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Comment by mmaunder | Hacker News Reader

This is bullshit. “Context” has to be the most vague and abused word in English. The article contradicts itself when they say “ One way to create a shared context is through shared struggle” which is a shared activity.

Friendships are formed through shared experiences. The more intense and positive the experience and its outcome, the more durable the friendship. Simple as that. Now go make friends!

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Maybe try a more charitable phrase than “this is bullshit” ?

You can put lipstick on a pig, but in the end it’s still…

There should be a higher bar for these types of articles that espouse truisms about fundamental human relationships.

Yes, here's the problem: anyone in the world can write an article about any subject and submit it to HN. In fact the author himself submitted this article to HN. But the author seems to have no particular expertise on the subject matter of the article. The author is a software engineer writing about friendship. And the author's own comments here have just made things worse and more muddled:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31565028

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31564818

The subject matter, friendship, is of interest to many people, but what obligation do we have to take a non-expert screed seriously? Especially since the article itself seems to be problematic in several ways, at best extremely vague. It's amateur armchair philosophizing.

You can also point with a sword, it's not necessary to smash it straight on someone's head to make a point.

"Friendships are formed through shared experiences. The more intense and positive the experience and its outcome, the more durable the friendship. Simple as that."

Truly.

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