I’ve been lurking for almost a decade, after leaving Reddit due to inane cultural dog-piling. Online communities (and especially aggregator communities) always degrade to warring over binary identifiers and loyalty tests; Maybe the medium is just not expressive enough to preserve real human connection. Maybe the medium is too good at convincing us our personal opinions are the popular and righteous ones…
In the time since I joined this site I’ve started my own business and integrated into my local community, made lots of friends, and spend maybe 5 minutes a day surfing aggregators. Probably because I just have the bookmark in my browser toolbar and click it out of habit.
I think the era of online communities is dead, reading through the comments on this post just affirm that. And it wasn’t Gen AI that did it, it’s these “communities” inability to build rewarding friendships that extend past ‘X thing is Bad, and You are Bad for liking it’
I’m gonna delete my bookmark for this site, and deactivate my account. I hope I inspire others to as well. It’s never been a better time to make friends in meat space that truly care about you, and understand you
I’m sorry you feel this way but I disagree with your assertion here. While many people here have the view, sometimes very strongly, that gen AI is bad - for society, for the environment, for individuals, for code quality, whatever - I’m really not seeing a lot of examples of “you are bad for liking it.” It’s a difficult line to walk but I think most discussion of an otherwise very fraught topic stays respectful.
Online communities aren’t dead, and I don’t want them to die. This is one of the remaining good ones. It’s not perfect but I think the suggestions in this thread are entirely sensible and will help.
I’ve been lurking for almost a decade, after leaving Reddit due to inane cultural dog-piling. Online communities (and especially aggregator communities) always degrade to warring over binary identifiers and loyalty tests; Maybe the medium is just not expressive enough to preserve real human connection. Maybe the medium is too good at convincing us our personal opinions are the popular and righteous ones…
In the time since I joined this site I’ve started my own business and integrated into my local community, made lots of friends, and spend maybe 5 minutes a day surfing aggregators. Probably because I just have the bookmark in my browser toolbar and click it out of habit.
I think the era of online communities is dead, reading through the comments on this post just affirm that. And it wasn’t Gen AI that did it, it’s these “communities” inability to build rewarding friendships that extend past ‘X thing is Bad, and You are Bad for liking it’
I’m gonna delete my bookmark for this site, and deactivate my account. I hope I inspire others to as well. It’s never been a better time to make friends in meat space that truly care about you, and understand you
score 1 · canonical
I’m sorry you feel this way but I disagree with your assertion here. While many people here have the view, sometimes very strongly, that gen AI is bad - for society, for the environment, for individuals, for code quality, whatever - I’m really not seeing a lot of examples of “you are bad for liking it.” It’s a difficult line to walk but I think most discussion of an otherwise very fraught topic stays respectful.
Online communities aren’t dead, and I don’t want them to die. This is one of the remaining good ones. It’s not perfect but I think the suggestions in this thread are entirely sensible and will help.
score 1 · canonical