We're definitely hard wired to recognise the difference between people being friendly to foster a good relationship and people being friendly because they've good ulterior motives
There's a real human sense of accomplishment and ownership when you put your own effort into making your own creations real. Typing words into a box to make a picture is a fun novelty, and might be useful to people who have to shovel images out the door, but I've never felt anything like the same satisfaction, and I'd imagine kids feel that innately.
sure, my comment is merely to express doubt that that the specific level of dislike from the kids is organic. most people do not hate like that on first impression, even if the satisfaction is of course not the same.
I've been introspecting lately on why I've got this kind of reaction to the whole situation despite rationally knowing the benefits involved.
We're currently _already_ in the midst of a tech and social revolution in the form of social media platforms. About 15 years ago, everyone became excited about how they could connect with old friends whenever they want on Facebook, from their computer. 10 years later, the story started to curdle as people realised being plugged into the internet 24/7 has major societal drawbacks. I think about how detached I've become from local communities, and just how much my life I entrust to a handful of tech companies in San Francisco.
Now a new group of companies come along, peg themselves to every facet of life, and demand billions of investment dollars for their products and whip up a bunch of evangelists. I'm in the midst of reevaluating my relationship with tech and now tech advocates are in every part of my life trying to tell me how much better my life should be. Maybe I'll install a copilot at some point, but I just want to get on with things for now.
It never helps that my current team has a fetish for rapidly expanding our tech stack without considering the learning cost to the rest of the team, so I'm at my capacity for learning atm
One of the most enjoyable musical experiences I had recently was on a choir exchange in Europe. We were at a concert afterparty with choirs from two other countries, exchanging drunken folk songs. Were we pleasant to listen to? Probably not. It was raucous and out of tune, but it was a bunch of people sharing something we loved.
Singing in adult choirs has been one of my most spiritually and socially rewarding activities. You really feel a brother in arms with your fellow singers. Perhaps it is because singing is such an embarrassing activity in isolation, but then the sheer force of all the voices come together to make something of such power and beauty that you are incapable of replicating yourself. I’ll never forget the tenors I sang Faures Requiem or Beethoven 9th with.
i had a similar experience in scouting. german scouting has a strong singing tradition to the point that there are regular competitions that attract groups from all over europe. also camps where multiple groups meet. imagine your after party experience every night for multiple days, maybe even a week or two.
Most medium-to-long distance trains in Europe have 1st class compartments. These can range from just being quieter because of the increased price, to spacious seats with complimentary food and drink. Italian high speed rail has business class with hireable meeting rooms[0]
The issue with cars isn't that they're not convenient in isolation, but that they cause issues at scale more than other modes of transport, especially when they're the default option for journeys. An efficiently run metro line can shift tens of thousands of people per hour in each direction, but you'd need a multi-lane highway running at maximum throughput to even get close.
We love to debate headlines, don’t we? But along those lines, it seems like they could just say it’s “new” and that would be good enough; a headline doesn’t need to be any more specific.
Regarding 1, the key difference in those days was the barrier to entry. Sure, your post on the gardening forum was fair game for any user to respond to, but every user with that ability had to make an active decision to join a gardening forum. HAM radio hobbyists or political campaigners who don't have interest in gardening wouldn't gatecrash the party to respond to conversations out of context. On global, single-feed social media, you have to sign up, but then every bubble and subculture has the possibility of running into each other with an easy interface to join the conversation with no required context.
One change Alec has been in favour of is a setting to only allow followers to respond to a post. Sure, it takes 2 seconds, but it's that extra bit of friction that forces you to confront more context of who you're responding to.
It can be anything, really. Craft workshops, choirs, charity volunteering (and even things that don't begin with c!) - whatever gets you out interacting with people in your community feeds your social interaction needs and helps build local networks. I've had a good time at the local bouldering gym - though it's ostensibly an athletic pursuit, it's very accessible and a very social atmosphere, since half the people there are waiting for their turn to climb the wall.
A few years back, I realised how bad the addiction was when I deleted a couple of apps. While doing other things on my phone, I'd autopilot going to the apps list and tapping the empty space where Reddit/Twitter used to be. You're right, that little bit of friction is enough to make you stop and ask "what am I really getting out of this?"
