somethingsomething
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User ID: 1123
somethingsomething
24d ago
I appreciate the steelman and I definitely am not a normie and never have been one, and a lot of this I did learn. That said I actually find 1:1 conversations much more manageable with these types because it's so much easier to steer the conversation, and even if it's just you asking questions, you have a lot of power to break the script (if they aren't totally steamrolling you) and have some interesting sparks of life come out of the chat, even if I still would tend to avoid these people when possible because I still don't enjoy the life-script readouts.
In the case I posted though I feel like it's an actual degenerate situation because it's two overly excited people dominating a conversation in a group of 10 or so others, actively cutting them off when trying to pipe in with their own observations, because they just have to get their whole scripts out in turn, and I feel like in that case it is kind of like a child barreling through an antique shop or something, it's like there is no concern shown for one's environment and feels like a kind of rudeness of ignorance that puts me in a bad mood. In those cases you basically need enough social cache to really butt in and change the course of things.
And where I feel especially non-normie is I am the only person I know who ever actually does that, and most others basically do the seal-clap thing of just continuing to try to pipe in additions or laughing politely. Which is to say even in this case most people seem satisfied (or just stay silent miserably) and I wish there was more collective awareness that we could actually include everyone and allow the conversation flow naturally if more people took initiative in directing the flow forcefully.
And I think this points to a kind of false dichotomy which is kind of like the teenage angst of "no one will have deep conversations with me" vs. accept small talk as is. And I think the tertiary option is to actually ubermench things to go the way you want, but you need to have the social cache to do that or else you basically just get looked at funny, and it's very rare for anyone else to put their neck out there so you're on your own.
somethingsomething
24d ago
Thanks, that should definitely help me track more down on this. I'm not sure that it all rounds down the way you describe, my priors are that culture will have a strong effect on the bell curves and I imagine significantly change a population over time.
somethingsomething
25d ago
I'm writing this off the cuff after sitting through a particularly tedious lunch conversation and having the feeling that there's a culture war angle here.
The conversation was basically dominated by two people excitedly trading drawn out and inane stories from their personal lives while the rest of the group occasionally tried making little interjections. If one person told a story the other related to, the other person had to quickly follow with their almost exact same story from their own life, start to finish with the same inane outcome, instead of saying something like "that happened to me too" and letting someone else talk.
I think there's a missing personality trait that I thought was conscientiousness, but it turns out that means something different (being organized and careful). The trait I am thinking of is more like "conscious awareness of reality," which is like, can you tell how your behavior is interacting with the people around you, do you work with theories of mind, are you able to weigh your thoughts and feelings and choose what to say next, etc.
Maybe this all boils down to rising autism numbers but I feel like this is something that is supposed to be learned, and I would hope that if you haven't learned this by the time you are an adult there is something wrong with you. Instead it seems to be almost the default human condition to anxiously spit up each little itemized story you've accumulated that is interesting only to you, or seal-clap when others do so, when instead you could be doing something interesting like asking open ended questions to the group because I feel like I encounter this constantly.
My gut feeling on this is that it's not just a kind of autism style drug or biological induced disease, it's more a symptom of cultural decay, and seems more like we have bad values -> we get worse people type of movement over time. And I feel like it could be a generally self-reinforcing thing where people are getting less "nutrition" from their conversations with others, therefore they spend more time alone, conversational skills decay, etc.
So this is a bit of a rant but maybe someone here has thoughts to debate or add onto this?
Yeah it's funny, I am very much on the same page, and especially at work sticking your dumb neck out is almost always foolish, and only something I do when I feel like being foolish.
That said, I have very much noticed and appreciated from others what you could call "Chad" conversation moves, and to me, seeing and recognizing those can feel like this moment of profound understanding where it feels good being alive etc. It's like reading certain authors where just like every sentence is perfect, and just appreciating the command of language and context. I think a well lived life includes appreciating ubermensch moments as well as having some good ones of your own.
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