In the past, you may have had to choose between someone you agree 50% with and someone you agree 80% with, and so you'd be friends with the 80%. It's your "best available friend."

Now with the Internet, you can choose to befriend the 80% agreeable irl guy, or you can befriend the 99% agreeable guy online. The 20% of disagreements irl feel completely intolerable, because you're not forced to cooperate for survival. This also contributes to strenuous familial relationships.

RT: https://poa.st/objects/a3cbbc29-f6ac-49c0-b525-3c072740149a

A friend is someone who'd rather spend his time with you than anything else. In the past, there really wasn't any other outlet to spend your time. Now, it's a valuable commodity targeted with precision and monetized by companies. By putting a price tag on time, you have millions of dollars spent trying to take it from you, and you can't get that time back.​

Who do you think would win, some relatively pleasant person who wants quality time, or the latest million dollar attention grabber? That's why there are no friends beyond coworkers now.

@veff
I am slowly starting to get into a community, but seriously, finding people who are unironically willing to spend time with you feels like tearing your skin off.

@LukeAlmighty@gameliberty.club @veff@poa.st

The OP looks like some ordinary, run of the mill "phone bad" bullshit. But broken families and atomized individuals are the exception in other parts of the world, even though social media and wireless are cheap and accessible.

I suspect that the powers that be want us to internalize "phone bad" to the extent that is distracts from other problems, and because uncensored communities are the solution to those problems.

@KuteboiCoder @LukeAlmighty "Phone bad" is a gross caricaturizing of my point, but I'll roll with it. If the Internet were to disappear forever tomorrow, would social life and community become better or worse?

@veff@poa.st @LukeAlmighty@gameliberty.club

For many, worse.

But maybe I deserve that, because something something soft skills. Is that what you think?

@KuteboiCoder @LukeAlmighty Maybe in the immediate aftermath it would take a hit. Would you still be worse off years after the fact?

@veff @KuteboiCoder @LukeAlmighty Rebuilding our social life is our only hope of salvation.

@DC5FAN @veff @KuteboiCoder
No one disagrees with you there, but before internet, there was only one community. The normie community, that hoped I would rope.

Now, there are more of them. Yes, they are weak, but I am not hated in all of them.