“Langer demonstrated this fact by asking a small favor of people waiting in line to use a library copying machine: “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I’m in a rush?”

The effectiveness of this request-plus-reason was nearly total: Ninety-four percent of those asked let her skip ahead of them in line.

Compare this success rate to the results when she made the request only: “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine?” Under those circumstances, only 60 percent of those asked complied.

At first glance, it appears that the crucial difference between the two requests was the additional information provided by the words “because I’m in a rush.”

But a third type of request tried by Langer showed that this was not the case. It seems that it was not the whole series of words, but the first one, “because,” that made the difference.

Instead of including a real reason for compliance, Langer’s third type of request used the word “because” and then, adding nothing new, merely restated the obvious: “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I have to make some copies?”

The result was that once again nearly all (93 percent) agreed, even though no real reason, no new information, was added to justify their compliance.”

Excerpt From Influence Robert B. Cialdini, PhD

Ultimately the best way to meet people, and especially to grow and maintain those connections, is to have the same hobbies as them.

Do you like sports? Join an adult league.
Do you like reading? Join a book club. Do you like tabletop games? Use Reddit’s r/LFG, or look for a local meetup group, and find some people there.

Ultimately it’s hard to make new friends when you have nothing to tie you to them long term.

People have set routines, and it can be difficult to have them make time for a stranger initially.

But if you join group doing something you enjoy, you already a part of their lives through that. You also have an easy source of conversation, talking about whatever your joint interest is.

Can the incels who posted and upvoted this please stop ruining gender relations for the rest of us?

Two obvious suggestions are Frank Herbert’s “Dune” series, and Issac Asimov’s “Foundation” series.

Both are sci-fi classics (Dune is still the best selling sci-fi book of all time I believe) and are space operas of a massive scope.

They are also some of my personal favorites.

You seem to attribute the housing affordability crisis the last few years to WFH-ers, but isn’t it more fair to say that there are multiple other factors contributing to it?

Not just the post COVID appreciation for housing, but things like historically high percentage of investor owned homes (including corporate and foreign buyers), and historically low building rates compared to projected need, to name a few.

So then the question becomes, which of these should we focus on? For me, that means what gives you the most positives, and least negatives.

Let’s look at three options:

1. Banning corporate and foreign non-occupying homeowners from owning American residential real estate
2. Rezoning low density areas (particularly single story commercial/retail in smaller cities and towns’ downtowns) into vertical dense mixed use residential and commercial/retail development
3. Ending work from home

1 and 2 accomplish our primary goal of reducing home prices across the country, both by increasing supply (1 would too, since those investors would need to sell, increasing supply), and 1 would also reduce demand. 3 does not, because any price reductions in rural areas will be offset by higher rates in urban one

2 also gives us positive secondary benefit of encouraging walkable cities, which leads to health improvements, less traffic, and reduced climate impact. 1 would also increase business investment, encouraging long term growth, if the “money printer” option of buying US residential properties and collecting rent is not available.

3 gives us no positive secondary benefits, and since it does essentially the opposite of 2 in terms of walkability, it also is the only one with a high negative cost.

So pretty clearly that idea is the worst one for solving housing affordability. So why support it when their are other much better options available to accomplish your goal?

“Democracy is never good” lol.

You forgot the next part of the quote by Churchill “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all others that have ever been tried.”

The truth if you actually look at history is that the greatest advancements in human civilization have occurred in democracy’s or meritocracies (especially if both).

The Greek, Roman’s, English democracy, French Revolution, and America: all of these civilizations, though massively unequal compared to current societies, represented huge quality of living standard increases when compared to their contemporary rivals.

They were all forms of democracies, where to the extent possible for their time they gave chances for their citizens to be involved, and were rewarded for it by being strong enough to dominate the world around them.

Democracies aren’t just better morally, they are better economically, militarily, diplomatically, and culturally. The fact that some become corrupt or populist doesn’t change that.

You say small talk is “irrelevant” to your job, but since you lost that job for not doing it, and it sounds like not for the first time, it is, by definition, extremely relevant.

“I felt they weren’t listening to me.” That is how, by your own admission, you made them feel for 8 weeks. To turn your question around, why should they listen to you?

I understand how you feel. I never understood natural small talk in school, and like you I was ostracized for it.

But the difference is I recognized how important it was to have allies in any environment, and the only way you get them is via socializing.

So I tried, I suffered, I learned and I got better. And that I did that again, and again, and again.

Have you made that effort? You already said you haven’t.

But this episode clearly hurt you, and it’s happened in the past, so don’t you think it’s time to learn?

Einstein once said that doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity.

Have you accepted that if you don’t change, these things will happen, again and again, for the rest of your life? If not, you are insane.

You say they are thin skinned, but to a few external observers, this long post also feels that way. Either don’t change and accept the known consequences of your actions without complaint, or adapt.

Of course it’s difficult. But people do difficult things every day. Think of it as a challenge. In addition to asking “do we give sodium bicarbonate by metabolic acidosis or alkalosis?”, also ask “so, have any plans for the weekend?”. And remember both answers, and ask them how whatever they talked about on Monday.

