
The Crazy Lady Speaks - GlennKelman
http://blog.redfin.com/blog/2010/10/the_crazy_woman_speaks.html
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corin_
I actually had a similar experience on a flight from London to LA a couple of
weeks ago.

Was dreading speaking to a man next to me who was reading through some self-
help guide for Christians and underlining and circling words and phrases on
every page.

I have no problem with religions (though I myself am an atheist), but I
_really_ can't stand the type of religious person who insists on never
shutting up about that topic (in my experience, normally born again
Christians.)

After an hour or so of the eleven hour flight we did start talking, and not
once did he mention religion in any way for the next ten hours. Instead we
just talked about our lives. Turns out that, after joining a gang, dealing
drugs from 13, and going to jail three times before he was 20, he then
discovered God, and now spends time helping disadvantaged children, at home in
California and in third world countries, and none of his work involves trying
to convert the children to believe in God.

It was really nice being reminded that finding religion _can_ turn a person's
life around, and make him a better person (yes, my general view is biased
heavily against religion.)

~~~
jonhendry
Seems like he did mention religion.

~~~
corin_
No, he didn't. I only discovered that he became a Christian at that time in
his life a few days later - we had swapped twitter usernames, and from that I
found a few sites of his (personal page, facebook, myspace...)

Reading about him online and the book he had on the plane were the only things
I had connecting him to religion.

~~~
jonhendry
Ah. You said you talked about your lives, and described his. It seemed as
though that was what you talked about on the plane.

~~~
corin_
I should have been more specific in the first place :)

~~~
etruong42
To find conversations like these on the internet makes me happy.

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Lewisham
You can have the same experience when it goes the other way: someone who is a
good friend ends up with a startling revelation that makes your jaw drop.

My case in point was this week: I was hanging out with an academic friend of
mine at a conference. He lives somewhat far away, and when I do roll through
town, we usually just grab a beer rather than see his house. This week,
however, he revealed something that hitherto I had not known. We were talking
about how the town the conference was in was sort of shady (sorry Reno) and he
mentioned "Yeah, I should have brought my Glock, just in case."

"Pardon?"

"Oh yeah. Did I not tell you? I have guns. _Lots of guns_."

As a leftie even in Britain, and someone who is scared of even the mention of
guns, this was a bit of a surprise. The difficulty/trick, I guess, is to
reconcile the person you have with the person you are now presented with, and
realize that they are really one and the same, just with one minor change that
makes no difference to your interactions.

This happens to me much more in the US than in the UK; UK people are much of a
muchness. Americans run a full-spectrum. I guess this is why politics here is
so polarized.

~~~
gaius
_UK people are much of a muchness. Americans run a full-spectrum_

I suspect in the UK you've unconsciously constructed an echo chamber around
yourself, it's easy to do, especially in London where you can easily fall into
a demographic/subculture and never interact with anyone else. Whereas when
traveling you are out of your "comfort zone" and interact with a greater range
of people.

People are people, and the UK has a reputation for eccentricity for a
reason...

~~~
tome
Don't you think that most people from western countries would be shocked when
an acquaintance casually mentions that he should have brought a gun in case he
needs to shoot a criminal?

~~~
hugh3
Only because it's illegal to do so in most western countries.

But to be shocked by that _in America_ seems to show a rather high degree of
cultural illiteracy.

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filosofo
What's crazy is thinking that someone necessarily agrees with the contents of
a book she's reading.

~~~
Udo
Exactly. Last weekend I watched UFO conspiracy videos all day, just for the
entertainment value. I see people reading Marx and sometimes even Hitler's
stuff, and they're neither Commies nor Nazis obviously.

~~~
philwelch
I wonder what people would think if I sat next to them on an airplane reading
_Mein Kampf_ , actually. Marx is academic-trendy enough that people won't look
down on you for reading him, but Hitler's a different story.

~~~
qq66
I would think that anyone reading Mein Kampf is an avid student of history,
maybe WWII history in particular. It seems much more likely than them being a
Nazi.

~~~
zephyrfalcon
Maybe. I don't know about the US, but in Europe, reading this book in public
would provoke a strong reaction in people. (I think selling or even owning the
book is illegal in several countries.) So I think somebody doing that would be
more likely to be making a statement of some sort. What kind of statement, may
vary... (They could have Nazi sympathies, or be vehemently anti-censorship, or
just like to shock people, etc.)

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atomical
Assumptions. Too many of them. The real message of this article is that people
will silently judge you.

~~~
zephyrfalcon
While it has many unfortunate effects in society, the ability to make up your
mind about something/someone in a split second is actually a survival
mechanism.

