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How to be anti-social – a guide to incoherent and isolating social experiences

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Re: How to be anti-social – a guide to incoherent and isolating social experiences

#241

Post by notthemessiah »

the author wrote this in the Leaflet comments sections:

"""

through some upsetting turn of events, someone put this on hackernews and started a piranha feeding frenzy of speculation about what / who im referring to here. so just to be clear:

i wrote this bulleted list in a couple minutes as a way to rant about the lack of charity i was noticing in 2 places

- my family, where 2 members aren't speaking to each other for petty reasons, looking for the other to capitulate and admit they're the aggressor

- on bluesky, where users are blaming every outage on "vibe coding"

if you took extra meaning from it, i'm sorry or congrats!

"""

Re: How to be anti-social – a guide to incoherent and isolating social experiences

#242

Post by zero-sharp »

asdfman123 wrote: post #231
slowmover wrote: post #154

"dig in your heels when confronted with overwhelming dissent" Sorry, sticking to this one. Call me anti-social if you want, but facing overwhelming dissent may indicate you're the lone free-thinker in an echo chamber. Being that one guy who's always prodding the hivemind with a pokey stick has value in my opinion (though you will end up getting stung on occasion).

The more important question isn't "are you correct," it's "does it matter to be correct right now?" Maybe you do actually know better than everyone else, but why do you have to prove it to others? You can just quietly make your argument and shut up. It's their loss, and people may remember that you were right. Maybe it's about an important decision at work, but if your correctness pisses everyone off, no one is going…

I like this answer. For me it's not about showing others that you're correct. Instead, it's about feeling like you're being heard/acknowledged.

I'm not trying to be the "lone free thinker". But if I see a hivemind, I occasionally insert my opinion with the intention of having a different perspective be recognized.

Re: How to be anti-social – a guide to incoherent and isolating social experiences

#243

Post by robotnikman »

foo12bar wrote: post #33

How about the old fashioned freezing with a face contorted in fear like your being held at knife point unable to think of anything to say and just waiting to be able to leave? When you get asked a question, fumble over your words and say something stupid. Later on, you can reflexively watch the memory played over and over again so you're even worse the next time. If you see anyone you met during the encounter afterwa…

>When you get asked a question, fumble over your words and say something stupid. Later on, you can reflexively watch the memory played over and over again

I can relate to this so much, my mind seems to bring up those cringe memories randomly and I hate it. If there was a way to just erase those memories I would be all for it lol.

Re: How to be anti-social – a guide to incoherent and isolating social experiences

#244

Post by asdfman123 »

zero-sharp wrote: post #242
asdfman123 wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The more important question isn't "are you correct," it's "does it matter to be correct right now?" Maybe you do actually know better than everyone else, but why do you have to prove it to others? You can just quietly make your argument and shut up. It's their loss, and people may remember that you were right. Maybe it's about an important decision at work, but if your correctness pisses everyone off, no one is going…

I like this answer. For me it's not about showing others that you're correct. Instead, it's about feeling like you're being heard/acknowledged. I'm not trying to be the "lone free thinker". But if I see a hivemind, I occasionally insert my opinion with the intention of having a different perspective be recognized.

Thank you.

It's important to feel heard, but an issue in an argument is that no one is being heard and you're yelling past each other. You don't feel heard by more strenuously arguing your point; you make a calm, genuine effort to hear them, and then hopefully they'll reciprocate the favor. At the very least, you break out of the doom loop and walk away.

Re: How to be anti-social – a guide to incoherent and isolating social experiences

#245

Post by pixl97 »

robotnikman wrote: post #243
foo12bar wrote: post #33

How about the old fashioned freezing with a face contorted in fear like your being held at knife point unable to think of anything to say and just waiting to be able to leave? When you get asked a question, fumble over your words and say something stupid. Later on, you can reflexively watch the memory played over and over again so you're even worse the next time. If you see anyone you met during the encounter afterwa…

>When you get asked a question, fumble over your words and say something stupid. Later on, you can reflexively watch the memory played over and over again I can relate to this so much, my mind seems to bring up those cringe memories randomly and I hate it. If there was a way to just erase those memories I would be all for it lol.

Memory of where I put important item 4 hours ago: gone.

