| ▲ | wateralien 3 hours ago |
| One of the most amazing things happened during the day long power cut in 2025 in Spain and Portugal... eventually the cell towers went down and everyone just went to the parks and socialised. Connected with friends, strangers. Everyone was so in the moment because there was nowhere else to be, nothing else to distract them. People would pick up their phone and realise there was nothing there for them and put it back down and continue chatting. People were present in a way I've never seen in these places before. It was pretty magical. |
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| ▲ | frank_nitti an hour ago | parent | next [-] |
| This also happened in the LA area back around 2015, lasting about 36-48 hours - no power and consequently no internet. Out in suburbia, it was the first time many neighbors even met each other, or the first time some neighbors had spoken in person in years. Standing in our driveways chatting, lending tools or supplies to one another, what used to be very standard suburban life. It was amazing that we had become so disconnected in only 5 years after smartphones became nearly ubiquitous in that part of the world |
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| ▲ | xen_relay 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Lovely! I am all for an offline day in the year where everybody does what you described. |
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| ▲ | embedding-shape an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | Plenty of these experiences can be found without disconnecting the electricity for multiple countries. Personally, I find musical events of all sorts are amazing for this, and completely AI free should you chose the right events :) This weekend Liquicity came to Barcelona (for the first time?) and being with other strangers, dancing all night long, to other humans playing us music and singing and sometimes fucking up, is just an experience out of this world, and these sort of events are all around us, almost every week or at least every month. If not in your country, probably in your neighboring country, just a bus/train ride away. You just need to take the steps and get out of your house, the human connections are out there and ready to be grabbed by the ones who dare and persist :) | | |
| ▲ | tardedmeme an hour ago | parent [-] | | This is so true. It can even just be regular club nights at good clubs. Ever been to Berghain? (Me neither) Some clubs around here sometimes run whole-weekend parties that attract thousands of people, those are fun. |
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| ▲ | fantasizr an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I forget where, but there was a restaurant who locked all phones in a box at your table and if you made it to the end without opening it the table got a free cookie. | | |
| ▲ | andai 8 minutes ago | parent [-] | | That should just be every restaurant, unless you're eating alone. It's just disrespectful otherwise. (And even alone there's a pretty strong case to be made that you should pay attention to the actual food.) |
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| ▲ | mycall an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Let's do it today | |
| ▲ | anhner an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | one day a year? it should be every week :) | | |
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| ▲ | noiv an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| This has a name in literature: post disaster utopia, google it :) |
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| ▲ | lofaszvanitt 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| People can't even keep up discussions. Most of the population is totally dumbened down, like on the levels of barely functioning monkeys. |
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| ▲ | the_gipsy 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| We need to go back |
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| ▲ | krige an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | Yeah totally.
Now cut the power for a week and see how long the socialization lasts. | | | |
| ▲ | jjulius 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | People don't want to hear this hard truth, sadly. |
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| ▲ | gib444 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| In comparison to other parts of Europe, my impression (as a visitor to both but mostly Spain) so that they're way ahead in maintaining social interactions, community, neighbourly relations etc. Is that the case? |
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| ▲ | frank_nitti an hour ago | parent [-] | | In my brief exposure of about 6 months here after ~40 years in Southern CA, it really seems to be the case. I’ve never seen so many people just interacting and enjoying one another’s company for hours on end. For a decent portion of any given day, nearly every table at every establishment is occupied with people chatting, not browsing nor texting. The local parks are filled with people of all ages playing. Couldn’t help but laugh in disbelief initially |
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