It's not that don't want to talk to unknown people, it's that it's more important for me to avoid the unpleasantness of it all. It's all relative of course, I'd take a fast, crowded train any day rather than having to do the good old accelerate-and-stop of a traffic jam/city intersections.

I live in a country with somewhat solid social net so I'd actually be in favor or preventing people to ask for money (loudly and in a pathos-optimized voice) in the train. It's generally people who are 1. having other income 2. drug addicts 3. mental issues or a combination of all that. I don't blame them but I wish there was a cruelty-free way of preventing them to do that because I don't think the amount of money they make is worth the amount of inconvenience they cause. Of course they are other ways of making the service better (more trains, closer to each other) but I believe the subway company is already hard at work on that.

My point I guess is that it doesn't take much for something to become an unpleasant experience (as anyone who's ever had a significant dose of LSD will tell you) and that's it's easy to blame people (individualistic, selfish blablabla) but system-thinking is how you solve that kind of issue (and it's not easy)

You're making a choice to insulate yourself from your surroundings. That choice has effects on both you and your environment. You see it as a simple salve, but the poor souls you're choosing to ignore see it as a just another bourgeoisie wall.

I used to live in a prison. Headphones were a huge fighting issue. People who couldn't afford them would borrow, rent, or steal them. I never saw the point. Humans are a part of nature. I can sleep, eat, shower, and meditate just as well in the middle of a deadly riot (I was once asked by an officer to leave the dining area as they'd maced several people and everyone else had fled while I sat there calmly eating my institutional cheesy cardboard because I was more hungry than bothered by the mace) as I can in a forest or a dead silent bed room.

Embracing or shunning the society you live in is a choice. Choosing either has consequences. My choice means that I am often driven to action to contribute to systemic solutions to the pain I see in life. It isn't easy, but I don't think I could live with sticking my fingers in my ears and pretending it isn't happening.

OTOH, there are people who get sensory overstimulated more easily. Add to that a foreign place, lot of people and chaos around, and even a neurotypical individual can feel anxious.

Putting on headphones and playing Chopin is much more effective than breathing and telling yourself "everythings gonna be ok" in a loop. At least in my experience.

Thanks for sharing.

However it does not take into account that the kind of social interactions where people wear earbuds (i.e. loud and busy environments with many strangers, often physically closer than comfortable) is unnatural to begin with.

For me, isolating myself acoustically is a way to normalize such environments back to a more "natural" setting.

What is unnatural about this? We have plenty of anthropological evidence that humans have been doing massive festivals for at least many thousands of years i.e. people voluntarily gathering together with strangers in loud and busy environments with all sorts of sounds and smells.

Noise cancelling is a treasure.

And what I really like about them is the ease of use.

The moment I start talking to someone, automagically the NC is paused as well as any audio you were listening to.

It sounds so easy but is really running smoothly. Over time Apple really perfected the workings.

This blend is what makes them so valuable for me. I don’t have to manually do anything, simply speak and interact without having to touch them.

This is what bothered me really well, especially at work. Headset on, headset off - not anymore.

And people now don’t feel neglected when you keep the Pods in your ear.

Social reconditioning was part of the problem so to say. This tool is now accepted.

Well deserved. I am buying another pair of the AirPods Pro. I want a bit of safety after I temporarily lost one ear pod - I felt so disturbed, suddenly not being able to enjoy freedom acoustically anymore. Just to make sure and switch between them.

They’re especially flaky if you’re using them with apples watch.

I spent a few bucks on the pros, and the phone, and the watch, and the mini, and the tv, and the laptops. I shouldn’t be leaving that ecosystems ear buds in the drawer because the borderline disposable ones off amazon are the pair that “just work”.

I have never had earbuds that are consistent in the way they connect in any circumstances. I have had Bose, high end Sony, Anker, and there are often times when you need it to connect in a rush and it forces you to shut down the device, the bluetooth on the phone, and waste 30 seconds that feel like 5 minutes.

I have plenty of complaints about Apple, but the Airpods experience is one the stickiest user experiences they have and would be one of the harder things to give up if I moved back to Android.

This is one of those features I thought would be great and unfortunately had to disable in minutes. If you ever listen to music and sing along, even for a few seconds, the volume cuts because it thinks you're talking to someone. It's a shame. There's so many really great AirPods features and I feel like I've had to disable almost all of them for one reason or another.

