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Leave a Trace

jakeworth.com

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Re: Leave a Trace

#31

Post by knorker »

jasonpeacock wrote: post #26
randusername wrote: post #23

Similar idea: don't go through life anonymously. Go to your professor's office hours, learn the names of your neighbors, become a regular at the local sandwich shop and shoot the breeze with staff, ask the people you're waiting in line alongside if they have any good jokes. Don't be fooled that social media and conspicuous consumption are the best paths to community.

That all sounds exhausting (introvert here). The last thing I want to do when out in public is be stuck talking with strangers.

As a fellow introvert, I would recommend that you see it as taking medication. Or getting exercise.

You don't do it because you like it. You do it because if you don't, then you'll be worse off years later.

Re: Leave a Trace

#32

Post by Cthulhu_ »

logged4upvoting wrote: post #16

For me it is more like, i should have started leaving a trace before the invention of modern genAI, now maybe is late. I could have had a trusted trace to prove that I am a genuine human, now I get the impression that faceless new accounts/profiles or whatever are all fake and automatically managed.

It's never too late; the important part is to have a personality and your own opinions. AI is agreeable, they will just go along with whatever information they are prompted with, unless they get an explicit prompt to be disagreeable. But you as a human have morals, values, experience and knowledge that you can apply to e.g. leaving comments or writing things.

But this was good advice years ago too. The average Facebook or Youtube comment section feels like it's full of empty drones, repeated and predictable comments that don't actually add much. HN comments are a breath of fresh air in that regard. Reddit can be to some degree, as long as you filter out the predictable kneejerk reactions and "I also choose this guy's dead wife" meme comments.

Re: Leave a Trace

#33

Post by jader201 »

randusername wrote: post #23

Similar idea: don't go through life anonymously. Go to your professor's office hours, learn the names of your neighbors, become a regular at the local sandwich shop and shoot the breeze with staff, ask the people you're waiting in line alongside if they have any good jokes. Don't be fooled that social media and conspicuous consumption are the best paths to community.

> ask the people you're waiting in line alongside if they have any good jokes.

I know no one who tries striking up a conversation with strangers, and I feel like the majority of strangers would be annoyed/uncomfortable with this.

Re: Leave a Trace

#35

Post by hk__2 »

ChoosesBarbecue wrote: post #10
hk__2 wrote: post #3

> As a writer, receiving feedback on my work is welcome and rare. This blog gets thousands of readers a month, and yet the amount of direct feedback I’ve received over all the years is a small fraction of that. If you don’t have any comment box it’s hard to give you any feedback.

What is the ideal approach for one? Assuming you don't want it to be a public one (to avoid moderation headaches), and you want to avoid automated spam, and your page is a static site, what is the ideal way to incorporate something like that?

I have a static blog with a public comments system using Disqus; it’s just a JS snippet and it works great. I’ve seen people (ab)using GitHub issues too, or even use gists for blog posts.

Re: Leave a Trace

#36

Post by Cthulhu_ »

Retr0id wrote: post #5

You can leave traces in the physical world too, although it's often looked down on as vandalism.

There's non-destructive ways to do so; take a photo, post a review, write a blog post. Actually Facebook and Instagram are known platforms to "leave a trace" like that, its shady side aside.

But also, plenty of public places like museums, restaurants - at least where I live - have a "guest book" where you can leave a message. I like to believe other visitors and the staff have a leaf through those every once in a while.

Re: Leave a Trace

#37

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

> Tell them it didn’t work and why.

I did that, once, and got an expletive-filled rant about ungrateful, entitled shits (meaning Yours Troolie), in response.

These days, I just quietly slip out the back, and close the door behind me.

Re: Leave a Trace

#38

Post by jongjong »

knorker wrote: post #27
jongjong wrote: post #19

Leaving a trace is something I've been grappling with which seemed incredibly straight forward initially as an open source developer. These days, I find myself questioning for whom am I leaving a trace for? What kinds of humans or entities? Do I care about the kinds of entities who will inhabit the future? Or will their value system be so different to my own that I'd prefer not to have anything to do with them. Beyon…

> I find myself questioning for whom am I leaving a trace for? What kinds of humans or entities? How's your reasoning there? You only want to be nice to people who have earned it? This sounds a bit too close to the "you have to EARN my respect", which is a hallmark of somebody nobody wants to be around. You can only control your own actions. If your "good deeds" are conditional or transactional, then that very much d…

You're right. I have certain values and I'm OK if others expect certain values from me. To me this is ideal. Friendships should not be based on superficial things like money or social status to the point that you have to constantly change yourself over time to maintain alignment.

If you pay attention, you will notice that this is how the vast majority of people operate.

To me, that's transactional. Having fixed core values and expecting other people to share certain core values is not transactional, it's genuine. These are the kinds of relationships which don't require constant maintenance; you can not talk with the person for years and then resume the friendship like no time has passed, no matter how your situations have changed. If you can change your values based on the latest social trends, then you have no values. The friendship is held together by mutual material benefits; that's transactional.

I have no genuine interest in being friends with people who don't have core values. Because then I'd know I'm only in it for the money, and that's a lot of work and stress for me. Maybe second nature to some people. But I'm no good actor. To me it's work.

My view of humanity is most people are actors and most people lie to themselves constantly.

Re: Leave a Trace

#39

Post by hk__2 »

jasonpeacock wrote: post #26
randusername wrote: post #23

Similar idea: don't go through life anonymously. Go to your professor's office hours, learn the names of your neighbors, become a regular at the local sandwich shop and shoot the breeze with staff, ask the people you're waiting in line alongside if they have any good jokes. Don't be fooled that social media and conspicuous consumption are the best paths to community.

That all sounds exhausting (introvert here). The last thing I want to do when out in public is be stuck talking with strangers.

As an introvert, one thing that works is that I repeatedly go to the same shops and restaurants so people know me and I know them, and we’re not strangers anymore.

Re: Leave a Trace

#40

Post by jader201 »

knorker wrote: post #31
jasonpeacock wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That all sounds exhausting (introvert here). The last thing I want to do when out in public is be stuck talking with strangers.

As a fellow introvert, I would recommend that you see it as taking medication. Or getting exercise. You don't do it because you like it. You do it because if you don't, then you'll be worse off years later.

> You do it because if you don't, then you'll be worse off years later.

This feels hyperbolic. While I would agree that community and remaining connected are very important to overall health, I don’t feel like making a habit of talking to strangers is a prerequisite.

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