Faux Friendship (2009) • Hacker News Board

Re: Faux Friendship (2009)

#21

Post by chipsy » Sun, Dec 11, 2011, 8:24 AM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #9

jerf wrote: post #2

It is hard to see through the veils of history, but one of the things that always strikes me is that if you sit down and really try to put all the pieces together, what you find is an alien world, far more alien than most supposedly alien worlds of science fiction, especially if we're talking about going back all the way to Ancient Greece. What we think of in our bones as civilization doesn't exist then. The closest…

I think it's a lot like surplus manufacturing capacity or six sigma in an economic context. In general, surplus manufacturing capacity is bad because it means you're not utilizing your capital to the fullest extent possible. It means you built more factories than you need, so some are sitting idle. And six sigma is good because it reduces variability in quality, which lets you streamline your processes so that there'…

One way I think of it is that friendship of yore was designed for a harsher, crueler world, with serious limits on how much one could broadcast.

Today the opportunities to connect are plentiful; going online can feel like you're at a 24/7 party with a constant stream of new guests and new ideas, so long as you put in the _effort_ to set it up that way. If the only thing you do is add a few acquaintances to Facebook, the article is correct - you won't get any value out of it. But a strategy that has more specific goals in mind than "be friends" is only empowered by the social tools.

Re: Faux Friendship (2009)

#22

Post by TheAmazingIdiot » Sun, Dec 11, 2011, 8:40 AM UTC

funthree wrote: post #13

jerf wrote: post #2

It is hard to see through the veils of history, but one of the things that always strikes me is that if you sit down and really try to put all the pieces together, what you find is an alien world, far more alien than most supposedly alien worlds of science fiction, especially if we're talking about going back all the way to Ancient Greece. What we think of in our bones as civilization doesn't exist then. The closest…

The closest thing that might get you there is farming communities in the Midwest... with no power, or cell phones, or cars, or houses, with dangerous wild animals still roaming about, no medical treatment, no firearms, and no prior 21st-century civilization thought patterns, and you're still only sort of glimpsing it. Seriously? And people in the Midwest are still somehow the "ignorant ones" ... Stay classy.

That's not what he said.

I live in Indiana, in the middle of the sticks. There's farms on 3 sides of us, with a smallish forest on the 4th. Cell phones go in and out regularly (we live in hilly terrain). We have no high speed internet, nor does our house have reliable 3G service. AT&T is due to roll it out within a month.

Deer are the most common pest. I've had 3 totalled vehicles because of them. The next are the wolves and coyotes we have. A few years ago, a mailwoman was attacked by a pack of wolves and dogs. We also have rattlesnakes and cottonmouths along with various other not as poisonous snakes. In our area, we also have black widows and brown recluses.

Admittedly, I only live maybe 50 minutes away from Indianapolis (via I65). But even a half an hour out of Indy can leave you in some ass-backwards part of the state.

And honestly, many people I know locally choose to be ignorant. I tend to think it's an American attitude against "bein dem smart types", and not just Midwesterners.

Re: Faux Friendship (2009)

#23

Post by divtxt » Sun, Dec 11, 2011, 9:50 AM UTC

jerf wrote: post #2

It is hard to see through the veils of history, but one of the things that always strikes me is that if you sit down and really try to put all the pieces together, what you find is an alien world, far more alien than most supposedly alien worlds of science fiction, especially if we're talking about going back all the way to Ancient Greece. What we think of in our bones as civilization doesn't exist then. The closest…

we're already in a Singularity relative to ancient Grecians, inasmuch as they couldn't understand our world at all...

I suspect that an urban ancient Greek would adjust to a western urban world pretty well.

I'd expect the shift from hunter/gatherer tribes to agriculture-enabled large scale cultures is much harder psychologically.

Re: Faux Friendship (2009)

#24

Post by hrktb » Sun, Dec 11, 2011, 11:01 AM UTC

This is intersting for all the historical context thing that is refreshing, and so boring because he takes the facebook and other social networks messages so much at face value in it's message.

I don't think anyone needed to read 10 pages to understand that when facebook told you "you are now friend with xxx" it doesn't mean anything much as "this person is now on your feed and can be seen as so", and the real work you did to become friend happens parallely to that. And keeping friendship also has no direct relations to the medium you use (before facebook you sent post cards to your friends, not 10 page missives, and it wasn't much bounding in itself).

It's well writtten but lacks insight in what people really see in a social site.

Re: Faux Friendship (2009)

#25

Post by angelortega » Sun, Dec 11, 2011, 11:30 AM UTC

The example in the article about Achilles and Patroclus is not what we would call a "friendship": Achilles was Patroclus' mentor, what means he was his master and had sexual privileges over him. It's not a one-to-one, both-are-equal relationship; it's more similar to a master-slave one. They were sexual partners, not friends ("friend" had different connotations in the classic world).

