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How will the miracle happen today?

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Re: How will the miracle happen today?

#141

Post by igneo676 »

1shooner wrote: post #139
igneo676 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've been dealing with the wrong folks then because all Christians should believe what James says when we says James 2:14-20, 26 (NET) What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but does not have works? Can this kind of faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, keep warm and eat well,” but you do not give…

>all Christians should believe I think this is the point being made: your 'should', and by extension your quote, has no meaning when grace is defined as the single goal of spiritual life, and then is reduced to a simple transaction.

Sure, people are free to believe whatever. I am quoting the very scripture they claim to believe though and so it would be hypocritical to do otherwise

The term we have for those folks is that they're doing "easy-believism" and it's broadly a pitfall within Christianity. It's not considered normative to so heavily lean on grace in the way that you're describing

Re: How will the miracle happen today?

#142

Post by jkingsman »

pizzathyme wrote: post #138
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…

I would encourage people to test this out for themselves, I think you will find a different result. People today are starved for in-person connection, but are afraid to initiate the conversation. This doesn't come naturally to me, but after working on it over a few years, 95% of the time strangers are excited to chat and say hi and make a friend.

You mentioned working on it — do you have a particular strategy, venue, or opening line/guiding ethos that you find works well?

I love making friends with strangers, but usually rely on the "handshake protocol" of a casual observation or small talk that is then accepted (with a similar slight-deepening or extension of the thought) or rejected (casual assent or no response at all), until the bandwidth opens and I can foster a more meaningful moment of connection with a pivot like "Oh awesome that you do $THING for work. Do you enjoy what you do?" or "Oh I don't know much about $LOCATION_YOURE_FROM. Good spot for a vacation, or good spot to drive straight through?"

As somewhere between "thinks like an engineer" and "on the spectrum," I really enjoy hearing others' strategies or optimizations (optimizing for quality, connection, warmth) for social situations.

Re: How will the miracle happen today?

#143

Post by eightys3v3n »

gostsamo wrote: post #2

> I am not sure I would invite a casual tourist I met to take over my apartment, and cook for him, as many have done for me. leaves a bad taste. I've helped and been helped in all kinds of situations. The sense of entitlement in this guy and the way he proudly explains how he is using people is just awful. Help is to give when you know that the gesture will have an disproportional effect for the other person and will…

I would offer to help someone to the tune of an hour of my time or a hundred dollars to hear a story about how they are travelling without money. It wouldn't matter to me whether they used to have a job so long as they weren't claiming they would die if someone didn't help (which I didn't hear in this article).

Re: How will the miracle happen today?

#144

Post by JKCalhoun »

bpt3 wrote: post #112
JKCalhoun wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. The world is in fact filled with people with this attitude. And it is likely why we're still here at all. "…it is one of high importance to all those animals which aid and defend one another, it will have been increased through natural selection; for those communities, which included the greatest number of the most sympathetic members, would flourish best, and rear the greatest number of offspring." —Char…

You realize I'm talking about the author (KK), not the people he was basically grifting? I have edited my comment to make it more clear.

I did not realize, thanks for the clarification.

I think you're leaning a little too hard on Kevin though. Grifting is putting a bit of a fine point on it.

Re: How will the miracle happen today?

#145

Post by AndrewKemendo »

Care doesn’t scale

Harm scales trivially

And it’s not a question of “not everything needs to scale”

If there’s anything that needs to scale its care and there are thermodynamic limits to that because singular individuals need magnitudes more care than any specific individual can provide

For example I had to go to the emergency room last night and the number of people who were involved in my care was at least 7 people

So let’s say you have millions of individuals with zero care and support networks who need more than a single individual can care for them

That means you need some multiple of individuals who have access energetic capacity to care for all of the individuals who do not have support or care structures for the ability to do it individually

The fact of the matter is of the 8 billion people who live on the planet, there does not exist another 16 billion people who are servicing them to make sure that they have the care that they need

But thermodynamics requires those 16 billion excess people to provide inputs to care for the 8 billion

Turchin describes this as elite overproduction theory. And I’m not saying it is correct and I’m certainly not saying it’s normative, but I do believe that there is a level of descriptiveness here that makes the mathematics of “care” impossible to solve with the atomic unit of human.

Re: How will the miracle happen today?

