Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is incredible.
Will this be one of those classic threads? Like the lotta Bitcoin for pizza? I hope so.
Can you link to this thread?
Show HN: Virus Cafe – Make a friend in 2 minutes
211–220 of 238 posts
Re: Show HN: Virus Cafe – Make a friend in 2 minutes
#212Hey folks! I built Virus Cafe to help you make a friend in 2 minutes! My goal is to help people stuck indoors because of COVID-19 (or police curfews) to make meaningful connections with strangers. Here's how it works: 1. You are matched with a random partner for a video chat 2. You're given a deep question to discuss. You have 2 minutes! 3. The only rule is: no small talk! Small talk is the worst and I'm on a mission…
I like “small talk” a lot as a great way to know people. I disagree that these questions will make more meaningful conversations. Every time I see one of these lists of ”meaningful” questions, from people who ”hate” small talk, they fit in one of these categories: it is virtue signaling, to show they are supposed to be more profound human beings than the average person; or it signalizes intelligence, show they can th…
I agree. Given the description of the service, the topic could have been named "Show HN: Chatroulette Clone for Sapiosexuals" which would have been more informative.
Re: Show HN: Virus Cafe – Make a friend in 2 minutes
#213Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder what spelling and grammar mistakes have to do with religiosity!
Apparently nothing, but there is a correlation. Here is what the article has to say about it. If your date answers 'no'—i.e. is okay with bad grammar and spelling—the odds of him or her being at least moderately religious is slightly better than 2:1. As someone who is not himself a believer, I found it rather heartening that tolerance, even on something trivial like this, correlated with belief in God, although I sho…
More likely, it's that there's a correlation between low intelligence and religiosity (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religiosity_and_intelligence). And, of course ,there's a correlation with bad spelling and low intelligence.
So a religious person is more likely to be okay with spelling mistakes because they themselves are likely to not be good spellers, because they are likely to be less intelligent. It has nothing to do with religious people being okay with small mistakes.
Re: Show HN: Virus Cafe – Make a friend in 2 minutes
#214> - What is a belief you had as a child that you no longer have? ... Hm, the type of some of these questions resemble the type of the personal questions used for password recovery by some companies. As a paranoid person, I am reluctant to disclose this information to unknown people.
How could that possibly be a password recovery question? A password recovery question should only have one correct answer.
Re: Show HN: Virus Cafe – Make a friend in 2 minutes
#215This sounds anxiety-inducing.
Them maybe you should do it. Exposure therapy really does work wonders.
Re: Show HN: Virus Cafe – Make a friend in 2 minutes
#216I love the idea of forcing "deep talk". I found that the fleeting nature of the connection doesn't pair as well with in-depth answers and good conversation, but it pairs great when the conversation is bad.
I also ran into a lot of instances where I got reported with the message of "be nice" when the other person wasn't responding and/or wasn't on cam. I'm assuming I got reported, but couldn't confirm why.
Overall, really cool concept and slick implementation. Just wish more than 30% of the conversations had been fruitful. I'm assuming if you forced people to have accounts, you'd be able to improve this experience over time.
Re: Show HN: Virus Cafe – Make a friend in 2 minutes
#217Hey! Great idea. I've had a lot of fun with it. Honestly, I'm not sure how this would even work, but it might be enjoyable if it were possible to randomise the location of both parties a little more. For the first 24 hours, I was meeting people from across the globe. However, for some reason, I now match exclusively with people from Saudi Arabia who don't speak very good English. I'm assuming the website was promoted there by an 'influencer' or something. I've met a lot of lovely people living in Riyadh, but it was a lot more fun when I didn't know where the other person was...
Re: Show HN: Virus Cafe – Make a friend in 2 minutes
#218Earlier quoted context omitted.
If a child isn't old enough to comprehend and deal with most of the internet, then they should not have access to it or only with someone to teach them. In my opinion, the web is a tool and should be learned like a powersaw or a drill. I would just be annoyed if I had to answer 127 * 4 on my phone and would leave the site, because it is a ergonomic hurdle to something that I'm just mildly curious about.
As a parent (there are a lot of them, but I only speak for myself), I'd much rather someone be annoyed and not try something because a trivial question gets in the way, than a child getting put in front of a predator so easily. EDIT: Potentially.
As far as I know browsers and apps with unrestricted internet access aren’t rated for children, in my opinion this shouldn’t change.
Re: Show HN: Virus Cafe – Make a friend in 2 minutes
#219Hey folks! I built Virus Cafe to help you make a friend in 2 minutes! My goal is to help people stuck indoors because of COVID-19 (or police curfews) to make meaningful connections with strangers. Here's how it works: 1. You are matched with a random partner for a video chat 2. You're given a deep question to discuss. You have 2 minutes! 3. The only rule is: no small talk! Small talk is the worst and I'm on a mission…
Those aren't deep questions; they're deeply personal questions, and something not appropriate to talk about with complete strangers. I strongly recommend you re-evaluate your question set. Personal questions are dangerous with the wrong kind of person.
I agree. As a woman working as a major minority in STEM as a software developer, and seeing this being advertised on HN means I'll probably be paired with a male if I used it.
Not only are these not appropriate, it's the kind of information you could give to a dangerous man to give them all the cards to know your deepest weaknesses and manipulate you. That trust has to be earned, and it turns vulnerable people into potential targets.
It almost makes me feel like you've never considered how awkward these questions could be for anyone but particularly off putting to any woman whose parents taught them how to be safe when talking to strangers online since they were little girls.
Like the AI app thing where two young men advertised and bragged you could snap someone's pictures and get their asl is an absolutely horrifying prospect for any women to consider having available to anyone on the streets.
Sometimes these types of concepts seem so poorly thought out and ignorant especially in light of the goals being centered around the deep and social nature of human beings, I have to often attirbute this to childish ignorance in my head and remember the feds have another thing they need to regulate on the list. Being inclusive and considering abused of people who are not white males in power is literally the center of attention for most of the world right now. Take it to heart in your everyday life.
There are plenty of other things you can discuss, even concept building ideas that don't center around personal ancedotes.