~~~
mkr-hn
It's very rare that I run in to a situation where the initial impression is
accurate. How's such an inaccurate metric supposed to be a life saver?

~~~
zephyrfalcon
In modern society it usually isn't, but it was a survival mechanism for early
humans, and still is for animals. If you're an animal (or human) in the wild,
and an unknown creature approaches you, you don't have time to think, "hm, I
wonder if it's dangerous; let's not be prejudiced and wait until it gets here
so I can see what it does." If you do that, and your guess was wrong, you're
dead. On the other hand, if you chose to flee or hide, you'd be more likely to
still be alive (and you can still choose to come out again once you've decided
that the other is not a threat).

The same mechanism still exists in today's humans. Fortunately many of us are
not in situations where our immediate survival is at stake. The mechanism is
still there though, it just takes different forms, like having an opinion
about people or things in a split second, based on what you perceive at that
moment. (The reaction is likely to be different too, not fight-or-flight like
in nature.) As you point out, it's often wrong, so it's much less useful to us
than it used to be (although not _completely_ useless).

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cparedes
Lots of homeless people I've come across are usually looked down upon by other
people for god knows what; silent assumptions suck.

I've talked to a few of them and I've been amazed, every single time, what
sort of stories they bring to the table, and the sort of intellect a lot of
them possessed.

After talking with an old homeless guy at length over a period of a year about
literature and various other things, he carted over a basket full of books to
give to me and a few of my friends - he was a huge book nerd and talked a lot
about McLuhan, life, and literature.

It was pretty obvious that many people didn't have much of a high opinion of
him - it was only after you've decided to so much as look at him and say
something that you'd find out the truth.

I don't know what the hell happened to him, but I didn't see him after that
year.

I miss him dearly.

~~~
mgw
Sadly there's also the opposite side. I always try to talk to homeless people
begging in the street, getting their attention by giving them a small amount
of money. A few weeks ago I came to talk to this girl coming from a different
country who was just visiting friends in mine. I was looking for that special
spark you found in your acquaintance but I simply couldn't find it. After
about 20 minutes I had to admit that she was just plain stupid in the normal
sense of the word and brainwashed enough to reject the help society offered
her. It was a bit depressing to see that she really was just a homeless person
and that there wasn't that much more to her.

~~~
pmichaud
You saw what she chose to show you.

~~~
hugh3
Ockham's Razor: is the stupid homeless woman (a) stupid or (b) an evil genius
who is pretending to be stupid for some unknown reason?

~~~
pmichaud
No, she's not an evil genius, but let me spin you a yarn.

She's a homeless woman, so she was perhaps raised by a demanding and
misogynistic father figure, from whom she learned to act helpless. Then she
figured out in high school that acting dumb makes boys like her. She sort of
fell into the identity because it was easy -- her family, friends, and society
at large fully expected her to be a dumb slut, so it was easy, even for her,
to believe she was, plus she liked the attention.

That's a pretty common thread, and people are WAY more complicated than that.
I've found people have rich and varied experiences, even dumb ones. That you
couldn't glean anything from this girl other than that she was "stupid" maybe
says more about you than about her. She has thoughts and feelings that maybe
she either can't express in a way you understand, or that she doesn't care to
express to someone who is clearly an outsider.

I'm just saying that people surprise me, and I have a hard time believing some
girl is just irredeemably "stupid" and that's all there is to know about her.

There are plenty of people who think I'm whatever they think

~~~
hugh3
I tend to think that if she were that crafty she'd probably have found a way
off the streets by now. The only people left on the streets are the worst of
the worst.

~~~
cparedes
Look at my post above about a story where homeless people aren't exactly scum?

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narrator
People who tend to accept things authority figures tell them without some sort
of critical analysis I feel are the most threatened by unfamiliar ideas.

I'll listen to just about anybody talk about anything. I don't find other
people's beliefs particularly threatening no matter what they are. I often
have people open up to me and tell me all sorts of strange stuff that I don't
think they'd mention to anyone else. I have certainly had some interesting
plane conversations.

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TerraHertz
"There is a principle, which is a bar against all information, which is proof
against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting
ignorance - that principle is contempt prior to investigation." \-- Herbert
Spencer, 1820-1903

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lsc
eh, another thing to remember is that the books you read don't define you.
I've got a little red book on my bookshelf "Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-
Tung" 1969 printing. and, uh, I'm not sure I'd call myself a Libertarian, but
I'm probably closer to being a Libertarian than I am to being a democrat or a
republican. I've also got some Skinner on my bookshelf. I'm an athiest, but I
find Jack Chick to be fascinating. I mean, I think he's completely batshit
insane, but he's definitely not a boring read.

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TerraHertz
Oh, and 'crazy conspiracy theories' is an oxymoron. It's the NON-conspiracy
theories that are crazy. The world operates primarily by conspiracies. Maybe
the lady passenger was just practicing her skills at grading conspiracy
probabilities.

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CapitalistCartr
I love conspiracy theories, and read them avidly. That doesn't make me crazy.

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marciovm123
What a beautiful post.