>> And people now don’t feel neglected when you keep the Pods in your ear. Social reconditioning was part of the problem so to say. This tool is now accepted.

I think it'll get there eventually but it's still far from accepted in my opinion. Maybe if you're ordering at a Starbucks or something but if someone was trying to have a conversation with my with AirPods in I'd consider it rude. And even if it's becomes widely accepted I think it'll still have some mild stigma (equivalent to wearing sunglasses when having a conversation unless the sun is in your eyes).

When I'm listening to music, the music helps form my sense of time. It is deeply jarring to have the music pause for a few minutes and then start as though in 'music-land' no time had passed.

I'd be happier if the music volume went to zero but the song/track kept progressing.

Please retract your comment and don't encourage such stupidity.

EDIT: Since this is being misinterpreted... Earplugs that deaden sound are fine and encouraged on a motorbike, playing music in your ears is what masks other sound and is both stupid and illegal.

Maybe it is your own misinterpretation as the parent never said they were playing music on them. You might not realize just how loud the wind noise is on a bike, you are not exactly hearing your surroundings music or not. Most if not all of your awareness on a motorcycle is coming from your eyes not ears, so hard to really say its stupid.

In any case, it's irrelevant - as far as I know, wearing headphones or earphones while driving a motorcycle is illegal whether or not you happen to be playing music in them, because how would anyone else know? If you get in an accident and get charged with distracted driving, that's on you. If you want earplugs, just wear them. They're much cheaper and more effective than sound cancelling headphones if you genuinely just want to block noise.

One risk is your focus going from what's on the road to what's coming into your ears.

This may have some useful mental aspects if you're doing a long-distance drudgery ride down Route 66 with nothing much happening in between pitstops, but it's another thing on I-5 or I-95 with all sorts of chaotic lane changes going on.

I am a bit stunned reading this.. Is this a common perspective of motorcyclists?

Like all things it does depend on where you ride and the general driving culture. In America that’s how I ride but in Vietnam it’s very different. Road rules are not as often followed and honking is common to make yourself known, usually while there I wear lower db reduction ear protection.

I am also not saying that there is zero opportunity to hear a horn but already on a motorcycle you have to have so much more awareness that I don’t find that sounds are all that helpful. It absolutely applies to driving a car too, after driving a motorcycle for a while I am as shocked as you just how unaware drivers are of their surroundings.

Keep in mind at around 35mph you can easily hit 85-90db from the wind. I do think ear protection actually helps identifying sounds but I still argue the hearing part is not that helpful.

I am not trying to say you have to follow my methods but folks calling for criminal punishment and shaming are a bit too far as the safety benefit from hearing is quite minimal depending on the driving culture.

No.

For example, every beginner-advice thread in /r/motorcycle has a highly-upvoted comment(s) recommending ear protection, including many folks stating they wish they had started using it earlier.

And even if it is conceded that sound may not save you from other vehicles, ear pro(tection) reduces the health risk of hearing loss that would effect other aspects of your life.

Let's be realistic - noise cancelling isn't a perfect technology. I rode with my AirPods for a short period of time and could still hear everything I needed to. The only reason I switched is because they're uncomfortable in a helmet.

My eyes are my ears and you cannot rely on sound to know who or what might be coming up from behind you. Mirrors and head on a swivel are way more important.

Not every deaf person is born that way, mate.

If I have the noise cancelling turned on, it would be downright unsafe.

While it is likely illegal in many places, it isn't everywhere and the safety risk depends on what sort of equipment you have.

Absolutely your choice not to wear hearing protection though. Eventually you will get naturally immune to it.

Further, sound deadened cars with the stereo on an appreciable level also aren’t conducive to perceiving what’s around you.

Speaking as someone who commuted on 600 twins and 300 singles for years, if you’re wearing hearing protection and listening to some tunes and navigation hints you’re fine. Just ride defensively like you should, and make sure you’re not over doing it on the volume.

I use the bike, and I know for a fact that almost any crash with a car means me in a coffin. I need all my senses at 100%, can't afford the luxury of listening to music or wear shorts for example.

A lot of motorcyclists are the scum of society in other ways. Probably higher levels of domestic violence than the police.

