Here’s a wild question:
Are we not all friends here on HN? Or am I so depraved and desperate? Have I socially died and don’t even know it, friends?
We’re all friends right? Right? What the fuck is going on.
Are we not all friends here on HN? Or am I so depraved and desperate? Have I socially died and don’t even know it, friends?
We’re all friends right? Right? What the fuck is going on.
Would you listen to me ranting about evil nimbyists preventing any form of urban development and thus blocking economic growth?
Would you call me asking me to help you with an unexpected problem?
Can I stop by your place just to hang out a bit, without any particular reason?
Would you pick me up from an airport tomorrow if I ask you to?
Will I come to you if I have a wild business idea? Or will you come to me to brag about your recent promotion?
No, we are not friends. We don't even know each other. You need to spend some time with a person for at least couple of hours a day for about half a year to become friends.
The only place this would happen for me is work. But that's no longer possible because all my coworkers at my new job are WFH.
It happened in school and college, after that it's only ever happened at work that I spend "a couple of hours a day for about half a year" with anyone.
Even if joined some kind of club, that would be either a couple of hours a month or at best, a couple of hours a week, not a couple of hours a day.
Traveling brings people closer (that could be arranged through meetups), doing intense social work (also possible through meetups)...
I’ll read your posts on HN and upvote you, how’s that, and thoughtfully reply.
We probably don't know your name, so I don't even know it counts as an acquaintance, unless you're famous externally and have linked that to your HN username, or have used it as your name. And even then we know it in the same way as a roll call in a crowded lecture room or business meeting, and not as the individual.
I think classic online forums did provide scope for building up social connections, but I think the Reddit-inspired social news sites, including HN, simply do not.
With that safety net, someone has to first accept a level of risk they don't currently need to, and they also have to meet that same risk barrier for someone else. So people are unwittingly trading more two sided, genuine social interactions, for shallow, one sided interactions.
My answer to that one is yes for most people on this site. :)
That said, you f'ing matter and you deserve to be friends with people. You can do it too. Just get out, talk to people in the real world, whatever just do something different from what you are doing now.
I'm rooting for you man.
Maybe I'm looking at this through rose-tinted glasses, but I see that feeling as decreasing here on HN.
@dang - any input here? Hows moderation been in 2016 vs now?
I go to the pub with other people and enjoy their company, but many of them don’t find interesting the kinds of things discussed on HN. At times, that makes me feel lonely in a crowd, Which is why I also come to HN.
Yes we are friends, but if I did not also have the pub friends I would feel lonely.
That's not even an acquaintance in my book. Friendship requires a little bit more back-and-forth. Good friends have some trust associated with them. Apologies to all the HN'ers: you're better than redditors but you're still internet strangers. Plenty of people on the internet are not ones you'd want to be friends with.
Being able to talk to people who are willing to spend time talking back is a basis for friendship, at least in my book.
Friendship doesn’t always have to be so serious.
On HN, the topic is given (the article we comment on), and it is usually not personal. If it happens to be personal, it is most likely not the personal topic I would like to discuss now.
Also, if any of us died today, most likely no one else on HN would ever notice. That too is not exactly what I imagine as "friendship".
And for me, a friend is family I get to choose for myself. Anyone else is, at best, a friendly acquaintance.
I expect there are many other definitions out there as well.
In short, only you can answer that question.
Fun and interesting is enough for me, we don’t need to be best friends. We can be some semblance of friends. Or is that asking for too much as well?
Anyways, I agree with you. The drop in friendships can’t be fucking tracked because everyone has their own idea of what it means.
Exactly. And all this is before we even get to differences in languages and cultures. In the old country, word friend has very different connotations when compared to US equivalent. There it is basically reserved for the highest level of US version of the word. In US the world covers a whole range of social affinities.
<< Interesting how varied (imho, high) our standards are for another human being.
This is why being a kid has its benefits. You have X? We are best friends now. As you get older, possession of item X is a very sucky proxy for a good relationship.
I remember hearing some futurist a decade or so ago say how indistinguishable real-life and online life will be eventually. At the time I couldn’t believe it but your comment synthesizes it in a way.
I would be considerably more lonely, less inspired and knowledgeable without this community. That’s friendship to me.
But I do find that you can have real friends online, and it's not all that much harder or less common than having real friends in person. And the cameraderie we might have with a lot of people over HN isn't that far removed from real friendship.
My standards for friend are pretty low these days - anyone who can have an interesting, respectful conversation without becoming hateful or condescending over a difference in opinions is an awfully good candidate.
Your notion of friendship is slightly odd... But. That brings me to:
Why isn't there more of a concerted attempt at local HN meetups?
Ask HN, Show HN, how about Meetup HN: (some city)