In my perspective (a lonely person generally accustomed with my loneliness), small talk doesn’t seem to be the problem. The problem is the lack of people’s interest in deep topics, such as the aforementioned nature of reality: people either don’t have the needed patience, time, or both. People are so busy running through the survival game of the mundane existence that deep topics are left for their afterlives (if there’s one), when human ideologies and need for survival cease to exist. Small talk is like “sorry I got no time to think about the ultimate question of life, universe and everything else, gotta go to my modern slavery where I’m not paid to think but to obey, bye!”. Deep inside, seems like a fear of becoming lonely as those that, just like me, likes to think about the depths of the reality and breaking paradigms (for example, “shouldn’t we discuss how existence is so fleetingly finite in the grand scheme of cosmos and how futile is to accumulate wealth and goods?” is a granted source of loneliness).
There’s someone out there that would love talking about that stuff with you if you haven’t already found them just so you know! ❤️
Everyone’s got a person with a similar wave length as long as they don’t settle before then!
Wife and I have a longstanding argument over whether free-will exists.
I say it does and she has no choice but to say otherwise.
Consider this, free will can still be pre-planned. We can choose what we want to do, so what if it was pre planned? I still chose it.
I like to change definitions to secure my position also
what definition did I change?
Free will exists because I can change my mind about liking or wanting something.
How is it a choice if there is no other options?
I’m able to make smalltalk. I just don’t enjoy it, so I avoid it when I can.
And my wife and I don’t engage in smalltalk. We talk about what we actually care about. Seems to have worked fine for the past 24 years.
I think there’s a misconception regarding what counts as small talk. “Bland conversation that has no real point but to escape silence” is small talk. Asking you how your day went because I care about you is not. “How’s the weather?” is small talk. “How was your trip to the grocery?” is small talk. These are dumb things and, if your relationship can’t bear the silence that would be interrupted because “The vegan sausages were on sale today”, then it prolly doesn’t need to exist.
I’m not entirely sure what counts as small talk. When I think of it, it’s usually conversation between strangers or acquaintances where neither party knows the safe topics, the topics to be avoided, or even the general preferences of the other. It’s all testing water stuff.
I think that’s what people actually mean when they say they hate small talk. They hate the awkwardness of not yet knowing enough about their interlocutor to know they won’t accidentally upset anyone. Or they don’t have the skill to navigate that social space to avoid negative consequences. It can feel downright dangerous in some circumstances.
And that’s tough. Because the socialites think it’s a skill issue, which it often is. And unfortunately if you don’t learn that skill growing up, the social consequences of being bad at small talk only get bigger and more dangerous, which prevents folks from being able to practice freely.
I dunno. Just my $.02 I guess.
I don’t disagree with you at all, but the screenie was of a message addressing communication between people who are supposedly in an intimate conversation. One should hope that their conversations can be more substantive, personal, and easy-going in a romantic relationship.
Some ability to break ice with strangers using brief small talk is useful as a starting point for conversation, but if you truly know me, say what you need to say or enjoy the ASMR of my presence.
It’s funny cause to me it’s always meant a third entirely different thing! To me small talk is just starting from a basic place to feel each other out a bit, bringing up mundane things and simple questions to find topics we could drill further into.
“How was your day” to a partner would be small talk, even though I care about what they’re saying - I’m just asking so they can bring up something to talk about. “Weather’s been shit lately” to a stranger is small talk, but the ensuing story about how they had to rush to work late in the rain would not be.
Given it means three different things to three random people, it’s almost like “small talk” actually covers a broad set of social purposes and people who “aren’t into it” might actually be missing a lot 😝
I think I actually agree with you overall.
My comment above was more trying to express what I think “small talk” means to the people who always complain about small talk, maybe. Unsure. Slightly elevated atm.
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Imagine going through a marriage like “how about that weather”
Lol - yeah, that would suck!
IIIIT’S LIKE RAAAAIIIIIIIIIN ON YA WEDDING DAYYYY
IT’S A FREE RIIIDE WHEN YOU’VE ALREADY PAID
Have you seen the weather, lately?
