Forces that fuel friendship • Hacker News Board

Re: Forces that fuel friendship

#91

Post by pessimizer » Mon, Jun 13, 2022, 5:05 PM UTC

photochemsyn wrote: post #64

American society at least is highly fractured these days, along all kinds of lines, and this seems to have resulted in high levels of distrust across those lines - ideological, economic, racial, gender, and probably a host of others. This tends to push people into clusters where they all share the same ideological viewpoints, which is a depressing situation. My idea of a great party has always been one where a group…

> don't try to leverage friendships for personal economic gain, for access to a job, for growing your multi-level marketing business, etc.

But on the other hand, do whatever you can to give your friends economic gains, access to jobs, and to grow their MLM. Do things for them without hesitation that involve little effort, loss, or risk for you, and consider about doing things for them that involve some effort, loss or risk to you.

Authoritarian structures like capitalism and religion have a goal of atomizing us all, forcing people to use them as an intermediary. Please don't think that friendship is about entertainment and work is about effort. Friendship is about mutual aid, and work is about helping the boss in order to help yourself.

Two friends get more accomplished than two people.

Re: Forces that fuel friendship

#92

Post by mbg721 » Mon, Jun 13, 2022, 5:06 PM UTC

Gustek wrote: post #79

mbg721 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If those were the only criteria, making friends would be easy. People have more built-in tribalism at the very least; the article reads like a '50s science fiction novel about robots making friends.

Is building trust and growing genuine care for someone easy for you? Trust is always a gamble, at extreme you are putting your life on the line and you never know if the other person will decide to betray you next time regardless of what they did in the past. Caring about someone is even harder as it is not a conscious choice we are making, it is feeling. You can't just decide from today I care about this person so t…

No, it certainly isn't easy to do on purpose; that's a big part of why raising kids is hard.

Re: Forces that fuel friendship

#93

Post by ranjit_holmes » Mon, Jun 13, 2022, 5:08 PM UTC

multiplegeorges wrote: post #85

ranjit_holmes wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Interesting, I didn't think any part of what I wrote would be seen as controversial. > Someone can self-identify as a gender (among other things), I do this everyday. It happens to match my biological sex, but it doesn't have to. This is probably what makes some people uncomfortable, but a biologically determined gender binary is hardly a universal human truth. > alter their appearance to present as such, We all alte…

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Re: Forces that fuel friendship

#94

Post by antisthenes » Mon, Jun 13, 2022, 5:10 PM UTC

javajosh wrote: post #51

fartcannon wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are amall group primates, it's our nature. Us vs Them. In and Out groups. Everyone is a victim of it.

Maybe your narrow-minded group believes in in- and out-groups, but not mine!

You will burn in sparrow-hell!

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EF3JLYwXUAAqDPP.jpg

Re: Forces that fuel friendship

#95

Post by swayvil » Mon, Jun 13, 2022, 5:21 PM UTC

ranjit_holmes wrote: post #93

multiplegeorges wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, I didn't think any part of what I wrote would be seen as controversial. > Someone can self-identify as a gender (among other things), I do this everyday. It happens to match my biological sex, but it doesn't have to. This is probably what makes some people uncomfortable, but a biologically determined gender binary is hardly a universal human truth. > alter their appearance to present as such, We all alte…

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No post body was provided.

Re: Forces that fuel friendship

#96

Post by ranjit_holmes » Mon, Jun 13, 2022, 5:29 PM UTC

swayvil wrote: post #95

ranjit_holmes wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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Quoted post unavailable.

I guess it's down to a mixture of it being a very controversial issue (though I think it shouldn't be that much, at least on the topics I mentioned) and one that is currently being used by political operators to stoke division.

On that note, I also find it quite interesting that both the conservative right and the subset of the left that are radical feminists and/or gender critical are taking a similar stance on this issue. Though for fundamentally different reasons of course. Some issues really are bipartisan, I guess.

