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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

#251

Post by palmotea »

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…

> 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:

I think there's quite a diversity in anti-social behaviors. He may not be describing you, but he's definitely describing others: difficult, self-centered people, probably with anger problems, isolated (because they're unpleasant to deal with) but not self-isolating.

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

#252

Post by Barrin92 »

mapontosevenths wrote: post #16
manmal wrote: post #2

> dig in your heels when confronted with overwhelming dissent Of course, the majority is always right and we should yield to it right away /s

One heuristic for spotting when you might be wrong is that you hold a very uncommon belief. It COULD be that you are correct and the world is crazy, but its far more likely that you are the one who is missing something. It's always worth stopping to double check when this happens. Perhaps more importantly, if you do happen to be right when everyone else is wrong its important to determine your goals. Is it more impor…

>One heuristic for spotting when you might be wrong is that you hold a very uncommon belief.

this is only the case in a 'wisdom of the crowd' world where people hold uncorrelated, authentic, self-formed opinions. If you're in a world of mass opinion and mania where ideas spread virally it ceases to be an indicator. In that environment its not truth that determined popularity of a belief, but how transmittable they are. In a world where gigantic companies produce sociality being anti-social in the most literal sense is a very real survival and truth-finding strategy.

And of course it's more important to be right than happy. Happiness decoupled from truth is nihilism. If that's the goal start doing heroin at ten in the morning and retreat into the VR world of your choice.

As Cormac McCarthy said in his last book: “You would give up your dreams in order to escape your nightmares and I would not. I think it's a bad bargain.”

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

#253

Post by justonceokay »

fragmede wrote: post #246
doright wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

Despite popular opinion having a sycophantic therapist trained Above all else to be liked by you is actually not good

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

#254

Post by YurgenJurgensen »

asdfman123 wrote: post #216
loganc2342 wrote: post #215

Since most of these comments seem to be misunderstanding: antisocial /ăn″tē-sō′shəl, ăn″tī-/ adjective 1. Shunning the society of others; not sociable. 2. Hostile to or disruptive of the established social order; marked by or engaging in behavior that violates accepted mores. 3. Antagonistic toward or disrespectful of others; rude. Source: https://www.wordnik.com/words/antisocial

Linguist: language evolves based on how people use it Nerds hate him!

People say this a lot, but I bet you’re like most of them and don’t hold your tongue whenever people misuse words related to whatever you’re passionate about.

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

#255

Post by palmotea »

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).

> Call me anti-social if you want, but facing overwhelming dissent may indicate you're the lone free-thinker in an echo chamber. Key word is : may. If you're facing overwhelming dissent, you should probably retreat and re-evaluate your position. Maybe you're right, but maybe you're just missing something the other's see.

> 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).

When done deliberately, it's called the "tenth man rule": when 9 people agree, the 10th man is obligated to figure out a way to disagree. I learned about it from this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47777175 (pretty great comment, IMHO).

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

#256

Post by cindyllm »

palmotea wrote: post #255
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).

> Call me anti-social if you want, but facing overwhelming dissent may indicate you're the lone free-thinker in an echo chamber. Key word is : may . If you're facing overwhelming dissent, you should probably retreat and re-evaluate your position. Maybe you're right, but maybe you're just missing something the other's see. > Being that one guy who's always prodding the hivemind with a pokey stick has value in my opini…

[dead]

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

#257

Post by svnt »

justonceokay wrote: post #133
svnt wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Panic -> response distribution shrinks -> freeze/be angry/make social mistake, but hey it’s fast You: wouldn’t it be more adaptive if you didn’t do this? Millions of years of mammalian evolution, unevenly distributed in homo sapiens: No

You can blame million years of evolution for your bad life or you can change it right now living in the present moment. It’s fine if you don’t do it right now because later at a future present moment you can still make the choice to be happy. It might take some work but it will never be because of something that happened in the past. It will be something that you do right now. There are no exceptions or escape hatche…

Yeah I don’t disagree, but your approach comes off as uncaring and arrogant.

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

#258

Post by cooper_ganglia »

notthemessiah wrote: post #241

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 fo…

That Bluesky comment snuck up on me and got a good laugh from me!

You mean the fine folks over at Bluesky, the social media network built around isolation, intolerance, and refusing to listen to other’s POV, exhibit these same character flaws?!

Who’d’ve thunk? :)

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

#259

Post by svnt »

asdfman123 wrote: post #217
svnt wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your response assumes a lot about the homogeneity of subjective human experience that the data don’t seem to support. There is a diversity of physical attractiveness, innate and learned social grace, social environment, and phenotypic variability in psychosocial capacity that makes your comment sound extremely out of touch to some people. I can do what you describe because I am fortunate that many of my social intera…

> There is a diversity of physical attractiveness, innate and learned social grace, social environment, and phenotypic variability in psychosocial capacity I say this with respect: the kind of attitude you're describing does more to isolate people than anything mentioned in the original post. Bitterness or even just muted disappointment will drive people away more than any of the factors you mentioned, by a factor of…

Respect for developmental diversity does more to isolate people?

Because it seems like you and several other people are projecting a lot of “trauma is my identity” ideas on me that aren’t in what I wrote.

What I wrote is that telling people “get good, I did” is really unhelpful. Put more work and thought into how you try to connect with people whose experience is very different from yours.

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

#260

Post by svnt »

justonceokay wrote: post #222
mhurron wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lol, go be yourself on your own time. On my time, you better be normal and happy about it. None of the many many reasons someone may act this way mean they are broken, and therapy is not about 'fixing' someone to be the member of society you deem appropriate.

Therapy is (or at least can be!) about trying to achieve goals that you have. I’m the GP commenter above. I went to therapy twice a week for two years to get over social anxiety and my entire life has completely opened up in a new way that would never have been possible without that work. If relating to people is not a goal of yours then I would agree that you should not go to therapy for it. On the other hand, it is…

It is far more helpful to others for you to share the depths of your experience than to go around telling people they need to go to therapy because it works for you.

I see the enthusiasm and that you want better things for others, but the way you are approaching this communication is not doing it justice.

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