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Comment by dpcan | Hacker News Reader

While reading this I couldn't help but think that the primary motivation for inventors, decade upon decade, century upon century, has been to devise machines and tools to keep us from going outside and being among fellow humans.

Air-conditioning: A new invention so you don't have to sleep with your neighbors in the grass at the park across the street when it gets hot.

Something inside me greatly desires a life like that. Where we aren't afraid of the people around us. Where it would be totally acceptable to throw a blanket on the ground at the park with my neighbors and enjoy some cool night air while we all get some rest. Today, I think we'd all get arrested, or ticketed.

While it sounds miserable to be without A/C, it can be argued that we are even more miserable now because we have it.

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> While it sounds miserable to be without A/C, it can be argued that we are even more miserable now because we have it.

Speak for yourself. I think that those hundreds of people sleeping outside where it's just a few degrees cooler would probably have given just about anything for air conditioning. They weren't doing it because it was fun, they were sleeping outside because it was the best way they had to try to avoid dropping dead from heat stroke. That's why A/C is used[1], not to distance you from your neighbors.

> Something inside me greatly desires a life like that.

You can sleep outside on the ground in a big group any time you want. Most cities have hundreds of people who do that every day. I think any one of them would gladly trade it for an air conditioned room with a bed.

[1] http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-12-22/national/36017...

> You can sleep outside on the ground in a big group any time you want. Most cities have hundreds of people who do that every day. I think any one of them would gladly trade it for an air conditioned room with a bed.

Most parks I know have rules against entering past dusk, enforced with ticketing. In NYC there are closed gates which would physically prevent you from entering many parks.

I've only been to NYC a couple times but I remember seeing a lot of homeless people. I'm sure that there are resources you could use to find out where the unsheltered homeless population in NYC sleeps, if it isn't in the parks.

Some sleep in the trees: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/13/nyregion/13trees.html?page...

Must be cooler there than on the ground.. Having lived through a few NYC summers, they can really be the worst. Not only it gets incredibly humid and hot, there's at least one serious rainstorm each week to drench you. I always found summer in NYC is much worse than winter.

Right, but my point was not intended to be specifically about A/C, but innovations that keep us from physically being with each other in general. You might argue that we know our neighbors MUCH less now because we don't see them nearly as often. Being forced out of our homes - in some cases to prevent ourselves from literally dying from the heat - may have made people closer and friendlier with one another.

Of course I don't want to be in deadly heat - but I also wish I knew my neighbors betters, and for the anti-social, like myself, being forced to be around them may have helped.

Cannot up-vote enough.

Well, if A/C was invented to get away from other people, it failed miserably. How many times have I gone to the movies, or an ice cream shop, or an indoor mall, to enjoy their A/C? I am not the only one either.

Excellent point. In some cases it could definitely be squeezing more people together - but under the reverse circumstances.

Seriously? What part of sleeping in a hot, humid field with thousands of other people is desirable? Since when is sleeping a group effort? Start with the noise and end with the spread of disease, the bugs, the rats, the bed bugs, etc etc...

Air conditioning, especially powerful central air (which we do not have in NYC, for shame) is glorious in heat and humidity like this. The only problem is the huge amount of energy we use doing it. I hope we can come up with better renewable electricity sources so we can all bask in as much AC as we want.

This is kind-of my point. Nothing is desirable about the heat or sleeping outside. What IS desirable is having situations where I'm forced to converse with neighbors and live among them instead of separated from them. It just might be nice to be in those situations.

The closest situation I can relate to is our heavy winters (where I live). I don't see half my neighbors all summer because we are cooped up inside, HOWEVER we have daily conversations in the winter as we're all standing at the curb taking a breather from the heavy shoveling.

While reading this I was thinking of a late summer trip backpacking through Italy that my wife and I had. It was smoking hot and we were just south of Naples. Everyone was outside until really late and once you got used to the noise, people fires and rubbish, it was amazing. Eating pizza whilst watch local kids play football, old men playing cards and neighbours yelling at each other/ talking (I could never tell if they were fighting our catching up) and less desirably, a kid stealing a car. A guy next door was feeding his iguana named Eddy. It was very very communal and great to visit. It felt just a little bit unsafe most the time, but we had nothing material worth talking. $30 US we spent per day each averaged over 6 weeks included everything except the plane ticket to get there. If only my job could be done remotely, I'd be back there very fast.

Where I currently live has the wonderful habit of loosing power every time a decent thunderstorm or, heaven forbid, a tropical storm goes through. It can be out for days depending on the damage done. I'm in NC.

It IS miserable without AC, it doesn't just sound it.

And thank God* for that. Hell is other people.

* or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Elbereth, etc.

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