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Comment by granshaw | Hacker News Reader

All this talk about “community” - what “community”? It simply doesn’t exist anymore even if you wanted it - short of arranging to stay near your extended family and in laws, what else is there in the modern western world?

Churches, I guess is the only other true community left…

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Small communities exist everywhere, at least in Europe. Scouts, sports clubs, volunteer fire departments, political activism groups. In all of these groups we build a community around a non-competitive purpose (with the exception of some sports clubs) and in all of them we also help each other with stuff that is not related to the primary purpose of the club.

Communities used to naturally form in third spaces, when people were bored.

We have an unhealthy deficit of both third spaces and boredom.

Speaking as an American:

I think it happens if you have kids. Parents make friends with their kids' friends' parents. "Soccer moms" and other parents whose kids are enrolled in sports make friends with other parents of their kid's teammates. Parents also make friends with their kid's teachers.

And kids still make friends at school, and after school during extracurricular activities like sports and jazz band.

Besides that, I think you're right, unless you make friends with your coworkers. There are also still parts of the US where you make friends with your neighbors. My parents recently moved to different suburbs a few years ago, and they're friends with their neighbors.

What is "the modern western world"?

The Finns, Italians, and Californians by and large have a very different idea of "community".

Reporting from Finland, there is no community other than church.

From Finland too. I have friends, colleagues, family members, shared hobbies, activism groups, sports teams and neighbors.

Churches aren't for everyone. I'm bisexual, and they mostly don't exist for me.

Furthermore, I shouldn't have to pretend to believe in some invisible god just to have community.

For some people community is a furry discord server.

Which is fine. I always found it easier to find online communities than IRL ones. Heck, I met my partner online. But these aren't something most folks include.

Music groups such as amateur orchestras, brass bands etc are still a bit of community. Admittedly quite niche, you need to know about them, find a way and have the ability to learn an instrument. There are informal ad-hoc communities e:g at my local leisure centre the regular swimmers chat to each other quite a lot. Kept a lot of people going mentally through lockdown I think. (swimming was allowed subject to restricted numbers and booking ahead)

Churches, dont make me laugh. In fact, church people, or believers in general were those people that convinced me that rural community is something I only want a big distance to. That, and excessive alcohol consumption during the day and evening. It improved when I moved to the next bigish city. But churches are really the antithesis for comfortable communities, to me.

There are affinity groups dedicated to more than just particular novel-gazing interpretations of the divine. We should be striving to make a space for affinity groups to meet & form.

I agree, young people don’t invest in others anymore. It has emotionally become a consumer world. E.g., try getting some volunteers at your local sports club.

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