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Friend Camp

Suffering together
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Who are your best friends?

If you're like most people, your best friends were people who shared experiences with you, and not just any experiences.

Your best friends often come from sharing the deepest suffering you ever had.

So, in "Friend Camp", you enlist a candidate (or we pick one), and then we send you on a week long adventure of extreme (but non-lethal) hardship.

After that, you now have a lifelong, trusted friend.

So easy.

And,without all that usual messiness that other "Friend Camps" give you. Most of the traditional "Friend Camps" saddle you with religious baggage, or other indoctrination into an institution, destroying individualism to create a new personality subservient to the institution. So, let's drop the brainwashing and institutional objective & just give kids a shared masochism camp to just create better real friends.

This is needed more than ever, as kids today are often uber- sheltered from real people, real stress, and just do shallow electronic social engagement, with 500+ facebook "friends" & no real friends.

sophocles, Jun 18 2014

OutwardBound http://www.outwardbound.org/
[JesusHChrist, Jun 18 2014]

Random activity club
[xaviergisz, Jun 22 2014]

Popular Online Friend Camp http://www.nation.c...t-messed-with-minds
[rcarty, Jul 05 2014]

[link]






       You could always aim for Stockholm syndrome.
MaxwellBuchanan, Jun 18 2014
  

       Would that be the one where you spend two nights in a hotel furnished entirely by Ikea, where beer is seven quid for a half pint for some sort of obviously non-alcoholic flavoured soft drink, and the whole city is like a distorted Westworld full of tall, slim blonde men and women who look remarkably similar, like they were all moulded in the same fabrication plant, who all uncannily speak flawless idiomatic English with a slight Scandinavian accent, and are disconcertingly friendly and patient, and there's no litter, and everything is amazingly clean, and the public transport is incredibly well run and efficient, and then you start to suspect that it's all being run by the Disney Corporation, and by half way through the second day you wonder if you should be wearing a black blazer with white piping and start to worry that when you try to leave you'll be chased by a huge white bouncing balloon ... ?
8th of 7, Jun 18 2014
  

       Protip: join the Marines.   

       I would be a better man if I had.
sninctown, Jun 18 2014
  

       Snictown: That's why I say this is without the baggage that traditional indoctrination leaves. Yes, the Marines may have made a few men better, but they sure destroyed many other lives (on both sides of the rifle). "Friend Camp" won't leave you with PTSD, missing limbs, or being a murderer. It'll just expose you to other, non-lethal hardships (hunger, fatigue, etc.)
sophocles, Jun 19 2014
  

       I like this idea. But I have no friends to enlist, and I sure don't want some hopeless loser freak foisted on me by the Friends camp people. He'll go all non-lethal on the first afternoon and then give me the hairy eyeball for refusing to apply sunblock to him. Or something like that.   

       What about the strawberry blonde from 8th's anno? She's so friendly and patient, and I bet she doesn't eat much. We could be friends. I am fine that she is taller than me.
bungston, Jun 19 2014
  

       It works best if they match you with people at the camp. If they match you with a loser, well, that might say something about you.   

       The camp must be local enough so that you can continue the friendship.   

       Marines who return from war suffer depression in part because their buddies are spread back across the country to their hometowns. For "Friend Camp" to work, on return, you should still be able to meet up with these new friends.
sophocles, Jun 19 2014
  

       Fuck friends. It's a type of emergent fascism, based on increased impetus for social exchange in the emergent socio-technical reality. The strength through unity that come from being friends oppresses others who for whatever reason have not assimilated into this collective power. If you want to fight fascism one of the things you can do is be a solitary person and not have friends. The fascists will give you a hard time and bully you for being alone and different from them. By being alone you will accelerate the fascist society through dialects, as collectivists will build sentiment against you. Mass shootings might have something to do with this, I'm not sure.   

