[uhura]

The article reflects well many aspects of western life experience and might be poorly applicable in other contexts. The text shows signals of it when associating certain kinds of relationships to be more prevalent in certain social-economics classes.

Having no friends usually is associated with sadness but some people actually associate it with determination and ambition as “friends” are distractions. If you only have acquaintances, an alternative grouping might provide a better framework to explain and reason about it.

The overall model provided is a good starting point but seems to assume some general human kindness that might be far from real. Interactions might be faked on one or both sides, relationships usually are not symmetric, people have a difficult time adjusting their interpretation of the real world accordingly to the inputs they receive, and so on.

I usually do not use the word friend for people that I mostly interact because of a shared hobby nor for social acquaintances, but I understand that they fit the authors definition.

In practice the text has more value if you replace “friends” with “people you interact with” and if you add a “none of the above” category. Which does not diminish the value of the article in any way.

[watwut]

> Having no friends usually is associated with sadness but some people actually associate it with determination and ambition as “friends” are distractions.

Just a few years ago (5-10), it was popular in tech circles to claim basically "I am hard worker because I did solitary hobby instead of socializing in school". Quite a lot of tech guys in my generations were effectively pushing that as ideology - socializing is waste of time for lazy people. You know, the true programmer is coding during christmas eve kind of meme (which was a thing in the past).

Now days, the same circles talk about loneliness (and sometimes blame lack of traditional values for it).

[taneq]

If there's one thing I've learned from playing single player games, then trying out online PVP in those same games, it's that teaming with (and competing against) other people is essential in improving your own performance past a certain level.

[varjag]

AoC is still very much a thing.

[watwut]

What do you mean by AoC? I assume you do not mean Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and I cant think of anything else.

[rpsw]

OP meant Advent of Code I assume, in reference to programming on Christmas Eve.

[waveBidder]

AoC is great as a social activity, tbh. only time I participate is with friends as a goofy coding exercise

[urthor]

AoC shouldn't take all of Christmas (it does however require quite extraordinary algorithmic prowess).

[varjag]

Well it does have an assignment on Christmas Eve naturally. The only time I did AoC that was the day I skipped since honestly it's super low priority compared to cooking/arranging with the family.

[nonrandomstring]

I too found the Machiavellian deconstruction distasteful at times. But it's a useful lens. Like all such categorical psychology - personality types and whatnot - it's a blunt utility, one that may even rally "experimental evidence" to its support, but ultimately is elegant observation of and in its time.

To be fair, the author acknowledges most of that. The etymology was interesting. Less so the intersection with "class" which is a weak sociological concept in my opinion.

Ultimately I felt it was a cold analysis though. He struggles with defining love other than a coincidence of four types plus sex, which I think misses about 90% of what love is, including fancies and fevers brought on by sunshine and hormones and quite opaque to reason.

There is something odd in reading any account of the passions that attempts to be dispassionate.

While he mentions how some bonds mat break down, the types are mainly presented as static, missing any discussion of events and shared experiences that shape relationships, for example; military service where a bunch of random dudes you accidently cohabit, hang-out and take the piss with, quickly turn into brothers you'd die for and spend the rest of your life drinking with.

[Lio]

> He struggles with defining love

Well it is infamously difficult to define, so he's not alone in that.

Poets, artists, philosophers and scientists have all been trying and failing to define love for thousands of years.

I suspect that it means different things to different people so by its nature is undefinable.

[nonrandomstring]

For me, the writings of Erich Fromm offer wonderful and coherent insights..Particularly those that move love from something that 'happens to us' to something we're responsible for.

[ReactiveJelly]

"big", "fast", and "heavy" all mean different things to programmers, train engineers, rocket designers, and astronomers, but they all still manage to quantify things.

If I love someone, I find them interesting, I feel bad when they feel bad, I want to spend time around them and get one-on-one attention from them, especially physical attention. That's at least half a definition for one person.

[Lio]

> "Big", "fast", and "heavy" all mean different things to programmers, train engineers, rocket designers, and astronomers, but they all still manage to quantify things.

Love is none of those things though and it's not measurable. What would the units be?

Half a definition is about as close as you'll get but it's the other half you'll never pin down. To paraphrase a cheesy film, you could spend your whole life trying and fail but it still wouldn't be a wasted life.