The last year, my median conversation was about as entertaining as yours. The top 10% conversations are fun-in-their-own-right at that moment already because my brain anticipates some form of long-term value (with the exception of cracking jokes). I don’t know if all those conversations would count as “casual”. As intellectually stimulating as the Task Master TV-show is funny. Conversation is more heavy tailed than movies though. Long term value includes: learning or teaching (learning some new technical thing that’s usually not written down anywhere (Podcasts tend to be better for that), getting a pointer about something to learn about, teaching something technical in the anticipation that the other person is actually going to do anything with that knowledge, incorporating the generating function behind someone’s virtues/wisdom), thinking out loud with someone else in the expectation that this might lead to an interesting idea, gossip, life stories (sometimes preventing you from harm from people/situations that can’t be trusted. Sometimes just illuminating parts of life you’d know less about).
My most fun conversation had me grinning for 30 minutes after still, and my heartbeat after that time was also still 10–20 beats higher than usual.
My median conversations at parties over my entire life are probably less entertaining than your median ones. My bar for an interesting conversation also rose when I stumbled over the wider rationalist sphere. I remember two conversations from before that era where the main important information was essentially just “there are other smart people out there, and you can have interesting conversations with them where you can ask the questions you have etc.”. One was at a networking event for startup founders, and the other was a Computer Science PhD student showing me his work and the university campus (same conversation that got my heart-beat up).
The last year, my median conversation was about as entertaining as yours. The top 10% conversations are fun-in-their-own-right at that moment already because my brain anticipates some form of long-term value (with the exception of cracking jokes). I don’t know if all those conversations would count as “casual”. As intellectually stimulating as the Task Master TV-show is funny. Conversation is more heavy tailed than movies though. Long term value includes: learning or teaching (learning some new technical thing that’s usually not written down anywhere (Podcasts tend to be better for that), getting a pointer about something to learn about, teaching something technical in the anticipation that the other person is actually going to do anything with that knowledge, incorporating the generating function behind someone’s virtues/wisdom), thinking out loud with someone else in the expectation that this might lead to an interesting idea, gossip, life stories (sometimes preventing you from harm from people/situations that can’t be trusted. Sometimes just illuminating parts of life you’d know less about). My most fun conversation had me grinning for 30 minutes after still, and my heartbeat after that time was also still 10–20 beats higher than usual.
My median conversations at parties over my entire life are probably less entertaining than your median ones. My bar for an interesting conversation also rose when I stumbled over the wider rationalist sphere. I remember two conversations from before that era where the main important information was essentially just “there are other smart people out there, and you can have interesting conversations with them where you can ask the questions you have etc.”. One was at a networking event for startup founders, and the other was a Computer Science PhD student showing me his work and the university campus (same conversation that got my heart-beat up).