       I propose a new sitcom like the show Friends, called 'Fascists'. It's basically the exact same show.
rcarty, Jun 19 2014
  

       rcarty: Sounds like the unabomber to me. I have some really independently minded, critical thinking friends. We argue & respect each other on many issues. Not all friends are fellow indoctrinated types. That kind of indoctrination into becoming subservient to an institution is exactly what I'm trying to STOP here. I'm taking out any institutional goals (like religion or military or corporate) & keeping the core service pure (friends through shared tough experiences, with no following any institution beyond that.)
sophocles, Jun 20 2014
  

       //Fuck friends. It's a type of emergent fascism//   

       What the actual fuck. What kind of horrible interpersonal relationships have you been through to form this opinion?   

       If I ever found myself in a situation where I honestly couldn't count a single other living person as a friend, well, I don't know what I'd do but I can't imagine living like that.   

       And you blame mass shootings on the social convention of people having friends, and not befriending people they don't like?   

       It's this kind of attitude that gives me the shits. If person X makes no effort to make friends, and is genrally a dickhead such that no one is interested in befriending him, and is so fucked up that he can't realise that the problem is him, why do we see this as being other people's fault?   

       Sure, highschool is a fucked up place for at least 25% of the population, but life is hard, and it's not society's duty to make sure everyone has a good time. No one wants to be friends with someone they don't like (although more should be done around the whole bullying thing).   

       If you truly have no friends, maybe it's more a quality in you that is the cause, not a quality in others. Tyler Durden considered self improvement to be masturbation, but still, some people could obviously do with a little improvement.
Custardguts, Jun 20 2014
  

       I don't see not having friends as other people's fault. I just don't see why someone should have to have them. What I said is it's an emergent fascism that people shouldn't participate in, so that the collectivists start persecuting those who they have 'othered'. And in fact contemporary 'friends' are an institution a " structure or mechanism of social order governing the behaviour of a set of individuals within a given community". 'Friends' replace primary social relations of the old social world where kinship ties ruled. Modern friends are relationships of convenience and exchange, in a context of historical meaninglessness (ex. not allies against foes).   

       Some people are inevitably going to be persecuted in a 'friends' mandatory system. I would tell any young person who feels bullied or alone, that his or her peers have fascist tendencies and that being an individual is OK, and he or she has a historical duty not to be assimilated into the Borg.   

       The examples you give of microsociology, how your social group is, how some dickhead acts, are meaningless. This is about macrosociological commentary on the large scale. Having friends is OK, you can't reach the conclusion friends = fascist. But once someone is convinced that someone must have friends, and someone who does not friends is inferior then that's fascism.   

       //And you blame mass shootings on the social convention of people having friends, and not befriending people they don't like? //   

       No. I never said people should befriend people they don't like. It's the rejection of the individual, and the individual's rejection of the mass. The individual (the minority) should be able to reject the mass without the mass persecuting the individual. And the individual should be able to reject the mass without persecuting it. But if the individual feels persecuted by the mass, and the mass has likely been persecuting individuals in its powerful way, then the individual will persecute the mass in its own individually powerful way. Most shooters have mental health issues, but most mental health issues cause introversion and social rejection so you does the math.
rcarty, Jun 20 2014
  

       // he or she has a historical duty not to be assimilated into the Borg //   

       <deletes [rcarty] from Christmas card list>
8th of 7, Jun 20 2014
  

       You've merely saved me the effort of having to throw it away.
rcarty, Jun 20 2014
  

       Help! I find myself agreeing with [rcarty]! This cannot be good. ;-)
pertinax, Jun 21 2014
  

       Pertinax & any other HB'ers who care: I'm self- publishing a book about modern propaganda tricks. If you want a preview of the rough draft, email me. (click my profile to solve a stupid puzzle to get my email addr.)
sophocles, Jun 21 2014
  

       Being a bit of a loner myself, I kind of (but not totally) agree with some of what rcarty says. 'Friend Camp' or 'The Cub Scouts' as we used to call it is just a parents way of trying to force their kids into liking people or activities that they don't like.