#146

Post by roughly »

What's interesting about this post is that it would be completely unsurprising to most people in most parts of the world, as well as most people here 100 years ago. The discomfort so many people in this thread feel with receiving kindness and the devaluing of the gift of companionship, gratitude, and a good story is a testament to how far off human norms our society is these days.

I struggle with this a lot myself - I've had to overcome deep feelings of inadequacy and insecurity because I never valued what I offered people just by being present and because I always felt like I had to "square the books" - that every interaction or relationship was an exchange that needed to square its ledgers. The best thing for my mental health has been to become comfortable just being with people and accepting their continued presence and return to my company as something that doesn't require an exchange - that human companionship and kindness are things we enjoy as people, not services to be itemized and accounted for.

One interesting note on this is that it's not just an "old world" phenomenon - if you look at many old farmhouses across the midwest, they've got a separate covered section that's accessible from outside the house - the assumption was that travelers passing by could and would spend the night there, and often the owners would have supplies of oatcakes or other durable foodstuffs for travelers, because everyone who traveled needed somewhere to stay or something to eat at some point, and reciprocity could be assumed when the homeowner traveled themselves in the future.

Re: How will the miracle happen today?

#147

Post by cal_dent »

pizzathyme wrote: post #138
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…

I would encourage people to test this out for themselves, I think you will find a different result. People today are starved for in-person connection, but are afraid to initiate the conversation. This doesn't come naturally to me, but after working on it over a few years, 95% of the time strangers are excited to chat and say hi and make a friend.

I'd echo this.

There does feel like some wide resignation (more so with younger people <35 if I can generalise a bit) that we're too far gone everyone being closed off. But I've generally found that there is no real resolve to that resignation. Many just do not want to, or feel comfortable, making the start. Once the start is done though, the pleasantness of the experience is generally visible.

Re: How will the miracle happen today?

#148

Post by Supermancho »

fwipsy wrote: post #49

I'm trying to square this guy's experience with all of the homeless people who don't seem nearly so lucky. Or perhaps they are being helped and supported and I don't see it? I agree with others here that the notion of relying on others so completely makes me feel uncomfortable, like I'm a burden. But I think that's part of what the author intends to draw attention to. Wouldn't a world where everyone freely supports e…

> I'm trying to square this guy's experience with all of the homeless people who don't seem nearly so lucky.

Although I don't think there's an image to confirm, "Informed Attractiveness", aka "Pretty people are always happy to espouse how friendly strangers are to them" - probably applies. There's also simple charisma which carries a long way. I wouldn't say I was ever super hot (maybe a 7 at one point), but I can point to many situations where I benefitted from being attractive (in appearance, action, or mannerism). Some tangled beard doesn't change host most people perceive me.

Re: How will the miracle happen today?

#149

Post by afpx »

krapp wrote: post #106
nathan_compton wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what Christianity says its message is, but one can credibly read quite a few other core messages into what various types of Christians do.

The problem with a religion where all it takes is one weird ritual to remain blameless in the eyes of God forever is that it's easy to let a lot of shit slide. Christians always say "we're not perfect, we're just forgiven." So even though that is Christianity's message, Christianity's metagame means if you take it seriously, you don't actually have to put in the work. You're still going to Heaven because grace is thr…

Interestingly, the New Testament forewarns that the church will attract all kinds of sinful people, too: hypocrites, Pharisees, abusers, false prophets, false teachers, “wolves”, and those of dead faith as you mention. Jesus and the apostles consistently assume corruption, misuse of authority, and false prophets will exist.

This is further reflected in the biblical distinction between the visible and invisible church and Jesus’ parable of the wheat and the tares: genuine followers and the others grow together until the final judgment.

So, many people know that only a small minority of “Christians” are actually faithful followers of Jesus (i.e. regularly read Scripture and live in obedience to it). And, some estimates place this number as low as 1%.

Re: How will the miracle happen today?

#150

Post by diob »

pizzathyme wrote: post #138
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…

I would encourage people to test this out for themselves, I think you will find a different result. People today are starved for in-person connection, but are afraid to initiate the conversation. This doesn't come naturally to me, but after working on it over a few years, 95% of the time strangers are excited to chat and say hi and make a friend.

Exactly this. I don't do it much in the USA to be honest, but when traveling.
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