>> In the Netherlands, however, it's relatively common to talk about serious things. Even with strangers. This makes every conversation 'risky'.

Sometimes it's good to talk about serious things with someone not directly involved with your life (i.e. no skin in the game). People even pay for this as a service, I think it's called... um... therapy.

A friend of mine "admitted" to seeing a "talky doctor" because "there aren't any insightful bar tenders any more". This in the US.

Oh, definitely. I recently went to Japan and while I enjoyed the culture immensely, I can't help but notice a lot of people really aching for actual conversation. Something the Dutch generally aren't starved of with their direct and open (sometimes maybe blunt) attitude.

This is especially true in business situations. Although there is a very collective decision making process, it can be quite hierarchical. Often, if a manager has stated a position others will not disagree even if it is quite wrong. This is where drinking together comes in...

I've seen an engineer who had sat through a day of meetings on a topic holding his tongue until they went out for drinks after work (like most days). The moment beer touched his lips he broke into an angry tirade as to how terrible the decision was, and because we were "drinking" it was not considered out of bounds or reasonably punishable insubordination. Of course sexual harassment can have similar in/out of bounds elements so it's not like strict rules, boundaries, and exceptions solve all problems.

It's kind of jarring to me that this sort of thing could be anything more than an outlier. Do companies like this not have anyone who's an alcoholic, pregnant, not fond of bars, etc., or are they just fine with cutting them out of the actual decision making process?

My favorite boss ever would sit and drink with me and a few of my peers after work regularly. Some others wouldn’t join us, for their own reasons. He made sure to spend more time listening to their opinions in the office though, and he had their complete trust. Now, we may not have heard quite as unfiltered commentary from those folks since they didn’t choose to drink, but that’s by their choice. It’s better to have some honesty from half your subordinates than none.

I don’t mean this at all as an inflammatory hot take, but drinking with people builds bonds in a very effective way which is very hard to match inside the office environment. I acknowledge though that there are obviously big problems with drinking as well and not everyone should do it.

I'm going to preface this by saying that I also don't mean any of this as inflammatory or a personal attack, and I fully believe that you had nothing but good intentions, but it doesn't really seem like you've fully viewed most of what you've said from the perspective of someone who doesn't drink at all.

The claim that people wouldn't feel excluded and disfavored for not attending but frequent social bonding over drinks because its optional is impossible for you to objectively evaluate. Of course you weren't aware of anyone having anything less than "complete trust" in your boss because of it; why would someone who felt that your boss was favoring those who drank with him tell you? People who perceive they're not part of a special social clique aren't going to go complain to the exact people who are then ones making them feel that way. It's not impossible that you're correct, but it's hard for me to imagine that someone would feel comfortable sharing negative feelings about the boss with you when you seem so confident that no one could possibly have any issues with the arrangement; if I were in that situation, I can't see myself even considering trusting how I really felt about it about it with a coworker who couldn't seem to even conceive of those feelings on their own.

Thanks for your reply.

I can see how I could have been in the dark about someone's true feelings if they weren't in a "clique" that I was in. In my exact case though, I felt like the 'clique' wasn't just the people who liked drinking at the bar, because we also had lunches including those non-drinkers, zoom happy hours (2020!), etc. I mean, drinking alcohol itself is optional even at a bar.

You're right that decision-making shouldn't be done by a committee delineated as "just the people who drink together" -- and that could be a real risk if this type of thing isn't being carefully considered.

However, the only guarantee against it than I can think of would be the far worse policy to simply ban all socializing after work, because the same thing could happen if 4 people took up after-work hacky sack and the others weren't interested.

I think socializing after work is fine in a lot of cases, but I personally feel like a manager should avoid anything that even has the appearance of playing favorites. I recognize that this is probably a much more strict ethical stance than most people will hold though; in a lot of places it's not even forbidden for managers to date their direct reports, which is even more obviously a conflict of interest.

