[0des]

We are victims of our own comfort. It's easier to stay home in our filter bubbles unchallenged. People don't know how to socialize these days, it's easier to flick idly through facebook. Awkward conversations with strangers don't happen anymore, because the second a familiar conversation with the bartender ends, everyone reaches into their pockets and retreats back into their digital security blankets. Try having a conversation with someone, and count how many seconds it takes for them to pull out their phone, and instead of correcting them on it, just talk babble and watch as they scroll. There is no intent in the scroll, it is just idle time and a slow drip of stimulus to the frontal lobes.

It also doesn't help that every news broadcast and TV show is somehow furthering agendas that divide us, or polarize topics into idealogical tribal warfare.

[vorpalhex]

As a youth, I remember being strongly instilled that neither politics nor religion were appropriate topics for "polite conversation". Instead you generally talked hobbies, plans, family, etc.

Conversations are a bit of a puzzle. You are trying to identify the overlap of two parties interests.

Now I see a lot of people who start right out of the gate with politics and immediately become hostile when you disagree on some small element. I don't even mind politics or political debate, but political opinions aren't a substitute for personality.

[kelseyfrog]

I remember the same. However, as I've gotten older and everything has become political, the non-political path has gotten smaller and smaller and has all but disappeared.

Even more importantly, I've realized that it's not healthy to have an entire social diet composed of polite conversations. Emotional vulnerability and openness is a necessary ingredient for meaningful social engagement. An opening move into politics is still an out of pocket move, but never engaging openly stunts a potentially deep bond.

[vorpalhex]

Polite conversations are for strangers, coworkers, and other people who have to deal with you in a service role.

To rephrase, please don't give your waitress or barber a rant on how candidate X is doing A and B.

You should have good friends who willingly engage in deep conversation with you, whether it's religion, sex, politics, etc. That is where your openness and vulnerability are - not with bots on twitter.

[bradlys]

But is a polite conversation even worth having? I’m honestly not convinced. Just because I went out and conversed with some folks in a polite way doesn’t mean I feel any less lonely. In fact - I’d likely feel even more lonely than if I hadn’t gone out at all. Now I’m surrounding myself with people I can’t even form a real connection with because we can’t talk about anything real.

I’ve noticed this pattern with quite a few people I’ve met lately. Completely embarrassed to discuss anything significant like why they’re doing what they’re doing, what they want out of life, and how they’re going about accomplishing it - if at all. It’s topics that most people are just deathly afraid of speaking about while in public but truly are necessary to understand what the heck a person really is like. (Assuming you want to be close to them and support them)

[ericmcer]

Yeah people seem to blame this on housing, the economy, etc. but the reality is we can squeeze just enough satisfaction from streaming, internet and video games to keep us going. The second you cut that off people will emerge again. It is also annoying to me when people claim they are fine being "alone" but then sit in front of a screen for 10 hours a day. Watching an entire Netflix series alone in one weekend doesn't show some kind of zen level of self-contentedness.

[strikelaserclaw]

absolutely, most humans are hardwired to seek path of least resistance, since our environment changed rapidly, the path of least resistance for many is indulging in fast foods and becoming obese, indulging in the fast food of social interaction through social media and becoming disconnected, unhappy etc... Technology and order seems to at once statistically lower human suffering and seems to increase spiritual suffering.

[0des]

Thanks for the reply, you hit the nail right on the head. Your comment also inspired an interesting thought, that "diet" is not just what we eat, it's what we consume in general, which includes content. I had not thought of that before.

[9530jh9054ven]

>Try having a conversation with someone, and count how many seconds it takes for them to pull out their phone, and instead of correcting them on it, just talk babble and watch as they scroll. There is no intent in the scroll, it is just idle time and a slow drip of stimulus to the frontal lobes.

Doesn't that just mean that they're not engaged with the topic currently or the speaker if they're so uninterested that they would prefer to pull out their phone?

[alexpetralia]

As I like to say, we have decoupled intent from engagement.