongue-in-cheek. :)
        
               | javajosh wrote:
               | There was a time I would lamented the need to be so
               | explicit. But now, I'm just grateful the point got
               | across. Communication seems to happen less and less
               | reliably, with more error modes with greater negative
               | emotional impact, and I worry that this implies the
               | existence of some sort of inevitable drift between my
               | brain and other people's brains. And I'm not sure if the
               | solution is to bridge the gap, or just keep going and
               | learn to accept inane resistance with some combination of
               | stoicism and resigned amusement.
        
             | swayvil wrote:
             | Which is ironic, because hackernewsians are the most
             | conventional people this side of the Pentecostals.
        
         | mbg721 wrote:
         | Sheesh, Bethesda seems to have set staggeringly low
         | expectations of NPCs...
        
         | phkahler wrote:
         | >> Turn off the computer, delete GitHub...
         | 
         | I've met a few people on github that could become real-world
         | friends if circumstances ever bring us to the same place or we
         | clicked in some additional ways. But yeah, that's not really
         | happening in a pull request ;-)
        
       | neya wrote:
       | TLDR;
       | 
       | - Attention
       | 
       | - Accumulaton
       | 
       | - Intention
       | 
       | - Ritual
       | 
       | - Imagination
       | 
       | - Grace
       | 
       | You're welcome.
        
         | AtlasBarfed wrote:
         | AIDA!!!!
         | 
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nr3ENE8uqr4
        
       | Zababa wrote:
       | I don't know if something is missing from this article or if I
       | have a very restrictive view of friendship. For example, when I
       | was in college, there were a few people with which I talked
       | pretty much everyday, had lunch with them, went to class with
       | them. However, I don't really consider them my friends. They were
       | a bit more like "colleagues". We never saw each others outside of
       | college, and spending time with them doesn't fill me with energy
       | like when I spend time with my friends. There are lots of things
       | that they don't "get" if I talk about them, not as in
       | "understand" but as in "get" on a fundamental level.
       | 
       | Following the framework of the article, either "attention" was
       | missing, or something is missing from the article. In French we
       | have an expression, "atomes crochus", which would be equivalent
       | to "chemistry" in English. Without that, friendship isn't really
       | possible for me, I'll always get "stuck" only at a certain level
       | with those people. There's no mention of chemistry at all in this
       | article. I get that it's a bit unfair, you can't decide to have
       | good chemistry with someone, but at least for me that's how
       | things are.
        
         | zeroonetwothree wrote:
         | Friendship requires a shared experience in more than one
         | context. Since you only saw those people in one context they
         | did not become friends.
        
           | Zababa wrote:
           | I don't think that's true, I've made friends at school while
           | only seeing them at school. I saw them in other contexts only
           | after being friends with them.
        
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