I also totally understand that there's no requirement to drink at a bar; I just don't typically find them to be very fun environments. At least in the ones I've been to post-work hours, they tend to be loud and crowded, and I've always assumed that the only reason people tolerate them as a place to socialize is that drinking makes those aspects less annoying. Imagine if all your coworkers really loved comic books, and after work they always went to hang out in a comic book store, and you had no interest in comic books; you certainly could still go, but without actually being interested in what the venue provides, it's just not going to be particularly fun to hang out there.

I think the thing you're missing is that in Japanese culture this kind of interaction can't happen unless you're drinking. The social mores just don't allow these sorts of outbursts in any other situation.

This can be difficult to wrap your head around in the US because we don't have social rules anywhere near as strict as Japan and so empathizing with the experience is difficult.

You're probably right, although I'm not sure it's quite because of a lack of familiarity with strictness; I think I just prefer it distributed very differently. I think there's value in there being a spectrum of what's acceptable across different circumstances, but tying openness to an "optional" form of recreation seems very unfortunate.

I'm very happy as a software engineer, but if I could do any job in the world where money wasn't a consideration, I'd go back to bartending.

I worked a the closing shift at a very popular bar in the West village, NYC around 2007-2009. I had my regulars, the work was simple. I'd get to know them and learn about their lives. I made a bunch of friends. People I would have never met otherwise, because of social strata or just having completely different lives that wouldn't intersect otherwise.

I'm not a huge fan of smalltalk strangers, the kind that you might have with a stranger on the subway or someone at the dog park. But for whatever the reason, those weren't the kinds of conversations that were occurring late nights at the bar :)

I heard of someone well off being a part-time Uber driver in SF because he got to interact with interesting people...

Ireland is an independent country, not part of the UK.

Pubs in the UK are much less like this than in Ireland, which I also believe are quite special. There are pubs like this in the UK, but they're less and less common the larger the town you are in - which (my pet theory) correlates closely with the likelihood that there are people in the pub who don't already know each other anyway...

Edit for clarification: the more people are mixing in the pub, the more likely they all knew each other beforehand. Likely because it's a small town pub, although tight community pubs do still exist still in London - they're rare).

I'm sorry for lumping Ireland in with the UK. I've been to both England, Scotland and Ireland and in my experience the casual interactions were similarly positive in comparison to the Netherlands.

I guess I'd notice the differences more if I were to spend more time there.

Just a note: A fifth of Ireland is in the UK and the whole island very close cultural ties and a shared history with Britain.

A lot of the world has close cultural ties and a shared history with Britain for some reason.

Relevant xkcd: Sunset on the British Empire https://what-if.xkcd.com/48/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_that_have_ga...

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_British_Empire.p...

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Tangentially tangent trivia - the largest park in the EU is located about 3° north of the equator. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guiana_Amazonian_Park

If it's not Britain, it was France or Spain.

My daily reminder that France and therefore the EU has a land border with Brazil.

My daily reminder that a lot of this world is still directly colonised. Literally colonised in the classic sense.

Yep. For "some" reason that I quite cannot put my finger on ;-)

You could definitely put a finger on the trigger of a muzzle-loaded musket.

A fifth of Ukraine is currently in Russia, and the whole country has very close cultural ties and a shared history with Russia.

Does this help explain why people are quick to point out that Ireland is not in the UK?

No, it doesn't.

I'm from both Northern Ireland myself. I consider myself to come from both Ireland and the UK myself and carry passports from both the UK and the ROI. I don't understand why you would jump to argue my identity against me.

I don't believe that Ukraine recognises Russia's claim, there is an open conflict there.

The Republic of Ireland and the UK are at peace and the portion of Ireland which is administered by the UK is done so with mutual agreement and recognition, with guarantees to the freedom of the people to choose their identity guaranteed by internationally recognised agreements.

The comparison is really reaching.

Ukraine is a war zone now. NI has been at peace in practice since 1998. Both places have been invaded by an aggressive neighbor, rebelled, made peace, etc for hundreds of years.

Your comfort with the current NI situation doesn’t prevent historical comparison.

Yes, Ukraine is a warzone. That war is almost universally condemned.

Northern Ireland is at peace. Its constitutional position within the a United Kingdom is recognises by the Irish government, the British government and all of the other states of the world. This position was agreed through a referendum held for the people of the island almost 30 years ago.

