How Good Are Laughs? | Hacker News Reader

How Good Are Laughs?

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38 pointskapilkaisare14 comments

Chuck Klosterman wrote a wonderful essay (it's in his collection "Eating the Dinosaur") about laugh tracks, and more broadly, about the way we use laughter. His thesis was that, especially in the mundane interactions among strangers that populate daily (US) life, laughter is a nearly continuous stream that reassures everyone that both they and everyone else around them know what's going on.

Next time you're in a conversation with a group of people you don't know, stop and listen for the laughter - it will be hard to hear because you're so used to tuning it out, but it will be shocking in its frequency when you finally pick up on it. (NB: pointing the laughter out is a good way to alienate yourself from strangers.)

Klosterman talks a bit about his essay here: http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2009/10/17/chuck-klosterman-o...

The other thing that sometimes irks me is the social lubricating that "How are you?", "Good, how are you?" entails. I know people really don't care usually but I do care how someone is - are they happy in the present moment, are they present, what is interesting in their life...

I've managed to auto-pilot myself responding and have optimized at times to "Good, yourself?". It's almost as bad as Chuck Palahniuk's saying that people only ask about our weekend so they can tell us about their weekend. I think it is a necessary bare minimum for small talk though. And, I've gone into the dark side, I've started talking about the weather. It makes me wonder - at the canned responses - we all give out - how much of conversation can be on auto-pilot. I'm fascinated with conversational dynamics as I loathe to be the person who gets the group into a reverse tizzy, all pauses and nervous drink fondling. I think a lot of awkward conversations are auto-pilot as well. And the thing, for me, that distinguishes true, great conversations is their back-and-forth and seeming lack of cruise control. And I do find I can get a reasonable proxy for intelligent discussion that I can't get everyday through chatting (via IM) my good friends who are far away or HN. I do believe everyone has a few signature stories - if I get one out of a new acquaintance - I feel I've done my best - to be social.

A friend from a foreign country noted that we say "Thank you" so much in America it seems to lose its true value. Do we really need to say "Thank you" if a server refills our water glass? It seems to lessen the value of two words when someone does an unexpected favor.

"Thank you" for reading this.:)

Yes, I noticed that in the time I was in England. Everyone was asking 'how are you', even the clerks at the supermarket. This bothered me at first because I wasn't used to it, and it is kind of nonsense to ask that to a random person, especially if you're in a hurry to help the next client.

Then again, it's a pre-programmed courtesy expecting a pre-canned reponse. Once you get used to it it bothers less...

I learned that in Thailand the greeting is "Where you going?" The polite response is "Oh, nowhere".

In fact if asked "How are you?" you will get a detailed response.

I've never heard the idea that you should only thank someone for unexpected or surprising actions, until now, but I think the surprise component is carried by tone, when present.

What would you say instead when a server refills your glass, to avoid the otherwise implicit rudeness?

> What would you say instead when a server refills your glass, to avoid the otherwise implicit rudeness?

I've started memorizing Thank You in various languages. I now almost always use a non-English thank you with a smile to indicate. And every once in a while, the server lights up if it was their native language or home country.

' Do we really need to say "Thank you" if a server refills our water glass? '

Yes. The server is human being, not a robot. Small social graces go a long way in maintaining a civil society. (And we should be saying, "please", as well.)

"It seems to lessen the value of two words when someone does an unexpected favor."

In those cases you can add more oomph to your voice, or say "Thank you very, very much!"

This doesn't explain the continuous existence of comedy and farce from Aristophanes to "la commedia del'arte". I stand unconvinced.

I was particularly unconvinced by this part:

As recently as the 1860s, it was considered impolite to laugh in public in the United States... By the 1870s … to say that someone lacked a sense of humor was seen as one of the worst things that could be said about him or her.

That's a Western historical view on it. I wonder what other cultures thought of it.

It's a history of attitudes towards laughter in some Western cultures, specifically Europe and the United States.

Histories of other cultures would interesting too.

But I can't see it as a "western view" any more than a history of wood carving in Japanese culture would be an "Eastern historical view".

Woah, this was a curious article, but it unexpectedly turned gloomy with this final, sudden excerpt: "A large-scale study … found optimism and sense of humor in childhood to be inversely related to longevity."

Don't be sad. The abstract for the large-scale study itself concludes that there are too many interlocking relationships to reach a definitive conclusion.

From Dr. Howard Friedman's other research (evidence humor and its underlying personality characteristic may be more good than bad for life satisfaction):

"Results indicate that emotionally expressive, extraverted, and physically attractive Subjects were evaluated more favorably in these initial encounters than were Subjects scoring low on these dimensions. The relationships between expressivity/extraversion and initial likability were independent of the effects of physical attractiveness. Results suggest that conceptions of overall attractiveness need to move beyond the physical qualities to include dynamic, emotional aspects."

And: "Two groups of Type A's were found: one that was repressed, tense, and illness-prone, and another that was healthy, talkative, in control, and charismatic. Furthermore, in addition to the expected healthy Type B's, a subgroup of Type B's was found who were submissive, repressed, and tense; had an external locus of control; and may have been illness prone."

http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~friedman/nvcabstract.html

http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~friedman/longabstract.html

  A large-scale study … found optimism and sense 
  of humor in childhood to be inversely related to 
  longevity.

(If I've understood that correctly.)

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