These conversations don’t have to take long, but just engaging for a minute or two will drastically change people’s perceptions of you. Which, considering those people can fire you, is extremely relevant.

Ultimately, your complaint is they don’t care about you. But you admit to not caring about them or their problems either, so I don’t understand why you’d expect a different outcome.

To echo what some people have said, if you haven’t changed jobs in the last year or two; you absolutely should do so.

As you’ve realized, there’s only so much you can do on the cost side to have things balance. Cost of living has risen relentlessly, but thankfully in many areas wages are finally growing too, and new hires usually get the higher rates.

So not changing jobs frequently, especially in the industries you mentioned, is just leaving money on the table.

Aside from that, definitely look into trades, but also look into local government, healthcare (like being a patient scheduler at a hospital), really any industry you are looking to break into as a career.

They really need the help now, especially for entry level positions, and if you do a good job, you could parlay that into a career in an industry you’re excited about.

So spend like 30 minutes each day looking for jobs, and don’t stop until you’re hired. Remember, even if you end up hating it, you can always quit and get rehired immediately in industries you’re more familiar with, because they also desperately need help too.

So I’ll preface this by saying that I’m not trans, so I can’t speak to that specifically. And if that perspective is what’s important to you, feel free to ignore.

But the main thing to remember is that they are not hating you because you are trans.

They hate you because they are hateful people, and will use whatever justification they can to avoid treating everyone well.

First it was black people, then Latin people, then gay people, etc.

They will always pick a group, big enough for them to be aware of but small enough they feel can be bullied without consequence.

And unfortunately right now, trans people are that group. But looking at the above list should also give you hope, because they tried to dehumanize all of those groups, and they lost every. Single. Time.

So just remember that ultimately if your not hurting anyone, then you are not doing anything wrong, and feel free to tell anyone that tells you otherwise to go fuck themselves. For being trans, or anything else.

Remember MLK’s quote, that the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

So the balance you have to get right is between respecting their experience and defending your right to make the final decision.

Asking them, “what are your thoughts on how to handle this situation”, and if the idea sounds good implementing it immediately, will go a long way to showing them you’re not going to insist on your way in every situation, which is the main cause of animosity, especially when the other person is more experienced.

But just by showing you’ll consider their ideas, you should expect some people to push to have you accept every idea they have, which can occur more often when they think they should be in your place anyway.

When that happens, it’s important to clarify that while you want to get everyone’s input, the final decision rests with you, and once you make it, you expect everyone to carry it out. And though constructive feedback on how to improve the process is always welcome, critiquing it simply because it is not their idea is not.

If you say that to them, looking them in the eyes with a calm but determined voice and expression, they’ll understand you’re a boss that wants input but will remain independent, which is the type of boss people respect.

In this sense it’s not much different from managing any team, except you should be more willing to seek out their input because they truly do have more experience.

One more thing that’s extremely important. When you make a decision, especially when it’s one where you chose between competing ideas or you went with your own, always explain the rationale for your decision. If your explanation makes sense and is honest, they’ll understand you were truly choosing what you thought was the best decision, and not just picking the one from your favorite person (including yourself).

Nothing diminishes respect more than showing favoritism, especially if they think you benefited from it to get your position.

I knew someone that did something similar for the same reason, though it was conversations about his future with his mom that he was trying to avoid.

Something that helped with him is to go outside, NOT to interact with people, but just to go on hikes or walk, where you can keep your headphones in and not say a word to someone else, but just to get outside your room, which even though it’s a refuge, can also start to feel like a prison.

Honestly you interact with people much more indoors than outdoors, so viewing a walk as a form of peaceful solitude can be great for getting fresh air and exercise, and you’ll notice you get much less judgement from your roommates if your going outside. You’ll also notice your mental health will probably improve as well.

But you need to understand, they feel the same way about you.

When you ignore them and never engage on every topic (Edited for clarity), they think you are giving them the silent treatment, which is also associated with children

Give you the mature ones you can learn from, you say. Have you engaged those people? People will be more likely to teach you if they like you, and they’ll be more likely to like you if you talk to them.

I’m not saying you’re wrong that it shouldn’t be this way, and I am agreeing with you that a position of like lab/rad tech with less colleagues might be more fitting to your personality.

But I am saying expecting people to care about you, understand you and treat you well, while you make no effort to do the same, is completely naive and hypocritical.

It’s the highest voted comment in his original post.

It could be on Sumerian clay tablets my dude, it would still be about threatening rape for amusement

Nothing by itself. But if it can encourage other senators to filibuster, and more importantly, to organize to filibuster together , the impact could be paralyzing.

To take an obvious example, for half a century, from say 1910 to 1964-5, there were more than enough votes in the US senate to enact civil rights legislation, as southerners only made up 22 or so of the 96-100 senators then (no Hawaii or Alaska for part of that).

