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Comment by ThrowawayR2 | Hacker News Reader

Not to be pedantic or anything but that's an incorrect use of the word "anti-social".

anti-social = disruptive or destructive to society (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-social_behaviour)

asocial = lack of desire to be social (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asociality)

There's more than one definition of antisocial. The second definition from Oxford is "Not sociable; not wanting the company of others".

This usage is colloquially extremely common.

https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/antisocial

Well, you're all wrong, because I define sociability as a network of vectors, and I say 'antisocial' is when you reciprocate someone's sociability back toward them (along the same vector, but in the opposite direction).

>Well, you're all wrong, because I define sociability as [...]

Jesus... Do you read what you write before you post it?

I think he was being sarcastic.

Honestly shocked that people don’t see that as being obvious sarcasm.

Yeah, sure; I'm equally appalled Poe's Law hasn't been considered, especially on a site like HN.

I recommend adding a "/s" to the end of sarcastic comments for those of us who have trouble interpreting sarcasm

I’m not a fan of asocial, it sounds passive, ambivalent. I’ll keep using anti-social for this, since anti-societal would be more apt for that concept.

Maybe it's a US vs British English thing, but I definitely associate "anti-social" with meaning disruptive to society (e.g. Anti-social behaviour orders in the UK [1])

Upon saying that, "asocial" doesn't really sound right to me. I'd probably go with "non-social" or maybe more poetically use "misanthropic".

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-social_behaviour_order

There's nuance to each of the terms. Asocial is what I would say an introvert often is; avoids social interaction without necessarily wishing ill, perhaps dislikes being in the company of others. Anti-social behaviour is disruptive to others, perhaps violent.

I don’t believe the DSM still uses the term anti-social for precisely this reason.

Thank you.

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