[jasonkester]

It’s fun watching people raised in a world where all communication happens on a screen dismissing the things people used to do to communicate as impossible.

I do it myself. Even though I spent half my life in a word where the only way to talk to a friend was to pick up a phone and dial their number, today’s Jason recoils violently from the idea of doing something so rude and invasive as that.

So just in case: in a previous world, sitting in a prominent place doing superficial activity such as reading, smoking, or looking at a phone screen was a signal that one was open to casual conversation.

[silicon2401]

> So just in case: in a previous world, sitting in a prominent place doing superficial activity such as reading, smoking, or looking at a phone screen was a signal that one was open to casual conversation.

That's not universally true. To my understanding, places like Nordic countries (Sweden, Finland), Japan, and Russia have historically had cultures that don't encourage randomly walking up to strangers and striking up a conversation.