Historical comparison doesn't come into it. The point your were raising was that there was a comparison to be made today to the situation in Ireland and the situation in Ukraine.

Even historically it doesn't fit. What "invasions" of Ireland are you talking about? Maybe John de Courcey's? In the 12th century without support from the crown?

Please note that I say all of this as someone who would vote tomorrow for a united Ireland without a second thought.

Yeah it's actually really surprising how different pubs are in Ireland vs most of the UK.

That's a very interesting idea, and one that I hadn't considered. And indeed, Ireland in comparison is a place where people try not to get too political in conversation for obvious reasons, especially in the North where I grew up.

Your comment reminded me of another story, from the first time I visited home after being over here for 2 years, bringing my Dutch girlfriend with me to show her around and share with her a better understanding of where I came from.

I grew up in Belfast, which outside of the city centre was strongly divided between Protestants and Catholics. I grew up myself close to an interface between two of these areas, where violence was so bad and so regular that a wall had been erected to keep the communities apart and keep them from fighting.

This was one of the things that was shocking to my girlfriend, as well as the paintings on the wall showing masked men with guns to denote who controlled the area. After talking and walking for a while she noted that she was curious about the paintings on "the other side."

I explained to her that, by the age of 27 when I left the country, there was large portions of the city that I'd never visited because I didn't feel comfortable going there. She argued that peace had long been found and that if we went there no one would ever even know where I was from, so I agreed and we took a visit to The Falls Road in West Belfast, a working class Catholic area which was important in the history of The Troubles.

We saw their wall, we saw their murals which were honestly less intimidating than the ones I'd grown up with. We got to the top of the road and explored some side streets, one of which had a house pub, a house that had been converted into a pub.

My girlfriend wanted to go in and get a real sense of the local life. I was honestly quite scared because, on my side of town, such bars were always strongly associated with a heavy paramilitary clientele and would be unwelcoming to outsiders. But, I guess being Dutch, she said "Come on, we don't have to talk to anyone, we'll just get a drink and enjoy the atmosphere and you can say you've done it." Again, I agreed.

We entered into a small dark room. We hadn't even ordered our drinks before the locals noticed we were having to think about what was available and became curious. As soon as my girlfriend opened her mouth with her Dutch accent we were asked by the group around the bar, and the barmaid herself, where we'd come from.

She explained that she was Dutch and was welcomed with a friendly joke about "King Billy," William of Orange who had fought in Ireland for the Protestant Ascendancy in the 17th Century.

While this was happening a man approached me from antother part of the room and asked if I was a musician, as I was holding a set of mandolin strings. We got quickly into conversation as he was himself a banjo player, and I had been curious about finding a bar to hear some traditional music as I had started playing it myself while living in Holland.

Another gentleman then joined us and asked us where we were staying and I, still feeling uneasy, was quick to mention that it was in South Belfast, a mostly neutral part of town. I was told we weren't the only non-locals in the bar that night as there was a boy from Scotland as well, and he was quickly pointed out.

Conversation flowed naturally on and eventually I was asked what part of town I was from, and I decided to be honest and say East Belfast. The latest gentleman to have entered the conversation assumed that I was from the Short Strand, a small Catholic enclave in anotherwise Protestant neighbourhood. He actually phrased it as, "What part of the Strand are you from?" to which I responded, "I'm not, I'm from the Other Side" and he asked immediately "What are you doing up here then?"

I explained that I'd left the country and seen things from the outside, seen that we were one people living on one island, and that I was here with my girlfriend who was Dutch and just wanted to see the whole city. He shook my hand and said, "Well, you're a braver man that I am" before moving to another table.

Soon after the first man I'd spoken to, the musician, came up and said he'd heard that I was Protestant. He too shook my hand and said "That's just the way it should be. I hope you'll come back again." We finished our drinks and left soon after, as we had agreed.

I'm still not sure what to make of it all. Sometimes I regret having left and contributed to the "brain drain" at home, not being there to do my part in helping with the peace process. But sometimes I look back on that day and feel that in some small way I did my bit.

