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ClownBasket's avatar

Already seeing this behavior in my kids: they don’t trust online interactions or information. Not only have they participated in the “fake memories” of an Instagram post, but they have been burned by viral stories that turned out to be a lie.

All four of my kids have voluntarily deleted addictive apps or quit social media altogether.

What I am seeing is a shift to more traditional roles. Boys looking for “trad wives” and girls looking for Rip from Tombstone. So while I don’t doubt some selection is happening down the virtual & autist gene pool, I think another selection is happening as a counterpoint at least.

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Sarah Thompson's avatar

I agree! My boys are so savvy. They are personable, sociable, unschooled so they’ve been around all ages always. They know how to shake hands. My older son knows how to behave in professional interactions and at high level organizational meetings, and he’s *17*.

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Pi Guy's avatar

"They know how to shake hands."

I hate that this is some sort of Lost Art. I like how a person - am I permitted to say A Man? - sends a message, intentional or otherwise, when he shakes hands.

Firm or Wimpy? Did they try to squish your hand? Did they make eye contact? Did their eyes smile?

In Boy Scouts, one leader told us a story of how some African Tribe of old shook LEFT hands - because you had to put down your shield in order to engage the other. Success depended in part upon some the other also honoring this code. It took some fortitude, some confidence, involved risk. It took Trust, dare I say. It still does.

I'll be happy to see this make a comeback.

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ViaVeritasVita's avatar

I have long understood that the right-handed shake evolved from most people being right-handed, thus handling dagger with right hand, thus extending right hand = no weapon at the ready. And similarly, that Euro at-the-table habit of leaving wrists upon the table--whereas I from New England was taught to rest them under the table, in my lap--was indication of no weapon in hand. I've been reading Old Testament, and note that twice in Kings and Chronicles, a pointed point was made that a particular group of guys was equally skilled with left and right hands. The point was made.

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Pi Guy's avatar

So you're saying there might be something to this "physiognomy" thing.

Duly noted.

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Coach's avatar

But, but, .....But I thought Fauci said we should never shake hands anymore!!!! LOL

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Pi Guy's avatar

I bet Fauci's a limp-handed shaker.

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Ryan Gardner's avatar

1000%. Fucking shit weasel

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Gaye's avatar

I had forgotten that, I’m still so disgusted that rockhead Redfield admitted the six-foot thing was completely made up. Jackasses!

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Ryan Gardner's avatar

Remember when he said a mask would save more lives than a vaccine?

Turns out he's right...masks saved zero lives....but the non-vaxx vaxx not so much.

What a weasel. Now he's acting like he never said that crap.

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Gaye's avatar

I actually screenshot him saying that. I was livid.

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Jimmy Gleeson's avatar

Who thought it wasn't made up?

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Gaye's avatar

😂Mask-wearing skilled tv watchers who stood on those stickers in the lines were believers. Multitudes of them.

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Ryan Gardner's avatar

What was your favorite?

One way arrows or plexiglass?

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Coach's avatar

My personal favorite was the one way arrows, especially in the grocery stores. I used to deliberately go up and down aisles I didn’t need to go through just so I could go the “wrong way” in each one🤣🤣

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Pi Guy's avatar

Same.

But I would go the wrong direction, against the arrows, but facing the arrow way. Smiling at the triple-masked.

Sorta like a Feynman Diagram.

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Coach's avatar

Oh, I went against the arrows, too. That was the whole point.

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Ryan Gardner's avatar

My man! Love it!

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Gaye's avatar

Plexiglass because it’s still in place to a disgusting degree. As if it ever did anything🙄

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Donna O's avatar

Did you doubt?

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Gaye's avatar

I just didn’t think they were stupid enough to actually admit it.

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Jimmy Gleeson's avatar

I think Fauci would like us all in moon suits.

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Rebecca Pettigrew's avatar

That might have been his last straw with me.

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Mel Remple's avatar

You can’t shake hands when you’re forced to stand 6 ft apart - antisocial distancing.

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Pi Guy's avatar

I hadn't even thought of that.

It wasn't just little kids not seeing mouths speaking, faces smiling, not only l the missed First Kisses...

We need a Better Class of Elected Official.

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Moray Watson's avatar

You can't shake hands when you follow orders to stand 6ft apart - lack of anti-authoritarianism.

