what this cartoon made me wonder, this is the morning commute right? no wonder people look glassy-eyed and robotic, they're all still zoning out from having just gotten up. perhaps they havent even had breakfast yet, or coffee. or perhaps it's the way back home from work, after a day's work, I'm not making an effort appearing bright and lucid either. and if it's the same stretch, every day, and all you have to do is get in and get out at the right time, no wonder you "shut off" during the trip. it's just a piece of time you have to kill. and then there's the awkward social situation, like in an elevator, but less so. you're in a small confined space, with other people close to you, but nobody talks to eachother, avoids eachother's gaze, etc. it's just weird. to be honest, this is part of why I enjoy public transport, for the sheer alienness of it :transmet: well that, and travel in general (even if it's the same 1 hour trip every week). and yeah I know from Suu's stories that public transport can be a horrible place as well, I think I got a taste from that in other large cities such as Vienna. In my experience it seems to be mostly subways though. they carry some kind of inherent gritty filth and seem to attract more scum. but that's magical thinking, so I'm going with the idea that the gritty filth, being subterranean and the lack of having a nice view is what makes people appear more like scum and also act more this way (in a similar way to how people are more likely to commit minor crimes in an alley tagged with ugly graffiti than in a clean one). I wonder, what is the inherent difference, or what would it be like, if a bus, subway or train would carry the same atmosphere as a bar? Physically it is kind of the same right, small space, people close to eachother. Wouldn't it be great to enter your morning commute, say "Hi everybody!" and strike up a conversation with some random person? Sure enough, most of them won't be that interesting to talk to, but there's 100 people on that train, chances are there are at least five persons as bored as you are. Maybe ubiquitous wireless internet (will be here soon in my city) and something like twitter could lower the treshold somewhat. One could anonymously broadcast "urggh morning, i need coffee #trainGroningenLeeuwarden" or whatever, signifying you're currently in the train from Groningen to Leeuwarden and anybody who cares can tune in on that #tag, chat anonymously (it's kind of like an impromptu IRC room) either to a particular @person, or broadcast on the #tag. And who knows, at some point you might actually make eyecontact with someone! :wink: I heard the above idea was actually supposed to be made popular with the Bluetooth "presence" feature in mobile phones, but afaik it never took off (apart from some weird story about people using bluetooth to broadcast they are available for casual sex or something--I doubt that was ever more real than some reporter's wishful thinking). Okay, long meandering stream of thoughts :) There's probably some very basic and simple reason why this obviously doesn't work or something, which probably amounts to "people are people are assholes", but I don't see it right now. Semi-related story, I've started following #groningen the hashtag of my city on Twitter (with "-oogTV" to the query to filter out the local news station that spams the tag every half hour with multiple stories about old ladies that fall off their bike and such. not everyone that goes to the hospital or every drunk idiot the police pick up is news, damnit! no matter how "local" you are.) So anyway, this guy tweets from his phone that he just got on the train from #Amsterdam to #Groningen, and wants to know what time he arrives, I had nothing better to do so I looked it up for him and tweeted it back, random interaction between strangers. | (http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/sheeple.png) xkcd 610 Sheeple (http://xkcd.com/610/) |
Quote from: Ratatosk on July 17, 2009, 07:48:34 PMIf you iterate prisoners dilemma through a quantum manifold, it turns out that being optimistic and hopeful about _everything_ is actually the strategy which best guarantees happiness. Or continuity of existence. When I figure out which, I'll finish the paper.
but, sometimes I think maybe I'm a bit too optimistic and hopeful.
Quote from: Captain Utopia on July 17, 2009, 08:37:55 PM
If you iterate prisoners dilemma through a quantum manifold
Quote from: Triple Zero on July 16, 2009, 10:46:32 AM
I wonder, what is the inherent difference, or what would it be like, if a bus, subway or train would carry the same atmosphere as a bar? Physically it is kind of the same right, small space, people close to eachother. Wouldn't it be great to enter your morning commute, say "Hi everybody!" and strike up a conversation with some random person? Sure enough, most of them won't be that interesting to talk to, but there's 100 people on that train, chances are there are at least five persons as bored as you are.
A conclusion is reached when there's nothing left to think about on a particular subject. | |
No, there's always something left to think about.. a conclusion is when you yourself can't think of anything else. | |
Well I can always think of something, I just don't know if it's right or not. | |
How will you ever know if something is right if you stop thinking about it? | |
A conclusion is simply when you stop thinking? | |
Right - that's settled then. |