norome

what i've derived from my north american anecdata is that any kind of flirtation or even just talking to a stranger about a neutral topic is increasingly automatically graded as creepy. I'd say the social fabric has simply degraded to the point that people have forgotten how to talk to one another, social atrophy i guess. In my northern europe experience women deflect attention with much less fearfulness, and I'd say people just have much higher trust towards one another.

Scientist: "My discoveries are useless when taken out of context"

Media: "Scientists claim their discoveries are useless"

everything may have a relevance to politics, but there is a line between art and propaganda.

as ever the real problem is formulating questions, which requires clarity on the next discrete layer of missing comprehension, which requires self-reflection and genuine insight into your own mind.

I'd say it's a reflection of an earlier stage of interpersonal maturity to try and put people into categories. More socially attuned people realize the complexity of other people and situations and synthesize all the available information to make a decision that is truly reflective of reality.

I bought a bunch of games on google stadia when that was a thing, and when they closed the service down i was fully refunded on all games. pretty cool

actually i can say that most people with a book and no headphones are the most ready to have a chat about what they're reading and beyond.

I choose to embody the society i would rather live in, instead of following along with the friendlessness and disconnection that results from our deteriorated social sphere. Most people are delighted to have a little contact.

I think HN probably oversamples for people who like to be left alone, which I get. When I talk to strangers it's pretty easy to detect who would be open based on their clothing choices and body language.

It's actually funny if you talk to a lot of people, to see that so many are really excited to have a real, random little chat or comment. Even funnier is seeing the rare people who have completely forgotten the small pleasures of living among others.

It's actually funny if you talk to a lot of people, to see that so many are really excited to have a real, random little chat or comment. Even funnier is seeing the people who have forgotten the small pleasures of living among others.

when people don't want to talk, they keep one earbud in and the other ready to pop back in. then you say adios and move on. If someone punched me for a friendly comment It's clear who has the problem.

This could be good to make the lack of privacy online more explicit to users, and actually cause people to be more cautious online, which all the snowden revelations failed to do. If we start using the internet the same way we use government websites, log in, do the thing, log out.

I feel we are still living in this bubble that treats the internet as some sort of utopian democratic institution. For certain people with strong mental gating it can be the case. But I'd say it's a massive projection from intelligent technologists on the rest of humanity. Most people really need some guardrails to avoid becoming hopelessly addicted to the worst material.

I hope this creates pressure for new technologies and media that answer some of the problems of communication which the internet couldn't. I guess people will find new bubbles of anonymity like Signal/Whatsapp groups to get information and discuss. Hopefully which reward some degree of contribution and proper thinking. Revive the genuine social sphere rather than tuning into the corporate filtered simulacrum of a town square. The truth I've seen is that the current internet is pure poison to most minds, and anonymity is just one less bit of friction to mindlessness.

I just pretend I haven't noticed they have earbuds in and start talking to them. Virtually everyone seems happy to have an interaction, I get the feeling people are a bit starved for random friendly contact.

I probably also wouldn't much work done if I had Monroe around the house

The real problem: token overuse triggered the pullback "after internal incentives pushed teams to compete on AI usage." Incentivised to burn money, they burnt too much.

You said it yourself, you never developed the skills. there's a learning curve, but learnable skills they are. You need the courage to start developing a skill that you're completely incompetent in, and just do one thing each day. I was in the same place as you at 32 but four years later It's another story.

I think when it comes to small talk and small moments with people, caring is meant literally. You care that they have a decent day, a brief nice moment. So in carnegie's example, he notices that the fellow looks bored, and he sees an opportunity to take care of him, in the form of a compliment.

I think your comment reflects that you're waiting for someone to say or do something which will cause you to care. And that's effectively waiting to get something from them. You need to cultivate the sense that everyone in some sense has the same daily struggle, and be the bigger person who strives to alleviate some of that loneliness and suffering in others.

I believe you missed the point

plenty of mean and sarcastic ugly people around too

agree and I'd venture we tend to see more uninspired art because most success in the art world is more about business acumen than experimentation and uniqueness.

While it's decent to acknowledge the past, it doesn't make a country nice. just as Germany has no reputation for niceness despite their self-flagellation.

