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'Speed friending' events

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Re: 'Speed friending' events

#51

Post by davesque »

foobarian wrote: post #41
davesque wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny how you assume I was suggesting that we should go backward in time. No, I'm just saying there's clearly something wrong with sanctifying our will to power in the form of corporations. Great, so we've figured out a way to move money very efficiently into the hands of a few people in a way that is self reinforcing and sucks the life out of everything. Check. Mustn't there be a way to move forward into the fu…

I apologize if I implied that, admittedly it came off as a bit of a strawman. It's just something that's been on my mind lately in part due to issues with the current power structure. But you are right, if we managed to move from the feudal to current system, why should it not be possible to find something even better? On the other hand I figure there needs to be a relief valve for the kinds of people that enjoy bein…

> it needs to be done because that type of person will always exist.

Could be. Though I wonder if this is really true. It might do to think of a counterexample; something that people once thought would always exist but has effectively been eliminated. I'll leave that as an exercise to all the readers I guess.

Re: 'Speed friending' events

#52

Post by iammisc »

stnmtn wrote: post #44
mrfusion wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bet you’d love this article: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/pfibDHFZ3waBo6pAc/intentiona...

Thank you for linking this, I had a great experience reading it and discovering the same problem that the author had. I didn't even consider it was possible to directly and intentionally have an emotionally vulnerable conversation! I love when I have them, but I always thought of them as 'happy accidents' that just occur sometimes. It's never even popped into my head that these are avenues in a conversation that you…

In my experience the best way to have a vulnerable conversation is just to put yourself out there. And have a back up. Once in a while, I'll say something and clearly it's not desired, so it's always nice to fall back to 'Hey did you want some more cookies / can I get you another beer?'.

Re: 'Speed friending' events

#53

Post by selestify »

iammisc wrote: post #19
unboxedvariable wrote: post #3

What is it about us and society that has moved us in a continually more isolating direction instead of getting better at forming connections. Aren't we more connected now by many orders of magnitude than all previous generations? Are we not able to handle these quick/cheap interactions and do they cause harm instead of satisfaction? Have we replaced meaningful, non-work human interaction with apps that seem to do the…

People want immediate gratification, and friendship is like dating. Often, I'm the first to take initiative inviting people out... This is fine. I don't care about that. But sometimes, i'll invite someone out I don't click with 100% And this is... okay. Even if I spent money and time on that attempt, I always have a decent enough time, and finding friends requires work. People today don't want to do the work. They ba…

> But ultimately, friendship, like marriage and dating, is work... it's a choice to put in the effort to be someone's friend.

But see, that’s just not the case historically speaking. Why has it become so much more effort in recent times?

Re: 'Speed friending' events

#54

Post by adampk »

selestify wrote: post #53
iammisc wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People want immediate gratification, and friendship is like dating. Often, I'm the first to take initiative inviting people out... This is fine. I don't care about that. But sometimes, i'll invite someone out I don't click with 100% And this is... okay. Even if I spent money and time on that attempt, I always have a decent enough time, and finding friends requires work. People today don't want to do the work. They ba…

> But ultimately, friendship, like marriage and dating, is work... it's a choice to put in the effort to be someone's friend. But see, that’s just not the case historically speaking. Why has it become so much more effort in recent times?

I know we are talking far away from something that can be proven with data, but I can't imagine that friendship ever wasn't a function of time an effort.

Re: 'Speed friending' events

#55

Post by [deleted] »

sndean wrote: post #20

Over the past few years on HN I've periodically seen a nice exchange between people saying "if anyone is in Austin and wants to get a beer, let me know." There's normally a response or two. I wonder how many of these people actually meet up? And is HN good (or not) for this purpose? Seems like readers/commenters here could easily have a lot in common, so why couldn't HN be used as a platform for 'speed friending.' Bu…

[deleted]

Re: 'Speed friending' events

#56

Post by anotherevan »

sndean wrote: post #20

Over the past few years on HN I've periodically seen a nice exchange between people saying "if anyone is in Austin and wants to get a beer, let me know." There's normally a response or two. I wonder how many of these people actually meet up? And is HN good (or not) for this purpose? Seems like readers/commenters here could easily have a lot in common, so why couldn't HN be used as a platform for 'speed friending.' Bu…

I wouldn't have thought HN would be particularly good for this purpose. That said though, we just came out of a 77 day lock-down today, so if there's anybody in south-east Melbourne...