Re: Faux Friendship (2009)

#26

Post by pgbovine » Sun, Dec 11, 2011, 1:15 PM UTC

grovulent wrote: post #10

So I've actually gone ahead and built and app for Google+ to help people curate more substantive relationships on the platform - so that in principle online social networking doesn't have to be about being superficial. http://puttheeffortin.com The idea is that it's just a matter of better managing the relationships and expending energy in a more efficient way - on those relationships that yield the most value. I've…

good site idea, but the url is very hard to parse (for humans, i mean). i don't know how much that matters to your project, but the repeated doubling of letters 'tt', 'ee', 'ff' is disconcerting. good luck, though!

Re: Faux Friendship (2009)

#27

Post by grovulent » Sun, Dec 11, 2011, 1:17 PM UTC

pgbovine wrote: post #26

grovulent wrote: post #10

So I've actually gone ahead and built and app for Google+ to help people curate more substantive relationships on the platform - so that in principle online social networking doesn't have to be about being superficial. http://puttheeffortin.com The idea is that it's just a matter of better managing the relationships and expending energy in a more efficient way - on those relationships that yield the most value. I've…

good site idea, but the url is very hard to parse (for humans, i mean). i don't know how much that matters to your project, but the repeated doubling of letters 'tt', 'ee', 'ff' is disconcerting. good luck, though!

Hmm - that's true. I spose it's not too late to change... any ideas?

Re: Faux Friendship (2009)

#28

Post by itmag » Sun, Dec 11, 2011, 1:58 PM UTC

jerf wrote: post #2

It is hard to see through the veils of history, but one of the things that always strikes me is that if you sit down and really try to put all the pieces together, what you find is an alien world, far more alien than most supposedly alien worlds of science fiction, especially if we're talking about going back all the way to Ancient Greece. What we think of in our bones as civilization doesn't exist then. The closest…

True. Relations and community were much important in the Ancient world. Consider that the word "idiot" originally meant someone who didn't see the point of politics. Also consider the system of patrons and clients that existed in Ancient Rome.

The Greeks thought that there were two levels of humanity: zoon bios (biological life) and zoon politicon (political life).

With our current (post)modern civilization, we are in many ways going back to an even more primitive (ie Neolithic) stadium of existence, where political life ceases to exist and life is more playful/hedonistic.

One example: the institution of monogamy is something that didn't really exist in Neolithic times (there are some indications that only 40% of men reproduced). It was something that arose with agriculture and today we are in many ways back to a hunter-gatherer world.

I think Sweden is at the forefront of this neo-Neolithic trend, having often been termed a country of "state individualism", where the individual is free to decouple from social relations and depend on the State as a safety net.

Re: Faux Friendship (2009)

#29

Post by itmag » Sun, Dec 11, 2011, 2:01 PM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #9

jerf wrote: post #2

It is hard to see through the veils of history, but one of the things that always strikes me is that if you sit down and really try to put all the pieces together, what you find is an alien world, far more alien than most supposedly alien worlds of science fiction, especially if we're talking about going back all the way to Ancient Greece. What we think of in our bones as civilization doesn't exist then. The closest…

I think it's a lot like surplus manufacturing capacity or six sigma in an economic context. In general, surplus manufacturing capacity is bad because it means you're not utilizing your capital to the fullest extent possible. It means you built more factories than you need, so some are sitting idle. And six sigma is good because it reduces variability in quality, which lets you streamline your processes so that there'…

Related: holon theory.

http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2010/05...

Holons are more ineffective than streamlined processes (eg JIT inventory) but they are much more resilient and adaptable.

Re: Faux Friendship (2009)

#30

Post by itmag » Sun, Dec 11, 2011, 2:03 PM UTC

chipsy wrote: post #21

nostrademons wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's a lot like surplus manufacturing capacity or six sigma in an economic context. In general, surplus manufacturing capacity is bad because it means you're not utilizing your capital to the fullest extent possible. It means you built more factories than you need, so some are sitting idle. And six sigma is good because it reduces variability in quality, which lets you streamline your processes so that there'…

One way I think of it is that friendship of yore was designed for a harsher, crueler world, with serious limits on how much one could broadcast. Today the opportunities to connect are plentiful; going online can feel like you're at a 24/7 party with a constant stream of new guests and new ideas, so long as you put in the _effort_ to set it up that way. If the only thing you do is add a few acquaintances to Facebook,…

One strategy I've used is what I call a social honeypot.

Ie create a project (in my case a magazine) which attracts a passive "income" of new acquaintances who are automatically selected (because they bothered to contact you) for compatibility.