I’m not going to be in a relationship with anyone who thinks “freewill” is a word.
Sounds like Germans are gonna be at an inherent disadvantage.
I’d like to have similar interactions with my significant other to the ones I have with my cats. You know, things like siting on the couch together… saying silly things in even sillier voices… staring into each other’s eyes while blinking slowly… yelling at her to get down from the cupboard…
Personally I think that small talk is also regional. Some places small talk might be discouraged at a store while other places it might be encouraged. The same might be for the subway, a restaurant, the bathroom, etc, depending on the country or culture it may be totally ok or exceptionally discouraged.
I really fucking hope there isn’t a place on earth where smalltalk on public transit is encouraged.
That’s exactly how my wife and I do things.
It’s not small talk if you love the other person
We will sit in comfortable silence together.
we will make out in comfortable silence together
wet, sloppy make-out sounds
soft barking and meowing
😐 I was promised silence.
Actually this. One of the most meaningful relationships in my life is a woman who will sit in silence with me at the opposite end of the couch, some random nonsense on TV and we’re both just on our phones sharing memes with eachother. You don’t need to fill every moment of silence between people with words
They seem ritualistic social interactions. Like some bird’s courtship dance except there’s no relationships interest. So it’s just a burden that I didn’t want to participate in unless I have a genuine friendship.
I’m in this picture and my SO doesn’t like it.
Its only “small talk” if you dont actually care about what the other person says. If you are genuinely interested, then its just a conversation. Thats how i see it at least.
I mean that’s basically why a lot of us are great at small talk: we actually do care about the contents of that low stakes conversation with strangers.
Yeah, this. Talking small is faking interest. I’m not good at that. But when I actually care about the other person, “what have you been up to” is meaningful. Cause I actually wanna know.
Yup, the only two things small talk and conversation have in common is that they take a minimum of two people and involve spoken words.
If people small-talk in sign language, would it be called small-talk?
Your remark about “spoken words” made be think about this and I find it curious, since “small-talk” has become something of a fixed expression.
While words related to vocal conversations do appear in other phrases like “being left speechless” for example, I imagine “small-talk” to be more of a thing on its own in today’s usage.
Yeah but small talk can get the ball rolling on a real conversation. It’s just a way of initiating a conversation and it’s giving an opportunity for someone to talk about things they might be interested in.
“It’s nice day out today!” doesn’t literally mean that. It means “there’s an opportunity for us to do something outside if you’d like, but if not, perhaps you’d care to discuss something that’s important to you instead? Of course you you aren’t interested in having conversation or doing an activity, I’m perfectly fine with that too” but in a significantly more concise way. Sure you don’t really care about their opinion on the weather or whatever small talk, but it’s a completely open-ended expression of a willingness to have a conversation about something that matters to the other person. It’s opportunity to have a real conversation without any pressure to have a real conversation.
Also it’s not that hard to do.
Yeah but small talk can get the ball rolling on a real conversation.
It can also be used defensively to avoid having the ball get rolling on a real conversation. This is a key defensive use of small talk which can be deployed at occasions such as “Family Gatherings”, “Workplace Water Coolers”, “Sports Events”.
If you know your relative is a conspiracy theorist and will inevitably try to use a gap in the conversation to talk about how the Jews are using their Space Laser to Direct Hurricanes at Lithium Deposits to Remove the Lawful Inhabitants from their Rightful Land… deploy small talk to avoid this.
P.S. Avoid “the weather” as that’s an opening to talk about how the recent hurricane was controlled by Blackrock.
“it’s not that hard to do” is absolutely giving never had a mental illness vibes
Completely this.
If you can question free will, you have free will.
Or were you predestined to question it?
I’m a naturalistic determinist, I literally can’t not question free will
why?
Yes, I’m aware of how people like to take science and jump to conclusions that kinda sound like they fit with the science, but they do not actually. This is called pseudoscience
I’m not arguing for either determinism or non-deterministism here, but let me ask you this:
If every action has a cause, and every action has a subsequent reaction, and all these chains of events follow predictable rules, what is the factor of “randomness” that allows for free will to exist?