You want to wear airpods while on the motorcycle? If this is an unironic idea you are having, indulge!

If this is what you fancy, your local emergency services will probably welcome you to come along with them for a day, so that you can laugh and jeer at people while they are dying or dead.

What kind of NRR rating, active or passive, do they have?

I wear disposable foam plugs when riding, and haven't ever considered using the AirPods I have. I find the sound of the machine part of the experience of riding and wouldn't really want to get rid of it; I treat the moto sound as a kind of white noise that's different that everything else in my life (though this is with a short-ish commute, and not long-distance drudgery).

If I wanted music or comms I would probably lean more towards ear plugs plus a Cardo/Sena unit. Or perhaps something with an official ANSI/CSA NRR rating, like Isotunes.

The overall picture is that a helmet’s thick material blocks high frequencies. But it exacerbates and amplifies low frequency sound and white noise. As well, a helmet confuses the ear’s capabilities for identifying direction of sound that’s incoming

If a helmet is helpful is a question of how fast the motorcycle is moving and what kinds of sounds the rider needs to hear.

It’s complicated, but wearing no helmet might be safer at low speeds because the driver is more aware. No helmet, is undoubtedly not safer at high speed because brains are fragile

Edit: a simple experiment for anyone is to put on a full size motorcycle helmet anywhere, and then you can understand how much your hearing is dampened by it. But I guess it’s probably no worse than the experience of someone driving a car, which is soundproof by design

There are certainly helmets that try to optimize for noise but there is no single one fix beyond ear plugs.

Riders need to use ear protection within the helmet unless they want to become deaf in the future, because of the wind noise.

Do you have a source for this info? It contradicts what I've read about the subject.

On a motorcycle you need hearing protection due to wind noise, but good plugs will filter out the louder noises, not so much important ones.

Safe cycling is all about vision. If you can't see it's safe, it's not. It isn't simply seeing imminent threats but predicting them e.g. identifying drivers that aren't paying attention and where a car could suddenly emerge like blind turnings, car doors, pedestrians and such, and countering with appropriate caution / road position.

If you find noise useful, IMHO it means you aren't sufficiently aware of your environment.

() Bicycles and other light vehicles excluded

Unless you drive slowly, I find that driving at 60 kph max is still comfortable on the ears.

That's very natural when it comes to life in an urban setting. Love it or hate it, we wouldn't have been here now (I'm talking from a civilizational pov) without us humans moving into the cities.

That was my point, yes.

Our ancient ancestors probably did all of the following within eyesight and earshot of around 40 people:

  - Eating
  - Drinking
  - Defecating
  - Fornicating
  - Bathing
  - Exercising

Edit: I’m also deeply fascinated by the ability of historical sociolinguistics to give us insight into cultural attitudes towards different topics. Consider the evolution of and the attitude towards the expletives “fuck” and “Jesus Christ!”

That's fundamentally different from an anonymous mass of people in a city. I've seen and heard much more than 40 people (many of them different every day) before I even reach the office in the morning.

Either you have to trick your mind that the people who are going about the same rituals with you shoulder-to-shoulder are part of the same tribe as you: using the same bus, coffee shop, elevator.

Or you have to trick your mind that being completely alone and going hours, sometimes days, without opening your mouth to communicate with someone or exercise the part of your brain that reads facial cues or even smell the hormones of another human (good or bad) is also somehow okay.

Having done both (2 major metros, as well as suburban and WFH life), I’ve found the former to be easier for me, personally. I also find suburban and rural people to be generally more misanthropic than urban people, which of course has some selection bias. Exurban people seem to be the most misanthropic, by far (shout out Dallas-Fort Worth).

But the point is, being surrounded by people day-in and day-out doesn’t seem to me to make people misanthropic on aggregate - otherwise cities would be an even worse place to exist. It’s the humans that make it bearable.

I live out in the countryside. If I run into someone in the road, I will nod my head, maybe introduce myself, and maybe chat, if the other person is interested. (To be fair, I know about 80% of the people I see in the road.) This is normal behavior. Sometimes, two cars will pass each other and stop to talk.

I have also lived in the city. If a stranger wants to talk to me in the city, either they're looking for directions (happy to help!), or they are deeply confused about appropriate social behavior in crowded spaces. In the latter case, I'm lucky if the stranger-with-no-boundaries merely wants to warn me about the dangers of the lizard people. So I've learned to ignore strangers.

