The vital art of talking to strangers

It's not like I go around thinking "there is no God", it's just not part of how I find meaning and make sense of the world.

This is not a moment of folly, just like your belief in God is not a moment of folly. It's just part of how I, and you, make sense of this confusing situation of coming into being on Earth for a little while, knowing that we won't be here for very long.

I think it is more dystopic, nay, tragic, when people are made to believe where mixture of ambitious strangers will somehow lead to love too. I don't blame you for such beliefs in an era of romantic comedies or other romanticizations of "single strong individual" where they feel entitled to such outcomes and it magically happens. But this combined with your other remark about "socializing needs" makes me believe you don't discern between different types of love.

Seems like you're focused on consummatory (eros in its wider philosophical sense) love if you formulate people as fulfilling your needs, or love as something you can stumble upon. Philia (brotherly) and agapic love are completely different than eros, and among other things arise from either reciprocal investment on each other's growth or selfless giving. They are built out of investment, not happenstance. That is the love of parents that make most of us into human beings out of nothing. Or the nice people in our non-stranger neighborhood that interacted with us and thought us manners etc. Think of many Mr. Rogers' in real life. I am not saying such neighborhoods is the norm anymore, and therefore don't blame you for your relational nihilism, but I am lucky enough to come from a place where traces of such love was still immanent.

> No more luck-based than randomly being born in a geographical area.

Randomness is irrelevant, that place is what grows you into a human being and once you're at the age to move on, it is no longer random. This again implicitly contains the notion that the universe owes us the optimal configuration of a birthplace, because we are special.

> I did say that workplaces are reliable communities that you can discover new people and make real friends in.

You've admitted that people you meet in such places hardly make into friends that can fulfill the criteria I laid out. Also again notice the "eros" language, you think you "discover" such people, no investment or transformation is required from you, you just stumble upon them like mushrooms in a forest.

> workplace acquaintances are good sources of socialization on their own when it comes to loneliness.

Just like internet can be a "good" outlet for sexual frustration, but also a hindrance to actual needs of intimacy. That is precisely what I am talking about when I say eros. You don't just have "socialization needs", you don't even just have needs for "having friends", you also have deep needs for being a real friend for people.

> Okay you were the one telling me that corporations are solely focused on profits.

Yes, and that is different than flesh-and-bone people being focused on making a living, especially with depressed wages since 70s. I am not saying there aren't people who are entirely driven by money, but that is not the majority. All the while profit is a definitional property of a for-profit-corporation.

The bottom line of our dialogue is that, we are internet strangers that are somewhat talking through each other because we don't have reciprocal models of each other (other than a minimal, "HN denizen" one), we don't have an established reciprocity on helping each other grow. I think you're not arguing in best faith because you're lonely and the secondary benefits of someone responding back to you might be alleviating some of your admitted loneliness, and "fulfilling your social needs".

It is ridiculous how much more attention I got from every shop attendant throughout the mall that day, compared to my usual comfortable cargo shorts and T-shirt look.

That "experiment" still makes me sad. We treat humans like garbage if they don't look rich enough.

I'm not purporting to be a biblical scholar, but it's clear to me that the evidence for Jesus is not as strong as, say, the evidence for Julius Caesar.

The fact that there is no direct evidence points to at least some haziness about the character. The same could be said for a number of other historical figures. It's pretty clear there are limitations to the evidence, from Wikipedia:

"The historical Jesus scholarship is bound by the following limitations:

- There is no physical or archaeological evidence for Jesus; all existing sources are documentary.

- The sources for the historical Jesus are mainly Christian writings, such as the gospels and the purported letters of the apostles.

- All extant sources that mention Jesus were written after his death.

- The New Testament represents sources that have become canonical for Christianity, and there are many apocryphal texts that are examples of the wide variety of writings in the first centuries AD that are related to Jesus.[33] The authenticity and reliability of these sources have been questioned by many scholars, and few events mentioned in the gospels are universally accepted.[34]"

So it seems that no writings about him survive from his life, by or about him. There is no physical evidence of his existence. Most of the evidence was written by early Christians, and few of the events they write about are universally accepted. And given the propensity of religious followers to exaggerate, I don't personally put a lot of stock in much of the motivated reasoning exhibited.

His is a resume with some holes in it. Smarter and better informed people disagree with me, but I'm just processing the evidence as I see it.