Re: Forces that fuel friendship

#97

Post by joshgachnang » Mon, Jun 13, 2022, 5:40 PM UTC

renewiltord wrote: post #90

geodel wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many good points here. Especially > Here's a related (novel?) concept: don't try to leverage friendships for personal economic gain, for access to a job, for growing your multi-level marketing business, etc. A little personal story - Many years back I was living with roommates and didn't have car. It would be easy way to ask for ride since office really couple of miles from home and really on the way of other guys co…

I actually disagree with this one. I think you should ask favours of and offer favours to your friends. It's part of the enmeshing of one's life with another. If they are willing, it shows intention and trust.

There's a big difference between "hey, can you give me a ride to the store to pick up this large thing?" vs "hey can you give me a ride to work every day".

Re: Forces that fuel friendship

#98

Post by swayvil » Mon, Jun 13, 2022, 5:43 PM UTC

dmonitor wrote: post #57

swayvil wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds to me like 2 different uses of "identity". One for distinguishing an individual. The other for asserting a narrative. That's 2 quite different uses.

When you introduce yourself, you likely give a name. This was probably a name given to you, but really it could be anything you want. People call you that name out of courtesy. You "identity" is heavily influenced by how you want to be identified Like your username. We call you by it because it is the name you chose and present to us

We use the name I specify because it's useful to do so. No courtesy. Just utility.

And if I had a distinguishing feature, that would be used to identify me too.

If I wear a big hat then I will be identified as a big-hat-wearer. When asked to distinguish me in a crowd they will say, "that guy with the big hat". Telling everybody that I actually identify as a small-hat-wearer will make zero functional difference.

That's how distinguishing features work.

Re: Forces that fuel friendship

#99

Post by MichaelZuo » Mon, Jun 13, 2022, 5:45 PM UTC

fny wrote: post #73

photochemsyn wrote: post #64

American society at least is highly fractured these days, along all kinds of lines, and this seems to have resulted in high levels of distrust across those lines - ideological, economic, racial, gender, and probably a host of others. This tends to push people into clusters where they all share the same ideological viewpoints, which is a depressing situation. My idea of a great party has always been one where a group…

> "don't try to leverage friendships for personal economic gain" Aristotle identifies three types of friendships. 1. Friendships of utility, the types you exploit for gain 2. Friendships of pleasure, the types you exploit to play basketball 3. Friendships of the good, true friendships

In other words, business partners, beer buddies, and true friends.

I still clearly remember the feelings I had on the day when I realized many who spoke of ‘friends’ likely not had a single one.

Re: Forces that fuel friendship

#100

Post by AtlasBarfed » Mon, Jun 13, 2022, 5:57 PM UTC

photochemsyn wrote: post #64

American society at least is highly fractured these days, along all kinds of lines, and this seems to have resulted in high levels of distrust across those lines - ideological, economic, racial, gender, and probably a host of others. This tends to push people into clusters where they all share the same ideological viewpoints, which is a depressing situation. My idea of a great party has always been one where a group…

Social media advertises far more of someone's "spectrum" than it used to. So it used to be "dude/gal in a suit, polite, talk about weather"... now you know political affiliation, religion, music taste, the way they talk at length, can derive IQ, whatever crazy thing they think (and we all have SOMETHING).

Capitalism and the rich are squeezing more and more money and safety from culture, and exploits traditional values of generosity and kindness in more and granular ways, and rewards sociopathic and narcissistic behavior patterns in a nasty feedback cycle. The internet enables all of that faster at a far greater granularity and now with AI-assisted attacks.

Combine that with the fact that environmental dangers are now starting to appear more tangibly on the horizon, and people's beliefs and values and disagreements represent more perceptible danger/evil to someone.

The internet, aside from isolated successes (mostly for very isolated people), should have brought us together. You could argue facebook WAS doing that in its earlier years, but now that monetization is necessary, propaganda and dividing and conquering of the rabble to serve the elite is what pays.

We live in the greatest amount of leisure and technology ever, and yet almost everyone thinks the future will be worse. For the current 18-30 demographic, they already are living the prospect of their third economic downturn, this time replaying the 1970s stagflation, and watching the current power elite ostrich plant their heads over global warming and a host of global environmental problems.

The internet really now just functions to inform someone of how fucked up the world is and the nigh impossibility to change it proactively via politics. We will place all our faith in hopes in that which got us into this mess: technology.