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In-person social organizations. Social isolation is probably the biggest cause of unhappiness in advanced countries. Having a strong social network has lots of

In-person social organizations. Social isolation is probably the biggest cause of unhappiness in advanced countries. Having a strong social network has lots of advantages including providing better romantic and career opportunities, as well as improving physical and psychological health. Humans have a long history of dishing out lots of money to be parts of strong communities too--country clubs and fraternities have high fees. Church goers regularly give up 10% of their (gross) income to be part of that group. Cult members might even hand over ALL of their possessions to join. The camaraderie and experiences that go along with being part of a strong, long lived community tends to be the thing people value most in life. Yet finding those communities has become increasingly difficult in the modern era. People move away to different cities, or just don't run into the same set of people everyday. With the rise of remote work, social disconnection is only going to rise. I think there's a lot of room to create new social organizations with pretty minimal technology, and make a pretty profit from doing so. Humans are still human--they want those connections--they mostly just need an introduction.

tenebrisalietum 6y ago
Basically a social network app, with calendar events, and without the ability to post (because interaction has to be done IRL)?
seneca 6y ago
This is essentially what the book Bowling Alone is about. It's worth reading, along with the writer's other research.
- offtop5 6y ago
  I can also suggest Lost Connections. Last year I did everything I could, to go to tons of concerts, meet up groups, and alumni events. I had a very successful year in terms of meeting new friends, finding high income partners , and generally loving my life. I've long been disillusioned with social media, and I completely blame it for destroying a generation of mental health. You need to make friends, and you need to go back to the old fashioned way of having light-hearted discussions. Versus nasty arguments on social media. I had to stop using Reddit for the most part, since no matter what I said people would attack it in some way shape or form. Even something as mundane as I find Java to be difficult, turned into a personal attack on my abilities as a programmer. Tons of people are obviously angry for whatever reason, and you feeding into their anger isn't going to help anyone. I went to tons of meetups, and even though and all of these cases I was a complete stranger I was never insulted or made to feel unwelcomed. There's community out there you just need to seek it out.
  - jason0597 6y ago
    > I had to stop using Reddit for the most part, since no matter what I said people would attack it in some way shape or form. > [...] even though and all of these cases I was a complete stranger I was never insulted or made to feel unwelcomed. My feeling is that once people no longer have a keyboard and monitor with which to "hide", they no longer have the ability to hurl insults at other people spontaneously and without being reprimanded for it (if anything they might get juicy upvotes). The reason I put "hide" in quotes is because people don't act this way consciously. No one wants to throw personal attacks at other people for simply expressing a different opinion. In fact, I regularly read stories of politicians who were arch rivals politically but would still foster good friendships with one another. Another good example is the relationships the judges have in the US Supreme court. I have trouble believing that the judges would be able to form similar friendships with one another if they did that online through soulless text boxes, rather than face-to-face contact. The anonymity provided online enables this subconscious switch in people's minds that allows them to do things they would never do face-to-face. And I want to add that it's not really the anonymity (though that does amplify this effect), it's the lack of seeing the other people. Posting online with your full name (e.g. Twitter) can still enable these subconscious switches simply by virtue of giving you the illusion of not talking to people because you can't see them. In the end, all the people responding to you are text boxes, not humans with feelings and emotions. Seeing somebody face-to-face just cannot compete with online connections. The way you see what you say form an expression on somebody else's faces, or the way that looking into somebody's eyes somehow forms this inexplicable connection (I remember reading about how studies were done on the brain that noticed hormones being released when people looked into each other's eyes... not sure where to look for that now), or how you can listen to their voice tones change as they talk allowing you to subconsciously gain more understanding of what they feel as they express something. It's... just not the same. --- There was this article I remember reading a couple of years ago an article that delved into what guaranteed anonymity does to people. It was very interesting, I highly recommend it: https://gawker.com/5950981/unmasking-reddits-violentacrez-the-biggest-troll-on-the-web https://gawker.com/5950981/unmasking-reddits-violentacrez-th...