However, I also agree with sophocles that people should get out into the real world a bit more. Mind you, I'm not sure why I agree seeing as how I am sitting here in front of a computer, typing out messages to a load of imaginary internet friends.

//a week long adventure of extreme (but non-lethal) hardship//

Surely that depends on who gets hungriest first?

//What kind of horrible interpersonal relationships have you been through to form this opinion?//

CustardGuts, at this point I invoke Godwin's Law. There was a German guy in one of the early episodes of the UK TV series "The World At War" who was talking about being at a Nazi political rally and all the hysteria that surrounded it and how he felt totally isolated and alone because he really wanted to belong but he couldn't because he thought it was all rubbish and he just couldn't bring himself to participate. Whilst I am not for a moment suggesting that this idea bears any relation to some sort of group think rally (because sophocles specifically says it isn't), I do think that this guy's feeling of being on the outside looking in is what rcarty is referring to. You have to realise that some people live a 'self-contained' life and really don't want to have 'friends'.
DrBob, Jun 21 2014
  

       I am ok with being a loner as in "a loner, Dottie; a rebel." The James Dean type. Clint Eastwood. Because the chicks dig it. The difference between that kind and the shooter kind is that the good kind is devastatingly handsome, which fortunately works for me.   

       Although that misogynist stabbing guy recently was not too tough on the eye. That gives me pause. Camp might have been good for him.
bungston, Jun 21 2014
  

       I think there's a sociological solution to the mass shooting crisis, and it doesn't necessary involve gun control. There's a definite tendency towards social prescription regarding what's healthy, and having friends and socializing is one of them . The society today is primarily composed of children from single child homes, or homes with low numbers of children. Just from that statistic alone it would be probable that most school shooters would be the only child in their family. That's the social trend that really separates the old social world of kinship ties from the new one. This creates a greater impetus to socialize outside the immediate family in the broader peer group. In addition to that there's the prescription of what is considered healthy, and that is invariably to have friends rather than to be alone. Furthermore the rampant growth of social media quantifies and objectifies this new cultural norm. School shootings, mass shootings, are likely related to dysphoria in the new socially formed psyche. Beyond that, democratic power of social groups to produce a flawed culture through ad populum decision making will invariably lead to dissident, dissonant loners convinced of their own logic, or if ill from enough dysphoria, derangement.
rcarty, Jun 21 2014
  

       //The difference between that kind and the shooter kind//

Blimey bungston, what Clint Eastwood films have you been watching? Is there some secret collection of Clint Rom-Coms that I've never heard of?
DrBob, Jun 22 2014
  

       //if you should be wearing a black blazer with white piping   

       HB ver would be the piping is a wearable personal particle accelerator.   

       Probably have to boost the magnets on the sleeves, bit of sharp turn there on the cuffs.   

       Who knows you could discover the next Higgs Bosun (that's the nautical particle) on your way to work..
not_morrison_rm, Jun 22 2014
  

       //The individual (the minority) should be able to reject the mass without the mass persecuting the individual. And the individual should be able to reject the mass without persecuting it. But if the individual feels persecuted by the mass, and the mass has likely been persecuting individuals in its powerful way, then the individual will persecute the mass in its own individually powerful way. Most shooters have mental health issues, but most mental health issues cause introversion and social rejection so you does the math.//   

       Agreed, still doesn't make the "institution" of friendship a bad thing, and certainly not "a type of emergent fascism".
Custardguts, Jun 22 2014
  

       In any case I think the trend should be reversed. People should be encouraged to not have friends, and the view point of health changed to make those with friends seem to suffer from some type of codependency. That's basically the idea I presented in 'Mass Breakdown' found in my user page. Breaking down the mass from groups of friends participating in a popular culture, to autonomous individuals would significantly reduce oppression in society.
rcarty, Jun 22 2014
  

       //People should be encouraged to not have friends, and the view point of health changed to make those with friends seem to suffer from some type of codependency. //   

       And I'm completely opposed to your point of view here.   

