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American society at least is highly fractured these days, along all kinds of lines, and this seems to have resulted in high levels of distrust across those line

American society at least is highly fractured these days, along all kinds of lines, and this seems to have resulted in high levels of distrust across those lines - ideological, economic, racial, gender, and probably a host of others. This tends to push people into clusters where they all share the same ideological viewpoints, which is a depressing situation. My idea of a great party has always been one where a group of people from widely different backgrounds are put together in a big room and 'forced' to interact with each other, but these days I'm afraid that would lead to a bloodbath of some sort. To quote from Frank Herbert, on the subject of limiting your relationships to those who share all your identitarian tick-marks, "I can think of nothing more poisonous than to rot in the stink of your own reflections." As far as "close deep meaningful relationships that you can rely on through thick and thin, a friend who will always come to your aid in times of trouble, and to whom you will always offer support" ... that sounds more like a military alliance between independent city-states in ancient Greece than your average human friendship. Don't expect too much, in other words. Here's a related (novel?) concept: don't try to leverage friendships for personal economic gain, for access to a job, for growing your multi-level marketing business, etc. That's called 'networking', not 'friendship'. I suppose it has its place, humans being human, but don't confuse the two.

locopati 4y ago
notacoward 4y ago
> that sounds more like a military alliance between independent city-states in ancient Greece than your average human friendship Has it occurred to you that actual humans' ideal types/levels of friendship might differ from your own? Most people want a mix, with a few very strong friendships (of the author's type) and many more weaker ones (of yours). Many are missing one or the other. Some want something different entirely. If the author's ideas about friendship don't resonate with you, consider just moving on. Deriding it as something that's very much not true friendship by anyone's definition seems like exactly the same kind of condescending clannishness you complain about (and "identitarian" is - intentionally? - a marker of which clan BTW).
geodel 4y ago
Many good points here. Especially > Here's a related (novel?) concept: don't try to leverage friendships for personal economic gain, for access to a job, for growing your multi-level marketing business, etc. A little personal story - Many years back I was living with roommates and didn't have car. It would be easy way to ask for ride since office really couple of miles from home and really on the way of other guys commute. But I kinda made a point to just walk to work and consciously avoid asking for ride. Looking back I feel it really led to much better relationship than it would be if I had taken convenient route.
- renewiltord 4y ago
  I actually disagree with this one. I think you should ask favours of and offer favours to your friends. It's part of the enmeshing of one's life with another. If they are willing, it shows intention and trust.
  - joshgachnang 4y ago
    There's a big difference between "hey, can you give me a ride to the store to pick up this large thing?" vs "hey can you give me a ride to work every day".
    - renewiltord 4y ago
      Okay, but I'm not talking about "Hey, can you give me a ride to work every day?" but "Hey, can you give me a ride to work?" every day. I think this might be a cultural difference, though, because I live with two close friends and they ask me this one often and I have no problem doing it or not based on whether I can. If it's a small deal, I might accelerate my morning routine so I can drop them off on my way to work. If I can't, I usually just say so. I have a few different friend groups and I'm conscious of different cultural mores, though. The group where this is common has a certain low-social-distance norm. In any case, I have lots of close friends and I usually see people lament a lack of any, so I think it's better to do what I do rather than what others do. But cultural differences are cultural differences.
fny 4y ago
> "don't try to leverage friendships for personal economic gain" Aristotle identifies three types of friendships. 1. Friendships of utility, the types you exploit for gain 2. Friendships of pleasure, the types you exploit to play basketball 3. Friendships of the good, true friendships
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- MichaelZuo 4y ago
  In other words, business partners, beer buddies, and true friends. I still clearly remember the feelings I had on the day when I realized many who spoke of ‘friends’ likely not had a single one.
  - more_corn 4y ago
    I went into business with my friends because I like collaborating on economic gain with my friends. Did I lose friends? I don’t know. I still enjoy being around them, working together, economically gaining together.
    - MichaelZuo 4y ago
      If you were in a truly life-or-death situation and they were in a position to help you but only through sacrificing a large part of their business interests, would they? That I think would be the ultimate and clearest differentiator. Of course such a situation is very rare so usually we can only rely on more ambiguous signals. More prosaically, would they sacrifice a small part of their business interests in exchange for some great benefit to you if you give them a promise to do the same in the future? And vice-versa? If so, then it would seem most likely they would be more than just business partners.
bnralt 4y ago
> ... that sounds more like a military alliance between independent city-states in ancient Greece than your average human friendship. It doesn't sound like your average friendship in modern atomized societies. But it seems that it was the bedrock for many societies throughout history, including close knit societies today. I've heard it argued fairly persuasively that this is why military insurgencies tend to be stronger in societies where kinship groups are fairly strong (and there's a strong possibility atomized societies wouldn't be able to follow suite).
strogonoff 4y ago
Thinking about the word “fractured”, what turns merely holding different views and letting them inform each other in a friendly and fair competition into a fracture? I suspect it comes down to fear and insecurity. When we distrust the other, being afraid that their gain is our loss and their agenda may hurt our (psychological, financial, etc.) security, we start acting erratically. Fear manifests itself as anger and contempt. We are not relaxed and watch every word they say for signs of pushing their agenda. We are torn between considering it beneath ourselves to spend effort arguing with them, and being unable to stay silent. We don’t know when are they themselves and when they represent their group. You can truly enjoy friendship (and indeed love) if you are secure on some fundamental level, and I suspect it is a hard precondition. I don’t know where I’m going with this. Maybe we should look into being more secure and relaxed? Pay heaps more attention to mental health, our own and our society’s? Learn to play non-zero-sum infinite games? Release some part of us from having to fight for survival if we are lucky to enjoy highest ever standards of living?
pessimizer 4y ago
> don't try to leverage friendships for personal economic gain, for access to a job, for growing your multi-level marketing business, etc. But on the other hand, do whatever you can to give your friends economic gains, access to jobs, and to grow their MLM. Do things for them without hesitation that involve little effort, loss, or risk for you, and consider about doing things for them that involve some effort, loss or risk to you. Authoritarian structures like capitalism and religion have a goal of atomizing us all, forcing people to use them as an intermediary. Please don't think that friendship is about entertainment and work is about effort. Friendship is about mutual aid, and work is about helping the boss in order to help yourself. Two friends get more accomplished than two people.
AtlasBarfed 4y ago
Social media advertises far more of someone's "spectrum" than it used to. So it used to be "dude/gal in a suit, polite, talk about weather"... now you know political affiliation, religion, music taste, the way they talk at length, can derive IQ, whatever crazy thing they think (and we all have SOMETHING). Capitalism and the rich are squeezing more and more money and safety from culture, and exploits traditional values of generosity and kindness in more and granular ways, and rewards sociopathic and narcissistic behavior patterns in a nasty feedback cycle. The internet enables all of that faster at a far greater granularity and now with AI-assisted attacks. Combine that with the fact that environmental dangers are now starting to appear more tangibly on the horizon, and people's beliefs and values and disagreements represent more perceptible danger/evil to someone. The internet, aside from isolated successes (mostly for very isolated people), should have brought us together. You could argue facebook WAS doing that in its earlier years, but now that monetization is necessary, propaganda and dividing and conquering of the rabble to serve the elite is what pays. We live in the greatest amount of leisure and technology ever, and yet almost everyone thinks the future will be worse. For the current 18-30 demographic, they already are living the prospect of their third economic downturn, this time replaying the 1970s stagflation, and watching the current power elite ostrich plant their heads over global warming and a host of global environmental problems. The internet really now just functions to inform someone of how fucked up the world is and the nigh impossibility to change it proactively via politics. We will place all our faith in hopes in that which got us into this mess: technology.