    - ValentineC 6y ago
- randycupertino 6y ago
  I've had Bowling Alone in my to-read Queue, however I think it might be way too depressing to read it in the middle of quarantine shelter-in-place! Would only emphasize the current dire straights!
uncomputation 6y ago
If I see one more app to cure loneliness... It seems techy people have difficulty accepting non-techy solutions
- Kluny 6y ago
  I didn't see anything about an app in the op's comment... I started thinking about how to create a social hub where you can just go and exist. Like men's clubs that used to exist, but without the sexism and classism. A clubhouse where you pay some kind of membership fee and you get unlimited access to books, movies, a lounge, a bar, a few games leagues, some mild gambling, etc. Being a queer woman with a disability, I would start by making such a place explicitly inclusive to people like me.
  - ValentineC 6y ago
    This sounds a bit like a hackerspace. The bar and gambling would depend on local laws. Does this sound like something for you? https://doubleunion.org/ https://doubleunion.org/
    - Kluny 6y ago
      For sure, though San Francisco is a bit far from me! :)
      - ValentineC 6y ago
        Try one of these, maybe: https://wiki.hackerspaces.org/British_Columbia https://wiki.hackerspaces.org/British_Columbia It's a bit unfortunate that most of them might have shut down (either temporarily or permanently) due to COVID-19, but I hope you'll find what you're looking for!
  - trianglem 6y ago
    I think being explicitly a male club is extremely important for something like this to be appealing. Otherwise it’s just a meetup or bar visit. I don’t ever think it should be race specific/racist but I do support “elitist” requirements to get in.
InvisibleUp 6y ago
I think a large part of this (in the USA, anyways) is due to how modern cities are structured. It used to be, 100 or 200 years ago, that your workplace, your home, and your usual hang-out place were all within reasonable walking distance of each other. It wasn't a huge deal to go out and meet new people, as you'd naturally bump into them every day. Nowadays we have a large portion of people in bedroom communities, isolated in a sea of houses. They drive in isolated cars to their workplaces, swing by to get some Starbucks on the way in, and that's the extent of their social interaction. Apart from libraries and parks, there's not many places that you can regularly go and just "hang out" without spending money just to exist in that space. It's incredibly easy to go for weeks or months without any substantial social contact outside of work or your few neighbors. I feel like this is a reason why internet organizations and social media have exploded in popularity, for that matter. It's the new "default place" to hang out and get social interaction, for better or for worse. (I expanded on this in an article I wrote, https://invisibleup.com/articles/31/ https://invisibleup.com/articles/31/, if you want to check that out.)
- cpursley 6y ago
  This 110%. It's especially obvious after moving out of the US and it's hard to convey how much better cities built for humans are than cities built for cars than by experiencing it for yourself.
  - xwdv 6y ago
    Yea so great, until you are struck by a pandemic and your minimalist home is basically now a prison cell where you can't do much because everything there is to do was outside your tiny home. Now I know people shitting on suburbs is the fashion, but the fact is if you are the kind of person who has hobbies that don't involve going out and socializing a bedroom community is perfect. You get your own land and a detached home with plenty of space to do mostly whatever you want. Woodwork, swimming in a pool, running around with your dog, playing loud music and movies, hosting dinner parties, whatever. It's so much more comfortable for people who don't have urges to just "hang out".