       I think anyone who wants to do social engineering, by definition, is the wrong person to be doing it.
Custardguts, Jun 22 2014
  

       Well let's simply agree to disagree about your arguments.
rcarty, Jun 22 2014
  

       I think you're conflating the idea of friendship with the concepts of bullying and oppression. Whether that's based on your own experiences or a warped sense of what we Australians call mateship, I don't know, but it just comes off as absurd.   

       "Some people behave poorly in groups and put others down so they can feel better or included, therefore no one should be allowed to have friends" is how your argument comes across. I would argue the people doing the bullying and putting down are as mal-adjusted as the loners who have no friends and eschew companionship. Neither seems to be a particularly healthy state, but you're absolutely right that the former should not get away with it.   

       I just think that that the right of the loners to not be bullied or ostracised does not trump any of the rights of the rest of the population, including their right to have friends and associate freely. Issues like this always come back to people wanting to change the rights of the majority to correct an inequality experienced by a minority group.   

       Social engineering initiatives generally come across as subversive, manipulative, self-serving and vaguely evil. For good reason, because they normally are.   

       [soph] - I'll admit I'm a bit indifferent to your idea, mostly because it's been in my nature to go and seek out activities that tend to lead to this kind of experience, although I generally choose to do so with new or old friends. You're right in that nothing I know of forms a stronger bond that going through a hardship together as a team, and many many kids these days would not excperience this at all unless it was organised for them. [rcarty] is right, in that the "loner" types tend to cope badly in these situations, and although they often are the engineers of their own experience, they tend (in my experience) to interpret such as the fault of the group, not themselves. Perhaps, as you suggest, careful partnering of such individuals would go a long way to correcting this. Understanding where someone lies on the introvert-extrovert scale (as imperfect a concept as it is) would help greatly with this.   

       [+]
Custardguts, Jun 23 2014
  

       As an example, I've seen a couple of instances where "hard" introverts somehow, through some mechanism, have formed strong bonds with people who are much more extroverted, and via that relationship, have managed to develop their social skills to a point where they are more comfortable in their daily life, and certainly are more happy. This isn't to say they are changed, but normally these people are much happier for the "in" they get by leveraging off the strong bond with their extrovert mate. The role of the mate in this setup tends to be one of largely benign nature.   

       The problem is I don't think anyone can choose your friends for you, and some poeple cope with group and even paired activities so badly that they might well see this as an almost unendurable nightmare. I know I would have as a young kid. Confidence is a key issue here and maybe you could make sure the less "secure" kids got a leg up of some sort by being pre-trained or something as a confidence booster?
Custardguts, Jun 23 2014
  

       The introvert extrovert scale quantifies nothing but examining behavior that only exists relative to an observer. The observer objectifies the subject and produces a system of evaluation that sets up a market of exchange between the subject and the observer. The model also produces self-awareness in informed subjects towards the devaluated set of behaviors converse the observatory regime.
rcarty, Jun 25 2014
  

       While I think that was a bunch of drivel, I do agree (as I stated above) that introvert-extrovert is an imperfect system. But it is still usefeul, no?   

       You seem to be saying that being introverted and eschewing all forms of friendship is somehow the ideal state, and that people who have friends and associate in groups are fascists. I'm saying you're wrong, but more than that, I'm saying that any plot or intent to modify how people think (I refer to social engineering) is fundamentally wrong.
Custardguts, Jun 25 2014
  

       //any plot or intent to modify how people think (I refer to social engineering) is fundamentally wrong//   

       Are you making some sort implosive moral argument?
rcarty, Jun 25 2014
  

       //some sort implosive moral argument?//   

       I'm pretty sure those words don't mean much when used together that way. Making moral judgements on someone elses moral judgements is a little like a circular argument, I'll admit.   

       Substitute in my comment, for "fundamentally wrong" the words "toweringly arrogant" or similar.   

       Thinking you're so goddamn superior to other people that you you would want to change their views behaviours or way of thinking is just so arrogant and despicable.
Custardguts, Jun 26 2014
  

       How can you be so sure that a persons motivation for wanting to change the views, behaviours, or way of thinking in others, involves thinking of themselves as so goddamn superior to other people?   

