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30 minutes with a stranger

pudding.cool

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Re: 30 minutes with a stranger

#241

Post by titanomachy »

paulorlando wrote: post #230

I've been interested in this general question for a while. Years ago I ran a startup that connected strangers for spoken conversations. After tests, we kept it to audio only - no video, no text, no profile info. That was what kept the conversations civil. Add video, or text, or profiles and behavior changed (basically became a dating site). Results: F-M talks were only about 10% longer than F-F and M-M talks. (Longer…

Wasn’t there a moderately popular audio-only social media startup a couple years ago?

Re: 30 minutes with a stranger

#242

Post by teiferer »

lordnacho wrote: post #115

It's the internet. When you talk to people online, it often descends into pettiness. When you talk to people in the real world, that rarely happens. But it's much easier to talk online, so people get the wrong impression. You should talk to strangers. It's never gone wrong for me. Most people have a warmth and agreeableness that comes out when you are there with them, talking about stuff. There's also the interesting…

> knowing you won't tell anyone (I actually met a serial killer who did this, heh)

And why would you not tell anyone about the serial killer?

Re: 30 minutes with a stranger

#243

Post by nonethewiser »

cheema33 wrote: post #149
mrjay42 wrote: post #145

Just an observation, not a mean critique about the project or even the conclusions. There's 180 participants. There's 26 people marked at "very liberal", which is 14% of the sample. There's 39 people marked at "very conservative", which is 21% of the sample. ----- Then we have 31 people marked as liberal, which is 17% of the sample. And we have 63 people marked as conservative, which is 35% of the sample. That alread…

In the US, registered liberals/Dems outnumber conservatives. However this study has more conservatives. It could be geography. Some states are more conservative than others. Or it could be that the $15 on offer is more appealing to conservatives.

The study denotes "political views", not party registration, which have historically deviated. Part affiliation has been quite even for a long time between Republicans and Democrats but political ideology has had a significant conservative skew going back at least 30 years https://news.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx

Re: 30 minutes with a stranger

#244

Post by SoftTalker »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #206
subscribed wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I don't think it's anonymity. You can see absolutely rabid, hateful, unhinged things people post under their real names on Facebook, LinkedIn, nextdoor.

I agree. I think that it's the removal of an emotional connection, and that happens naturally, after a certain pause (an interesting study, would be to find out how long, and I'll bet there are people who can explicitly prevent the analytical part of their mind from taking the wheel).

Also, you see other people doing it, and it rapidly starts to seem "normal." At least for some.

Re: 30 minutes with a stranger

#246

Post by badc0ffee »

tidbeck wrote: post #132
arccy wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you use a sane browser, the page will have a scrollbar indicator on the right?

I have (Firefox on macOS), still easy to miss.

I have Firefox on macOS as well, but I don't see a scroll bar until I start scrolling. Could be because I'm using an external trackpad, and not a mouse.

Re: 30 minutes with a stranger

#247

Post by sixothree »

lordnacho wrote: post #115

It's the internet. When you talk to people online, it often descends into pettiness. When you talk to people in the real world, that rarely happens. But it's much easier to talk online, so people get the wrong impression. You should talk to strangers. It's never gone wrong for me. Most people have a warmth and agreeableness that comes out when you are there with them, talking about stuff. There's also the interesting…

> Most people have a warmth and agreeableness that comes out when you are there with them, talking about stuff.

I really hate saying this, but I live in the Deep South and people here can quite repulsive under the veneer of manners. The amount of hate, anger towards people different from them, and just rampant racism is quite difficult to deal with. And these are things that get exposed when having these conversations.

I do as you suggest. But I'm always ready to just walk away from a conversation. There's no winning with these people and the moral injury you sustain by being in their presence is awful

Re: 30 minutes with a stranger

#248

Post by AbstractH24 »

alex-moon wrote: post #39

I'm increasingly convinced that social isolation is the single great social ill of our time. I am not one for "respecting others' opinions" at all, make no mistakes, if someone believes something incorrect - or worse - then they need to be corrected. But so much of the hate simmering away like a pot about to boil over is the result of loneliness. The evidence on this is startingly clear. https://www.sciencedirect.com…

Here's an interesting thing to ponder - how would we be different if not for lockdowns making work from home somewhat normal?

The overnight disappearance of those loose connections you get in the workplace had a huge impact on my mental health. Life-altering. 5 years later, I split my time between remote tech consulting from an office I rent (to make sure I don't sit home all day) and a union-protected, but completely antiquated job from a career I left behind that I returned to mostly to be with people.

By 2025, things would have probably been the same both for society and me (lockdowns coincided with me turning 30), but the abrupt change was horrible.

Re: 30 minutes with a stranger

#249

Post by [deleted] »

teiferer wrote: post #242
lordnacho wrote: post #115

It's the internet. When you talk to people online, it often descends into pettiness. When you talk to people in the real world, that rarely happens. But it's much easier to talk online, so people get the wrong impression. You should talk to strangers. It's never gone wrong for me. Most people have a warmth and agreeableness that comes out when you are there with them, talking about stuff. There's also the interesting…

> knowing you won't tell anyone (I actually met a serial killer who did this, heh) And why would you not tell anyone about the serial killer?

[deleted]

Re: 30 minutes with a stranger

#250

Post by lovecg »

lordnacho wrote: post #140
karmakurtisaani wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I actually met a serial killer who did this, heh Would love to hear the story behind this one.

When I was an intern in a small town, I took a trip to London. On my way back, I caught a cab from the provincial station to my house. The cabbie seemed fun. We were talking about football. Just ordinary banter with a cab driver. Out of the blue, he asks me "hey mate, just for fun, what would you do if you'd murdered someone and had a dead body to dispose of?" I was a bit surprised, but it's not that odd a thing to t…

> Out of the blue, he asks me "hey mate, just for fun, what would you do if you'd murdered someone and had a dead body to dispose of?"

Ah yeah, the exact sort of thing you want to hear from your cab driver

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