    - 6y ago
geofft 6y ago
Meetup is kind of this. There were also a handful of these in the early-2010s wacky startup boom - I remember some acquaintances discussing Grouper, a startup that organized 6-person social outings. I guess one distinction between those and your examples of country clubs, fraternities, and churches is that the latter are long-lasting institutions: you find a group of people, potentially spend an extended period of time interacting with them without commitment, and then you become a "member," which carries informal commitment. (In the case of cults there's formal/irrevocable commitment, but for the rest, you're free to leave, there's just a social norm that you don't do so casually.) The flip side is that a lot of people have either first-hand bad experiences at such organizations or know people who have, and committing to an organization that turns out to be mentally draining (even if not abusive per se) is a worry. So maybe if you want to add some sort of structure on top, find a way to manage that risk. Certainly one step is to not accept as customers/members people who make your organization less fun to join, and be very up front about that. But beyond that, there might be ways to demonstrate to newcomers that the existing members are good people, or to support the organization in establishing social norms that discourage bad experiences, or possibly even figuring out what sorts of things toxic people tend to latch onto and designing your society in a way that lacks those. (One other danger here is that the easy way to provide some of these benefits, like better career opportunities, is to be exclusionary and offer your members favorable treatment from each other and unfairly treating those outside the organization in a correspondingly unfavorable way. Country clubs, fraternities, and churches all have a reputation of helping the rich and powerful remain rich and powerful. It's possible to provide the benefits in a non-zero-sum way, by actually using the connections to make your members better people, but it's harder.)
sjg007 6y ago
Meetup.com doesn’t solve this? I ask cause I work remote and meetups are basically what I used pre-pandemic.
- baron816 6y ago
  I’ve been the lead organizer of a largish group with a couple hundred very active members. But getting to that point was quite a challenge that was made harder by Meetup. The group still ended up falling apart. The Meetup platform is pretty terrible. It’s designed to get people to join many groups, most of which they never engage with and just get a lot of spam from. I’m sure >99.99% of pre-pandemic “social” Meetup groups were totally inactive. Most of the rest would have semi-regular events that <4 people would sign up for. That said, I think there’s a lot room to build a better version of Meetup.com. The main problem with it is that the managers just don’t know what they’re doing, or are in too deep with tech debt and legacy code. If someone here actually wants to build a better version of Meetup, let me know.
  - crooked-v 6y ago
    I think one key to a better Meetup would be to solve the no-show problem. From what I understand this is the greatest issue that large-group organizing has on the platform, to the point that I've seen people regularly write sassy rants on event posts to guilt people into accurately updating whether they're showing up or not.
    - DeafSquid 6y ago
      I think part of fixing the problem of no-shows would be to not let members see who/how many people have said that they're going. If 25 people say they're going to show up, then it's not a big deal if I don't, right? Until half the people have the same idea. There will be more perceived social pressure to keep that commitment if people don't think they're just going to get lost in a crowd.
      - freehunter 6y ago
mertd 6y ago
The closest we have come to this type of experience in the online space was IRC.
rubidium 6y ago
Agreed. I’ve set up my life to foster and form in person social interactions (and organizations to the extent that they help) in my neighborhood. It’s affected where I live, what kind of house I have, each weeks schedule, my kids education, and what jobs I’ll consider. But it’s totally the main thing that we have to work on as humans.
- jamestimmins 6y ago
  Care to share more details? I'm very curious what this looks like in practice.
  - teatree 6y ago
    +1 to @jamestimmins' comment
- moralestapia 6y ago
  I'l piggyback on @jamestimmins' comment. Let us know more, I have similar issues and intentions to try to improve up the social fabric around my neighborhood.
aidenn0 6y ago
> Church goers regularly give up 10% of their (gross) income to be part of that Having seen the finances for several churches, I can say pretty confidently that most church-goers do not tithe 10%.
- mensetmanusman 6y ago
  True, http://gruberpeplab.com/teaching/psych131_fall2013/documents/15.1_Dunn2008_Spendingmoneyothers.pdf http://gruberpeplab.com/teaching/psych131_fall2013/documents... There are fascinating implications for those that are closer to 10% than the average tithe.
whatyesaid 6y ago
Beyond remote work, this will be an even bigger issue with automation in the future. I can't see university grads opting for 5 remote work days a week unless they've already got a big bubble. It's the people in their 40s with kids already who love fully remote work the most.
gfxgirl 6y ago
I would argue the issue is there are only so many people talented at this particular skill, "making a meet up that works" and so it doesn't scale. There are all kinds of issues. Setting an agenda. Getting people to follow the agenda. Fostering conversation. Finding venues. Getting the right mix of people. I've been to so many meetups where these kind of issues were not handled well. If you just want random people you can go to a bar. If you want "like" people it's much much harder.
