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But cities provide you with a means to find a community if you really want one. It's a lot harder and/or less convenient to find groups that do what you like to

But cities provide you with a means to find a community if you really want one. It's a lot harder and/or less convenient to find groups that do what you like to do if you live in a suburb.

tivert 8y ago
> But cities provide you with a means to find a community if you really want one. It's a lot harder and/or less convenient to find groups that do what you like to do if you live in a suburb. I think there's a problem with equating community with "groups that do what you like." That sounds like a definition that's been infected by the "personalization" the npunt was talking about in his first note. Real communities have a lot more diversity than that, and they're usually not very personalized. It's often no so much about finding community, but forming communal bonds with the people already around you.
- RealityVoid 8y ago
  Why would it be bad if things were this way? I mean, I have a very varied social circle but enjoy the company of a select few the most. "Personalization" as you called it, has existed since immemorial times and I don't think it's something new.
  - Faark 8y ago
    Sure, it always existed and isn't necessarily always a problem. But, as with anything, it can quickly become a problem once we get better at it and turn it to eleven. Last century, forming a sect was hard work. Now this kinda seems to happen accidentally all the time when someone tries to launch a new social media platform. For those examples the problem isn't preferring a select few, but shielding yourself from others. But yes, favoring select few can end bad as well. When you network with and thus effectively give positions or contracts to only your select few, you can end up with a self-reinforcing feedback loop and thus quite homogeneous subset of people. And then end up with e.g. woman complain they cannot obtain senior positions or more frequent conspiracy theories about how jews run the world. Having lots of people think they are treated unfairly is generally bad for a society, especially our democratic ones.
- tomjen3 8y ago
  Sure, that has historically been the case. I will argue that communities of space is always inferior to communities of interest. We can see that historically when those communities of interest are big enough, they spend most of their time together, buy in their own shops, etc. With the current state of society, it is a lot easier to create smaller groups, provided you have a big enough base to work with.

But cities provide you with a means to find a community if you really want one. It's a lot harder and/or less convenient to find groups that do what you like to do if you live in a suburb.

tivert 8y ago

> But cities provide you with a means to find a community if you really want one. It's a lot harder and/or less convenient to find groups that do what you like to do if you live in a suburb. I think there's a problem with equating community with "groups that do what you like." That sounds like a definition that's been infected by the "personalization" the npunt was talking about in his first note. Real communities have a lot more diversity than that, and they're usually not very personalized. It's often no so much about finding community, but forming communal bonds with the people already around you.

RealityVoid 8y ago
Why would it be bad if things were this way? I mean, I have a very varied social circle but enjoy the company of a select few the most. "Personalization" as you called it, has existed since immemorial times and I don't think it's something new.
- Faark 8y ago
  Sure, it always existed and isn't necessarily always a problem. But, as with anything, it can quickly become a problem once we get better at it and turn it to eleven. Last century, forming a sect was hard work. Now this kinda seems to happen accidentally all the time when someone tries to launch a new social media platform. For those examples the problem isn't preferring a select few, but shielding yourself from others. But yes, favoring select few can end bad as well. When you network with and thus effectively give positions or contracts to only your select few, you can end up with a self-reinforcing feedback loop and thus quite homogeneous subset of people. And then end up with e.g. woman complain they cannot obtain senior positions or more frequent conspiracy theories about how jews run the world. Having lots of people think they are treated unfairly is generally bad for a society, especially our democratic ones.
tomjen3 8y ago
Sure, that has historically been the case. I will argue that communities of space is always inferior to communities of interest. We can see that historically when those communities of interest are big enough, they spend most of their time together, buy in their own shops, etc. With the current state of society, it is a lot easier to create smaller groups, provided you have a big enough base to work with.