A neat summary of the article.

Talk to the old fogies in said city and they will saddle you with complaints of how people used to say good morning, how are you doing, etc. It didn’t used to be this way. Alas, we probably won’t be talking to the old fogies either.

Unfortunately we threw the baby out with the bathwater, and decided that all actions are equally socially acceptable and there should be no social repercussions for living "differently."

This is why I prefer smaller, culturally homogenous communities. We all understand the rules and we generally abide.

I feel like this has almost never been true in big cities: it's impossible to know everyone and unless they made the news for what they did word wouldn't travel very far.

Besides that, I also haven't observed what you're describing in both the smaller communities and the cities I've lived in. People absolutely do still get socially ostracized all the time in real life.

Thinking so is immature and unwise behavior.

I don’t think you can say this categorically without taking context and a myriad of facets of one’s socio-emotional situation into consideration.

Some people are comfortable with that, some people (say they) are used to it, but a lot of people find that blocking it out works better for them.

https://moodist.mvze.net/

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/mac-help/mchl3061cdc6/...

I guess ultimately variety is what I like :)

Part of the reason why I listen to music and scroll my phone is to get some peace from the default mode network.

I don't feel like I would do it as often if my mind didn't insist on being busy all the time.

> The DMN seems to fall into a similar area as meditation (remember when that was all the rage among tech leaders?); the lowered input noise gives the brain time to clear things out.

I am not skilled enough in that department to say anything with certainty. But formal meditation is about intentionally focusing the mind, and the talkative mind or whatever it is called in the buddhist traditions is probably this default mode network. Which is the first obstacle; being able to focus on the meditation object without having your attention hijacked because oh what's for dinner, did I send that email, but what about that other email, oh but I couldn't log in on my phone, oh by the way that phone is also annoying in terms of that related thing, but I should stop using my phone as much anyway what about getting one of those dual SIM cards that I read about on HN.

In my experience, it's probably healthier for the mind to have the DMN active more than someone who can distract themselves all the time do. But to me DMT looks to meditation like sunbathing looks to a day's hike (yeah you're outside for both of these activities but).

What you are describing is likely closest to certain forms of zazen, in which one tries to focus on just one thing or no-thing in order to quiet the mind.

However, just as common, is the various vipassana schools in which one attempts to gain specific insight through specific observation.

In the former, enlightenment comes from still states, in the latter from evolving states.

Then of course there are many visualization and trance traditions, though those are more common the further west you go from SEA.

All that is to say that not all meditation is simple sitting. There are walking meditations, dancing meditations, chanting meditations, visualizations, prayer, etc. And while they differ in technique, they all have the goal of achieving some specific state of mind.

What was weird was about 2 years later it completely flipped. I had written off my iPod in public while the entire world adopted them. I went from being the only one on a bus with white corded buds, usually recipient of people’s gazes, I was being antisocial and everyone’s eyes were telling about it. To suddenly, I was the only one engaged. Everyone else was being antisocial. This was well before the iPhone but people still just stared at their play list and stopped interacting. A quiet bus full of college students was a strange thing to witness but it took over as the social norm.

And I'm not an introvert!

All of this long predates Airpods.

I think this is a cultural difference, not a technological shift.

Life's so interesting sometimes! I consider myself an introvert, and I don't remember any point in time where it ever felt abnormal to talk randomly to the humans ("strangers") around you, regardless if you know them or not. We're both humans, why not see who the other one right next to you are? :) Maybe I'm just "too curious".

It was kind of confusing growing up in Sweden, where most people don't share this idea, so of course it felt really isolating when almost zero strangers actually engage even a tiny bit. Luckily, I figured out I lived in the wrong country relatively quick, and now live in a country (Spain) much more aligned with my own mindset, and having the time of my life chatting with everyone and everything, and they even respond back!

I learned, and am still learning, to start with very subtle conversations in contextual proximity to the person without shocking/surprising them. And then, I mostly try to listen more and try to guide them to talk more. You will be surprised at how many a lot are eager to talk to someone, if they are being listented to.

I don't mind small talk sometimes but there has to be some kind of common ground. For example with conservative family-first suit types I have nothing to talk about and it feels awkward to make conversation, but with the leather/mesh/blue hair alt/goth types I can talk for hors.

