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If You Build It, They Will Come

benlandautaylor.com

71–80 of 228 posts

Re: If You Build It, They Will Come

#71
post #52

I think this is a little bit oversimplified and I don't know that it's even true at all. It's basically the opposite story of what's told by "Bowling Alone". That book was written in the year 2000, when the author observed that institutions that previously provided social fabric were all dying. The United States used to have a robust web of institutions that provided social fabric and they have mostly all gone away,…

I don't believe it either. This advice has probably never been less true.

Perhaps there is just a certain kind of Substack journalist who chooses some dubious piece of conventional wisdom every Sunday to sermonize about.

Re: If You Build It, They Will Come

#72
post #59

America used to be awash with grassroots social institutions. I know an elderly gent who belonged to the Lions _and_ two similar organizations. When my mother was young, there were dances and dinners multiple nights a week. Which, for me, raises the question why weren't these things passed down? Why weren't the young a kind of apprentices to the old? That seems like the natural progression. But we see this generation…

There used to be a lot of disdain on HN against people who were "just partying". While the geeks stayed home, learned for school or job yadda yadda. People who socialize were always maligned here, their socializing was supposed reason why they earned less money. And that attitude is one part of the answer. Second is that home entertainment became easier and more fun, so people stay home watching movies, browsing inte…

On "just partying", while I get what you're saying, I have a hard time to believe they ever cared about what HN thought about them or that our opinions had meaningful impact. TBH I am/was more jealous of people with truly advanced "people skills" than anything, especially as they still earn pretty decently.

Lots more money is still made by networking or potentially mild grifting than through sheer innovation or technical excelence for instance.

Re: If You Build It, They Will Come

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a big part is the decline in organized religion.

All organized things started going down in participation no?

In the United States tradition that arose in the early nineteenth century, religious bodies were spiritual families with "brothers" and "sisters" that assisted in each other's lives outside of services. Descriptions of just how involved in daily life churches were can be found in e.g. Boles's 'Religion in Antebellum Kentucky.' Much unofficial societal organization flowed from there. Granted this was not the case, or not as much the case, in churches that predate that period, say, urban Episcopalians.

Re: If You Build It, They Will Come

#74

> Lots of people have a sort of consumer attitude towards their communities, where they take everything for granted. I saw things this way when I was young. A social scene is an automatic feature of the world that appears on its own, like a wild blueberry bush. It starts sprouting parties and dinners and conferences and reading groups as naturally as the bush sprouts berries. I feel like this generally applies a lot…

Part of growing up for me was realizing how little others care, and how little I care about what others think.

It’s liberating. Be weird in public!

Re: If You Build It, They Will Come

#75

// Lots of people have a sort of consumer attitude towards their communities, where they take everything for granted. I saw things this way when I was young. A social scene is an automatic feature of the world that appears on its own, like a wild blueberry bush. It starts sprouting parties and dinners and conferences and reading groups as naturally as the bush sprouts berries True in general. As a kid you think of th…

It isn't only the decay. People change. Who you were online at age 23 and 30 and almost definitely 39 is bound to be vastly different as your priorities and real life relationships change (like marriages, etc). And the topics changed faster. People into mainframe OSes had the same conversational fluidity in that for decades. Leave linux for too long and everything sounds like vocabulary from an alien world, now. And…

In the late 80s I was working at Rabbit Software in Malvern PA (they made IBM 3270 terminal emulator software). I used to car pool to work from Phila. with a brilliant woman who was a lot older than me, and had a solid lifetime of IBM mainframe experience. I was a Unix hacker with just a few years under my belt.

We realized very quickly that if there was one thing we couldn't talk to each other about, it was computers.

Re: If You Build It, They Will Come

#76

America used to be awash with grassroots social institutions. I know an elderly gent who belonged to the Lions _and_ two similar organizations. When my mother was young, there were dances and dinners multiple nights a week. Which, for me, raises the question why weren't these things passed down? Why weren't the young a kind of apprentices to the old? That seems like the natural progression. But we see this generation…

It was technology. With greater efficiency, came also greater separation and distance at home and with family and community and our initiatory rituals/rites.

