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Comment by cactacea | Hacker News Reader

Dunno, testing people like that is such an incredibly unhealthy and misguided way to talk to people that I have a very hard time thinking I'm missing out here. Maybe that's just me though

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Unhealthy for who, exactly? People who I won't get along with?

Isn't it better that we don't interact, in this case? People aren't infinitely malleable - and I have no right to demand behavior from others. So, in my mind, it's better for everyone if we're separated from each other.

Do you hang around people that dislike talking to you? I don't recommend that. I don't think anyone recommends that.

Honest small talk can reveal similar biases without resorting to a too clever by half ruse.

Unfortunately, I have a problem where I love jerks, so we'd probably be good friends.

Perhaps it's that you're filtering out people who don't like to be lied to while those who pass the reverse test don't have problem with lies.

Yeah, it's likely that the two of you wouldn't get along. I think that's the point, though.

They want to associate with people who would respond with curiosity to a controversial statement, you don't want anything to do with someone who likes Atlas Shrugged and you aren't interested to know more. The filter worked and neither of you waste your time!

I think that is a bit of a misunderstanding of where I'm coming from here. Their assumption is that there is a limited subset of reasons why someone would not engage on this specific topic. I pointed out another that they may not have considered since this requires an assumption of intent that is unwarranted and in my opinion, unwise to make.

What they're looking for:

> I know they can either tolerate ideas they hate

Your explanation:

> would note you as an idiot without comment and move on

Maybe I'm also misunderstanding what you're trying to communicate, but it sure sounds to me like your motivations are exactly what they're trying to filter out of their life.

There's a difference in reaction I think. Two people can hear "I love Atlas shrugged" from a new acquaintance and one would start arguing that it's a bad book and anyone who likes it is dumb, etc. Another would say OK, but will think that the speaker is dumb.

Basically there's no way to find if someone would "tolerate ideas they hate" or not if they refuse to engage with the idea altogether. The second guy in my example looks like he would tolerate these ideas but he won't.

I feel like the point here is that there is a sort of silly manipulation that OP is actively conducting on initial conversations with people that only take one data point. I am 100% sure that people are much more complex than an Atlas Shrugged test, very similar to the way that prediction algorithms use multiple attributes. One test or attribute is overly simplistic.

I don't think it requires any special insight to understand that a fantastic approach to meeting people is to simply be genuine and honest.

No! That is not at all what is happening here!

>respond with curiosity to a controversial statement

It's not about being a "controversial statement" (the implication being anyone who reacts against it is a close-minded woke or something like that). It's about "I read it in 8th grade" + "it changed my life and it's still my favourite book". Honestly swap out for any book and it would be equally cringe to boast about how your thinking has not evolved or matured since you were 12.

> you don't want anything to do with someone who likes Atlas Shrugged

No, I don't like anything to do with someone who boasts about being immature in such a crass manner. For that matter, I also don't like anything to do with people who would intentionally lie and manipulate their interlocutor on their first meeting.

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