locopati 4y ago

notacoward 4y ago

> that sounds more like a military alliance between independent city-states in ancient Greece than your average human friendship Has it occurred to you that actual humans' ideal types/levels of friendship might differ from your own? Most people want a mix, with a few very strong friendships (of the author's type) and many more weaker ones (of yours). Many are missing one or the other. Some want something different entirely. If the author's ideas about friendship don't resonate with you, consider just moving on. Deriding it as something that's very much not true friendship by anyone's definition seems like exactly the same kind of condescending clannishness you complain about (and "identitarian" is - intentionally? - a marker of which clan BTW).

geodel 4y ago

Many good points here. Especially > Here's a related (novel?) concept: don't try to leverage friendships for personal economic gain, for access to a job, for growing your multi-level marketing business, etc. A little personal story - Many years back I was living with roommates and didn't have car. It would be easy way to ask for ride since office really couple of miles from home and really on the way of other guys commute. But I kinda made a point to just walk to work and consciously avoid asking for ride. Looking back I feel it really led to much better relationship than it would be if I had taken convenient route.

renewiltord 4y ago
I actually disagree with this one. I think you should ask favours of and offer favours to your friends. It's part of the enmeshing of one's life with another. If they are willing, it shows intention and trust.
- joshgachnang 4y ago
  There's a big difference between "hey, can you give me a ride to the store to pick up this large thing?" vs "hey can you give me a ride to work every day".
  - renewiltord 4y ago
    Okay, but I'm not talking about "Hey, can you give me a ride to work every day?" but "Hey, can you give me a ride to work?" every day. I think this might be a cultural difference, though, because I live with two close friends and they ask me this one often and I have no problem doing it or not based on whether I can. If it's a small deal, I might accelerate my morning routine so I can drop them off on my way to work. If I can't, I usually just say so. I have a few different friend groups and I'm conscious of different cultural mores, though. The group where this is common has a certain low-social-distance norm. In any case, I have lots of close friends and I usually see people lament a lack of any, so I think it's better to do what I do rather than what others do. But cultural differences are cultural differences.