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Vxi7's avatar

I feel ambivalent. I don't think someone becomes a man because he is able to squeeze someone else hand. I see many men overcompensating with ridiculous signals like this.

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Pi Guy's avatar

And that was.part of point - no one should try to squeeze the crap out of your hand. Ever. That's not firm.

But you do learn something about the other man right away.

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Vxi7's avatar

The problem that I don't think we can really conclude anything meaningful from a handshake. Maybe many would consider me as a bad person because 1. generally I avoid handshakes as much as possible 2. maybe for many my handshake would be wimpy.

And here comes why: once I broke my small finger on my right hand and since then even after it is healed somehow the bone and joints are pretty sensitive. Who knows how many other people make wimpy handshakes because a tendinitis or whatever.

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ViaVeritasVita's avatar

As I read this of yours, I remembered having had (or having felt that I had), in 2006 or 2007, to teach my 10th, 11th, 12th grade Latin students how to shake hands--really!--the physical angle, the grip strength of the hand--not too much, not too little (no jellyfish), and how to introduce one person to another. All this so that they could appropriately behave at their upcoming prom, and be able to introduce their dates to the principal, as required. The kids got up and practiced these behaviors, in at least two different class periods. To my extreme surprise, it was clear that they actually enjoyed doing this.

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Pi Guy's avatar

"I remembered having had (or having felt that I had), in 2006 or 2007, to teach my 10th, 11th, 12th grade Latin students"

My stepson is a junior at a private Jesuit school in the north Baltimore suburbs. They teach shaking hands.

And V3's a Latin teacher. Nice. Stepson is a super freaky math genius, AP Calc and Fizix this year but his favorite class all three years running: Latin.

I think that's awesome and, as you might have surmised, I have a special kinda liking for Nerds of the Numeric Persuasion.

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ViaVeritasVita's avatar

Kind words. Over the years, I used to say that as a Latin teacher, I got the nicest kids (Latin being, of course, an elective)--but my unspoken "truth" was that those nicest kids also frequently were the smartest. And my female students--unlike those in the other language classes--dressed modestly. Odd, that. As if they knew they would be 'marketing' something other than their physical attributes. It was a great gig, until the wokester admins poisoned it.

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Pi Guy's avatar

"As if they knew they would be 'marketing' something other than their physical attributes."

Rise of the TikTok Influencer

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ViaVeritasVita's avatar

And so the potential meet-ups move closer to reality: you said 'north Baltimore suburbs'. I say 'NNW of Philadelphia' (I never say "Philly" because I am not a native). 3.5 hours apart, give or take.

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Pi Guy's avatar

"potential meet-ups"

*ponders an EGM: Mid-Atlantic Region shindig*

Yes. There will be snacks.

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Pi Guy's avatar

I usually say, "Baltimore: Jewel of the Patpsco."

I'm not a true Baltimoron but have never lived further than 30 miles from Downtown, and some say I bleed Orange and Black. https://www.mlb.com/orioles

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ViaVeritasVita's avatar

Orioles are beautiful birds. Ornithologist-wanna-be older brother showed me a nest in neighbor's tree when I was under 10. Never seen one since.

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Pi Guy's avatar

Despite my proximity, I've only seen a handful myself, and maybe none since I was a Boy Scout. I remember there some that nested at one time at Piney Run Park ... Sykesville, MD I guess.

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ViaVeritasVita's avatar

Me too. Descended from two such, sister to another, and married yet another coming on 52 years ago. I do languages, not complex number things, but I love to play with numbers and charts. Grandfather and father showing up in my genes, I suspect. Personally I think the very structured quality of the Latin language explains its appeal to numeric nerds.

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Pi Guy's avatar

"I do languages, not complex number things"

In another life, like, several lives ago, I taught High School Math. (and Science - I had a weird role even before I was certified; but, I digress...) In my second year we had a new principal. I liked him from the first faculty meeting in the summer before First Day.

Sometime in the fall he was assigned the task to observe my class and writing my in-class evaluation. In fact, now that I think about it, this was a physics class because I'm pretty sure we used the Force Table that day to find the sum of three vectors.