We used to use community to pass those down, but now the average American family gets divided from each other at an early age as soon as the distraction and ideology from technology like screens and things social media comes into play.

Edit: Before internet, there were other forms of "social media" at play attempting to extract the attention of the individual units of the family and community, but they weren't as effective. With the internet they are more effective.

Re: If You Build It, They Will Come

#77

America used to be awash with grassroots social institutions. I know an elderly gent who belonged to the Lions _and_ two similar organizations. When my mother was young, there were dances and dinners multiple nights a week. Which, for me, raises the question why weren't these things passed down? Why weren't the young a kind of apprentices to the old? That seems like the natural progression. But we see this generation…

I think a big part is the decline in organized religion.

Interestingly, I always guessed the opposite.

That modern American Christianity obsoleted the old clubs and "secret" societies - most of which were no longer very secret, more ritual than societal, and at some point had to define what "higher power" meant to its members - a topic that easily takes over the municipal development discussions - to not only the younger men but to the women (who were largely barred from such organizations).

90s television and the "role model" movement helped Christianity unify and sweep the attention of the youth, reflected in "youth group" programs across churches in the United States and also the rise of indie televangelists (some became millionaires, along with thousands of pastors).

By the early- to mid-2000s, Christianity had figured out how to put on a much better show (for the kids) and, especially in California, again had evolved into something new, more palatable, entertaining, and far more inclusive than you could ever get from something like a Masonic order or even a Rotary Club.

90s-00s Christianity was a massive movement that I wonder whether or not would be possible without the advent of TV. To me, those old clubs where grandpas met and discussed things was a way of the past. Like comparing newspapers to social media - just an obsolete way of sharing information.

Re: If You Build It, They Will Come

#78
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a point where the things you took for granted start decaying. Your body, your things, your communities, your relationships. It's only when you start repairing or replacing them that you really value maintenance and the people doing it. As you point out, it's usually done by surprisingly few, surprisingly motivated people, and their work is often underappreciated until they stop doing it. Maybe we should teac…

What you’re describing is essentially the concept of civic duty and, at least in America, it’s unfortunately become deconstructed and politicized to the point where it’s impossible to exist as a meaningful cultural phenomenon. It also relies on people putting effort towards often intangible, uncapitalized, and unextractable shared value. So perhaps it makes sense that this is being diminished over time, as the grip o…

> it’s unfortunately become deconstructed and politicized to the point where it’s impossible to exist as a meaningful cultural phenomenon.

I think greed and corruption (cheating) by politicians and government employees has an outsized effect on this. Whenever you hear about it you lose trust and may even feel justified to cheat the system in turn. Basically they got there's, so I'll get mine.

IMO the penalties for corruption in public service jobs (all the way to the top!) should also be outsized to match the damage it does to society. I'm talking prison time. Also transparency at all levels and at all times. Public service should have really really good reasons to keep anything private and the default should be open to the public. There shouldn't be a need for FOI requests unless there's a good reason to keep something from being completely public.

Re: If You Build It, They Will Come

#79
Yep I noticed this when starting a reading group at work. High fomo, queue formed. And that was not even an AI one.

This is an easy move too. I.e. it is hard to have impact in the technical sphere when everyone is doing that.

Organising something (book a room etc.) is what engineers tend not to want to so so it becomes a form of arbitrage. Less mental effort and more visibility.

Re: If You Build It, They Will Come

#80

This is indeed part of the something i've been internalising for quite a while. I've always felt i needed to improve my social circle by finding/making one, but i realised it's better to just have hobbies and skill sets that make me useful and relevant to a certain niche and then my circle would naturally arise from there. It's also why i'm trying to participate more here, even with the crippling imposters syndrome t…

I'm skeptical that posting on social networks will accomplish what you're hoping for. I've been fairly actively commenting on Hacker News for over 15 years and haven't met anyone this way. This is just recreational typing.

I wonder about that. Why is this one of the few communities, that despite being so high quality in a technical sense has so little in person community connection?
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