- pharke 6y ago
  Victorian etiquette was on to this. You need social market makers who are skilled at knowing a lot of people, introducing them to each other, starting conversations based on common interests and butting out when no longer needed. Formalizing this process would help to some extent, technology could help with remembering names, interests, and whether people have been introduced. Somebody could build this, gamify it and make money all day long if they did it right.
  - baron816 6y ago
    I’ve been thinking for a while that this is needed too. This is a big role that priests play in communities. If I were to start something up, it would start with a clubhouse and probably two employees—one is an event organizer who plans parties and other special gatherings, and the second would be a host/hostess that is responsible for welcoming new members and ensuring they’re comfortable as they try to fit in. Maybe something like an “onboarding partner” would work too when you’re trying to scale.
    - kjaftaedi 6y ago
      The problem with any idea in this direction is that someone ends up having to deal with all of the toxic people, and in this market, there are a lot of them.
      - pharke 6y ago
        In my experience the toxicity you're talking about doesn't usually carry through to in person gatherings. Most people have at least some manners even if they are awkward and being in a group face to face adds social pressure to mind them. It's fairly rare that you see someone who is a complete boor since they are usually excluded from gatherings due to their behaviour. To make something like this work you'd need to leverage all of that cultural machinery that's already in place, networks of trust and reputation, consensus, expectations of politeness, etc. We still have all that social technology that's been built up over millennia, I think we're mostly just lacking the hubs around which we used to organize. Build the hub and people will provide the etiquette.
cblconfederate 6y ago
> with the rise of remote work, social disconnection is only going to rise No, it's going to drop. Think immigrants who can move from crowded cities back to their country or a place that feels more like home
- cocoa19 6y ago
  Immigrants won't give up their high salary in the developed world. Employers won't pay a first world salary while living in a low cost country.
  - cblconfederate 6y ago
    > won't pay a first world salary Do tech companies also charge less for their products in non-rich countries?
    - jason0597 6y ago
      > Do tech companies also charge less for their products in non-rich countries? Yes they do. They heavily adjust for PPP and local currencies
      - cblconfederate 6y ago
        can u give an example? e.g. adwords charges less depending on business location? or AWS ?
        imtringued 6y ago
        Steam has regional pricing. Here is a price chart for Cyberpunk 2077: https://steamdb.info/app/1091500/ https://steamdb.info/app/1091500/
        ValentineC 6y ago
        > can u give an example? Spotify, Netflix, YouTube Premium.
peruvian 6y ago
(Pre-covid of course) I think about this often, but then I go for a walk (or in other cities, a drive) and see packed bars and restaurants every night with people from all ages having a good time. Makes me feel like the problem is on me - people are obviously able to make friends and hang out without any special apps beyond what is available now.
- shoulderfake 6y ago
  Ya my thoughts exactly. People are definitely hanging out. The ones that aren't simply don't want to.
- pestatije 6y ago
  The ones that don't you don't see, that's why.
- freehunter 6y ago
  Pre-covid I went to bars a lot to hang out. Ranging from suburban “family dining” bars to downtown dive bars to hipster breweries, I’ve been a regular at a lot in the last 10-15 years. Most people at my bars come in with friends and really only talk to existing friends or friends of friends. Maybe/rarely the strangers directly next to them if they’re feeling extra social, but not much more than a bit of small talk. From the outside a bar looks like a great place to meet new people and make new friends but in my experience that’s just what it looks like and not how it is. The only new people I’ve met at bars are friends of friends, not random strangers. And when people are with their group of friends, it’s hard for a stranger to jump into that dynamic.
