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You know, at first I was thinking this is a cheesy idea, especially with it not really giving anything new. But then I think, what would I pay to find a friend

You know, at first I was thinking this is a cheesy idea, especially with it not really giving anything new. But then I think, what would I pay to find a friend that truly has overlapping interests? I'd probably pay decent money for that, because I can't seem to find a "best friend". The people who share my sports interests don't understand how I can watch a chick flick. The people who are into programming can't understand my religious views. And those people don't take kindly to my love for science. And those people don't appreciate my musical abilities. So on, so forth. Only my wife understands all that, which is great, but I need a friend outside that. My existing friends are good for diversity, but nobody understands me enough to really be my best friend. So, in short, I'd pay for something that let me find someone who can actually understand me. Call it "friend dating".

hasenj 14y ago
Absolutely agree. I mean we already "pay" by going out whether it's a coffee shop or a restaurant, etc.
sixQuarks 14y ago
Are you saying you're religious, yet love science? I'd like to have a discussion with you.
- andrewcooke 14y ago
  maybe you're just being nice, but this comes across as "how can you be a religious scientist?". and if that's how it was intended, well, many people are both religious and scientific. religion is a social thing - a community with common moral ideas. it can be very useful / rewarding and it certianly doesn't have to mean anti-scientific beliefs.
  - zapdrive 14y ago
    > it certianly doesn't have to mean anti-scientific beliefs. Disagree. Name one religion that doesn't have anti-scientific beliefs. The whole concept of religions is based on believing without asking any questions, which is totally opposite from what science is.
    - kajecounterhack 14y ago
      This is too broad an assessment. People who claim to be "Christian" for example have varying degrees of interpretation. There's young earth creationist fundamentalists->people quite a bit less crazy. Sure, faith is central to religion as a whole. But the author of the parent post says it's possible for a religious person to also not hold anti-scientific beliefs. Like Christians who believe in evolution and who are generally pro-scientific.
    - unalone 14y ago
      That is the stupidest goddamn description of religion I've ever heard. "[B]elieving without asking any questions" is literally the exact opposite of the concept of faith, which in every religion I know of requires believers to confront their own beliefs with frequent doubt. Faith is meant to put you in a frequent state of crisis in which you reexamine what you think you believe, in order to find something truer and more real. Some of the brightest scientists I know are Christian, and absolutely they use the same methodology to investigate their faith as they do to investigate their work. It took me a little while to realize that, as an atheist, every criticism of their religion I'd come up with to bother them was a criticism they'd been grappling with for about twice as long. There are fanatics and idiots, sure, but assuming those idiots are at the center of every major religion is giving far too much credits to loudmouthed assholes and their blather.
    - andrewcooke 14y ago
      you're taking religion to be this very clearly defined thing. for most religious people it's not like that. they don't sign up to an exact set of rules; they live within a society that shares certain ideas and they make their own personal choices and compromises. so it's impossible to name "a religion" because every person's religion is slightly different. but if you are looking for examples of religions where people are particularly non-prescriptive then the quakers and the unitarians are pretty cool. see, for example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitarian_Universalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitarian_Universalism - a "free and responsible search for truth and meaning" sounds pretty compatible with science to me.... [disclaimer: i'm an atheist (and have a PhD in SCIENCE). but i can see the advantages of community and even, at one particularly hard point in my life, talked to a bunch (what's the collective noun? vibrational mode?) of quakers to see if they would accept me. and frankly they would accept anyone (you gotta love em ;o), but it just didn't feel right...]
