> The world is (and the US is) a measurably more terrible place than only a few years ago

I neither agree nor disagree (if that makes sense), but I certainly agree that being modern Internet has warped people's views on things. I hear it called a "screen detox" via my Spotify BetterHelp ads and while I never used that service, I get what they mean.

Back during Digg 4.0 last year, one of the core members of users referred to it as "trying to have a conversation while attending a riot". Its a lot of third parties and faceless usernames chiming in, and if you don't answer all of them the impression can get equally get warped about the original intent of the conversation. Even how the conversation gets steered after the original comment is interesting to see.

I just think Covid made us all "get on the same wavelength", then someone(s) tainted that through things like heavy Reddit moderation. Like, we were all doing our own little things, then "everyone" is refreshing Johns Hopkins' dashboard, wondering if they have enough toilet paper because of the Seuz Canal, or watching all of the protest/riots unfold in other states.

But what got lost was no one going out to things, saving/gambling their money on the next short squeeze, and not supporting local stuff. If anything, GET OFF THE INTERNET is my attempt at manipulation/psyop/marketing campaign. And, locally, yeah, we're offline, openly talking about what we see on the different platforms since Reddit and Twitter are politically skewed, and sort of remembering a time before the pandemic.

I go to Magic the Gathering events at my LGS now. Its pretty cool to meet the nerds in that "missing third space". We're still talking about tariffs and global conflicts. We're just doing it respectfully and not trying to ruin the game at the same time cause not everyone agrees. I can even tell when someone is fresh off Arena because they play some of those insta-win meta combos. I just make tribal decks, I don't have time to study all that.