  - xenihn 6y ago
    Going to bars in other countries and/or frequenting bars that attract tourists is the solution to your problem. You'll have less inhibition when traveling, or at least I do. I would never start a conversation with a stranger in the US, but it just feels...easier when abroad?
  - Leherenn 6y ago
    Yeah, it's pretty tough, especially the older you get. You need to find people that are also looking for friends, it makes it much easier. A good opportunity is to look for language exchange or expats groups, local people are always very welcome in my experience since they are rare.
tedjdziuba 6y ago
> Church goers regularly give up 10% of their (gross) income to be part of that group. We sorted out the tithe issue a while ago. Heads rolled. You can show up to any Christian church on a Sunday morning and be welcomed with open arms, no matter how rich or poor you are.
ilaksh 6y ago
I think that people will be surprised in the near future how realistic (and similar to in-person) VR and AR interactions will be. Especially with eye tracking that will enable virtually looking the other people in the eyes. Think about as optical waveguide technology becomes more affordable enabling very lightweight comfortable headsets that actually are close to normal glasses in comfort. Combined with pose detection from cameras with fast AI. Things like VR Chat are already pretty good. And actually I think the potential to create perfectly tailored 3d workspaces in VR could make those spaces preferred in some cases over real ones. To me the biggest issue is the size and comfort of the headsets and new technologies are coming to mass deployment in the next couple of years to address that.
- teatree 6y ago
  Just like porn is not real sex, VR / AR is a long way from making in person friends and acquaintances.
dkulchenko 6y ago
Agreed. Why is there no Tinder/online dating equivalent for making new friends locally? Instead of dating-specific qualifiers, it'd ask for your interests, hobbies, values, age and other demos, then match you based on overlap. Not Meetup - it's not quite solving the same problem, and so it solves things differently (focusing on shared interests and on discrete meetup events).
- albntomat0 6y ago
  Bumble has both a friends and business section. I've never used either, but I feel it likely suffers from "The problem with Tinder is that everyone on it thinks Tinder is a good idea" issue.
- godtoldmetodoit 6y ago
  My wife met one of her best friends on Bumble BFF - it's the dating app but for friends.
- dpeck 6y ago
  Because every time someone builds this it turns into a dating (charitably) app. If there is a way to find sexual partners in a medium, people will do so.
  - tomjen3 6y ago
    Now I wonder how many people have hooked up via HN.
    - dpeck 6y ago
      Sample size would pretty much guarantee more than 0
- baskire 6y ago
  There is. Try bumble BFF. https://bumble.com/bff https://bumble.com/bff
- yoyonamite 6y ago
illiilliiililil 6y ago
I wonder if Antifa is one such organization, just a dystopian one, a confederacy of angst.
nimski 6y ago
It is possible to build technical solutions that take the work and luck out of social organization by shouldering the heavy lifting, but then get out of the way once people meet IRL. The best tool for this right now is calendar and email. There's a lot of room for improvement. Please PM me if you're interested in a deeper discussion. I've thought a bit about what this tool might look like and how to get it off the ground.
- morenoh149 6y ago
  How can we PM you? Also, PM me if you're working on this problem (to anyone reading this :)).
  - moralestapia 6y ago
    You can both send me an email (see profile), this is something that gets me very excited as well!
Wump 6y ago
Absolutely agree. I've been reading a lot about this recently, recommend: Lost Connections by Johann Hari The Great Good Place by Ray Oldenburg Better Together by Robert Putnam
trianglem 6y ago
Yeah I think we’re slowly coming around to it again. It’s time we bought back the men’s clubs and women’s clubs. Fantastic places to find mentors.
0xBABAD00C 6y ago
I am working on an idea in this space. Anyone interested can ping me (contacts in profile), it's in early stealth mode but it is targeting exactly this problem.
rainpain 6y ago
I've been living in the USA for a year and I don't think I will ever get over this odd 'spaced out' way of living. I see 3 lane roads that would work so much better as a mixed tram/bicycle lane. Crossing roads is also terrifying. Nix the thought of walking to do the following activities: - fetching a missing ingredient from a local shop/store that would take 25min round trip and benefit you with additional exercise. - spending an evening going between bars being mildly intoxicated but not requiring a taxi.
