[HN Gopher] Social Dynamics at Arm's Length
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       Social Dynamics at Arm's Length
        
       Author : surprisetalk
       Score  : 19 points
       Date   : 2026-01-21 15:30 UTC (4 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.jenn.site)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.jenn.site)
        
       | flax wrote:
       | This "game" sounds horrible. It seems designed to maximize
       | anxiety and conflict, and extract kompromat. What is the upside
       | supposed to be?
        
         | _ah wrote:
         | It's the same reason people go see scary movies. To feel the
         | thrill.
        
           | HPsquared wrote:
           | Scary movies aren't real, though.
        
         | bwhiting2356 wrote:
         | ever played 'spin the bottle'?
        
         | proof_by_vibes wrote:
         | This is a very male attitude to have.
        
           | ndarray wrote:
           | Women don't get anxious about social status? TIL
        
       | ai_critic wrote:
       | Authentic relating, every time I see that it comes up, continues
       | to be a red flag warning to expect antisocial behavior by bad
       | actors. This article does not break that trend.
       | 
       | I'm sure some people get utility out of it and improve their
       | lives, but there seem to be quite a few people who seem to enjoy
       | it for other reasons.
        
         | rcbdev wrote:
         | Thank you for demystifying this "AR" term - I was honestly
         | confused about whether the author was talking about Augmented
         | Reality.
        
       | Modified3019 wrote:
       | The kind of people who find it exciting to publicly label/judge
       | others, are exactly the kind of people I am not interesting in
       | making myself vulnerable to.
        
       | elcapitan wrote:
       | This reads like either a plot device for a "Curb Your Enthusiasm"
       | episode or a report of what happened at some private party before
       | one of the participants decided to kill all the others.
        
       | rexpop wrote:
       | Party games for sociopaths.
       | 
       | I've been to a couple AR scenes. It's mostly cultlike leaders
       | breaking down others' boundaries through humiliation rituals like
       | these. If you're enough of a psychopath, you can make your way to
       | the top of the fleecing pyramid, eventually.
        
         | sosomoxie wrote:
         | I'd never heard of "authentic relating" but this definitely
         | backs up what you say: https://authenticrelating.co/what-is-ar/
        
       | surpris-mea-cu wrote:
       | I'm surprised at the reaction you had about this game! This is a
       | pretty popular game among my generation in Sweden (though we
       | point, it's the "pointing game"). It's typically done when
       | drinking, and the person who "gets" the prompt is the next one to
       | come up with one. It's more meant as fun when we do it. A lot of
       | websites have prompts if you don't wanna come up with them
       | yourself (BOO! You're boring!), like this one:
       | https://dricklekar.se/Pekleken/pek.html
        
       | PlatoIsADisease wrote:
       | As soon as the bored games come out, I'm looking for the kitchen
       | to hang out with the 1 or 2 other people completely uninterested.
        
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       (page generated 2026-01-25 23:01 UTC)