Re: 'Speed friending' events

#57

Post by iammisc »

selestify wrote: post #53
iammisc wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People want immediate gratification, and friendship is like dating. Often, I'm the first to take initiative inviting people out... This is fine. I don't care about that. But sometimes, i'll invite someone out I don't click with 100% And this is... okay. Even if I spent money and time on that attempt, I always have a decent enough time, and finding friends requires work. People today don't want to do the work. They ba…

> But ultimately, friendship, like marriage and dating, is work... it's a choice to put in the effort to be someone's friend. But see, that’s just not the case historically speaking. Why has it become so much more effort in recent times?

Except it always was. We belong to a very close knit catholic parish, and it takes constant effort to keep it up. I'm a part of the men's club, and we're always doing work -- like actual work -- to make sure the social aspects of the parish work and people can meet friends. We work to encourage friend making, dating, etc. For example, the men regularly wake up before the first mass (so we're talking before 7 AM) to get breakfast ready. That's work. It means getting up early on a saturday morning to foster the kind of social environment we want.

This is not a new thing. In fact, it was more prominent in the past. Knights of Columbus councils like the one i'm in are smaller than ever. Growing up, our knights of columbus was huge, and the guys there again did actual work to keep the community going.

That's group friendship. My parents kept a few friends individually and again... this is also work. My mother would regularly cook large elaborate meals for the sole purpose of having people over... even friends she didn't like. She'd complain about her friend for hours and hours and hours (mainly about political differences) but still invite them over, because to her it's better to have friends than to cut someone out, and anyway... she could barely cut out her friends from her life, much less her family. These days, people cut people off because they aren't on the same page politically, don't have the same taste, etc. Some people literally won't meet up with friends because they have a better thing to do... it's so individualistic as to be toxic.

This is not to say my mother was a pushover by any means. My parents did cut out people from their lives, including family, but it had to be for egregious reasons. For example, my dad's sister and her husband were cut out because they enslaved my parents, but unless someone's going to go to that level of depravity, I don't think my parents could cut someone out of their life.

Re: 'Speed friending' events

#58

Post by JasonCannon »

foobarian wrote: post #27
davesque wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lately, I've become convinced that it's simply because so much of our lives is controlled by corporations and their priorities. Whenever I look around and try to figure out why everything looks so bleak; e.g. why does every building look the same, why is everyone's behavior so homogenous and boring, why is there so little creativity, etc.? It's because a very small number of organizations have a huge amount of influe…

Yes it will be just like the good old times! When your favorite local feudal lord forced you and your family to stay living on his property. And picked your profession for you and your descendants. Oh and going to church was mandatory, and paying tithes was required by law. I think maybe I'll take the corporations instead. :-)

Yes because everyone knows, the only alternative to Corporation driven capitalism is Feudalism. Which is totally different than Corporations guys. Nevermind the fact that the earliest corporations and the founders of a lot of economic thought accepted by Liberals (as in Liberalism the ideology shared by both parties in the US) were in fact Nobles during Feudal times who adopted Capitalism to maintain their power.

Re: 'Speed friending' events

#59

Post by quacked »

mrfusion wrote: post #26
quacked wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best model for friendship I've heard as an adult is the "campfire model". It was explained in a Reddit comment that I can't find these days, but I will paraphrase below: "I treat all of my friends as if I'm sitting alone in the wilderness, tending to my campfire. If they come by and want to stay for a while, that's nice, but if they have to go on I understand. Sometimes I go and visit their campfires, but then I…

What’s the alternative to the campfire model?

There are plenty; I think the campfire model is the one that allows you to hold the expectation that friends may go out of your life and not come back, which is a reality of growing older. If you don't expect that to happen, it hurts.

Re: 'Speed friending' events

#60

Post by dang »

sndean wrote: post #20

Over the past few years on HN I've periodically seen a nice exchange between people saying "if anyone is in Austin and wants to get a beer, let me know." There's normally a response or two. I wonder how many of these people actually meet up? And is HN good (or not) for this purpose? Seems like readers/commenters here could easily have a lot in common, so why couldn't HN be used as a platform for 'speed friending.' Bu…

I've often thought about having a 'meet' tab in the top bar, alongside 'ask' and 'show' and 'jobs', where people could post meetups. HN has connected a lot of people over the years, both with each other and with significant opportunities. It would be nice to foster more real-world connections.

Edit: not a new idea - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1310849

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