That's a great story. Thanks for sharing.

I too appreciated this one. Fascinating!

What an amazing story! I have to admit, I was a bit apprehensive while reading through it.

Sometimes it is necessary to step out and away to make a difference within.

You have most certainly contributed in a positive way and perhaps even started a chain reaction of good things to come.

Thank you for sharing.

PS: What an amazing girlfriend!

> I'm still not sure what to make of it all.

People have given up on that fight. Same thing happened here in Spain in Basque Country.

There are still very actve paramilitary groups on both sides and the control they have over their areas is stll very high in Loyalist Protestant communities. Representatives from Loyalist paramlitaries are still meeting with the British government to discuss things like the Northern Ireland Protocol.

I wish more people would give up on it.

What a story, and what a teller. If you have a blog, I'll read it!

Also, if you haven't already read this, you should: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/43349

I think that's a pretty astute observation.

Visiting the UK (from the US) it was pretty clear that the social boundaries were different, but the general nature of the game was the same - we're both guess cultures: you have to figure out what to say and how to say it.

In the Netherlands, conversation seemed much more unguarded. It's hard to describe but it's similar to a concept in the US of someone "having no filter" - basically, less verbal softening of uncomfortable/taboo subjects and more willingness to engage with them.

I actually find the Dutch way very refreshing in some ways. Soliciting critiques (e.g. "how does my new haircut look?") is a largely pointless exercise in the US because there's strong social pressure to say "it looks great" whether it's true or not.

I do wonder though if the Dutch way of making friends (as adults at least) has to be wildly different than in the Anglosphere, given how big a role those subtle social cues play here.

The above comment reminds me of Jan Maas in Ted Lasso. :)

I don't know if its just me, but I personally never had a no-filter conversation in this country. Like if I ask someone about my hair or something, they always answer politely. There is still enough social pressure not to say a bad thing about other people. If I ask a question, the answer is always something which would be considered polite. May be not American polite, but still polite imo.

This is actually one of the big no-nos of social gatherings in general in the US too.

You don't talk about politics, religion or money. There's no point. It's a no win situation because you're only going to make somebody angry, never change anyone's mind and everyone else in the room will be uncomfortable and/or leave because they just showed up to see everybody, share food, find out how life and family is going and have a good time.

This is also one of the main reasons that it's so easy to talk about sports.

I dunno, I find that people are can be relatively open to talking about 'bigger' issues so long as it's framed in a way that departs from the normal polarizing frameworks we're used to engaging in.

Talking about politics in the sense of current party issues is either boring or divisive depending on the group. But talking about voting systems and social choice theory can turn out well, especially if you frame it around something that doesn't look like governance in a traditional state. E.g. "The recent Colorado river water deal was kind of undemocratic. But what would be a fair, democratic and reasonable way to make decisions around that kind of resource problem?"

"Which religion is right?" is a bad conversation starter, but nerdy people enjoy a question that departs from normal identifications, like "Judaism, Islam and sometimes Buddhism care a lot about engaging with religious texts in their original language, but Christianity cares a lot less. Does faith come with an intuition about the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis?" People aren't precommitted to a camp in an emotional way, aren't offended by disagreement, and are willing to think about something new.

Heh, in the Catholic Church this could jump you right into a current vicious divide between regressive “Latinists” who want to undo all of Vatican 2 (most relevantly, the change from holding mass in Latin to holding it in the local language), and the pope and actual church.

... but even if you're an old-school Catholic who wants Latin mass, is that consistent with a strong version of Sapir-Whorf given that the new testament was written in Koine Greek and Jesus and the disciples spoke Aramaic? I.e. if language limits which concepts you can hold, Latin may not be able to communicate same understandings as intended by the authors of the gospels?

I don't think you'd get informed takes on Sapir-Whorf, but people who already have opinions on Latin Mass and not linguistics might assume that you were referring to that topic.

Yeah but if your conversational partner wants to express an opinion without understanding the question, and who doesn't have the intellectual curiosity to ask about the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis then they encounter it, maybe you already weren't going to have a good conversation irrespective of the topic.

