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Nothing about emotions really? Wtf is wrong with sociologists, why must everything be so transactional? I just fucking like being with my friends. It brings m

by d--b 3y ago

Nothing about emotions really? Wtf is wrong with sociologists, why must everything be so transactional? I just fucking like being with my friends. It brings me joy. Utter joy: no fun, no career advancement, no playing tennis, no life advice, no social cohesion. Of course I also do all these things, but they're more an excuse to be together than the other way around. I don't know, hormones maybe?

rmellow 3y ago
I was going to say this description sounds exactly like "fun friends", but then I noticed this: > Utter joy: no fun, ... Can you elaborate how "utter joy" is not fun? Also later on the author suggests friends can be a mix of the types (multiplex friends).
- d--b 3y ago
  Fun implies some utility. I like being around the friend because we’re doing fun stuff, like partying or joking around. Joy means that whatever we do, I am simply happier because I am with the person. We could be doing non-fun stuff, like filing boring paperwork or the friend could be visiting me in the hospital cause I broke my leg, and I am in a lot of pain, but the mere presence of the person brings me joy.
  - lying4fun 3y ago
    A naive top of my head explanation: joy seems like something that’s been developed from a friendship that could’ve been roughly labeled by one/multiple of author’s categories. Basically, you feel joy only because you’ve spent time gossiping, confiding, having fun together (etc.) in the past, and at those stages, the relationship would be frameable by some of these categories Another argument to be made is that, let’s say after having a positive shrooms trip, many people feel joy being with other people even strangers. But that kind of joy doesn’t seem to be a significant sociological force in the western society, which is here being examined
anjel 3y ago
Time is a finite commodity with opportunity-cost and we choose to spend our time in someone else's company because we derive benefit, educational, political or even emotional. I can see such exchanges as more or less subtle but not devoid of bidirectional benefits conferred. Indeed when it's converted all in one direction, its reason enough to decommission that friendship. I struggle to envision a friendship that is absent of beneficial exchange or as you put it, non transactional. Can you describe the qualities ofsuch non transactional relationships in which no benefits are exchanged for your time?
- JohnClark1337 3y ago
  I think it's more of a gut reaction against making all of life cold, calculated, and sterile. Reducing everything to a number
- d--b 3y ago
  The idea that people function as rational agents always acting to optimize their self interests is an idea that I think was developed by economists because it helped explain how markets work and made it possible to solve the price-setting problem mathematically using game theory. It has then spilt over into other fields of study such as sociology. But why did humanity wait until the 1980s to understand that all humans always act in their self interest? Because it is simply not true. People don't constantly reassess whether such or such friendship is a net positive or a net negative. And people don't even have a grid to actually measure what "positive" mean in that context. The issue is that you can always find a way to derive a selfless action into something self-beneficial. Warren Buffet asking for more taxes is acting in his self interest because it makes him look good and feel all warm inside? So whatever example I give to answer your question, you'll always be able to find some form of transactional reason that explains why people do things. If I tell you that some people willfully remain in abusive relationships, you're going to answer something like: it's because they find something in the relationship that is soothing some childhood trauma, and so their self-interest unconscious calculation is that it's better for them to stay in the abusive relationship than to leave. But that's just taking the whole problem from the wrong end. That's stating that the model of self-interest is universal, and then shoe-horning every human behavior into that model, whether it makes sense or not. So sociologists ask themselves: "mmmmh what self-interest does a person have in going to a friend's funeral", "well surely there is some social benefit or emotional benefit from doing so". So basically, they attribute "unexplainable transactional calculations" to unmeasurable quantities like "social or emotional benefit". It just doesn't help.
agumonkey 3y ago
psychology is vast, and you might have a very deep socio-affective brain, which means their presence is what matters, the rest is secondary which is great, i stopped feeling like this in 1994, and life carried me into transactional / protocolized social life (which I don't like) .. maybe sociologist live too much in the land of stats

by d--b 3y ago

rmellow 3y ago

I was going to say this description sounds exactly like "fun friends", but then I noticed this: > Utter joy: no fun, ... Can you elaborate how "utter joy" is not fun? Also later on the author suggests friends can be a mix of the types (multiplex friends).

d--b 3y ago
Fun implies some utility. I like being around the friend because we’re doing fun stuff, like partying or joking around. Joy means that whatever we do, I am simply happier because I am with the person. We could be doing non-fun stuff, like filing boring paperwork or the friend could be visiting me in the hospital cause I broke my leg, and I am in a lot of pain, but the mere presence of the person brings me joy.
- lying4fun 3y ago
  A naive top of my head explanation: joy seems like something that’s been developed from a friendship that could’ve been roughly labeled by one/multiple of author’s categories. Basically, you feel joy only because you’ve spent time gossiping, confiding, having fun together (etc.) in the past, and at those stages, the relationship would be frameable by some of these categories Another argument to be made is that, let’s say after having a positive shrooms trip, many people feel joy being with other people even strangers. But that kind of joy doesn’t seem to be a significant sociological force in the western society, which is here being examined

anjel 3y ago

Time is a finite commodity with opportunity-cost and we choose to spend our time in someone else's company because we derive benefit, educational, political or even emotional. I can see such exchanges as more or less subtle but not devoid of bidirectional benefits conferred. Indeed when it's converted all in one direction, its reason enough to decommission that friendship. I struggle to envision a friendship that is absent of beneficial exchange or as you put it, non transactional. Can you describe the qualities ofsuch non transactional relationships in which no benefits are exchanged for your time?

JohnClark1337 3y ago
I think it's more of a gut reaction against making all of life cold, calculated, and sterile. Reducing everything to a number
d--b 3y ago
The idea that people function as rational agents always acting to optimize their self interests is an idea that I think was developed by economists because it helped explain how markets work and made it possible to solve the price-setting problem mathematically using game theory. It has then spilt over into other fields of study such as sociology. But why did humanity wait until the 1980s to understand that all humans always act in their self interest? Because it is simply not true. People don't constantly reassess whether such or such friendship is a net positive or a net negative. And people don't even have a grid to actually measure what "positive" mean in that context. The issue is that you can always find a way to derive a selfless action into something self-beneficial. Warren Buffet asking for more taxes is acting in his self interest because it makes him look good and feel all warm inside? So whatever example I give to answer your question, you'll always be able to find some form of transactional reason that explains why people do things. If I tell you that some people willfully remain in abusive relationships, you're going to answer something like: it's because they find something in the relationship that is soothing some childhood trauma, and so their self-interest unconscious calculation is that it's better for them to stay in the abusive relationship than to leave. But that's just taking the whole problem from the wrong end. That's stating that the model of self-interest is universal, and then shoe-horning every human behavior into that model, whether it makes sense or not. So sociologists ask themselves: "mmmmh what self-interest does a person have in going to a friend's funeral", "well surely there is some social benefit or emotional benefit from doing so". So basically, they attribute "unexplainable transactional calculations" to unmeasurable quantities like "social or emotional benefit". It just doesn't help.

agumonkey 3y ago

psychology is vast, and you might have a very deep socio-affective brain, which means their presence is what matters, the rest is secondary which is great, i stopped feeling like this in 1994, and life carried me into transactional / protocolized social life (which I don't like) .. maybe sociologist live too much in the land of stats