I was initially surprised that you think I was generalizing too far—because that’s what I criticized about your quoting of Duncan’s list and in my head I was just pointing to myself as an obviously valid counterexample (because I’m a person who exists, and fwiw many but not all of my friends are similar), not claiming that all other people would be similarly turned off.
But seeing Thane’s reply, I think it’s fair to say that I’m generalizing too far for using the framing of “comfort zone expansion” for things that some people might legitimately find fun.
As I’m going to also write in my reply to Thane, I knew some people must find something about things like the ASMR exampe fun, but my model was more like “Some people think comfort/trust zone expansion itself is fun” rather than “Some people with already-wide comfort/trust zones find it fun to do things that other people would only do under the banner of comfort/trust zone expansion.” Point taken!
Still, I feel like the list could be more representative to humanity in general by not using so many examples that only appeal to people who like things like circling, awkward social games, etc.
It’s hard to pinpoint why exactly I think many people are highly turned off by this stuff, but I’m pretty sure (based on introspection) that it’s not just fear of humiliation or not trusting other people in the room. There’s something off-putting to me about the performativeness of it. Something like “If the only reason I’m doing it is because I’m following instructions, not because at least one of us actually likes it and the other person happily consents to it, it feels really weird.”
(This actually feels somewhat related to why I don’t like small talk—but that probably can’t be the full explanation because my model of most rationalists is that they probably don’t like small talk.)
I was initially surprised that you think I was generalizing too far—because that’s what I criticized about your quoting of Duncan’s list and in my head I was just pointing to myself as an obviously valid counterexample (because I’m a person who exists, and fwiw many but not all of my friends are similar), not claiming that all other people would be similarly turned off.
But seeing Thane’s reply, I think it’s fair to say that I’m generalizing too far for using the framing of “comfort zone expansion” for things that some people might legitimately find fun.
As I’m going to also write in my reply to Thane, I knew some people must find something about things like the ASMR exampe fun, but my model was more like “Some people think comfort/trust zone expansion itself is fun” rather than “Some people with already-wide comfort/trust zones find it fun to do things that other people would only do under the banner of comfort/trust zone expansion.” Point taken!
Still, I feel like the list could be more representative to humanity in general by not using so many examples that only appeal to people who like things like circling, awkward social games, etc.
It’s hard to pinpoint why exactly I think many people are highly turned off by this stuff, but I’m pretty sure (based on introspection) that it’s not just fear of humiliation or not trusting other people in the room. There’s something off-putting to me about the performativeness of it. Something like “If the only reason I’m doing it is because I’m following instructions, not because at least one of us actually likes it and the other person happily consents to it, it feels really weird.”
(This actually feels somewhat related to why I don’t like small talk—but that probably can’t be the full explanation because my model of most rationalists is that they probably don’t like small talk.)