"hey man, how're the kids?" "Is your wife recovering from [illness] you mentioned last week?" "man, have heard the music on the radio lately?" "what kind of music do you like?" "can I ask you a personal question, what was the hardest part of getting the success you have?" "did you know you wanted to be a boss/manager when you were a kid? No? Oh, you wanted to be an astronaut? Oh man, no way, have you seen the crazy stuff spacex is doing with re-useable rockets? We're getting so close to (relevant sci-fi from when he was a kid)"

You've just got to have an open mind, which you'd think you'd have given your conversational partner preferences.

The suit guy probably has more interesting stories than you'd expect if you gave him thirty seconds.

I'm more comfortable among other outliers.

could ya try?

Earbuds stop this practice dead in its tracks. You can't deny that.

It is definitely something one can learn. I also like it very much. Most people are just very nice and love chatting a bit as well (just be respectful of their time and know when to bow out).

There are also other functions that purely having a good time. E.g. when you are in a train with reserved seats, striking op a conversation is also a good way of gauging whether it's ok to leave your bags when you leave your seat to grab a drink or some food. Also, people feel more responsible looking after your stuff once you have socialized a bit.

For me it's not super-difficult. I came from a small village where it is normal to greet people and maybe chat, even if you don't know them.

Probably an unpopular point on HN, but this is very gendered. There's a lot of women who don't want to be chatted up who wear headphones, and therefore a lot of men who are annoyed at this visible signal that the woman doesn't want to listen to them.

We can leave room for "not wearing headphones is a signal that you're open to talk" without having to pressure people who aren't.

I mean I'm sure there's a guy somewhere who's annoyed by this, but "a lot of men who are annoyed" feels like making up a group of people to be angry at.

If you go to popular tourist spots in Europe there’s usually that one guy who’s trying to scam everyone who passes by. It only takes one to be a huge nuisance.

I joined my local fitness gym some months ago and use it to connect to people in the small town I moved to. Almost every time I'm there I manage to chat to someone briefly, and 50% of them have earpods in. Most of them now look up and greet me when we pass and multiple have up to me on other days to chat afterwards.

It's a skill and part of that skill is being able to give people an out of the chat if they don't feel for it, not interrupting at a bad time (mid set in a gym setting). My starter is usually a quick question with a "thank you so much, I'm new here" and if they reach for earpods to put back as they say you welcome, perfect you don't keep going. For the ones who want to chat keep them off and respond or ask something in return.

So headphones/earpods can be a barrier but for me it's a useful barrier and a clear signal, which helps both parties.

This is HN mate!

You need to design an app so people can practice it. (Alternately, rant something about "pick up artists").

Yes it's a signal. For you to go find someone else to talk to :)

That doesn't mean I'm antisocial, there's just places where I go to be open to talk to people. Like bars, meetups, stuff like that. And places where I'm just to get from A to B and I don't want to. Usually when I'm in public transport I'm going to/from the office and I'm stressed because I deeply hate working in the office since Corona (no more fixed desks etc). So I need my space.

I don’t.

But every time someone does randomly talk to me, I smile and laugh and I'm very cordial. Because people who approach strangers generally get quite angry when they're outright shot down. That doesn't at all mean I'm happy to talk. A smile is often just a defensive response.

If a stranger bothers me while I have my headphones on I may act friendly and polite, but I am actually very irritated.

"Sorry mate, I'm reading" is hardly difficult.

Also reading something would be a clear signal (also to me) that a person doesn't want to get disturbed.

When I have to tell you that I don't want to talk, you have already disturbed me. So, taking the cues here clearly is on you, not on me, at least in my opinion.

Edit: To clarify a bit, I'm talking about places with involuntary social contact, like for example a train or a grocery store. I go on a train because I have to get somewhere, not because I want to interact with people. It would be a different scenario say in a bar.

And yes, of course don't try to speak with people who obviously don't want to be spoken to. Quick way to find out, is to ask "Can I ask you a question?" and then you leave space both for the people who don't want to chat, and the ones that do :)

I used to judge that based on people's faces, but the faces lie a lot, and some people basically default to looking pissed off, while they can be very warm people, and also vice-versa, so in the end asking up front seems to be the nicest way for everyone to be OK with it.

