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?

Worse because even before the internet I didn't have friends

@Dudebro @veff @KuteboiCoder
Exactly the same opinion here.
There was nowhere to go before the modern always-online social setting. Now, I have something to work with, but before? It was a true hell.

@LukeAlmighty @Dudebro @KuteboiCoder I guess my point doesn't work when interacting with 100% true-and-honest autists. My life was significantly better before everyone got smartphones. I had Internet at home, but I specifically avoided getting a phone until... 2017? I didn't want the life of the online to destroy the life of meatspace, but eventually everyone else hooked up to it and there was nothing to be found except online. If that went away, eventually everyone would have to crawl out of their room and be human again. I miss that.

@veff @LukeAlmighty @Dudebro @KuteboiCoder maybe you just miss being young. I had friends, but looking back, none of those relationships were as deep as some of the people I have as friends now, online. They didn’t last, that’s one proof of it.

The relationships he is reminiscing were not destroyed by phones but by atomizing society. See your high school friends stayed with you because there were jobs avaliable in your town be it factory or a provider for the factory. Now you have to move to be employed and you don't know your neighbors.