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I rebooted my social life

takes.jamesomalley.co.uk

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Re: I rebooted my social life

#391

Post by Animats »

robomartin wrote: post #384
legerdemain wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, your second paragraph describes the place I'm talking about pretty accurately. Nothing wrong with Etsy trinkets in isolation, but not if that's the limit of what the tools are used for.

Interesting. I've had the urge/idea to start a maker space in the Los Angeles area on and off for years. My motivation isn't as much as a source for social engagement as much as starting to lay out a path to retirement that will have me busy at a lower level of intensity. My work does have me engaging with thousands of people every year through trade shows and sometimes a dozen trips every year both nationally and in…

The business problem with maker spaces is that the "gym model" didn't work. The gym model is that you pay some fixed fee per month, and don't come very often. People who bought TechShop memberships showed up too much. Many were using the place as their day job.

There are some successes. Maker Nexus in Silicon Valley pivoted to after-school activities for teens. Humanmade in San Francisco is mostly a job training center, and gets some government funding. There are some library-based maker spaces, but they're mostly basic 3D printing and crafts.

There's also pricing. Techshop started at $100/month and rose to $125 before they went bust. Humanmade is at $250. That's too high for casual users. If you raise the price too much, you mostly have customers who are there all the time, and now you don't have enough capacity. The financial numbers just didn't work out. Most of the remaining maker spaces have some degree of public financing, as part of a college or work training center.

Re: I rebooted my social life

#392

Post by nuancebydefault »

iamnothere wrote: post #228
nuancebydefault wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This conversation is interesting, as well as it is socializing. You understand where i am getting at?

Yes, and IMHO this kind of conversation is superior to the average IRL conversation. It is asynchronous (allowing you to return to it as you like), it places few demands on your time, and when it’s over then it’s over. You can enter just the interesting part of the conversation and then exit just as quickly. No need to drag it out or pad the ends with filler. No need to explain your departure. IRL conversation is an…

For me, how entertaining or interesting a conversation is, depends a lot of the personality of my peer. Open minded people who are not being stubborn, who try to see things from different perspectives are good candidates, as I learn from them and provide a basis for further thinking. Still I prefer to talk IRL, as there's so much extra info in intonation and physical expression. Even calling with camera on makes a big difference. I find it interesting and even puzzling to know there are (apparently) smart people out there who don't find that having much added value.

Re: I rebooted my social life

#393

Post by Kiro »

johnfn wrote: post #318
urban_strike wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I've been trying to wrap my head around this recently. I always get a bit irked by the inevitable comments confidently asserting things like "humans are social animals, if you think you don't need tight social connections you're just hurting yourself". And then pointing to these results averaged out over the entire population as "proof". It seems like there's got to be some statistical fallacy being made, like…

If it helps you understand the other side - very many people, and I consider myself one of them, went through a long part of life without realizing that "humans are social animals". In my case I was very unhappy for a very long time until I realized that socialization was the missing ingredient. Worse, I didn't even realize I was unhappy, and I had persuaded myself I was fine. When you have this sort of a revelation,…

For me it was the opposite. Once I realized that I don't have to say yes to everything or socialize unless I want to, no matter how seldom, I became much happier.

Re: I rebooted my social life

#394

Post by [deleted] »

legerdemain wrote: post #281
cjdell wrote: post #117

Joining a hackspace/makerspace suddenly introduced me to a high quality real-life social network. It's an excuse to engage with your hobbies but also hangout with like minds and pick up new skills. This won't be an option for everyone. I have to travel for an hour each way to get to mine, but it's worth it. If I had more energy I would start one in the city where I live.

A different take: joining one of these spaces (in the bay area) has exposed me to a weird and unpleasant underbelly of society that I barely knew existed. It's like the worst of Reddit, but in real life. People who want you to work on their projects "for the exposure," crypto scammers and people who are very naive and enthusiastic about crypto, depressed unemployable people, people who secretly live on the lobby couc…

[deleted]

Re: I rebooted my social life

#395

Post by babyoil »

legerdemain wrote: post #265

This suggestion is common to the point of banality, but it really does benefit hugely from having "a mailing list of several dozen friends and acquaintances" to bootstrap it. I've been trying something very similar to the author's approach for three years now: a casual tech meetup. My results are way worse despite putting hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars into the endeavor. The people you attract might thems…

Advice may not be what you are seeking, but a few things jumped out to me: Pouring thousands of dollars into a casual meetup, even over the years, tells me of it being less casual than what is described in the OP.