These arguments are rarely about who's objectively right, but rather an ideological justification for a power struggle. Undoing "Vatican II" is largely about repositioning Catholic attention towards the wealthy end of the social spectrum, to make it easier to wield hard, temporal power; Latin mass is just one of the ideological wedges used to support that effort.

The Sapir-Whorf stuff has almost nothing to do with why some traditionalist Catholics prefer the traditional Latin Mass. (Also, the language spoken is not the only difference between the TLM and the post-Vatican II mass.)

> There's no point. It's a no win situation because you're only going to make somebody angry, never change anyone's mind and everyone else in the room will be uncomfortable and/or leave because they just showed up to see everybody, share food, find out how life and family is going and have a good time.

Total strangers will absolutely talk about all of that and more if they pass the vibe check regardless if they disagree. You don't have to agree to get along and have fun. The way someone carries themselves is precisely what makes them unique and interesting and its a vital skill to have. Bars are the tried and true institution for developing this. Go to any bar after midnight on a weeknight when the regulars are the majority instead. Nobody is talking about sports at that hour, and the friendships made are all the stronger for it. For those that can hang, that's a win.

Total strangers is key here.

Family gatherings or groups of friends have a risk associated with those conversations. Strangers don't. You don't have anything to lose with people you don't know.

The new people don't suddenly become agreeable doormats when they turn into a regular. They become friends. That's why they're friends (the honesty).

It's a sad state of social dysfunction that so many people are so afraid of disagreement. That aversion is the source of all the conflict because white lies only paint you into a corner.

Actual friends don’t care. I wouldn’t mind an extremely disagreeable drunk argument about some hard political stuff with friends. Would just write it off the next day.

Cutting people out of your lives too quickly leaves you with just boring agreeable people.

I have no issue with disagreement. I know a lot of people who get heated though.

Not everyone can handle it.

I've found this is a generational thing in my social circles. The older generations have a philosophy of "you don't talk about politics, religion, or money" and, the younger generations, that's all they talk about.

> the younger generations, that's all they talk about

There's something to this, I think. For younger generations, politics has become an identity and seems to influence a significant majority of their life - including who they associate with, etc.

I enjoy the sport of the debate - but am very careful not to "get into it" with people who do not initiate that conversation on their own. Not everyone can have a debate and walk away at the end not thinking less of the other person.

Keep Your Identity Small (2009) http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html (see also https://hn.algolia.com/?q=keep+your+identity )

> I finally realized today why politics and religion yield such uniquely useless discussions.

> As a rule, any mention of religion on an online forum degenerates into a religious argument. Why? Why does this happen with religion and not with Javascript or baking or other topics people talk about on forums?

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Also https://pbfcomics.com/comics/deeply-held-beliefs/

> online forum degenerates into a religious argument. Why? Why does this happen with religion and not with Javascript

Isn't it a law that all programming language discussions eventually devolve into religious arguments?

I can't imagine Javascript is somehow immune.

Paul Graham wrote this in 2009.

Nowadays? I believe that quite a few homicides could be traced to have started with discussions about baking, beer brewing, or cooking.

People are fucking opinionated about everything nowadays.

My big issue with arguing about politics is that the vast majority of people seem to have no interest in an actual debate; they just want to rant about their positions regardless of what the other party says. This leads to extremely boring conversations.

I have a few close friends that I actually enjoy debating with because they will listen to arguments with an open mind and often make thoughtful arguments that cause me to reevaluate.

If someone I don't know well asks if I'm interested in anything politics related my answer is now a hard no, even though I actually do follow politics quite a lot. Those conversations practially always end up feeling like a waste of time, IME.

A huge part of youth identity in the US use to be from the music business.

I mean we use to even have goth bars, punk bars. Imagine a bar in 2023 that only caters to people who like industrial or punk music. It sounds absolutely ridiculous.

The music business though was also highly connected to all other art forms in terms of the visual arts, fashion, literature.

With the change in the importance of music it basically devalued nearly all art forms compared to what use to be.

It seems like politics stepped in to fill this void for the youth. It is such a boring and disappointing development.