- rendall 6y ago
  Depends on where you live. Towns and cities with a vibrant downtown exist, from Carmel, California to New York, NY Bedroom communities established during the mid century tend not to have those. My experience with those have been Fairfax County, VA; Fayetteville, Arkansas; and the suburbs around Sarasota, Florida. These are places that if you walk or bike around or take a bus, people seem to assume you are poor or a servant
healsdata 6y ago
> Humans have a long history of dishing out lots of money to be parts of strong communities too I think this is the reason Crossfit got so popular. People could go every day, see the same people, compete against them, etc. Definitely more expensive than a regular gym but offered more than just renting time on equipment.
EricMausler 6y ago
I think a lot of this does exist, it just isn't formalized. In person socialization happens at a public place. If you go to the same public place the same time each week, odds are you'll find yourself as part of a casual community after a few months. Coffee shops are great for this. Game shops as well
bartligthart 6y ago
In the Netherlands we have something like 'Verenigingsleven', loosely translated to club life. At the end of 19th century workers got better working hours. In the hours after work they set up clubs for everything you can think of. Sports, rabbit breeding clubs, pigeon clubs, shooting clubs etc. Tot this day it's still a thing, and it's in the canon of the Netherlands. https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=nl&tl=en&u=https://www.canonvannederland.nl/nl/page/32646/verenigingsleven https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=nl&tl=en&u=https:/...
dayvid 6y ago
Meetup’s been doing a good job at this for some time. I’ve made friends and I’ve known people who have made lifelong friends from it. I think it’s hard to build a community around people who just want one, and it’s more effective if it’s based around a starting ground of an interest and better yet shared values.
slothtrop 6y ago
I believe this will be more important as the nature of work changes. In the short run, owing to more remote work as you say, and in the long-run, owing to jobs themselves being increasingly automated away. Irl organizations surrounding particular interests do materialize as extensions of online enthusiasm (we see this for meetup groups) but this is still insufficient. What's missing is accessible infrastructure to facilitate new connections. For instance, there are today collaborative workspaces and makerspaces (or even University grounds): these can be a good spatial medium for meeting like-minded people. However, the cost of renting is a deterrent. So, that can be addressed in a myriad of ways. As a remote worker, prior to COVID, I'd periodically hit the coffee shops but this did not appear to be an appropriate medium for engaging others. We are going about things backwards, because it was all we could do: create organizations surrounding particular subjects, then have people join in. In many cases people are surfing around these groups as a means to an end, they don't care the slightest about the subject but they need it as a medium to connect with others. Not only is this contrived, it can lead to friction between individuals who want to focus on the subject and others who want to go on tangents away from it. This problem disappears if you simply have a space where people can choose to mingle or focus on their projects. Historically, physical spaces like this were always important large communities. Now our socially acceptable avenues for engaging others we don't know include very loud pubs, just barely, sports complexes and the like.
- ValentineC 6y ago
  > We are going about things backwards, because it was all we could do: create organizations surrounding particular subjects, then have people join in. In many cases people are surfing around these groups as a means to an end, they don't care the slightest about the subject but they need it as a medium to connect with others. As a long-time member of a hackerspace, I've always envisioned it as a "church" (of sorts) for tech. I feel like I've learnt quite a bit from just immersing myself in the place, and having conversations with people from various disciplines. Unfortunately, we're always struggling to make rent. It's a pity that the concept doesn't seem to work well in high-rent areas — many people view use of such spaces as a transaction, and won't contribute financially if it's just like any other office or co-working space.
analyte123 6y ago
"Working on" in-person social organizations (particularly starting new ones or restoring deteriorated ones) seems to require a good amount of personal charisma, ambition, social skills, organizational ability, and not desiring to simply make as much money as possible, plus a long-term focus on community health and success over your own personal gain. People with the first set of skills can make a lot of money in the marketplace. If you make a social organization instead of a unicorn, your "exit" would be being loved and respected, along with having your own friends and family growing up in a good community that maybe, eventually increases everyone's collective financial value instead of just your own.
