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How to talk to anyone and why you should

theguardian.com

531–540 of 584 posts

Re: How to talk to anyone and why you should

#531
post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny how? Are you suggesting some races are more violent? Not all immutable characteristics are made equal.

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Yeah, buddy, you're just a good old fashioned racist. Men commit most violent crimes too by the way, I'm sure you knew that. So in short, to follow your logic, everyone should stay way from men, people under 25 and people who're not white or asian. Only white and asian women over 25 are safe?

And of course 99% of crimes (felonies) are committed by people over 15, so they're not safe as well.

You know, the problem with people like you is that you've already decided what result you want to see. So you'll observe evidence, and you'll criticize it, until it fits the narrative you're expecting. Whereas a person looking for truth, will continue to criticize the results even when the results make sense to them, or fit their expectations and prejudices. When the data confirms your prejudice you feel vindicated and cling on to it.

If you look at a heat map overlay of crimes in the US, you'll certainly see areas where black people live and have lived historically with the most crimes. If you did the same with the data representing current and historical poverty rates you'll see the same pattern. Heck, I've even seen maps of the US south that compare all of that data with soil fertility, it turns out the areas where cotton would grow the most is where the slaves were imported into, and then after the civil war ..well you probably know the rest.

Either way, I think you missed what I said originally in this thread about justice and fairness. You wouldn't want to be held responsible for an arbitrary group someone else placed you in, would you now? so why do that to others.

Numbers are also deceptive, would you be concerned more about mass shootings, rape, child abuse, human trafficking, robbery? crimes of poverty, crimes of vice, crimes of psycopathy. If I'm going to school I'd care more about mass shooters, if I'm a woman and jogging, I'd care more about rape, but even then recent trends are more important than generalized long term stats. For some crimes just one incident a year is too much, for others you can have thousands and it might still be normal with a big enough population (e.g.: car break ins).

The thing that pisses me off the most with your kind of thinking is that even following your reasoning, why is race important? You presume some kind of biological connection. Even among racists, some prefer to ask questions and follow the "it's their culture" thinking, which has some merit, as Europeans are finding out from all the recent migrations. But you know the really insidious part of your reasoning? When you see a certain group being convicted of crimes more than others, your assumption is they commit more crimes, instead of asking if the cops are arresting and targeting that group more than other groups.

I mean, it isn't really a big secret, you can be a rich guy on wallstreet and snort coke night and day and you'll be left alone. But people serve decades in prison for possessing weed that's legal in other states. There are cities like portland and SF that have a largely white population that see lots of crimes of poverty and opportunity as well, similar to other cities where those people tend to have more melanin on them. I urge you to visit seattle or portland, with an expensive car, you should follow the local custom of unlocking your car, so they don't break the window when they want to go through your things to see if there's anything worth taking (they still break the window though, most are too lazy to check if the door is open).

Re: How to talk to anyone and why you should

#532
post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Yeah, buddy, you're just a good old fashioned racist. Men commit most violent crimes too by the way, I'm sure you knew that. So in short, to follow your logic, everyone should stay way from men, people under 25 and people who're not white or asian. Only white and asian women over 25 are safe? And of course 99% of crimes (felonies) are committed by people over 15, so they're not safe as well. You know, the problem wit…

> you're just a ...

> the problem with people like you is ...

> your kind of thinking ...

  Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.
~ https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: How to talk to anyone and why you should

#533
post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, no it isn't.

[flagged]

Care to share a similar break-down by race, income, and wealth? From what i looked up, the average black income is $56k/yr but for white it is $92k/yr. 20% and 7.5% respectively for percent of the population that's under the poverty line.

Also for the same crime stats 69% for white and 26% for black is what I'm seeing for 2024-2025, with 60% and 30% of the population respectively. so 13% more for black and 9% more for white, we're talking about a 4% difference when looking at overall crime. accounting for reporting issues and requirements is a different story. Just like your other comment, such a deceptive line of thinking you people like to push. The numbers you show are accurate, but the interpretations you interpolate are lies of omission, or at best willful ignorance to support a prejudice.

Even for correlating with age I don't agree with this type of conclusion that lacks the lightest touch of critical thinking.

