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The vital art of talking to strangers

economist.com

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Re: The vital art of talking to strangers

#61

Post by nine_k »

edmundsauto wrote: post #50
iammisc wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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…

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.)

Re: The vital art of talking to strangers

#62

Post by Aboh33 »

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.

Re: The vital art of talking to strangers

#63

Post by ssully »

iammisc wrote: post #48
munificent wrote: post #15

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.

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…

Yeah, I too long for the days past when the US had less cultural problems/conflicts due to high church attendance numbers.

Re: The vital art of talking to strangers

#64

Post by munificent »

mc32 wrote: post #40
munificent wrote: post #15

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.

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.

> 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.

Re: The vital art of talking to strangers

#65

Post by munificent »

silicon2401 wrote: post #56
munificent wrote: post #15

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.

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.

> 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.

Re: The vital art of talking to strangers

#66

Post by trompetenaccoun »

graeme wrote: post #25
emptyfile wrote: post #9

Yeah, talking to strangers is not a thing in my country. Can't say I care for it.

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…

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.

Re: The vital art of talking to strangers

#67

Post by munificent »

deregulateMed wrote: post #21
munificent wrote: post #15

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.

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.

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.

Re: The vital art of talking to strangers

#68

Post by tgv »

Aboh33 wrote: post #62

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.

Or the tv characters dressed that way because of general perception, of course.

Re: The vital art of talking to strangers

#69

Post by munificent »

trompetenaccoun wrote: post #57
scotu wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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 sh…

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.

Re: The vital art of talking to strangers

#70

Post by andreyk »

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!

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