[reroute22]

While reality can be anything but.

As far as I understand, there is plenty of research there in disciplines raging from social studies through psychology to game theory and economics, as well as informal simulations, that strongly suggest that human interactions are positive to participants pretty much if and only if those interactions are repeated, which realistically only occurs if participants are circumstantially close already - same neighborhood, same job, family, friends, same school, etc.

One-off interactions are almost invariably toxic with at least one of the participants getting cheated, bullied, or otherwise harmed.

So the whole premise of connecting people unconditionally, including anonymously, automatically, and from opposite sides of the world is inherently broken and doomed to do a lot of damage.

So even Meta's self proclaimed mission is damaging to society if followed, what could possibly at that point be expected from what they actually do, given the combination of basic facts that the primary purpose of any business is to make money, Meta's specific notoriously evident disregard towards ethics, their position as an advertisement business and entertainment provider, being deep into enshitification and market saturation, and of course actual honest mistakes to boot.

[c-oreills]

> human interactions are positive to participants pretty much if and only if those interactions are repeated

> One-off interactions are almost invariably toxic

I think these claims are too strong. I can believe that there's less incentive to treat people well when you don't expect to repeat interactions.

To give a mundane counter-example: last week I had a flight where I chatted on-and-off with the person next to me. I had zero expectations of repeat interactions with them following the flight, and it was still a friendly and courteous exchange, on both sides.

[reroute22]

I agree in both parts. In particular, repeatability is only one part of it, another is in person physical presence, or a weaker form of it - on-screen presence, or at the absolute least - voice.

All of the latter plays a huge role, a lot of us don't want to be horrible to a person physically in front of us, evolutionally it makes sense - if you do, you might get a fist in the face. Or no support and help in the future, as whoever is nearby will have a high chance of meeting you again (historically, before modern technology and transportation), or even belong to your tribe.

Notice, however, that all of these factors in the end correlate with pre-existing geographical proximity to the person in question. In fact, the said proximity also maximizes the likelihood that you'll see eye to eye - will not have radical, difficult to overcome differences in world view. Yes, sure, we all "should" understand people existing in very different circumstances, but let's face it, it goes a lot better when circumstances are similar, and that once again correlates with geographical proximity.

So realistically there is a huge correlation between "connecting person A and B over the internet is good" and "person A and B already live nearby and already have a high chance of running into each other physically in the real world".

In its simplest, most primitive form what you want is to give people who have already physically met once a way of continuing the connection even if circumstances drive them apart immediately after. And if possible, keep that connection to more physical-like forms - at least audio, better yet video calls, only if absolutely necessary - text.

Wait, that's called a phone. Invented a gazillion years ago. You meet first, then you exchange the numbers. And then you call and actually talk to the person.

What social networks are doing is a fundamentally problematic way of connecting people even without any recommendation systems, rage baits, and other social and addictive engineering involved, or ads - even in the purest form it's already a problem.