When It’s Good to Be Antisocial | Hacker News Reader

When It’s Good to Be Antisocial

nautil.us

90 pointsdnetesn31 comments

As an introvert myself I decide whether to be social on energy levels and a basic benefits/cost balance. Sometimes life’s too short for certain things.

They missed a great opportunity in the title: "When It's Good to Bee Antisocial"

Taking this as a metaphor, there are times at work where I want to be asocial and work on a project alone. However, my company's culture is to be collaborative and do things in groups. While I can see their goal is to strengthen interpersonal bonds, I find it can be a waste of resources. This can happen mostly in cases where we're solving a new problem as opposed to maintaining a legacy system. When multiple employees are working in a realm where their knowledge is limited, but growing, it can cause wheel-spinning because of other commitments. Sometimes going solo allows you to back out of dead ends more quickly and make progress that you can eventually share with others.

TIL there are over 20,000 species of bees, and many of those species are "antisocial."

"Antisocial" is a strange word because it can also carry the connotation of "violent". Hence "Antisocial behavior". This article's use of the word is more like "introversion".

I do research in this area, and it frustrates me (although you have no control over colloquial use)

"Antisocial" roughly means "sociopathic" or "not abiding by societal rules and norms," generally with the implication that this not abiding is at others' expense.

.. as in the DSM and legal use of the term "antisocial personality disorder."

The author means "asocial" or "introverted", as you point out.

The author's choice of term is actually very poor writing in this case because it's a scientific paper, and scientific use should be followed, especially when you're discussing behavior.

It's particularly confusing in this case because "antisocial" in its formal sense could actually be meaningful in this context, as in freeloading bees, or those that otherwise take advantage of other bees to their detriment in a game theory sense. There are many evolutionary theories of antisociality that are based on this general sense. So the article's word use is very poor.

Non sociable has always been a valid, and in my experience the primary, meaning of the word antisocial. The sociopathic definition has come to prominence relatively recently, hand in hand with its adoption as a favoured euphemism in the authorities' rebranding of low level crime.

I agree, I was hoping to read about some really strange beehaviour.

It usually means asocial. This same problem shows up with atheist and antitheist.

Also, even used correctly antisocial doesn't necessarily imply violent. It can but ultimately "antisocial behavior" and "violent behavior" are distinct categories.

"Antisocial behavior" was the term my high school disciplinary handbook used for "fighting".

Violent behavior is frequently antisocial, but not all antisocial behavior is violent.

Fighting is an extremely social behavior, particularly in the context of adolescent males. It represents a high degree of concern for honor, status, reputation, justice, the in-group, etc - high enough to risk physical harm. Someone (like me) who has never been in a fight is far less social, less engaged, more apathetic about peers and their emotional lives, than someone who will throw down when they feel it’s appropriate. In this case, that lack of concern for social status is positive, but stil.

Fighting is not isolation taken to an extreme, it’s the opposite.

>Fighting is an extremely social behavior

You're taking antisocial as a colloquial term. When discussing antisocial behaviors in terms of psychology, fighting is will almost always be antisocial.

But also probably for pulling fire alarms repeatedly, petty vandalism, cussing people out, etc. Not your actual violence, but still acting contrary to how we expect people to generally act in society. Which is also different from simply not interacting with people very much.

I think "antisocial" is commonly misinterpreted as "asocial". As you've pointed out antisocial does not mean "not social", it means "against society".

I think it is the other way around: asocial being commonly misinterpreted as antisocial.

The "a" prefix means "not". The "anti" prefix means "against".

Take apathy and antipathy. Asexual vs antisexual. Areligious vs antireligious. The definitions of these prefixes are exact and consistent.

Still works for the common usage of “antisocial” if you think of it as “against personally engaging in social activity” instead of “against society.”

Yes, so when somebody says "stop making noise, you're asocial" then they mean "antisocial".

If anyone ever said that then yes.

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=antisocial,asocia...

That's number of queries. The interesting thing is that the numbers of search results seem to be reversed.

Being "against" something does not imply violent opposition. Virtually everyone is "against" something or other, but they don't go around on campaigns of violence to oppose what they are "against". Personally I am antisocial, not asocial. I am "against" our society because of its makeup and construction, not merely indifferent (in which case 'asocial' would be the appropriate term). My opposition to society, however, is in no way violent. Indeed, embracing violence would nullify and make hypocritical my largest objection to our society (which is largely based on violence).

But are you then against "society in principle", or more against the lack of genuine "socialness", the fake and/or violent structures in specific ones?

No, I'm against the society we have, not the idea of society. Not violently opposed, but opposed on a moral and logical basis.

Somewhat off topic, but I subscribed to Nautilus (print edition) last year, paid, and only received 2 issues. They do good articles but if you subscribed I'd advise against the physical copy version.

I was a print subscriber the last few years, but this year (well, since December) it's been incredibly spotty whether or not I get the issues. Too bad.

Not to justify them shafting you, but I remember seeing articles around April this year that Nautilus has been dealing with financial troubles. Writers have been waiting on payment and the editor admitted: "they were running on fumes". I don't know if they've managed new funding sources, or maybe a kind of patronage, but that could explain their difficulties with the print editions.

Yeah, that's sad. I don't plan on pressing them...they do quality work. I wish stuff like that had more support. I hope they pull through.

Same here. I subscribed a few months ago and have received zero issues so far

I'm in the same boat! Have you contacted them or had any recourse?

I have. After an email, I received the first two issues...then nothing. Given their financial position, from whats stated in this thread, I don't plan on pressing them. I wish them the best.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com