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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

#231

Post by Nasrudith »

curryst wrote: post #223
watwut wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Threat of violence amd violence is not actually improvement over people talking angrily.

I don't think it's quite that black and white. In my experience, most people want there to be some divide between things you can say in public and things you can't say in public. As an example, I think most people agree that shouting racist slurs in the street is unacceptable. There has to be some enforcement mechanism for "you can't say that in public". The government is a poor way to enforce that for a variety of r…

That is not remotely worse or new - the canceling bogeyman. Just try being an unpopular minority.

The threat of violence has deeply embedded many stupid ideas in the past and still scars societies over a millenia later. Look at the undying antisemitic tropes whose origin boil down to "You can criticize Jews but not the clergy or nobility." Or the whole thing with Chinese portrayals of eunuchs. Guess who won't be starting a feud or executing you for disparaging their ancestors? The non-existent descendants of men eunuched as children!

Re: The vital art of talking to strangers

#232

Post by vosper »

beezischillin wrote: post #145

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 ‘norm…

> 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.

Have you tried having a couple of drinks? There’s a reason they call alcohol a “social lubricant”

Re: The vital art of talking to strangers

#233

Post by arrosenberg »

socialist_coder wrote: post #170
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.

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 everythin…

I think there are other issues driving the decreasing social activity - Netflix seems to have replaced existing TV practices, I don't think it vastly extended them.

IMO, access is one of the biggest hidden issues. Everything is designed to require a car, which increases the cost/time/stress of doing anything, and decreases the number of available people to interact with. Neighborhoods built before WW2 are much more interactive and walkable, but we keep pumping out convoluted suburban layouts instead.

Over time, peoples' dopamine system starts weighing the hassle as greater than the potential reward, and they become less socially active. If more people lived within a 5-10 minute walk of these activities, membership would go back up.

Re: The vital art of talking to strangers

#234

Post by iammisc »

hluska wrote: post #227
iammisc wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, p…

Dude, you started this out by calling my views caricatures and end it with wishing me the best?? The cognitive dissonance is very very strong in you. I’m not going to reply to anything this disrespectful. Fake people aren’t worth my time. Edit - A great Jesuit priest and mentor once said to be very careful with people who start with an insult, move on to a bible quote and end with good wishes. I understand his positi…

Just because I disagree with someone doesn't mean I wish him ill. Calling his view caricatures says nothing of his character.

Re: The vital art of talking to strangers

#235

Post by ZephyrBlu »

vosper wrote: post #232
beezischillin wrote: post #145

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 ‘norm…

> 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. Have you tried having a couple of drinks? There’s a reason they call alcohol a “social lubricant”

Only a couple of drinks is unlikely to reduce "enormous amounts of energy" that much.

Re: The vital art of talking to strangers

#236

Post by acituan »

socialist_coder wrote: post #170
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.

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 everythin…

> Anything that increases your exposure to strangers and builds trust will be a boon to society.

It takes a few bad exposures to ruin your mental model of strangers. And I am not convinced it is entirely a bad thing.

The concept of being surrounded by strangers is a 20-21st century urban phenomenon. In an environment where people are not strangers to each other 2 things happen; 1) they can build a more accurate model of each other and most of the time this leads to deeper reciprocal trust 2) they know their behavior is kept track by others and that changes individual behavior (I know, not always for the better. I am not trying to romanticize small town conformity). To expect the same dynamics in a city is a romanticism of different sort. Not trusting strangers because you don’t know them is rational. At least not to over-extrapolate your trust to every stranger you see.

All you can stream crap is there because there is demand, because we are going crazy in our loneliness created with truncated interpersonal reciprocity of the urban life. If you removed Netflix today, it wouldn’t automatically improve our social lives, because the structure and organization of it heavily depends on the economic demands that shaped the living arrangements in the first place.

See how even tech is capriciously resisting remote work and thus an alternative, less lonely arrangement for the workers.

Re: The vital art of talking to strangers

#237

Post by ZephyrBlu »

haecceity wrote: post #160
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.

What were the differences???

You tend to draw more positive attention when you dress nicer.

Re: The vital art of talking to strangers

#238

Post by the_only_law »

vosper wrote: post #232
beezischillin wrote: post #145

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 ‘norm…

> 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. Have you tried having a couple of drinks? There’s a reason they call alcohol a “social lubricant”

It’s a curse and a blessing. The inhibition makes it’s much easier to comfortably converse with a stranger, although the quality of discussion is likely to be trash (I can barely enunciate technical things verbally sober, and mostly sound like an idiot trying to after a few beers). The inhibition is also likely to make me discuss things that will give others a negative opinion of me (over sharing, etc.). Perhaps less of an issue when everyone in the conversation is drinking, less so otherwise.

Re: The vital art of talking to strangers

#239

Post by sgerenser »

A few years ago my daughter was 3 and was going through a phase where she’d go up to any random stranger she met and ask “hello, what’s your name?” Talked to a lot of random people this way. Nobody can resist talking to an inquisitive 3 year old. I remember I was in an airport waiting for a flight to Boston and happened to talk to a guy who’s son just started college at the same college I had gone to. Which was surprising since it isn't very well known nor anywhere near Boston or where we were.

I was always torn whether the practice of a small child “talking to strangers” was dangerous but I couldn’t bring myself to discourage it.

Re: The vital art of talking to strangers

#240

Post by diplomatpuppy »

sgerenser wrote: post #239

A few years ago my daughter was 3 and was going through a phase where she’d go up to any random stranger she met and ask “hello, what’s your name?” Talked to a lot of random people this way. Nobody can resist talking to an inquisitive 3 year old. I remember I was in an airport waiting for a flight to Boston and happened to talk to a guy who’s son just started college at the same college I had gone to. Which was surpr…

My kids did the same thing - turns out it let them understand what normal behaviour looks like. When someone offered one of them something weird and dangerous, they recognized that it wasn't normal.
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