In part it’s taking away the shared experience in public and making it “my” experience.

I'm more of a "talk when talk is needed" person but still social. i don't really interact with strangers in the street and I assume business social interactions (like restaurants) are just that, business, so I'm polite but i'm not going to crack a joke with someone i've never seen before and will likely never see again. My experience was the complete opposite, loved Portugal, would easily move there if salaries weren't shit, people were nice, i felt welcomed anywhere i went, might have been the only place outside of Brazil i have really felt at home.

I think its important to NOT BE RUDE with the random people you meet in the street but I also see no reason so strike a conversation with them. If I happen to see something that picks up my interest, like a band shirt, book i like or something like that, i might bring it up if we're going to stay in the same place for long, but starting a conversation out of nowhere just isn't a thing for me.

In one of my other comments in this thread, I explicitly called out that this desire has nothing to do with like or dislike of the people who I might have social pressure to interact with. Some people find social interaction a net expenditure of energy even with people they like, and having to do that repeatedly throughout the day because I want to go to the doctor or something and society has decided that it's "rude" if I don't engage with literally anyone who happens to want to talk to me when I'm in public is honestly just silly. It's not like I'm keeping the earbuds in and refusing to talk to anyone when checking in at the waiting room; I just don't care to have to have a chat with my Uber driver or strangers on the subway while I'm out, and it's ridiculous to imply that I should just never go in public if I don't feel the way you do.

Growing up in a small Swiss village I wasn’t born in, I had to learn that you basically greeted everybody you passed in the road, under the assumption that you knew them or were supposed to know them (more conversations were not needed).

Moving to a large Swiss village, I had to learn that saying hi to random strangers was considered weird at best.

First time I visited Southern California, I was very uncomfortable with strangers striking up random conversations. Later in the trip in San Franciso, I felt that the slightly toned down form of this habit was more comfortable for me.

Moving back to Switzerland after having lived in CA for a few years, I had to relearn old habits.

I still say hi to people when doing things like hiking a trail that’s off the beaten track: we’re sharing a similar experience and have that one thing in common. If it’s a popular trail or busy weekend, it’s more akin to being in a large town where you don’t say hello.

Another rural-urban division in Ireland is that in the countryside, car drivers greet oncoming drivers – whether they know each other or not – by subtly raising a finger or two while keeping their hands on the steering wheel. Since the 80/90s, this custom has been dying out in the counties near Dublin but I still see it in the West of Ireland. A few years ago, we were holidaying in West Cork and my wife was driving but hadn’t realised we were being greeted by the locals. As a Dubliner, she’d never even heard of this practice.

Edit: By the way, I just noticed your username. Seeing that you’re from Switzerland, I was wondering if it’s a reference to the Celtic Frost album?

Years later, when I’ve been driving and visiting the country, I found myself on the receiving end of this and it all clicked.

Thank you for this wonderful reminder.

Probably a rural everywhere thing?

Teenagers today are probably more likely to share your disinclination towards social interaction because they grew up during a time when AirPods are so ubiquitous.

We're talking to strangers at the bus stop, at the grocery check out, or just wherever. It's just phatic conversation, nothing needs to come of it. Chicagoans aren't just friendly, they actually love the art of the conversation -- every conversation is a chance to put in the reps.

But the minute you step into the suburbs, this habit disappears.

No, this doesn't track my experience of Chicago at all.

This is exactly the feeling I get in the suburbs of most places, and I think the nature of car-centric suburbs serves as a decent analogy for the Airpodsification of otherwise more urban areas. Suburbanites want their palace that they can tightly control, and it rarely matters where it is as long as they can drive to anywhere they need to go, but they don't really like people and it feels like a deeply antisocial liminal space. There's rarely any specific reason anyone would want to be there, and even if they did, they'd have to drive, and if they chose not to, people there use their cars as tools for avoiding interactions with strangers. You wake up, get in your motorized comfort bubble / killing machine, and then drive from point A to B and then back to Point A. If you wanted to go hangout, oftentimes the act of driving that you've chosen sucks all that time away anyway. Drivers then get dogs so they have some sort of excuse to interact with other people who have dogs, or kids or whatever.

