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by unimpressive 4708 days ago
>Consider if we were having this conversation in person, there'd be more "real social interaction", and I'd be forced to note you as an individual, probably recognize if I met you again, and you'd be more to me than an 11 character username that doesn't consider HN and Reddit social networks, for better or worse.

Let's keep things in perspective here. If it weren't for HN, you and the parent probably would have never met.

I don't see how you can degrade a connection that otherwise wouldn't exist.

1 comments

> If it weren't for HN, you and the parent probably would have never met.

Absolutely, and I admit as much in the first sentence!

Degrade was the wrong word to use, but my point is bad thing about technology is that I have no connection to grimtrigger, just a reaction to what was written. Of course, that's also the beautiful thing about technology - it's about the message, not the messenger.

So while the article's analogy was a poor opening, I think the article is spot on, in contrast to grimtrigger. Pre-internet people were communicated with the long lost art of letter writing, and while latency was high, depth of communication was often superior.