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Zed comments on Distracting wolves and real estate agents - Less Wrong
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This may be stating the obvious, but the context often IS the informational content. Small talk especially has no surface level informational content so the goal of small talk isn't, obviously, to exchange surface level information.
This is another one of those situations where it's tempting (but wrong) to reason "Regular people like small talk. Small talk doesn't convey any information. Therefore small talk is pointless. Conclusion: regular people are insane and like to waste their time with pointless stuff". Funnily enough, when we try to figure out the behavior of other mammals we would never be so quick jump to the conclusion that they are idiots.
What (subtextual) information is typically exchanged in small talk? And I wonder if anything plays the role of small talk in online communications.
Group status, 1-on-1 status, mood - all that mammalian stuff. Most of that comes through side channels: posture, tone, eye movements. As for equivalent side-channels in online communications, compare:
You can put a chimp in front of a keyboard, but it's still a chimp.
What I find fascinating are the different levels of subtext-literacy I encounter online. Everyone is hard-wired to internalize their culture's body language model at a young age, but exposure to the internet equivalent varies widely. I imagine that being internet-communication-illiterate is something like visiting a foreign country - you can understand and make yourself understood, but you stick out like a sore thumb and are blind to every kind of subtlety.
The obvious guess would be information about our own interests and dispositions. Or perhaps even sizing each-other up intellectually in much the same way those wolves do.