       I'm only asking for a friend... nothing whatsoever to do with me you see, but my friend, well he's quite curious... and a bit bothersome. If you could help me get him off my back I'd be ever so greatfull.   

       What other motivation might there be? They either see themselves as superior, or at the very least, think that their vision of how people should think feel or behave is superior (which in my mind is the same thing).   

       Thinking you know better than someone is one way of showing you think you are better than them.
Custardguts, Jun 26 2014
  

       hmmm...
I don't see it that way or such a blanket statement would apply to every teacher who has ever lived.
  

       //What other motivation might there be?//   

       I'm thinking that something along the lines of; "Eppur si muove." might sum it up.   

       ...or was that dude just all full of himself too?   

       //Thinking you know better than someone is one way of showing you think you are better than them//   

       Better than *him*.   

       Them is an insertion of the observatory regime into your subjective perception of self that manifests itself grammatically.
rcarty, Jun 26 2014
  

       //or was that dude just all full of himself too//   

       Well, in his place I certainly would have felt I was "better" than the inquisition. Good evidence for that would have been the fact that they were the ones weilding the torture implements.   

       //Them is an insertion of the observatory regime into your subjective perception of self that manifests itself grammatically//   

       Righto. Lots of people would argue with that.
Custardguts, Jun 26 2014
  

       //in his place I certainly would have felt I was "better" than the inquisition.//   

       So, how is; //wanting to change their views behaviours or way of thinking just so arrogant and despicable//?   

       Good question, although I never said I wanted to change anyone.
Custardguts, Jun 26 2014
  

       He did though didn't he, that arrogant friggin bastage.   

       I didn't think we were talking about you or me though?
I thought we were talking generalities about those men who wish to either change or stagnate society.
  

       Which are you?   

       Y'know...
for my friend...
  

       Interesting dichotomy there.
Custardguts, Jun 28 2014
  

       Good answer.   

       Let me review my arguments in this one. The opposition to 'friends' is not against friendly social relations with others, but against the broader cultivation of friends as an orientation adverse individuality. The contention of fascism should not be surprising given that the idea itself also indicts friendship "indoctrination into an institution, destroying individualism to create a new personality subservient to the institution." My argument ends accusing [custardguts] of participating in this form of indoctrination, and in fact ultimately making an ad populum argument referring to a generalized other "them, rather than "him" which would be more correct. Whether this is in fact an insertion of the observatory regime, a term I use to describe the entire cultivation of an anti-individualist society including the fraudulent objectification of social behavior in psychological profiling, or merely a grammatical error in a case where one can harmlessly mean many is not important. My broader arguments regarding mass shooting are out of concern for increased collectivization and persecution of lone individualists, and somewhat jokingly propose demassification to stop school shootings rather than becoming even more of a mass repelled by the deviant example of the lone individualist.
rcarty, Jun 29 2014
  

       I don't think pressuring a deep relationship is a good idea, most good things take time to make sure it is a good thing for the people involved and the wider society.   

       Friends give those healthy greater emotional experiences. True experiences will be more beneficial than stage ones. Friends also are the ones that know you deeply and can tell you straight so you listen. If you are good listener, with an open mind (rare,most people have blind spots), loose acquaintances probably could do that check.
wjt, Jul 06 2014
  

       [rcarty] - I don't get your whole "them/him" argument. In my usage, "them" was gender unspecific, (and the term is also individual/group unspecific, although I used it as singular). You then jump in and insist that I use a gender-specific term. You seem to be reading a great deal into the use of that term.   