Canada's world reputation comes from the progressivism in the 60's and 70s, which has largely disappeared or failed (ecological science, multiculturalism). The undercurrent of canadian politics is just as neo-liberal as the US, and we differentiate ourselves on a facade of social progressivism. Canadians confuse their dont-rock-the-boat attitude with actual solutions to social problems. meanwhile they have similar political schisms as the US, just look at the Ford politial dynasty. Canadian niceness is mostly good PR.

A clear indicator is that Canada has consistently underfunded their military as a show of deference to our powerful neighbour. This is why all the bluster of Canadian politicians "taking a stand" against the US is theatre. The truth is in the state of our military and economic allegiances, which are mainly with China and the US, nothing nice about that.

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The power of wealth certainly comes with a lot of responsibility. Which is why I would be curious to have a more detailed view on what all these hyper-rich people are actually doing with their money, and how they came to be so wealthy. We have some obvious examples of power accumulation and evil, and some clear examples of doing great good in the form of philanthropy. So while It doesn't make sense to me that so few individuals should have so much money and power, I still don't think we should count them all as defacto evil.

I'm more saying there's a sort of historical inevitability in the whole situation and we might benefit by taking that into consideration. And that some degree of nuance and tolerance of unfairness might play into a realistic solution.

Regarding landlordism, it's another tricky issue where yes there are bad big landlords, but the policies I've seen that put in place to tackle them tend disincentivize renting altogether and the first ones out of the market are the little guys, exasterbating the housing crisis in most cities. It seems to me an area where tolerating the bad actors is necessary to avoid crashing the whole system, to my point.

Well, the poor seem to have smartphones as well XD — Uganda for example has 54% smartphone ownership. But in terms of vaccination rates, education, access to clean water, access to electricity yes things are ever improving if we look at statistics on global wellbeing. "In 1981, 44% of the global population lived in extreme poverty. By 2019, that figure had dropped to just 9%." So inequality may be huge today, but it doesn't mean the bottom hasn't also risen dramatically.

About my own money, I worry. About other people's money, I rather try to think carefully. "Worrying" about money is the emotional basis that fuels a lot of populist rhetoric. And It seems to me economics is often counterintuitive to our emotional intuition of how things should be.

I don't see why influence is evil per se. Gates did a lot with his fortune that seems unambiguously good. Musk also seems to have done at least some good in terms of sustainability tech. Doesn't mean there isn't lots of bad as well, but I don't see that wealth itself is a measure of evil.

If it's true that all these .001 percent of the population are indeed self-serving sociopaths, I'll eat my hat. But I just assume things are more complex than wealth = evil.

I could say with certainty that wealth magnifies the qualities and intention of whoever controls it. And we might argue nobody should have so much power. But I don't see why tremendous wealth could not also be good or neutral, and so with the accumulation of wealth.

I think it's become popular to talk about the issue of accumulation of wealth, and make this kind of dramatic wealth comparison to point out how uneven the distribution is. I wish wealth wasn't treated so abstractly as if it's some kind of universal measure of evil. I would like to learn about some specific cases of hyper wealthy people and what they are actually up to. Seems like some very rich people do really useful things with their money. Couple other thoughts that hang around my head:

- Though the bottom half of humanity may be poor, on average they have a quality of life that has risen dramatically over the past century thanks in large part to the deployment of technologies and aid originating from the wealthier nations.

- Historically the only time the trend of wealth accumulation reverses is during massive crises, wars, and civilizational collapse which make life worse for everyone and nobody with any sense would wish for.

- It seems to me a lot of people channel their unhappiness into resentment of the wealthy, based on this same flavor of folk economics as old as time "the rich get richer". And that unhappiness is usually uncoupled from their position in the economic ladder.

I think it's a good starting point though. I like to try out the cheapest option and see how it really feels or tastes. For mattress shopping i always ask, "what's your second cheapest option?". For most consumer goods the diminishing returns kick in pretty quick

I think you point to the real problem: It's often not about taste or enjoyment but about using expensive things as a crutch for your feeble ego. Neatly expressed by the term "nouveau riche"