On the note of alienation in commenting, this perspective is the strongest one I've heard yet: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26640203.

Read it; it's only a few paragraphs. If I could, I would distill that warning into the guidelines of any serious forum.

Not just because it fits my lived experience. But because one of the people in thread who disagreed — a prolific developer who sought friends on the internet — later killed themselves because of the internet.

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squigz 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

I mostly agree with the post, and believe we should work on that, but I disagree strongly with this last point...

> This is also the fundamental mistake people make about the online world being a place where "discourse" can change anyone's internal landscape. It cannot, because it every discourse on the internet is by definition completely a subset of the ego of the single individual.

Discussion on the Internet absolutely can change someone's "internal landscape" - I have constantly learned new things and grown as a person just reading comments on HN... like the one you linked. :) Does it happen over night, or just reading a comment and a flip gets switched? Generally not. But you read things, you reflect on them, you grow over time.

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hitekker 3 days ago | parent [-]

Reading HN is fun—a firehose of insights and intellectual candy.

But it's not work. Personal growth ("internal landscape") requires work; unfun human interaction oftentimes. Online discourse doesn't force this work; despite downvotes, flags, and angry text, it's all still in our heads and at our leisure. Whereas in-person or 1:1s force us to maintain empathy and listen— real work[1] that online spaces can only suggest, not enforce.

You could recreate that experience by researching, considering, reflecting and then interacting, but that's different work you impose on yourself. It's outside of the free online watercooler which has little power to change us beyond the ego we've invested in it.

The top commenter above, for example, used internet comments as the beginning of real-life friendships; they did the real work afterwards. Similarly, my original comment was looking more for like-minds, than to change minds; it summarizes an experience for those who've lived it but lack words for it. Though I believe my take is truth, I'm content to have my fun at one point, and do the work at another. Today, I felt like showing my work :)

[1] As a manager, this is a chunk of my job!

	▲	squigz 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		I think there's some truth to what you're saying - personal growth is work, and you have to be willing to put in that work. But I don't really see any reason why the medium has anything to do with it; plenty of people refuse to grow IRL too, just as some do online as well. > Whereas in-person or 1:1s force us to maintain empathy and listen How I wish this were true!

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mindwok 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Thanks for sharing that. Interestingly holds up in the way many people (including myself) use LLMs sometimes. It's a conversation with yourself.

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hn_acc1 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Depends on the topic - for politics, seems reasonable. When I'm following a few FB groups for a specific car model, because all the latest stuff seems to show up there, it's not quite as bad.

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eawgewag 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Wow, wonderful. Thank you