It is also not good for politics either to have competing factions who at 20 believe what they believe with near religious fervor.

I’m probably in between “the younger generations” and “the older generations” at this point in my life. One of the interesting observations I’ve made hanging around younger people is that they do seem to talk about politics quite a bit, but in a homogenous way. With older people, I know a number of right-leaning and left-leaning people and they don’t talk about politics with each other because they’ll just end up pissed off with each other. With younger people it seems they tend to form social circles that are very politically aligned, so no one’s going to get angry talking about politics. (Compared to, say, forming social circles around a baseball team or something like that)

This is my experience as well.

Yes. In the younger circles, it seems like there's a very brief period of telegraphing your "tribe", and once you detect the matching cues you can assume you know pretty much everything about the other's point of view. To the point that there's no reason to discuss anything, you may as well both hold up a preprinted sheet listing out everything the "good" side believes.

Occasionally people will push on the extreme edges of that accepted area, maybe even commiserate on how some things are taken too far, but without ever really challenging the basic belief or seeking to find where the edge of reasonableness might be.

It's not horrible, and I'm just an old fogey whinging here. It just gets under my skin when I hear for the hundredth time a group of kids talking about stuff that I basically agree with, but taking it to the extreme without an ounce of self-awareness that they've crossed into the zone of ridiculousness.

In a way it's because I'm the same, I want "my side" to be more rigorous and intellectually honest than the "sheep on the other side", and it's uncomfortable to realize that the people who largely agree with me on the topics are so sloppy at how they got there. If something else becomes fashionable, they'll just adopt that instead. And if some question comes up, it'll be decided by what feels most in line with what they've already agreed to believe, regardless of the actual merits.

I guess I'll just worry about keeping them off my lawn.

> In a way it's because I'm the same, I want "my side" to be more rigorous and intellectually honest than the "sheep on the other side"

Man… I’ll preface this by saying I’m Canadian and that in Canada 80% of firearms deaths are intentionally self-inflicted. It’s a piece of important colour for what I’m about to say next.

I am a very left-leaning firearm owner in Canada and your comment perfectly describes my frustration. I have a few friends who will engage in a healthy discussion on the topic, but so so often it just turns into thought-terminating cliches and memes. And on the other side of it, many of the people I run into at the range are full of right-wing thought-terminating cliches, memes, and conspiracy theories. Urgh. Oh well, at least I can go out to the farm and put holes in boxes in peace!

This is so relatable. It also makes me reflect on how annoying I must have sounded at 25!

> In the younger circles, it seems like there's a very brief period of telegraphing your "tribe", and once you detect the matching cues you can assume you know pretty much everything about the other's point of view

This is just a sign of a lack of sophistication, afaik it isn't purely generational

A couple weeks ago someone said to me that lying was a "violation of the first amendment" and I asked them "what's in the first amendment?" just to hear some dumbfounded response

A bunch of voters in this country are only functionally literate and it's depressing

maybe it's learned behavior?

> The older generations have a philosophy of "you don't talk about politics, religion, or money" and, the younger generations, that's all they talk about.

Boy, I wish that were the case where I work. I'm an older developer, working closely with an ancient developer. He insists on talking politics at work. Since I prefer to get along with my coworkers, I won't talk politics with them. This guy just won't catch a hint, though. It makes conversations with him difficult as he keeps trying to engage me in these topics and I keep trying to change the subject.

Tip: put on headphones :)

Its verrry common over the last decade to either be completely unaware of or completely disregard that no-no, in the US

and it has predictable results

I found myself on occasions passionately arguing in a bar for some point diametrally opposed to my convictions just to have a good time with folks that are good people but probably wouldn't tolerate someone thinking differently from them on politics.

I am living here for a few years and I usually feel people here don't like to talk with someone they don't know. Which is totally understandable and thats how it is in most of the world except maybe America or England. There is something good about not getting disturbed by strangers when you just want to have a quiet day. But having said that, I do feel for lonely people(including me) here. So, after living here for few years I discovered this culture doesn't suit me, but I totally understand why it is the way it is.