But what about the comic?! The comic says I don’t have to change my lifestyle to align with my purported values! It absolves me of my responsibility to do anything beyond complain, no matter how trivial the change required! Doesn’t the comic say complaining about a problem is basically just as good as actually contributing to fixing it?

1. Practice practice practice. I spent two semesters in undergrad sitting at random peoples tables and striking up conversations with them. Get over your anxiety about being disliked. The worst you will do is leave someone with a moderately awkward experience, and you will never ever see them again.

2. Make a conscious decision to put your phone away and attempt to connect in public spaces. Technology has made it so that even the smallest inconvenience can be avoided easily. Learning to small talk is going to be a hell of a lot more worse than an inconvenience. You have to get comfortable with the idea that you will be acutely aware that you suck the first dozen times that you do it.

3. Active listening. Get people talking with an easy question to expound upon, then pay attention to the answers and ask them to elaborate on anything they mention in passing, ideally things you find interesting. “Tell me more” is your biggest friend here.

4. “Yes and”, not “No, but”. Agree, emphasize, respond, empathize. If they say something, totally repulsive, try to deflect to something else rather than actively confront.

5. Open ended questions are your best friend. If the question you’re formulating can be answered with yes/no, rephrase it into something that invites explanation.

6. When you have struck gold, stop looking. Let people talk about things they wanted to talk about. As you do this more and more you’ll start getting a sense for when they’re running out of things to say vs when they want to continue but are concerned they’re talking too much. For the former, go back to step 3 and ask them about something else they mentioned. For the latter, learn the methods for communicating your interest. Eye contact, an open posture, a micro-smile, tilted head, all communicate that you are engaged and listening. The secret sauce here, though, is to just repeat the last couple of words they said back to them. It’s like magic.

Huh, I had no idea, I had assumed it was universal up until now. How do people start conversations in south American countries?

In the nicest possible way, this is a skill issue. Get better at having conversations.

If your best examples of boring conversations are people talking about the weather, it’s you who’s having the boring conversations mate. That’s a pretty standard opening, your supposed to branch away from that one pretty quick.

Nope, the placebo effect can have physical effects and be genuinely curative. The level to which this is the case is highly variable from patient to patient, but it is inaccurate to say that is limited to improving sensation and perception of illness. Not to mention, in many cases the malady being treated is one of perception, for example, in pain management. And alleviating pain in itself has downstream positive effects on disease progression and patient QOL.

Ask your questions here! The lemmy archives aren’t as deep as Reddit’s yet, but one by one well get there!

Oh man, I should have scrolled down further before posting. Same here, I genuinely believe that movie was before its time. It would fit right in these days with “Barbie” and “Everything Everywhere All At Once”.

This has always been easy for me because my favorite movie is “Speed Racer” which has like a 40% on Rotten Tomatoes.

A movie that was genuinely before its time. Would fit right in these days with “Barbie” and “Everything Everywhere All At Once”.

Incredibly accurate. It’s nuts how they all could be one person.

Oh man this gives me an idea for a great meme. Imagine place, Japan, but instead it’s “place, r/place”.

When I start feeling like this that’s when I know it’s time to trim another social media account.