No offense, it just creeps me out. Then again I do know people whose only friends are in MMOs and that provides visual stimulation as well.
“I paid $25 for an Invisible Boyfriend, and I think I might be in love”
241–250 of 265 posts
Re: “I paid $25 for an Invisible Boyfriend, and I think I might be in love”
#242OH YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME!!!!!!!!!!!!! I built something like this a long long time ago as a quirky project for my CS class at Columbia. When I pitched the idea to my buddies, they thought it was stupid and that my prof would have given me a shitty grade. So I scrapped it and submitted another project instead. I had 3 bots hooked up to the Facebook API on April 1st and it was so believable that my girlfriend thought I was cheating on her. One time she said "who the hell is this Rachel??" and would not let me leave the room until I told her who she was. I eventually confessed and she thought it was a hilarious idea. Too bad I got too busy with other shit that I put the project away on the side burner. Now I'm thinking about pulling it out again..........
Re: “I paid $25 for an Invisible Boyfriend, and I think I might be in love”
#243A perfect application of the Forer effect: humans have an amazing ability to interpret what can apply to anyone as having special significance for themselves. It's the same reason why horoscopes and fortune cookies work. Stepping back and thinking logically, it's easy to see why their messages might apply to a lot of people. But when you're reading one, you can't help but think, "Ah! It says that I would encounter ad…
This drive to reduce humanity to a set of chemical reactions and evolutionary traits is misplaced, because nothing makes less amazing our ability to love just about anything. And we should celebrate that, instead of being condescending about it, because you know, life would be very boring and unfulfilling without feelings.
Understanding how something works does not preclude enjoyment or wonder. Richard Feynman rather famously observed that understanding more of the science can deepen your appreciation:
http://zenpencils.com/comic/137-richard-feynman-the-beauty-o...
Re: “I paid $25 for an Invisible Boyfriend, and I think I might be in love”
#244I wonder what would happen if you signed up for a boyfriend and a girlfriend and had them talk to each other
Interesting idea.
Or hook up eliza on your end and see what happens.
Re: “I paid $25 for an Invisible Boyfriend, and I think I might be in love”
#245Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a very good example of male privilege. What comes to mind as the first thing that would happen as a result of this? Most women are smaller than the men that hit on them, and are constantly told they need to be vigilant against assault (this is a consequence of victim-blaming, which is wrongheaded, but nonetheless psychologically influencial). A woman saying "I'm not interested" is directly rejecting the man h…
Men get slapped or hit with bottles or glasses when they come on too strong as well. I think this is bad behavior and it's because of the person. You think it matters if a girl breaks something glass on your face that she's weaker? You're still going to have glass pieces embedded in your face. This is not a gender issue. It's an issue of not assaulting another person.
You made an invalid comparison and, interestingly, when analyzed your scenario exactly supports tedks' argument. Both scenarios hinge on a man acting aggressively against a woman who doesn't share his wishes. In both cases, the man controls the situation: he can choose to leave, deescalate or push harder. In contrast, the woman has no option to go back to enjoying her evening unless he chooses to allow it. All of the other options involve risk: calling for help (or the police) may not work and may have a social cost (“what a bitch, he was just trying to buy her a drink”). If she tries to leave, he can follow her to somewhere with fewer witnesses. Maybe she calls the police: do they send someone, does the officer arrive quickly enough, does the guy talk them into leaving without doing anything – and does any of this enrage him enough to assault her later?
Sure, the single most common outcome is that a drunken ass eventually gets the message and leaves her alone but all of those are possibilities which she has to weigh – and do so with the knowledge that if one of the low but still way too common terrible outcomes happens, TV and the internet will be full of people lining up to say it was her fault for making the wrong choice.
That's why tedks rightly called it male privilege: you or I can simply go out to a bar and have a beer without thinking about any of this. Given the circumstances, I can completely understand why someone who doesn't enjoy that privilege would choose an effective alternative even if some guy thinks it's breaking the rules.