I have never had more success trying to cater to different diets, budgets, asking for opinions on restaurants. Organizing a club needs, at least at first, a near totalitarian approach. _You_ pick a nice place, hopefully decently affordable, assume e.g. that everyone will drink and if not the club soda or coke will have to do.

Eventually, the group self-optimizes for the sweet spot in things such as age gap between its members. The ones who don't like the types of places you pick, the tone of the meeting, demography, etc. will drop over time.

Re: I rebooted my social life

#396

Post by mierz00 »

OGEnthusiast wrote: post #309
delayedrelease wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly don't enjoy hanging out with people who don't have kids anymore. Our lives have diverged so much that we rarely have much in common.

Yeah, there's really not much that a single 45-year old guy has in common with a 45-year old whose married with kids. Maybe on paper they may appear to have similar jobs, live in similar places, etc. but they are on vastly different life paths with completely different interests (personal, political, social, etc.).

If you focus on the differences that’s all you’ll see.

The opposite applies too, if you try hard enough you’ll find plenty of similarities with an Eskimo. We’re all just people in the end.

Re: I rebooted my social life

#397

Post by marbro »

nunez wrote: post #173
maplant wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Socializing is not a "dull chore" it is a essential component of healthy living[1] By not socializing, you are avoiding (to quote the linked article) a "fundamental human need." This is not something you can simply live without, just like you cannot live a good live without exercise. The view you are espousing is fundamentally unhealthy. [1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11403199/

It definitely can be a chore. I organized a large (600+-person at its peak) Meetup in Park Slope, Brooklyn, NY during Meetup's hayday (2010-ish). Meeting heaps of different people from all walks of life was interesting at first. But like a previous poster stated, connections like these are fleeting and take a lot of work to maintain (especially if you're a man, which I am; see the end of this post for more on that).…

[dead]

Re: I rebooted my social life

#398

Post by mmooss »

ProllyInfamous wrote: post #301
bigmealbigmeal wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest, I apologise if the following appears a bit terse; I’m just really frustrated with what you’ve said and this is the best I can describe why that’s the case (without watering it down) We don’t need to step back and work out the fundamental nature of sex and gender in order to have a functional conversation about them. I don’t need to provide a definition of a chair before I can tell you that ones with thr…

Among my favorite Paul Graham essays: https://www.paulgraham.com/heresy.html > >For example, when someone calls a statement "x-ist," they're also implicitly saying that this is the end of the discussion. They do not, having said this, go on to consider whether the statement is true or not. Using such labels is the conversational equivalent of signalling an exception. That's one of the reasons they're used: to end a d…

I'm not trying to end anything. What an absurd way to address disagreement, to try to censor it, and on Hacker News!

Do you need a 'safe space'?

Re: I rebooted my social life

#399

Post by WolfeReader »

Thiez wrote: post #362
WolfeReader wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People dying at below the average life expectancy is not a benefit to society. This idea that people you don't like should die for the "benefit" of society has been tried before. It doesn't end well.

Of course people dying younger is a benefit to society. Old people cost a lot, they're not productive, and (unlike children) they don't have any productive years in their future either. Ideally we would all drop dead of a heart attack 10 years after reaching retirement age (this would also solve the geriatocracy we find ourselves in). Instead we clutch to life far beyond any societal benefit and, in many cases, beyon…

I notice that both you and bragh have this idea - bragh calls it "working years", and you call it "productive years". You only value the lives of people so long as the wealthy are able to extract value from them.

I'm all for death with dignity and not being a burden on your loved ones. But people who've worked all their lives deserve to have a period after where they can enjoy life without the burden of "productivity".

Re: I rebooted my social life

#400

Post by deadbabe »

throw4847285 wrote: post #112
deadbabe wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All I'm saying is if you're going to invite people to something dorky, you will have better success if they are dorks.

I know many "hot" dorks and many "uggo" dorks. The difference in how much fun they have doing Warhammer is negligible.

To a dork the most attractive quality is dorkiness, whether you are hot or an uggo doesn’t matter as much.
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