- drharris 14y ago
  Not sure if this leads to trolling, but yes, extremely, on both accounts. I'm both a Christian (even something of a creationist) and manage to love science. I admit it's not a common combination (hence my post), but it does exist. :)
  - unalone 14y ago
    I'm curious. What does "something of a creationist" entail? Is this a Deist sort of creationism, or are you closer to biblical literalism?
    - drharris 14y ago
      It means I believe at the very least, a creator was responsible for initial life. I also believe that evolution is either a guided process or that the existing evidence can also point to creation. Do not believe in young earth. Do not believe the creator started it and has not intervened since.
      - unalone 14y ago
        Curious! I can't say I agree with that – at least, not the way you just phrased it; could just be linguistic ambiguity – but it's interesting nonetheless. I have to say, that's a mindset I don't usually expect on Hacker News; now I'm wondering just how diverse the beliefset of this community is.
        learc83 14y ago
        My personal belief is that the earth was created as if it were much older than it actually is, although their really wouldn't be much of a difference to us. For example, if God created the first tree, just snapped his fingers and poof, there it is full sized. Would that tree have tree rings? I think it would.
        unalone 14y ago
        What would be the point of creating something and then faking its age? Is it a test, for us to ignore empirical evidence and determine that God made it anyway? Or are you suggesting that, perhaps, the world began with us humans, and that the universe pre-humanity was manufactured to seem like it gave rise to is (but it couldn't have, because it started with us)? I'm interested in where such a belief comes from.
talhof8 14y ago
First, I do not intend to charge for this, at least at the moment. Same thing about ads. I'll have to come up with more sophisticated business plan, but this it doesn't really matter for me now, cause this isn't the goal. Regarding the problems you pointed out: I see your point, and I think this will be a challenge to connect people with truly best friends.
- talhof8 14y ago
  And thanks for you feedback!
csmatt 14y ago
There's definitely a need for this. I've been working on something very similar due to the situation I talk about here http://socialocale.wordpress.com/2013/04/18/why-we-built-the-site/ http://socialocale.wordpress.com/2013/04/18/why-we-built-the... Let me know if you want to collaborate. I'd really like to make this kind of thing happen.
- intellegacy 14y ago
  Your site isn't up. What's the best way to reach you? Interested in chatting about the idea
  - csmatt 14y ago
    matt@ the site's address. Looking forward to hearing from you.
bnegreve 14y ago
Isn't it weired idea to assume that friends are necessarily like mined in every aspects? I don't think any of my friends is liked minded like this. Most of them know things that I don't, or behave differently, that why I enjoy spending time with them.
- drharris 14y ago
  I don't have to have a friend that is the same as me. Indeed, that would be boring. I just want a friend to at least be able to understand those facets of me, and not judge me for them. Likewise I wouldn't mind befriending an atheist skateboarder that enjoys yoga and reading russian existentialist literature. I wouldn't even judge his love for kimchi, as long as he doesn't make fun of my watching Clueless. Basically, a friend finder for "out of the box" people in general. For those who aren't defined by any one thing, and like being around other people who refuse to be categorized.