Genuinely curious to hear your opinion seeing your stance on this is very strong.
Well first off we are seeing more and more that there are quantum effects in the brain, and we don’t know what they all do or what role if any they play in conciousness… We just know quantum shit is random and hard to predict while only really affecting things on the smallest possible levels. Second some elements are hard to predict because two things are equally probable.
Like if I go to get Ice Cream and I really like strawberry, but they’re out and I can only choose Vanilla or Chocolate, then it’s a 50/50 and the only thing that decides which I choose is my own decision.
Some things simply cannot be measured.
How do you record a dream? How do you measure someone’s luck?
Just adding to this: any modern arguments using the probabilistic nature of quantum phenomena to fight determinism are wrong. Einstein made a theory called ‘hidden variable theory’ saying there were causes we couldn’t see (duh). A guy named Bell ‘proved it wrong’ by arguing against something einstein said in it about data being in multiple places simultaneously. Had nothing to do with whether hidden variables exist. But the headlines were ‘hidden variable theory proved wrong’ implying to the public that there are somehow no causes of things below a certain level and that an illogical foundation of ‘probability’ somehow underlies everything. Einstein once said it was silly to think an electron is in an undetermined state until measured when he can see it’s path in a cloud chamber. It clearly is a thing constantly existing.
With the errors of the foundational days of quantum physics out of the way, how can one argue against a thought or action having causes preceding it? Even if we are in woowoo land where everyone is spirits with minds existing separately in different worlds, there are still variables determining what those minds think. Only seeming alternative explanation so far is the faulty quantum probability field… which is wrong.
Bell did prove mathematically that a local hidden variables theory is unable to explain observed quantum mechanics. This doesn’t rule out nonlocal hidden variable theories, but a) that is called superdeterminism, and b) that would mean that there would be faster-than-light interactions, and that is in many ways weirder.
I disagree. “Einstein once said it was silly to think an electron is in an undetermined state until measured when he can see it’s path in a cloud chamber.” I am definitely of the einstein view and not the mainstream quantum scientist view. According to me, things, like einstein’s electron DO have actual states when not ‘observed’ and do not need to ‘be observed and collapse in to a form at that time’. At every point in it’s path thru that cloud chamber the electron has it’s form WHICH IS SUPEROBVIOUS TO SEE even tho the quantum math has no idea what to do about it and is like ‘no does not fit in the math thus cannot exist’. In reality, the electron does not need to be measured to have it’s form. Same with the ‘entangled’ particles Bell uses. Just because it is measured later does not mean it did not have it’s form while not measured ~which is common sense to me and blows up Bell’s Theorem before even having to reach to exotic theories. Weird to me stuff like that is not common sense. But I personally think quantum physics went wrong waaaaaay at the start and is riddled with exotic theories based on good data but faulty definitions and conclusions (such as the doubleslit experiment being touted as ‘a single photon being let thru’ when it’s a guy shining a very dim light for a month and taking a slow exposure pic. Shining light for 1 month = 1 Photon. Does not match common sense. Throws off future work. But is definitionwise accurate as quanta is ‘a level of energy’). So meh. Disagree. Nice you know your stuff tho.
“You do not mention the path of the electron at all, Heisenberg. But yet when you look in a cloud chamber the electron’s track can be observed quite directly.” “Don’t you think that it’s strange to say that there is a path for the electron in the cloud chamber, but there is no path for the electron in the atom?” ~Einstein
Yeah weird it would then be pure probability with no causes when it’s inside the atom because that’s what matches the mathematical framework of Quantum Physics while when it’s in a cloud chamber ITS EXACT LOCATION AS A DISTINCT OBJECT IS CLEARLY VISIBLE. So yeah I’m with reality instead of that mathematical framework and don’t see any issue with the same concept of ‘having a form’ applying to entanglement ~which 100% blows up Bell’s theorem before it gets to multilocation.
Bell’s Theorem —> 💥
Possibility of Hidden Variables —> 👍
