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[return to "Social Cooling (2017)"]
1. thegri+CY[view] [source] 2020-09-29 18:13:41
>>rapnie+(OP)
Is it wrong to suggest that this (if accurate) is a positive trend? I would like to live in a society where people spend more time considering what they say publicly, keeping to themselves, and refraining from imposing their thoughts and opinions. Live and let live.

If you want to have a private conversaion, social media doesn't seem to be a good vehicle for it. Much like airing your dirty laundry in the town square has been considered bad etiquette, airing personal greivances on the internet seems to be in poor taste.

It must be noted that manners never arise sponaniously in culture, but becuase people fear the consequences of breaching etiquette. I for one welcome the return of politeness to society.

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2. burkam+Ac1[view] [source] 2020-09-29 19:37:29
>>thegri+CY
I think the issue is that it is getting harder to have a private conversation or indulge in a private interest. It's quite difficult to have a conversation with a friend that's physically far away without using the services of one or more multinational corporations that may or may not be able to monitor what you say and sell that information to someone else. Of course it's possible, but how hard is it to analyze all the options and coordinate a method?

And what if you want to buy stuff for a hobby that you only talk about with a few close friends? Don't use Amazon, or a credit card anywhere, don't use Google to look up products or Google Maps to get to a store, don't use plaintext email or Facebook chat or Whatsapp or whatever else to talk about it with your friends, etc.

It takes a lot of mental effort to know whether or not an action will be "public", which can cause the cooling effect this page talks about. The trend is not people doing stuff in private instead of publicly, it's people not doing stuff at all because there is no "private".

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3. parasu+Mf1[view] [source] 2020-09-29 19:54:38
>>burkam+Ac1
Contrast it to living in a small town. Everyone talks, including the local store owners. There's very little privacy in having a private interest or hobby.

Local privacy is arguably far easier in a city, or in a crowded digital space. It all depends on the context of who you're trying to hide from. I'd much rather trust my privacy to Apple and Amazon if I wanted to quietly buy things no one else in my neighbourhood knew about.

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4. thegri+gm1[view] [source] 2020-09-29 20:31:34
>>parasu+Mf1
That's kind of the point though isn't it? I imagine folks are rather more polite in a small town than a big city. I don't think having lots of privacy is a natural state for people. I think transparency is the ally of good and opaqueness the cover for evil. Mind you it only works if everyone is watching everyone (a la small town) rather than big brother watching you.

More or less I'm advocating a distributed social credit system instead of a centralized one. In fact I'd say "distributed social credit" is a pretty good term for the social conditions we have spent most of our time evolving in.

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5. pseuda+HB1[view] [source] 2020-09-29 22:00:47
>>thegri+gm1
That's the opposite of live and let live.
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6. thegri+IE1[view] [source] 2020-09-29 22:23:31
>>pseuda+HB1
Behaviour expected by social norms and with purely social consequences is much preferred to behaviour dictated by governments which can have legal and physical consequences. In the first case, you are (supposed to be) protected from physical consequences by that very same government. You'll never be able to get away from people's expectations as long as you live amongst other people. What matters is what they can do about it.
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7. pseuda+BS1[view] [source] 2020-09-30 00:21:18
>>thegri+IE1
Your analogy was small towns vs. big cities. Now it's society vs. government? Are we even still talking about social cooling?

Both small towns and big cities have governments. Social norms can include being heterosexual or following a specific religion. Not conforming to those expectations can have physical consequences too.

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