fny 4y ago

> "don't try to leverage friendships for personal economic gain" Aristotle identifies three types of friendships. 1. Friendships of utility, the types you exploit for gain 2. Friendships of pleasure, the types you exploit to play basketball 3. Friendships of the good, true friendships

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
MichaelZuo 4y ago
In other words, business partners, beer buddies, and true friends. I still clearly remember the feelings I had on the day when I realized many who spoke of ‘friends’ likely not had a single one.
- more_corn 4y ago
  I went into business with my friends because I like collaborating on economic gain with my friends. Did I lose friends? I don’t know. I still enjoy being around them, working together, economically gaining together.
  - MichaelZuo 4y ago
    If you were in a truly life-or-death situation and they were in a position to help you but only through sacrificing a large part of their business interests, would they? That I think would be the ultimate and clearest differentiator. Of course such a situation is very rare so usually we can only rely on more ambiguous signals. More prosaically, would they sacrifice a small part of their business interests in exchange for some great benefit to you if you give them a promise to do the same in the future? And vice-versa? If so, then it would seem most likely they would be more than just business partners.

bnralt 4y ago

> ... that sounds more like a military alliance between independent city-states in ancient Greece than your average human friendship. It doesn't sound like your average friendship in modern atomized societies. But it seems that it was the bedrock for many societies throughout history, including close knit societies today. I've heard it argued fairly persuasively that this is why military insurgencies tend to be stronger in societies where kinship groups are fairly strong (and there's a strong possibility atomized societies wouldn't be able to follow suite).

strogonoff 4y ago

Thinking about the word “fractured”, what turns merely holding different views and letting them inform each other in a friendly and fair competition into a fracture? I suspect it comes down to fear and insecurity. When we distrust the other, being afraid that their gain is our loss and their agenda may hurt our (psychological, financial, etc.) security, we start acting erratically. Fear manifests itself as anger and contempt. We are not relaxed and watch every word they say for signs of pushing their agenda. We are torn between considering it beneath ourselves to spend effort arguing with them, and being unable to stay silent. We don’t know when are they themselves and when they represent their group. You can truly enjoy friendship (and indeed love) if you are secure on some fundamental level, and I suspect it is a hard precondition. I don’t know where I’m going with this. Maybe we should look into being more secure and relaxed? Pay heaps more attention to mental health, our own and our society’s? Learn to play non-zero-sum infinite games? Release some part of us from having to fight for survival if we are lucky to enjoy highest ever standards of living?

pessimizer 4y ago

> don't try to leverage friendships for personal economic gain, for access to a job, for growing your multi-level marketing business, etc. But on the other hand, do whatever you can to give your friends economic gains, access to jobs, and to grow their MLM. Do things for them without hesitation that involve little effort, loss, or risk for you, and consider about doing things for them that involve some effort, loss or risk to you. Authoritarian structures like capitalism and religion have a goal of atomizing us all, forcing people to use them as an intermediary. Please don't think that friendship is about entertainment and work is about effort. Friendship is about mutual aid, and work is about helping the boss in order to help yourself. Two friends get more accomplished than two people.

AtlasBarfed 4y ago

Social media advertises far more of someone's "spectrum" than it used to. So it used to be "dude/gal in a suit, polite, talk about weather"... now you know political affiliation, religion, music taste, the way they talk at length, can derive IQ, whatever crazy thing they think (and we all have SOMETHING). Capitalism and the rich are squeezing more and more money and safety from culture, and exploits traditional values of generosity and kindness in more and granular ways, and rewards sociopathic and narcissistic behavior patterns in a nasty feedback cycle. The internet enables all of that faster at a far greater granularity and now with AI-assisted attacks. Combine that with the fact that environmental dangers are now starting to appear more tangibly on the horizon, and people's beliefs and values and disagreements represent more perceptible danger/evil to someone. The internet, aside from isolated successes (mostly for very isolated people), should have brought us together. You could argue facebook WAS doing that in its earlier years, but now that monetization is necessary, propaganda and dividing and conquering of the rabble to serve the elite is what pays. We live in the greatest amount of leisure and technology ever, and yet almost everyone thinks the future will be worse. For the current 18-30 demographic, they already are living the prospect of their third economic downturn, this time replaying the 1970s stagflation, and watching the current power elite ostrich plant their heads over global warming and a host of global environmental problems. The internet really now just functions to inform someone of how fucked up the world is and the nigh impossibility to change it proactively via politics. We will place all our faith in hopes in that which got us into this mess: technology.