AudaciousCo 6y ago
The UK appointed a Minister of Loneliness in 2018. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/minister-loneliness-appointed-united-kingdom-180967883/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/minister-lonelines... The reality is the changing social dynamics of a population spending increasing amount of time on the internet and less inclined to do things in-person, amplified by people choosing to have 'busier' lives, is the direction we are currently heading in. We need top down (govt) and bottom up (community) efforts to start real change that can gain momentum (network effects for the founder inclined). Working on experiments to chip away at this from the bottom up .
lc9er 6y ago
Whole social clubs may have been on the decline for decades, there’s been a pretty big growth in group fitness. CrossFit has been huge for over a decade and BJJ had really begun to explode, prior to Covid. I hit my two-year mark in jiu jitsu, right before the pandemic. While I still maintain contact with a few members, I really miss the camaraderie. I have no interest in returning to my office for work, but the moment it’s safe for me and my family, I’ll be restarting BJJ. And possibly reforming dormant bands I’ve played in.
akouri 6y ago
I was surprised at how many "dating apps" there are that are simply focused on showing people pictures and expecting that simply seeing a picture of someone is going to be a strong enough signal to filter out who is and isn't a viable candidate for dating. It's a tired argument to say it's superficial and shallow, but there are tons of people still doing dating apps like Tinder, Hinge, Bumble, etc. If you think about it more, I think this is a statement on just how much demand is out there [to meet new prospects] to put up with such a miserable experience. When I tried using these apps, I found myself trying to reverse engineer the algorithm to figure out exactly how it was ranking me and how to optimize my match rates. Most of it comes down to picture quality and your looks in those pictures. I learned this by running my own A-B tests using different pictures, but unfortunately the apps don't really give any stats on which pictures on your profile are and are not performing. This gave me an idea to create an app to do just this. I called it Cupid's Critics, and you could upload candidate pictures and get people of a certain demographic to vote on them and collect statistics before pushing them live. What I realized is that this is a band-aid to a broken system. I think a new system is needed entirely, which is why I am now trying to figure out how to make group dinner party dating scale. If anybody is interested in building it out with me, please send me a DM. If you're interested in an invite/signing up for a group date, please fill out this survey: https://kadray.typeform.com/to/VmhktNHD https://kadray.typeform.com/to/VmhktNHD
chkaloon 6y ago
Decline of churches is one aspect. Society is becoming more secular, and there is nothing replacing those weekly religious services. There are no replacement "myths" that groups can cohere around.
seesawtron 6y ago
Wait, aren't all social media platforms with their rooms and groups not promoting the idea of finding like minded strong communities? Sure its all digital and sometimes it leads to events happening in real. The "moderators" in these groups take their positions a bit too seriously sometimes.
LdSGSgvupDV 6y ago
If you don't mind the virtualized social organizations, MMORPG or VRChat or Streaming are good places to get connection.
tonymet 6y ago
Look up fraternal orders like Kiwanis , Rotary Club, Elks Lodge , Free Masons etc

tenebrisalietum 6y ago

Basically a social network app, with calendar events, and without the ability to post (because interaction has to be done IRL)?

seneca 6y ago

This is essentially what the book Bowling Alone is about. It's worth reading, along with the writer's other research.