Re: “I paid $25 for an Invisible Boyfriend, and I think I might be in love”
#246Earlier quoted context omitted.
So uh, there are attractive girls on Fiverr that will pretend to be your girlfriend on Facebook for a month (friending, n posts/likes on your posts per month, etc) for five dollars. I paid two of them to "fight" over me just to troll my friends. It turns out this piques interest in other women :-P This is why I don't use my real name on HN.
That's pretty genius actually. Women definitely tend to be more interested in men who are being sought after by other women.
same with VCs
Re: “I paid $25 for an Invisible Boyfriend, and I think I might be in love”
#247Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not going to get into the over-arching point on a board inhabited by subscribers to scientism, but don't you think the jig is is kind of up if you're told someone has a scar through their right eye and they actually didn't, or that someone had a favorite shirt that has a tear in a certain place (that both of those things didn't exist, etc). In other words, a level of specificity that is not so easily dismissed as…
If you actually know someone with supernatural powers do them a huge favor and tell them about this so they can get their million dollars. http://web.randi.org/the-million-dollar-challenge.html
Anyone with supernatural powers that takes that offer is a fool - their life would be effectively over. A person that could, say, see the future, is better off predicting the winning lottery numbers and sidestepping the almost certain involvement with government agents, or worse.
(Not that winning the lottery is statistically a good thing for one's quality of life either, which is a plausible reason that "psychic wins lottery" has never been a headline...)
Re: “I paid $25 for an Invisible Boyfriend, and I think I might be in love”
#248I try to explain this the first time I took a Myers-Briggs. "You're an INTG. Get together with other INTGs, read the descriptions... See, isn't this you?"
I will say, that as much as Myers-Briggs exploits the Forer Effect, that I did notice a few trends, e.g. that I cannot stand folks in one particular group (and no doubt they cannot stand me, either!). And it did seem fairly good at distinguishing extroverts from introverts (assuming arguendo that such a distinction is meaningful).
Most personality classifications have some bases and some value, but this particular exercise really turned me off.
I'm ok with saying "this is an attempt at classification, it's an extra data point", but I'm not ok with resorting to scammy techniques, if anything it tells me that the classification can't stand on its own and has therefore very little value.
Re: “I paid $25 for an Invisible Boyfriend, and I think I might be in love”
#249Earlier quoted context omitted.
Men get slapped or hit with bottles or glasses when they come on too strong as well. I think this is bad behavior and it's because of the person. You think it matters if a girl breaks something glass on your face that she's weaker? You're still going to have glass pieces embedded in your face. This is not a gender issue. It's an issue of not assaulting another person.
You made an invalid comparison and, interestingly, when analyzed your scenario exactly supports tedks' argument. Both scenarios hinge on a man acting aggressively against a woman who doesn't share his wishes. In both cases, the man controls the situation: he can choose to leave, deescalate or push harder. In contrast, the woman has no option to go back to enjoying her evening unless he chooses to allow it. All of the…
You mean the guy has to take all of the risk of rejection because women don't approach men. Let's be real here: I've been approached by more gay men than by women in my life. You're saying having to work for something is privilege?
Re: “I paid $25 for an Invisible Boyfriend, and I think I might be in love”
#250Earlier quoted context omitted.
You made an invalid comparison and, interestingly, when analyzed your scenario exactly supports tedks' argument. Both scenarios hinge on a man acting aggressively against a woman who doesn't share his wishes. In both cases, the man controls the situation: he can choose to leave, deescalate or push harder. In contrast, the woman has no option to go back to enjoying her evening unless he chooses to allow it. All of the…
You mean the guy has to take all of the risk of rejection because women don't approach men. Let's be real here: I've been approached by more gay men than by women in my life. You're saying having to work for something is privilege?
You're really equating risk of rejection versus risk of assault? Seriously?