Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How will the miracle happen today?

kk.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 285 posts

Re: How will the miracle happen today?

#121

Post by vkou »

polishdude20 wrote: post #102
ryandrake wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Today, we have near infinite content in our pockets. The marginal utility of a stranger's story has plummeted because the competition is Joe Rogan or an endless algorithmic feed. Not just strangers. The content tentacle reaches even deeper. You can go to a restaurant and see two people (presumably partners, who know and love one another, or friends who at least like to hang out together) sitting together separately…

To be fair, you don't know if that couple is just out for dinner because they didn't make anything at home that day. You don't know if they've been around eachother and off their phones for the past 24 hours. I have the opposite anecdotal experience to yours. Lots of people at restaurants are not on their phones but I've also stopped caring to look honestly.

Or maybe one of them is responding to another human being in their life over their phone, and as that results in a break in conversation, the other person starts using theirs.

Re: How will the miracle happen today?

#122

Post by roadside_picnic »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #83
reaperducer wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're human beings, not numbers or statistics. Or would you have us believe that a certain number of these kinds of murders are OK, because they're just "rounding errors" or "edge cases?" What's the over/under number?

Of course they're human beings. I think the point is, should you, statistically, live a life of fear based on possibly negligible odds of death or assault?

> negligible odds of death or assault?

Negligible odds of death I'll buy, but a very large number of my women friends over my life have been sexually assaulted (and probably far more than I realize, it's not like it's something you bring up during holiday dinner). I'm often shocked by how few men realize how prevalent this is.

The idea that "women who aren't comfortably traveling the world alone depending on the kindness of strangers are living a life ruled by fear" seems naive at best.

Even back in the days when hitchhiking was much more common you would almost never see a single woman by herself, for good reason.

Re: How will the miracle happen today?

#123

Post by LeafItAlone »

ryandrake wrote: post #63
Fiveplus wrote: post #32

I couldn't help but focus on the vicarious adventure aspect Kelly mentions which was the "payment" he offered drivers in exchange for the ride. This is a mechanism that has largely been deprecated by the modern attention economy. In the era of hitchhiking, the bandwidth for novelty was low. A driver on a long commute had no podcasts, no Spotify or audiobooks. A stranger with a story was high value. The transaction wa…

> Today, we have near infinite content in our pockets. The marginal utility of a stranger's story has plummeted because the competition is Joe Rogan or an endless algorithmic feed. Not just strangers. The content tentacle reaches even deeper. You can go to a restaurant and see two people (presumably partners, who know and love one another, or friends who at least like to hang out together) sitting together separately…

One question could be: which set of people know more about each other at the end of dinner.

Dinner time used to be a time of the day where couples and families would have the first chance since breakfast to discuss their day. With all of different available forms of communication today, my partner and I already know what happened during the other’s day and we are doing something like planning the next adventure.

Re: How will the miracle happen today?

#125

Post by Aromasin »

nicbou wrote: post #115

Does anyone else feel a sort of anxiety in those situations? I've been on such trips and I would rather not sleep at all than ask a stranger for help. When I'm in a position to help, I am delighted to do so, but also scared of offering. How does one get over that fear?

Like all skills; practice. Push through the fear enough times that you learn to love it.

When I was in the military, we once had an exercise which consisted of our troop leaders dropping 60 of us in Edinburgh (Scotland) with nothing on our person except for a cheap film camera. We had to complete a list of challenges with different scores, that varied from "eat a free meal" to "play a hole at St Andrews golf course". We were picked up the following day (meaning we had to find a place to sleep the night) and had to debrief the group on what challenges we managed to complete with video evidence. To be honest, it completely changed my world view in a weekend.

We had guys who talked their way into an airfield, miles away from where we started, and convinced a random pilot to give them a spin in his private aircraft. One group managed to get the castle guards to let them fire the daily One O'Clock Gun from the top of Edinburgh castle. Another did manage to play the first hole of St Andrews (£340 a round, and a 2 hour drive away!). We had people crash a wedding, sew up a kilt, learn to play the bagpipes; it was carnage in the best kind of way.

All of that was done just by asking. At the start of the day, everyone was awkward and embarrased. By the end of day two, we all just wanted to see how much further we could take it. Turns out that sometimes all your inhibitions do is get in the way of a fun time and a great story.

Re: How will the miracle happen today?

#127

Post by egypturnash »

bityard wrote: post #118
Fiveplus wrote: post #32

I couldn't help but focus on the vicarious adventure aspect Kelly mentions which was the "payment" he offered drivers in exchange for the ride. This is a mechanism that has largely been deprecated by the modern attention economy. In the era of hitchhiking, the bandwidth for novelty was low. A driver on a long commute had no podcasts, no Spotify or audiobooks. A stranger with a story was high value. The transaction wa…

Well, you're not wrong about novelty being a much rarer thing in the past but people rarely drove alone in total silence. 8-tracks and cassettes came along eventually but even before then, people listened to the radio which had a wide variety of music, news, sports, and call-in shows. Truckers had CB radios and would talk to other truckers and drivers to pass the time. Those who didn't see much of the world before th…

I saw somewhere here saying they want some kind of AI appliance that learns their regular commute and warns them about traffic and construction and I was like, dude, every radio station had regular traffic reports from helicopter pilots through the whole morning and evening drive times.

Re: How will the miracle happen today?

#128

Post by afpx »

bpt3 wrote: post #18

If the world was filled with people with KK's attitude, humanity would have died off a very long time ago.

If a species is going to die out anyway, shouldn't it try to go out in a way respectful to its self-identity (assuming it's smart enough to have self-identity)?

Re: How will the miracle happen today?

#129

Post by 85392_school »

BrokenCogs wrote: post #109
85392_school wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would he be helped if he truly doesn't give? He speaks about this a little: the person being aided can reciprocate with degrees of humility, dependency, gratitude, surprise, trust, delight, relief, and amusement which, at the time, was genuinely valuable [0]. [0] Discussed more at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46555688

Do you donate to a charity expecting reciprocity?

This comment leaves me confused as to what you believe. Do you believe a man biking across the country "takes and does not give" in a different way from a charity, or was "someone who takes and does not give" simply not meant in a bad way?

Re: How will the miracle happen today?

#130

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

ryandrake wrote: post #63
Fiveplus wrote: post #32

I couldn't help but focus on the vicarious adventure aspect Kelly mentions which was the "payment" he offered drivers in exchange for the ride. This is a mechanism that has largely been deprecated by the modern attention economy. In the era of hitchhiking, the bandwidth for novelty was low. A driver on a long commute had no podcasts, no Spotify or audiobooks. A stranger with a story was high value. The transaction wa…

> Today, we have near infinite content in our pockets. The marginal utility of a stranger's story has plummeted because the competition is Joe Rogan or an endless algorithmic feed. Not just strangers. The content tentacle reaches even deeper. You can go to a restaurant and see two people (presumably partners, who know and love one another, or friends who at least like to hang out together) sitting together separately…

> When Joe Rogan is more interesting than talking about your day with your spouse or friend ...

... you may (just may!) have been married for a rather long time. I still think that is sad, but in a different sort of way than it would be for younger couples/pairs.

Post reply on HN