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Comment by SamoyedFurFluff | Hacker News Reader

I’m not sure I agree with this take that technology is taking away community in general. I think communities are simply changing. I mean HN is a community and it’s all technology. IRC is a ton of fond memories for me in a time where my irl community was failing me as an awkward nerd, and gave me friends that I can irl meet and chat with now.

You seem to have this idealized notion of what community was like outside of technology. But that community always had outsiders and ignored people, that community had communal lynchings and hangings, pogroms, witch trials etc. and strict ways of life where, if you didn’t conform, you were far more isolated than now where you could meet fellow weirdos!

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> You seem to have this idealized notion of what community was like outside of technology.

By "idealized notion" you mean "the vast, vast majority of human history"?

"Community" is not typically defined as "the people you talk bullshit with for fun" and that's all. Your community is the people you live with and among. It's the people you're most likely to experience Big Things with, things like natural disasters, weird stuff like power outages, or your building catching fire if you live in an apartment or condo. If you regularly interact with them, you probably also see them during fun things: street cookouts or yard sales (we do both at the same time, you get a lot more customers by when they have 14 sales to peruse and brats for sale!) or just see them grilling out when you go to get your mail, and end up having a few beers with them and talking about goings on. Hell, depending on your locale or culture, maybe your community feeds itself too from bulk kitchens, or does laundry, etc. etc.

I say this as an introvert who opted out of every social thing I could in favor of forums and games when I was growing up: I was wrong. I was deeply, deeply wrong. People are pretty great. They're not perfect, and they can be a lot of work, but ultimately I was not hiding from people because they were bad or annoying or stupid: I was hiding from them because I was emotionally stunted and didn't want to deal with it. That was it. And once I did I found human connection that was so much more sustaining, in a way where I can't believe I once thought ^this^, chatting online, was an adequate replacement.

It makes me sad to think how many people out there are just sitting in their little rooms or cubicles because for whatever reason or set of reasons, they don't feel comfortable engaging their fellow man, nursing a hollowness that will follow them around until they do because fundamentally humans are just not meant to exist alone. We just aren't, it's in our DNA to make groups and be among friends.

A good test for what a community is is: "Who will vouch for you?" You can have a machine pretend to talk the talk and parrot it back to you for "training," but you're still an unknown outsider at the end of the day.

I don't think HN is a community in that sense. There's no "knowing" one another. There's no real accountability or shame of getting kicked out. We're all just text-generators.

I have never felt closer yet farther away from y'all. Thank you, I need to cry, and revaluate my social habits.

You can do it buddy. Get out in the world!

I get it, OTOH, humans are unfortunately selfish assholes. In any sufficiently large group of people, there are always conflicts - people attempting to assume control, marginalize/exclude/bully other individuals, etc. Which is part of the reason why people seek out these alternatives.

If they ever come out with the sexbot, then I think its all over for modern technological civilization. There will be little reason for alot of men to marry if they can get the equivalent of Ana de Armas for ~$20k or so. And which is always loyal, will never complain, or grow old. Yeah women can and do have children on their own without men, but usually not as many, and much later in life. It won't be enough. Then its a slow death spiral of not having a replacement generation. I can see this happening within ~50 years or so. ChatGPT + voice synthesis + Boston Dynamics + RealDoll. We're done.

> I get it, OTOH, humans are unfortunately selfish assholes. In any sufficiently large group of people, there are always conflicts - people attempting to assume control, marginalize/exclude/bully other individuals, etc. Which is part of the reason why people seek out these alternatives.

The prevalence of this is greatly, greatly exaggerated in my experience. School was absolutely like this, but the further you get from school, the less anyone really gives a shit. Most people (key word: most) just want to chill. And if you're chill with them, they will chill with you.

> The less anyone givss a shit.

Except when it comes to things like business/jobs. Or romantic partners.

Then people will knife you in the back if they can get an advantage. Or squeeze you as much as possible.

I leave it to you how much of someone's life those two things occupy.

Really, school is worse than any of those. In most cases.

Anonymous humans on line are even bigger assholes.

Thanks for saying this. There is such a badge of honour about being some misanthropic hermetic introvert that bandies about online. Some people are more extroverted than others, sure. But interacting with people is vital to human's health both mentally and physically. It's in our DNA. It's not something you can opt out of. And once you expose yourself and get better at it, your life gets better. It's as simple as that. More interaction, more community is objectively better.

We have run this experiment on a society wide basis. The data are in, and it didn't work.

Mental health diagnoses are skyrocketing across the board, especially for young people. And the evidence tracking these outcomes to access to personal phones and social networks for those young people is very strong.

Virtual communities have some value. But as a replacement for in person interaction the outcomes are terrible.

(Btw, good rhetorical technique there, implying Western society the day before the iPhone was introduced was full of "communal lynchings and hangings, pogroms, witch trials etc.")

Weird take. We know communal lynchings happened; people literally took family photos by them! People happily documented that hangings were the town spectacles when they happened! Let’s not play rose tinted glasses about communities before social media: if you were not “in” that group you were vulnerable to violence or death. We have that now, where a disproportionate number of homeless minors are homeless because their parents kicked them out for being gay or trans and, clearly, no one else in their “community” was willing to take them in.

We need to be comparing how communities are right now vs how social media is right now and not some idealized notion of what in-the-flesh communities might be like. Right now we have a dearth of welcoming in-the-flesh community alternatives for people that have been cast out of traditional social groups and use technology to cope. This doesn’t mean technology bad. It means society needs to change so technology isn’t so tempting.

Statistically, the mental health of gay kids is worse today than it was when there was a lot more real world persecution.

> I mean HN is a community and it’s all technology. IRC is a ton of fond memories for me in a time where my irl community was failing me as an awkward nerd, and gave me friends that I can irl meet and chat with now.

Well, personally, I would love to know what percentage of people here actually cared about the other people here in terms of actually caring, like having a real friend. I'm assuming it's rather close to zero. Don't get me wrong, I like debating on here but it's nothing like an in-person community.

You can disagree all you like, but I think one thing that is near-universal is that there is something special about in-person communities that cannot be replicated online. Sorry to say, although I like talking to people on here, I have no idea who any of you are, what your faces look like, and for all intents and purposes, you could even be AI.

The truth is, and I think most average people would agree, there's nothing like a genuine, real community with real people having face-to-face interaction.

And an idealized notion?! Come on, seriously! I'm just talking about some basic stuff like interacting with neighbours, talking to employees at the grocery, helping other community members out with basic stuff, etc. In fact, it would be nice if community bonds were even stronger at times...

> I'm just talking about some basic stuff like interacting with neighbours, talking to employees at the grocery, helping other community members out with basic stuff, etc.

Yeah, these communities can be hostile to people who don’t fit in, especially visible minorities.

> Yeah, these communities can be hostile to people who don’t fit in, especially visible minorities.

Okay, so your solution to ending discrimination is technological. Right. How simplistic. How about we solve our social problems without resorting to technology. And many are not like that as well. So we should destroy those too? What a black and white approach!

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