Anywho, after class, Mr. Principal, who'd been a Spanish Teacher (and I'll be a really good one) met with me briefly on the way out, said some good things about my lesson, and said, "When I went to college, I couldn't decide between being a Spanish major and a Math major." I replied with something like, "Not too overlapping fields *chuckle*" and he said, "But they are. They're both basically rules for coding and decoding. Often even assigning meaning." That was a fantastic answer. Thus the stepson occupying both of those spaces makes a lot of sense to me now. And his Mama and Abuela who lives with us are both Salvadoran, and Grandma mostly only speaks Spanish. So he can speak what I assume is pretty solid Spanish already, albeit with a bit of a Gringo accent, so I'm told.

Another overlapping Code-Decode field that a lot of _us_ tend to be good at: Music.

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Jimmy Gleeson's avatar

I remember seeing the ridiculous "elbow bump" they did during the pandemic and thinking "I hope this never catches on."

I don't like the message not shaking hands sends. Yes, I hate a horrible handshake as much as anyone else. I also don't like it when they encase my hand in theirs But the elbow bump sends the message "your not safe."

In truth, we aren't safe, which is why we shake hands. It is a custom which is the first impression, it gives one indicator of measurement.

See also: The movie "My Life" where Michael Keaton is demonstrating to his unborn son in video how to properly shake hands.

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Jimmy Gleeson's avatar

So a Vulcan Salute is no longer a viable form of greeting?

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Ryan Gardner's avatar

Selection is also happening because of pheromones.

You'd have to believe that with decreasing testosterone the pheremone signals from males is diluted.

Because not only is the signal lost on a females "reception" pheromones, it affects their "broadcast" pheromones.

Since women both broadcast and select by virtue of their own signals, and those of males, it also affects the male because the male only selects by virtue of a women's reception.

Seems like a terrible feedback loop.

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Leigh O.'s avatar

This has been happening for years. Janet Smith, PhD speaks of studies that show how women on the pill give off different pheromones, making them less desireable mates. They also tend to select men who have less masculine traits.

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Oregonian's avatar

There are a lot of people electing to not have sexual partners of the opposite sex, to not have children, to not have families. On the other extreme, there are some electing to have multiple partners and multiple children, but no family environment and these children are raised in foster, adoption, or by the State. And there is a shrinking minority of two biological parents with intact family structure. I have to presume this leads to very polarizing social dynamics in the next 50-100 years.

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The Wiltster's avatar

Damn. Geez. More good news, brought to our species courtesy Big Pharma and convenience!

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Dianna FILIPPELLI's avatar

Despite being an archaic concept, pheromones play a fundamental role in mating. They could also play a role in the phenomenon of women's cycle synchronizing if they live together. It's impossible to reproduce this natural phenomenon with FaceTime or artificial intelligence

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ViaVeritasVita's avatar

I have read of this synchronization, but I did spend four years (academic years) of my life in all-female dorms at an all-female college--and never saw any evidence of this. Daughter, 28 years later, same college, same all-female dorms, never spoke of this.

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Ryan Gardner's avatar

It all makes sense. We're all just packets of info and chemicals in biological form.

Maybe we lose our "souls" we those packets don't get to mingle?

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The Obsolete Man's avatar

Good to hear that they’re rejecting this! At a fundamental human level, we don’t want the type of life these tech companies are trying to impose on us. We are wired to look each other in the eye and be in each other’s company. To know where we stand with people, by literally standing with people.

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Ryan Gardner's avatar

we are, but i posed this before:

do we have a choice? perhaps in a combine of Ted Kaczynski cabins?

can you imagine if only X percent of people had access to the "Gutenberg" printing press for centuries.

one could make the argument at that point, given enough time, we would be, for all intents and purposes, different in how we manipulate our environment.

Hasn't our success, as a species, always been predicated on manipulation of our environment?

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The Obsolete Man's avatar

Our success is absolutely predicated on manipulation of our environment, but in ways that are advantageous to our survival and wellbeing. Enough people rejecting something they perceive as abjectly harmful will invalidate that thing no matter how much money and power are pushing it. I think we’re seeing the beginnings of that in a lot of areas, not just on the tech front.

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Ryan Gardner's avatar

I think the other variable is how do we keep up with the ethical implications of technology?

I mean we have no defined boundaries at this point.

I just think that process will outpace both our willingness to address those issues and our biological computation power.

We shall see right?

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Ryan Gardner's avatar

You know I used to agree with you 100%. But I have seen too much over the last 5 years that we either use those tools or they will be used against us.

We will have to protect the "nexus" of information AND it's gateways. "They" ONLY have to defend the gateway.

