I think Graeber used to say that if you tell most adults that "Here's your power. I dare you to be responsible with it" they will.
(The notable exception are people who specifically seek power. Somehow they seem to be the least responsible with it.)
(The notable exception are people who specifically seek power. Somehow they seem to be the least responsible with it.)
I still haven't figured out why that is[1], and if there are aspects of it that can be recreated remotely.
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[1]: Some ideas I've had is that it's about sunk costs ("Now that I got my ass here anyway, I may as well contribute") or that there's a visual component (perhaps seeing a face triggers some responsibility chemistry in our brains?) or that it's harder to avoid persistent questions when you share a room with someone.
I've also speculated that eating together may enhance engagement, but I don't know if that acts as some sort of Skinnerian reward mechanism or if people feel cared for and that triggers their desire to care in return.
Definitely definitely.
Even without eating. If it's just "seeing a face", then zoom might suffice -- and zoom might improve things.
But I think it's clear that actually being in the same physical space with other people is an important ingredient of building relationships of trust and respect. I imagine neuroscientists could do a lot of research into why, and I imagine it's not just one thing (like "seeing a face"), but fairly complicated. But from many people's experience, it seems pretty clear that it's true.
(And I agree eating together is special extremely powerful "magic" here -- which btw is/was another severe cost of people's covid pandemic habits of not eating with people they aren't already intimate with...)
Still, I've built relationships of respect and trust with people online too.
I think another thing going on is that when someone shows up with an agenda to abuse your trust, it's somewhat easier to detect face-to-face (which doesn't come close to meaning universally reliable; of course it is quite possible for manipulative and sociopathic people to show up face-to-face with agendas of abuse and get away with it).