       Obfuscating your point with run-on sentences packed with as much jargon as you can come up with does not a good argument, make.
Custardguts, Jul 06 2014
  

       Run on sentences are easily fixed, but are preserved here in their original state, unlike your statement which you have edited, to capture the streaming nature of thought at the time of writing. Grammar is also held structurally stable by an observatory regime and institutionalized persons. It's fun to imagine regimes and the ways they seek compliance and the ways people participate in them. I'll put what you call your gender neutral 'them' as participation in the feminist observatory regime rather than the patriarchal one, but not fully in the one that keeps references to the singular followed by the singular pronoun. One that has been destabilized somewhat by the gender regime conflict. I sometimes will start a statement in the singular very naturally and end with a plural because I have to some extent been persuaded to by the feminist regime. In a manner of speaking these various regimes fight their ongoing collectivist battles inside our minds and 'dialectics' lead to disharmonious, even perhaps ironic statements such as the one you made. To be fair you may not necessarily be influenced greatly by the feminist regime, but about equality and fraternity (friends I guess but not really), but not so much about liberty, of the French regime which has been influential beyond measure. At the time I argued your usage of 'them' was in line with my argument that you were siding with fascist collectivism, but will instead settle for your admission to have self- regulated on behalf of one of these regimes.   

       My argument is not against micro-sociological relations. It's not against your friends, or those friends; it's about friends in a general sense. As I say in another annotation it's "against the broader cultivation of friends as an orientation adverse individuality". It's against social capitalism and the accumulation of these friends, and social exchange.   

       The argument about introvert extrovert was something I said to capture the conflict between the individual and 'the market' for behavior, and the systems of evaluation that people use to appraise the value of a person. My radical criticism was that because the model is extrovert biased requiring an outwardly focused observer (extrovert) the subject introvert is in a relationship of oppression. The observatory regime which I later said is the cultivation of all anti-individualist society is embodied in this, as the 'natural' observer the extrovert objectifies the 'inward looking' of the introvert and identifies socially dysfunctional pathologies. This observatory regime also extends to the television show Friends, as part of the broader cultivation, as extroverted behavior of situation comedy, and the extroversion fascination with this outer world increases the disparity between the orientations.   

       I've also said "implosive moral argument" which you ironically said are meaningless words in that combination. Ironic because that's exactly what implosive moral argument means. That section of text in the thread was quite implosive. You said something like "any intent to change the way people think is wrong". But you are doing the thing you say you can't do! You can't make moral arguments because that is social engineering. Your argument implodes because it collapses from within.   

       Finally the school shooting thing. You took some offence to the implication that a group rejecting an individual was responsible. I'm saying something else more in the lines of Durkheim or Comte that society exerts powerful forces on individuals. Take for instance how [sophocles] compared my position to the Unabomber this is an example of the claim I made in "Mass Breakdown" that massification occurs by the increasing inertia of inclusion by the coefficient of the repulsion of examples of its exclusion." That means basically the more repulsive the excluded loners become the more energy people will put into being included." However, the 'inertia' of the mass shooter is destructive, he brings a gun instead of candies for everybody, reduces the numbers of parts of the mass, but increasing the attractive inertia towards the mass by increasing "coefficient of repulsion by examples of its exclusion". This is counter-intuitive because a mass with more parts should be more attractive. That's still in the sociological sense, not natural physics. And not in a tourism sense either but in terms of democratic power. It's really just a halfbaked idea I had.
rcarty, Jul 06 2014
  

       Friends don't let friends drive drunk. Outward bound has no booze and no cars after the trail head, so that's a good place for friends to fulfill that obligation.
popbottle, Jul 07 2014
  

       [rcarty] if you're still around can I have that in a readable format?
Voice, Feb 13 2023
  

       Technically I think it is readable, though it may not be comprehensible.
pocmloc, Feb 13 2023
  

       It is comprehensible; it means that [rcarty] was somewhat paranoid, and spoke mostly to themselves. You could probably achieve similar output by feeding prompts about Critical Theory to ChatGPT.
pertinax, Feb 13 2023
  

       // You could probably achieve similar output by feeding prompts about Critical Theory to ChatGPT.//   

       And so it begins.
Voice, Feb 15 2023
  

       Does it?
pertinax, Feb 15 2023
  
      
[annotate]
  


 

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