hasenj 14y ago

Absolutely agree. I mean we already "pay" by going out whether it's a coffee shop or a restaurant, etc.

sixQuarks 14y ago

Are you saying you're religious, yet love science? I'd like to have a discussion with you.

andrewcooke 14y ago
maybe you're just being nice, but this comes across as "how can you be a religious scientist?". and if that's how it was intended, well, many people are both religious and scientific. religion is a social thing - a community with common moral ideas. it can be very useful / rewarding and it certianly doesn't have to mean anti-scientific beliefs.
- zapdrive 14y ago
  > it certianly doesn't have to mean anti-scientific beliefs. Disagree. Name one religion that doesn't have anti-scientific beliefs. The whole concept of religions is based on believing without asking any questions, which is totally opposite from what science is.
  - kajecounterhack 14y ago
    This is too broad an assessment. People who claim to be "Christian" for example have varying degrees of interpretation. There's young earth creationist fundamentalists->people quite a bit less crazy. Sure, faith is central to religion as a whole. But the author of the parent post says it's possible for a religious person to also not hold anti-scientific beliefs. Like Christians who believe in evolution and who are generally pro-scientific.
  - unalone 14y ago
    That is the stupidest goddamn description of religion I've ever heard. "[B]elieving without asking any questions" is literally the exact opposite of the concept of faith, which in every religion I know of requires believers to confront their own beliefs with frequent doubt. Faith is meant to put you in a frequent state of crisis in which you reexamine what you think you believe, in order to find something truer and more real. Some of the brightest scientists I know are Christian, and absolutely they use the same methodology to investigate their faith as they do to investigate their work. It took me a little while to realize that, as an atheist, every criticism of their religion I'd come up with to bother them was a criticism they'd been grappling with for about twice as long. There are fanatics and idiots, sure, but assuming those idiots are at the center of every major religion is giving far too much credits to loudmouthed assholes and their blather.
  - andrewcooke 14y ago
    you're taking religion to be this very clearly defined thing. for most religious people it's not like that. they don't sign up to an exact set of rules; they live within a society that shares certain ideas and they make their own personal choices and compromises. so it's impossible to name "a religion" because every person's religion is slightly different. but if you are looking for examples of religions where people are particularly non-prescriptive then the quakers and the unitarians are pretty cool. see, for example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitarian_Universalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitarian_Universalism - a "free and responsible search for truth and meaning" sounds pretty compatible with science to me.... [disclaimer: i'm an atheist (and have a PhD in SCIENCE). but i can see the advantages of community and even, at one particularly hard point in my life, talked to a bunch (what's the collective noun? vibrational mode?) of quakers to see if they would accept me. and frankly they would accept anyone (you gotta love em ;o), but it just didn't feel right...]
drharris 14y ago
Not sure if this leads to trolling, but yes, extremely, on both accounts. I'm both a Christian (even something of a creationist) and manage to love science. I admit it's not a common combination (hence my post), but it does exist. :)
- unalone 14y ago
  I'm curious. What does "something of a creationist" entail? Is this a Deist sort of creationism, or are you closer to biblical literalism?
  - drharris 14y ago
    It means I believe at the very least, a creator was responsible for initial life. I also believe that evolution is either a guided process or that the existing evidence can also point to creation. Do not believe in young earth. Do not believe the creator started it and has not intervened since.
    - unalone 14y ago
      Curious! I can't say I agree with that – at least, not the way you just phrased it; could just be linguistic ambiguity – but it's interesting nonetheless. I have to say, that's a mindset I don't usually expect on Hacker News; now I'm wondering just how diverse the beliefset of this community is.
      - learc83 14y ago
        My personal belief is that the earth was created as if it were much older than it actually is, although their really wouldn't be much of a difference to us. For example, if God created the first tree, just snapped his fingers and poof, there it is full sized. Would that tree have tree rings? I think it would.
        unalone 14y ago
        What would be the point of creating something and then faking its age? Is it a test, for us to ignore empirical evidence and determine that God made it anyway? Or are you suggesting that, perhaps, the world began with us humans, and that the universe pre-humanity was manufactured to seem like it gave rise to is (but it couldn't have, because it started with us)? I'm interested in where such a belief comes from.

talhof8 14y ago

First, I do not intend to charge for this, at least at the moment. Same thing about ads. I'll have to come up with more sophisticated business plan, but this it doesn't really matter for me now, cause this isn't the goal. Regarding the problems you pointed out: I see your point, and I think this will be a challenge to connect people with truly best friends.

talhof8 14y ago
And thanks for you feedback!

csmatt 14y ago

There's definitely a need for this. I've been working on something very similar due to the situation I talk about here http://socialocale.wordpress.com/2013/04/18/why-we-built-the-site/ http://socialocale.wordpress.com/2013/04/18/why-we-built-the... Let me know if you want to collaborate. I'd really like to make this kind of thing happen.

intellegacy 14y ago
Your site isn't up. What's the best way to reach you? Interested in chatting about the idea
- csmatt 14y ago
  matt@ the site's address. Looking forward to hearing from you.

bnegreve 14y ago

Isn't it weired idea to assume that friends are necessarily like mined in every aspects? I don't think any of my friends is liked minded like this. Most of them know things that I don't, or behave differently, that why I enjoy spending time with them.

drharris 14y ago
I don't have to have a friend that is the same as me. Indeed, that would be boring. I just want a friend to at least be able to understand those facets of me, and not judge me for them. Likewise I wouldn't mind befriending an atheist skateboarder that enjoys yoga and reading russian existentialist literature. I wouldn't even judge his love for kimchi, as long as he doesn't make fun of my watching Clueless. Basically, a friend finder for "out of the box" people in general. For those who aren't defined by any one thing, and like being around other people who refuse to be categorized.