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ViaVeritasVita's avatar

Well, in a manner of speaking, only X percent did have access to print--as it was manuscript and rare, thus only the rara avis could possess it. I never considered this until this moment--but when Gutenberg did invent his moveable type, how many actually were literate? Surely there must have been a considerable time-lag between access to text and ability to appreciate it?

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Ryan Gardner's avatar

Indeed. The LATIN was the same thing as The SCIENCE before moveable type as well.

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Pi Guy's avatar

"do we have a choice?"

*The Invisible Hand has entered the chat. Again.*

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Ryan Gardner's avatar

yeah, our tiny little "god" hands. it will be like magic to someone who only lived 50 years ago.

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AndyinBC's avatar

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" - Clarke.

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The Wiltster's avatar

Okay, so this is a better place to chime-in than offering a new comment. As such, I will do so...

While I do not doubt that on-line environments provide ample opportunity for pretending and bullshit, I would be careful to assume that IRL provides some type of failsafe. Sure, we have all had an experience such as that to which Bad Cat alludes. We meet a person in person and realize (or THINK we realize) they are a turd. I think--and Malcolm Gladwell would agree--that we also tend to place too much faith in our ability to ferret out a person's "trueness" from meeting them. Liars lie. They are good at it regardless of medium. Thinking they are less good at it if we can "shake their hands" is likely folly, particularly if only a few of the examples from "Talking To Strangers" are illustrative. Thankfully, most people are NOT scum or "squids" as was the dude in Bad Cat's story. Anyway, just offering what I hope is a reasonable counterpoint to a point-of-view with which I largely agree!

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AP's avatar

Agreed. Scam artists, snake oil salesmen, etc. existed long before modern technology took hold. Perhaps the older ones were better at it because they couldn't hide behind pseudonyms and visual filters, but they existed nonetheless.

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Pi Guy's avatar

"Perhaps the older ones were better at it because they couldn't hide behind pseudonyms and visual filters, but they existed nonetheless."

*a Nigerian Prince requesting your Routing Number has entered the chat*

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The Wiltster's avatar

Dude. Well played!

As an aside, it STILL shocks the absolute horse feces out of me that people have actually gone to Africa in the grips of the Nigerian scam.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go do something stupid of my own. #NotImmune

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Pi Guy's avatar

"And now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go do something stupid of my own."

*snicker*

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The Wiltster's avatar

Indeed. Some of the nuance to which the Bad Cat refers in the piece puts this in a different mental space, but again, thinking "if we can meet them, we're safe" probably ain't as smart as we would hope.

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el gato malo's avatar

no medium is perfect and all have trade offs.

it's harder to lie in person or to mask the sort of person you are.

but it's easier to lie about data and to build rapid mass formation. virtual is great for ideas and for data because everyone can engage with it fully and take time to digest and respond or to fact check.

it's not about "better" so much as "trade offs."

but the two favor different sorts of people. king of the internet is rarely king of the office.

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The Wiltster's avatar

No huge dispute about any of this, although I might be careful stating, definitively, which is "easier." As usual I agree with you, about which SEEMS easier, both philosophically and from my own experience. History seems to disagree with both of us, at least a little bit, based upon one author and one book!

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Hank Rearden's avatar

Rip - Yellowstone 😜

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Pi Guy's avatar

Beth Dutton is the best character on TV for a long time.

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Becky Truesdell's avatar

I am seeing the same dismissiveness of technology in my kids. My 11-year-old thinks it is ridiculous that some of her classmates want to be You-tubers when they grow up, and she can't stand kids who only talk about their online gaming. My 14 year-old commented on a superbowl ad, saying it might have been good except they ruined it by using too much AI-generated imagery. I hadn't even noticed, but upon reflection, it was true that it had that too-slick-3D-CGI look of AI photos. She also plans to get married early and have 5 kids. Definitely different goals from my high-school years as a Gen-Xer. They are growing wise to the fakeness of this brand new world.

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ClownBasket's avatar

wow. all for of my kids have said they want to have at least four kids.

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Rebecca Pettigrew's avatar

Let’s hope there are more and more kids like yours. I’m not sure it’s the majority and definitely see the widening gap as I see my kids struggling to connect . Friendship appears to be becoming a lost art . . .

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Alan's avatar

I have no ides what "girls looking for Rip from Tombstone" means? Help.

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Hank Rearden's avatar

He meant Rip from Yellowstone 👆🏼, the show on Paramount

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