Re: How to talk to anyone and why you should

#534
The most difficult thing is to break the ice.

Once this is done, everything feels easy. The trick is to have a rough idea of what you'll say and just take the plunge. And practice.

We all fear rejection. Once you get past that fear, you realise most people are reasonable human beings just like you.

If you're curious about the topic, I recommend the book Rejection Proof, by Jia Jiang.

Re: How to talk to anyone and why you should

#535
It's either my country or the parenting I got that makes me incapable of trusting a stranger. I don't know who I might be talking to, or who that person I talked to might talk to, and while it might be fine to talk to someone who you'll never see again, I'm really wary of my privacy and how people knowing what I do for a living (and by extension how much I make) might put me in harm's way.

Re: How to talk to anyone and why you should

#536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who both experienced phases in life where no one approached me and phases were I get approached regularly, it's a mix of external signifiers and some internal woo stuff that people don't really understand conciously. Or said another way, when someone says you have to "look approachable" what they actually mean is that a) you have to present yourself externally in a way that makes people more likely to enga…

I do see what you mean but again I'm not sure if I buy it, because it still sounds pretty meritocratic. I have been through times in life with severe social anxiety and times without, and the quantity of approach hasn't really changed. And doesn't explain the people who get approached even when trying to be closed off (I mean just listen to women complain how they're constantly hounded by men no matter what they do).…

It's not fixed. It's like anything hard that doesn't come naturally. You may wish you were a guitarist, but actually playing guitar well is really hard. You have to work at it, over and over, for months/years. But if you can move your fingers, you can learn to play guitar. It just won't come quickly or easily, and you may decide you'd rather skip it.

Re: How to talk to anyone and why you should

#537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably at least once a week, you're going to see someone drop something, press the wrong button on the elevator, try to push on the pull door etc. My own stress always peeks when I'm in public and trip up on something minor like that. If you just shout "hey you need help?" you're probably not going to make them feel any better and doubly worse if you just avoid eye contact and walk around them. When that happens to…

Coming up with the right phrase in the moment sounds risky. Is there another phrase you can use to offer help ?

Build your own repertoire of expressions by picking what you like. You could even use AI to make lists of such phrases if nothing comes to mind. Take the ones you like and use whatever suits you. At some point it'll become automatic.

Re: How to talk to anyone and why you should

#538
post #307

After a bad breakup in 2015, I followed some advice from the socialskills subreddit to “talk to everyone” so that you get better at talking to women you might want to date. The advice was not to only talk to attractive people but everyone. The old man reading a Russian newspaper, the kid on bike doing tricks, people in the elevator. I do that now and it brings me a lot of joy. Recently while leaving a botanical garde…

> I highly recommend talking to strangers! People are lovely. Go out and try it. Which country are you in? I'm from a latin country and the norm is that you end up chatting about life the universe and everything with any random people you share a space with for more than one minute. But in the USA that doesn't really fly. Talking is transactional, either a business deal is going on or shut up. I've been in the USA fo…

I'm Canadian and this is how I feel about the U.S, but in practice it's turned out to not be true most of time I've tried.

Re: How to talk to anyone and why you should

#539
post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The golden rule disagrees. I am bothered by random people wanting to talk to me -> Randomly talking to other people would bother them -> Bothering people is rude -> Randomly talking to people is rude. Hence why the platinum rule is better. Once you know that other people (apparently!) aren't bothered by randomly striking up a conversation, you can adjust your actions accordingly.

> The golden rule disagrees. No, that rule does not say "it is rude for others to do unto you differently from how you would do unto them"--it's about how you should behave toward others, not a justification for your negative judgment of how others behave toward you. I agree that the platinum rule is better, but that difference is not the problem here.

Sigh. Why do I even bother to point out errors in logic here.

Re: How to talk to anyone and why you should

#540
post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Yeah, buddy, you're just a good old fashioned racist. Men commit most violent crimes too by the way, I'm sure you knew that. So in short, to follow your logic, everyone should stay way from men, people under 25 and people who're not white or asian. Only white and asian women over 25 are safe? And of course 99% of crimes (felonies) are committed by people over 15, so they're not safe as well. You know, the problem wit…

[flagged]
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