Then if they're lucky, they wake up one day and realize they don't see any real friends that aren't their immediate neighbors anymore, and they've lost the ability to understand how to meet people outside of work. Their old friends didn't come out for that bbq because it's dead boring and the bbq master is the only one that doesn't have a commute back. The bar in their basement sits empty because it turns out people actually want to go to the pub instead of sitting in the basement. The novelty was never the drinking itself, but the feeling of coming together in the same space and place as other people hanging out having a good time.

Even the older introverted people I know, who I would characterise as quiet, would find it really rude to get in a taxi and not chat to the driver for the duration of the journey.

With people doing their entire careers remotely now I can only see this shift happening faster and more intensely. Small talk is a skill like any other and I think it's a sad skill to lose on a societal level. And I say this as a serious introvert that doesn't love to make small talk. Nine times out of ten, when I do make the effort to e.g. talk to a taxi driver I come away happier.

See that's interesting, because I *am* an introvert, but I'm quite happy to sit and talk to strangers. I don't mind it at all.

One of the few cultural similarities that I feel like London has with Scotland (where I live) is that you can just talk to people. People will talk. If you go to Glasgow and you ask for directions, chances are that the person you ask will walk with you to where you're going and point out good places to eat and interesting things to see along the way. Boston people have just learned this in a big way.

My son is even more so, and at not-quite-six he already appears to know most of the people in the town of 14,000 people where we live, how their farms are doing, how are the cows, what weight of potatoes are they getting per hectare, what prices they're getting at market, how they're getting on with that gearbox problem with the van. It takes about an hour to walk the mile or so back from school because he's got to talk to all the old guys and ask how they're doing.

Social Networking at its finest. I suspect he won't be stuck for a job when he's older.

Northener Terrifies Londoners By Saying "Hello"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YxLiLFjYKc

I hadn't noticed it before, but they even specifically mention the use of headphones as a defense mechanism near the end.

I live in London, and I remember flying to Ireland at some point, and I was seated next to an Irish lady returning home from holiday who sparked up a conversation.

My initial reaction was "Why the fuck are you talking to me?" because I had lived in London so long I was thrown off by a random person sparking conversation. But turns out she was just a lovely Irish lady flying from from holiday

As an aside, I used to work for the company in Glasgow that build The Daily Mash's website before they got all into the ad-heavy money-at-all-costs thing. It used to be much better and the guys behind are actually pretty decent.

Consider that you may be!

You’re just surrounded by other people who are also introverted to the point you don’t stand out to yourself.

I’ve driven almost 4000 people home from the airport. It’s almost annoyingly ubiquitous for people to chat up the driver.

Smoking is probably the best lubricant (ie: borrowing a lighter, asking about a brand/vape, etc.) and people when they smoke are usually more open to strike a conversation. That's not an endorsement of smoking (and I've quit very recently).

I’ll talk to strangers when it makes me feel good. But most of the time I try avoid inviting weirdos to complain about minorities or marginalized people from someone who has driven away anyone close to them.

I hope you don't complain when people use social media or have LLM as their daddy to cope then :)

I would suggest that it's your avoidance of talking to strangers that makes you think this is how a lot of them think. And it kind of proves the point that society can suffer because of it. If you went out tomorrow and talked to 100 random strangers for 10mins I'd be surprised if any of them complained about minorities.

Chances are at least 20 of them would.

IRL I've never met one real person that has a 'racist uncle'.

Well that sounds like correlation might not equal causation if i ever heard it.

It's essentially the same unspoken etiquette rule as what you're socially expected to do if riding a crowded elevator.

Go commute by NYC subway 10 times a week, M-F especially during peak tourist season and you'll understand.

I intentionally behave completely different if I'm in a small town of 3000 people or walking down the street, shopping, riding transit in a large city.

You do have to ignore the people around yes but I don't find that a problem at all.

Assuming you live in a locale with a reasonably efficient system. I've heard some horror stories about north american public transport. Other countries tend to do much better with timetables and routes.

You should try expanding your horizons a bit.

Public transport here costs a fixed fee a month for which I couldn't even top up a quarter tank.

Unfortunately those implementations are far from the norm though, but of course all of these networks are seeing gradual upgrades.

McDonald’s is also extremely popular, as are Coca Cola and Bud light.

> On why he no longer went to Ruggeri's, a St. Louis restaurant: "Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded.”

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yogi_Berra