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Comment by skim_milk | Hacker News Reader

I know its not hard for anyone to find flaws in the certain kind of people that become Internet trolls, but...

Sure, the church died. Car meets, bars, video game tournaments, rock concerts, so many events these men could fit into are happening every week in your city/near your campus. But because Timmy the Internet troll spends 16 hours on reddit a day he deserves some kind of sympathy for feeling disconnected and hating everyone? It sounds like in your comment that Jordan Peterson is explaining it like we're supposed to accept that it's so hard to leave mother's basement, I don't follow.

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So tell me how people that do not own cars, do not drink alcohol, have no interest in video game tournaments or rock concerts should fit in. Asking for a friend.

> So tell me how people that do not own cars, do not drink alcohol, have no interest in video game tournaments or rock concerts should fit in. Asking for a friend.

The four possibilities mentioned by skim_milk do not define the entire combinatorial space of possible human cultural and societal interaction. The world has billions of people in it who don't fit those criteria, yet somehow they manage to socialize. Your friend needs to not be so pedantic. Surely they have common interests with someone.

What if common interests are shitposting on the Internet? Key questions from the original poster were..

> They literally just don’t care about society anymore. Why should they? Where’s the buy in?

Going out and socializing doesn't strike me as a purpose in life. Especially when you dislike socializing in the first place.

>What if common interests are shitposting on the Internet?

No one's only interest is shitposting on the internet. I can read your comment history and see you have an interest in anime, and being on HN implies you likely have some interest in programming of CS.

>Going out and socializing doesn't strike me as a purpose in life. Especially when you dislike socializing in the first place.

It's no more or less a purpose in life than staying in. But being asocial still isn't an excuse for being antisocial. You can go out in the real world and not be a toxic, hateful ass, just as you can online.

Well sure, but the places where shitposters can hang around are the only places you don't eventually get banned from for expressing wrongthink opinions and they also have people that are interested in anime and programming. It's hard to get a sense of belonging to communities that just ban you. Maybe you just see a place with toxic, hateful asses, but I see a place where everything can be discussed and some random comments won't get you kicked out of communities you were a part of for decades. There's a true sense of belonging. Even if everyone on there hates you personally, at least no one is going to just ban you.

I know how much you like Voat and the chans and how much you enjoy your freedom to engage in let's call it "wrongthink shenanigans." But you can't really "belong" there. You can't belong in a place where you have no identity. You're just words in a textbox attached to a nonentity no one knows or cares about.

If all you want from a community is amoral irony and a lack of social consequence, then fine. Perhaps if you have no faith in people or society, you have no expectations of others beyond immediate emotional gratification, and the world is nothing but an endorphin pump to you. But "belonging" is a social process. To belong is to adapt, and meaningful interaction requires both sincerity and empathy.

If you can't keep yourself from expressing... "wrongthink" opinions even when you know you're around people who won't tolerate them, then the problem isn't where you are, it's who you are. You aren't even trying to belong - you want to be tolerated but you're unwilling to tolerate.

The problem is that I'm unable to identify all wrongthink. What I'm looking for in a community is to not get banned for who I am. And I've found such a community. If I knew how to fix myself, I'd have done it a long, long time ago. Also, I think tolerance is the wrong way to frame this. What I want is to exchange ideas. I'm not interested in the identiy of whomever I'm exchanging ideas with. Likewise, my own identity doesn't matter. If an idea is bad, this can be identified through thinking, but you first need the abilitiy to discuss that idea.

Well yeah if you have no hobbies you'll find fewer avenues for meeting people. Taking an interest in people and things they do is a basic requirement if you want to bond with them.

You're kind of missing the point here. The original poster said:

> They literally just don’t care about society anymore. Why should they? Where’s the buy in?

That is the question. I've got no interest in bonding with people, actually. What I desire are intelligent entities to exchange ideas with. I'm an INTP, for what it's worth. Social situations are hard work for me.

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