Memory of embarrassing thing I did 40 years ago: Loaded in SRAM cache for instant replay at any moment

Re: How to be anti-social – a guide to incoherent and isolating social experiences

#246

Post by fragmede »

doright wrote: post #200
balamatom wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No matter if it was 'done to them', Love the quote marks. Next time try a Marx quote. I mean the brothers. To fellow humans reading: the point is that the ones who did this to you are extremely unlikely to repent. Or even to comprehend that what they did to you is wrong. Even if you were to explicitly hurt yourself - or place yourself in a position where you get hurt very badly - with the intent to communicate "do…

Sadly the human need for being heard and understood is innate, and it has been my experience that books can't substitute for that need. On the other hand, there are swathes of incompetent therapists that can only aggravate one's mental state. The only solution I see is to find the right therapist. Some people might not when their future depends on them finding one, and they give up too early. I can't see how that wou…

You know who's infinitely patient, has read every psychology text book and is available immediately at 2am and not in a week that you have to schedule an appointment for? ChatGPT. (or Claude or any of them.)

Re: How to be anti-social – a guide to incoherent and isolating social experiences

#247

Post by intrikate »

slowmover wrote: post #154

"dig in your heels when confronted with overwhelming dissent" Sorry, sticking to this one. Call me anti-social if you want, but facing overwhelming dissent may indicate you're the lone free-thinker in an echo chamber. Being that one guy who's always prodding the hivemind with a pokey stick has value in my opinion (though you will end up getting stung on occasion).

Isn't this basically exactly the behavior described?

Re: How to be anti-social – a guide to incoherent and isolating social experiences

#248

Post by scubbo »

poemxo wrote: post #194

I am guessing the author is either criticizing people who are anti-social (in the pop culture definition) or believes he was before and after some thinking arrived at the conclusion that antisociety was not the way. But I don't feel it describes my internal motivations, so I've translated them to my behaviors: - if someone is confusing or upsetting you, assume it is your fault - interpret others' actions in the conte…

> - if you must ask questions, convince yourself you must not, just figure it out instead

God, this one hurts. In the first couple months at my new role (which I intentionally chose to be one that would stretch and challenge me as I'm looking for some professional growth), a senior member of my team expressed the view that he'd rather someone spend three days researching than ask him a thirty-second question. When I was already insecure about my position in the team and not wanting to appear incompetent, this has ironically sent me into a spiral of being _less_ capable and productive because I'm fearfully avoiding asking for any context or guidance. I'm struggling to break that cycle, but it's hard.

Re: How to be anti-social – a guide to incoherent and isolating social experiences

#249

Post by saulpw »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #235
saulpw wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had the pleasure of interviewing someone, for a coding job in C, where it became clear within 10 minutes that they just didn't know C beyond "hello world". Through body language etc they indicated they weren't chagrined by their lack of knowledge and we should just move on with the interview. At one point I said literally, "You know this interview is for a C coding position, right?" I stopped that interview earl…

> We could have been "nice" and held up the delusion that we were still considering them, and let them down later with some vacuous corporate platitude like "you were great but we ultimately gave the role to a stronger candidate". Providing instant feedback that their skills were just not up to snuff is not 'nice' but it's more compassionate in the long run You're right, however > At one point I said literally, "You…

Welp, this was 20 years ago and I was 25, and literally no one ever gave me any instruction on how to conduct interviews (over my entire career). If I was a "huge asshole" to this person, then I'm sorry, that wasn't my intent, and I hope they're doing well and weren't too negatively impacted by my attitude.

To be honest though, the whole corporate world is institutionalized assholery, from giving candidates take-home coding assignments and then ghosting them, to laying people off without even giving them a chance to say goodbye to their coworkers. The entire leadership of that particular startup was assholes through and through. It's difficult to maintain one's humanity in the face of that (esp at a young age) and I'm glad to be out of that game.

Re: How to be anti-social – a guide to incoherent and isolating social experiences

#250

Post by armchairhacker »

Pay08 wrote: post #164
armchairhacker wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re probably “asocial” Asocial = avoids people, quiet, misses social cues. i.e. doesn’t attract people Antisocial = cruel, obnoxious, remorseless. i.e. actively repels people

Sociopaths don't actively repel people. In fact, they're quite good at attracting them.

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