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Comment by zwnow | Hacker News Reader

Avoidance can be self preservation. My friends are fine with me not attending, why aren't you? Because I dont wanna join some human made sadness gatherings with some religious idiot talking about how my atheist friend is with God now?

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This conversation started as general advice, and as such, avoidance of human connection around death is poor advice. You sound like you have good reason for your avoidance, but you shouldn't extrapolate that it's a good general strategy.

It is a good general strategy. Place yourself before others. Ain't nobody is an altruist.

Humans are societal creatures. That avoidance as self-preservation can be considered a weak trait. Society only really works if we know we have each other's backs when the chips are down, so with you abandoning situations when the chips are down demonstrates you won't be there when I need you to be, so it's probably better to cut you out now, right?

Or, why would I put food on the table for the slowest gazelle?

We live in a post society. We are long past the "we need each other" part. Everybody only cares about themselves and im just reflecting what the world gives me.

> Society only really works if we know we have each other's backs when the chips are down

I'd disagree with this - capitalism tends to reward defection from this norm, and it's been a stable equilibrium for centuries at this point. You have more of a point when it comes to community, but even many intentional communities are massively hypocritical when it comes to this, with higher-status people having the ability to deviate from norms at will.

helpful reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemeinschaft_and_Gesellschaft

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