But that legislation never happened. And the reason why it didn’t was that southern senators were able to filibuster so effectively that the legislation could never be brought to the floor, or to force its withdrawal if it got there.

It’s not that the votes on that specific bill weren’t there. It’s just that under the leadership of Sen Richard Russel of Georgia (who the “Russel Senate Office Building” is named after), the southern senators understood the way to block legislation was to filibuster not just the bill in question, but any law that was about to lapse that was so important economically that senators couldn’t afford to let that happen.

So they organized, filibustered key bills, set up “watches” where at least one senator had to be on the floor to defeat any quorum calls (which ends a filibuster, as you do not actually have to be talking to filibuster a bill), and filibustered not just votes on key bills, but even votes on motions to bring those bills out of committee to the floor.

Moreover, since these filibusters weren’t on the bill itself, it was easy for an individual senator to say they were against another bill, or another motion, and make it seem like an unrelated objection, when it was really all part of a comprehensive strategy.

Eventually, the impending economic doom created enough pressure to get any civil rights bill withdrawn in order to let those other bills pass, which was the southerners asking price.

Obviously, the democrats now aren’t doing that. But they could. And by generating headlines by filibustering, he encourages other senators to do so, if only for popularity.

So obviously I don’t know you at all, and this might not be applicable or possible for you, but as some one who for a long time just didn’t “get it” and now feels like they do, some tips:

1. When you interact with someone, smile and ask how they are doing.

Even if you don’t continue the conversation beyond “how are you? Good, and you? Good”, you interacted with the world, and had a non-negative result.

Being able to generate positive interactions is the first step to feeling comfortable in the world.

1. Be brief. Listen more than you talk, but when you do talk, say useful or applicable things. Ask relevant questions to learn more and keep the conversation going.

When someone is talking, try to think of a relevant question based on what they are saying. They talk about a trip, “was that your first time there?” Talk about a hobby “what got you interested in that”, talk about their work, “whats it like dealing with ___?”

The more you talk, the greater the chance someone isn’t interested in what you say. The more they talk, the more you learn what interest them, making conversation easier.

1. Small talk with someone is just talking about things you have in common. That’s why the weather is such a cliche but useful one, because it’s the one thing you know both you and that person are experiencing right now. Talk about things you have in common with whoever you are talking to, and it will increase the likelihood you have a positive interaction. And having positive interactions while fulfilling your own goals or needs is basically all there is to “human-ing”

Edit for SuddenDownpours valid point: when meeting someone for the first time where the other persons interests are unknown, I think it’s helpful to not launch into a long monologue on your favorite interest, which the other person might not share, but instead “probe” with brief questions on some general topics which might be of interest to most people and also yourself, and based on their responses either continue that topic or move to a different one.

Then if you discover a shared topic of interest, you should of course share your thoughts freely.

But even then, you should try to be relatively concise in your points. Don’t speak longer than a minute straight (and ideally closer to 30 seconds) without getting the other person involved.

Otherwise the conversation starts to feel like more of a monologue where the other person’s input is not required, which is boring to anyone, no matter the subject.

Honestly this was true for large parts of USAs history, but that hasn’t been the case for a while now.

In truth our democrat and republicans reps have almost no similar voting history, they vote the opposite of each other on almost every issue.

Below is a good visualization of what I mean. You can see that from the 50’s to the 80’s, there was really quite a bit of voting overlap by the parties, so during that period, you’d be right, both parties could be consider the same or similar.

But for the last 30 years or so, democrats and republicans have had very little overlap on what they vote in favor for. It’s party line votes on almost everything.

So how people can say “both parties are the same”, when they vote the opposite on almost everything is beyond me.

And that’s not even taking into account executive actions, like for example for the last 50 years or so every democrat president has provided contraceptives as part of foreign aid, and every republican has not.

We may not have options in terms of political parties to choose from, which I agree is bad, but saying both parties are the same is to be willfully blind.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/04/23/a-stunning-visualization-of-our-divided-congress/

You don’t want that guy. What you want is attention, and he was the last person to give it to you, therefore you think you want him.

Just get dressed up and go to a bar, and you’ll find enough guys who will give you that, without the red flags.

What data do you have to say neither of those options are relevant?

“Mid-priced homes are becoming more popular with investors, making up 32% of investor purchases in the fourth quarter, a record high. Low-priced homes are still most popular with investors, making up 37% of purchases.”

Low cost homes, exactly the ones in rural/historically low income area you described, are the most purchased category of residential real estate.

Also, the downtowns of those areas, which are almost all single story commercial/retail, are exactly the places most in need of walkable, dense development I’m describing, especially if there’s a housing shortage and most of the surrounding areas already have built up residential developments.

So both of those options are actually more relevant for your example then the US as a whole.

https://www.redfin.com/news/investor-home-purchases-q4-2021/

If you like your hair on the shorter side, hair clippers.

I’ve been cutting my hair for a long time now, and have probably saved thousands from skipping barbers, as well as been able to cut my hair exactly as I like it, and far more frequently/conveniently.