[logicprog]

I think you're underestimating the benefits of having social community online, I've found and made extremely close friends and even partners online and they have been utterly life-changing for me. I'm making/have made (I'm different cases) herculean efforts to be able to be with them in person permanently because obviously in person interaction is better, but being able to discover people that are so good for me and fit so well for me was made possible by the internet because such people are rare for the kind of person I am. I would not be nearly as well adjusted and happy in my life as I am without the close friends that I've made online. They mean a lot to me. I think the problem with the current online landscape, including polarization and the generation of meaningless content, has more to do with the specific form most online social spaces take, where it's this intensely public popularity contest, instead of something more like irc, where it's generally pretty private and ephemeral and limited to a small number of people. That and the rotten incentives that social media companies have to take advantage of their users.

[pokoblond]

I've been thinking about this a lot the last two years as someone who also grew up with social community online. It was life-changing for me too, but sometimes I catch myself wishing I could have had these experiences offline instead.

I read this a few months ago and I still think about it all the time. Curious about your thoughts. https://maya.land/monologues/2023/08/12/social-media-chalk-m...

[logicprog]

That was actually an amazing read, thank you so much. It reflects my thoughts on the matter pretty well — to use the analogy of the article, there are certainly some versions of social media that are poison, and online interaction may be less "socially nutritious" than in person interaction ceterus paribus, but things are rarely eever ceterus paribus! You have to take into account the relative barrier to entry of online interaction versus in person interaction, because the alternatives may well be online or nothing because the barriers of anything else are far too high for an individual, and you have to take into account the possibility that the available in person interaction for someome may in fact be non nutritious or poison itself. Likewise, depending on the way you use the internet to socialize, it may be more or less socially nutritious: interacting on something like Instagram is basically poison, Twitter Facebook and Tumblr offer almost no nutrition at all, and forums and medium to large IRC chats (or Discord servers) maybe significantly more over time or none at all depending on how they work, while conversely a small IRC chat or Discord or group chat of close friends that you met online in other places and consciously gathered over time into an intentional community of people who all intimately know each other and share every day's victories and defeats, hopes and fears, traumas and healing, art and jokes, means a whole lot more, even if being with them in person would be better. That last option, where you use niche interest online communities to find people, but then graduate them to something "online" but far more intimate, with maybe even the goal of living near each other one day, is rarely pointed out, but it's something I started to intentionally do four years ago and I've found it's by far the healthiest option.

[pokoblond]

Really beautiful comment. I agree wholeheartedly with all you said about the last and healthiest option, I've been intentionally doing it too and it's been rewarding, even healing :)

[jamieskella]

Plot twist: that article was written by AI.

[logicprog]

Well, was it? If you can't show that, this isn't an interesting, clever comment, you're just imagining to yourself an alternate universe where you're right. And I'd be surprised if it was, since LLMs are basically incapable of generating something that isn't vague, generic, and generally in line with common/average sentiments, by virtue of their reward function. AI writing might be indistinguishable from shitty human writing, but not from good human writing.

[kixiQu]

Whether or not they were joking, an AI did not write it. (I did; thank you for your comments!)