offtop5 6y ago
I can also suggest Lost Connections. Last year I did everything I could, to go to tons of concerts, meet up groups, and alumni events. I had a very successful year in terms of meeting new friends, finding high income partners , and generally loving my life. I've long been disillusioned with social media, and I completely blame it for destroying a generation of mental health. You need to make friends, and you need to go back to the old fashioned way of having light-hearted discussions. Versus nasty arguments on social media. I had to stop using Reddit for the most part, since no matter what I said people would attack it in some way shape or form. Even something as mundane as I find Java to be difficult, turned into a personal attack on my abilities as a programmer. Tons of people are obviously angry for whatever reason, and you feeding into their anger isn't going to help anyone. I went to tons of meetups, and even though and all of these cases I was a complete stranger I was never insulted or made to feel unwelcomed. There's community out there you just need to seek it out.
- jason0597 6y ago
  > I had to stop using Reddit for the most part, since no matter what I said people would attack it in some way shape or form. > [...] even though and all of these cases I was a complete stranger I was never insulted or made to feel unwelcomed. My feeling is that once people no longer have a keyboard and monitor with which to "hide", they no longer have the ability to hurl insults at other people spontaneously and without being reprimanded for it (if anything they might get juicy upvotes). The reason I put "hide" in quotes is because people don't act this way consciously. No one wants to throw personal attacks at other people for simply expressing a different opinion. In fact, I regularly read stories of politicians who were arch rivals politically but would still foster good friendships with one another. Another good example is the relationships the judges have in the US Supreme court. I have trouble believing that the judges would be able to form similar friendships with one another if they did that online through soulless text boxes, rather than face-to-face contact. The anonymity provided online enables this subconscious switch in people's minds that allows them to do things they would never do face-to-face. And I want to add that it's not really the anonymity (though that does amplify this effect), it's the lack of seeing the other people. Posting online with your full name (e.g. Twitter) can still enable these subconscious switches simply by virtue of giving you the illusion of not talking to people because you can't see them. In the end, all the people responding to you are text boxes, not humans with feelings and emotions. Seeing somebody face-to-face just cannot compete with online connections. The way you see what you say form an expression on somebody else's faces, or the way that looking into somebody's eyes somehow forms this inexplicable connection (I remember reading about how studies were done on the brain that noticed hormones being released when people looked into each other's eyes... not sure where to look for that now), or how you can listen to their voice tones change as they talk allowing you to subconsciously gain more understanding of what they feel as they express something. It's... just not the same. --- There was this article I remember reading a couple of years ago an article that delved into what guaranteed anonymity does to people. It was very interesting, I highly recommend it: https://gawker.com/5950981/unmasking-reddits-violentacrez-the-biggest-troll-on-the-web https://gawker.com/5950981/unmasking-reddits-violentacrez-th...
  - ValentineC 6y ago
randycupertino 6y ago
I've had Bowling Alone in my to-read Queue, however I think it might be way too depressing to read it in the middle of quarantine shelter-in-place! Would only emphasize the current dire straights!

uncomputation 6y ago

If I see one more app to cure loneliness... It seems techy people have difficulty accepting non-techy solutions

Kluny 6y ago
I didn't see anything about an app in the op's comment... I started thinking about how to create a social hub where you can just go and exist. Like men's clubs that used to exist, but without the sexism and classism. A clubhouse where you pay some kind of membership fee and you get unlimited access to books, movies, a lounge, a bar, a few games leagues, some mild gambling, etc. Being a queer woman with a disability, I would start by making such a place explicitly inclusive to people like me.
- ValentineC 6y ago
  This sounds a bit like a hackerspace. The bar and gambling would depend on local laws. Does this sound like something for you? https://doubleunion.org/ https://doubleunion.org/
  - Kluny 6y ago
    For sure, though San Francisco is a bit far from me! :)
    - ValentineC 6y ago
      Try one of these, maybe: https://wiki.hackerspaces.org/British_Columbia https://wiki.hackerspaces.org/British_Columbia It's a bit unfortunate that most of them might have shut down (either temporarily or permanently) due to COVID-19, but I hope you'll find what you're looking for!
- trianglem 6y ago
  I think being explicitly a male club is extremely important for something like this to be appealing. Otherwise it’s just a meetup or bar visit. I don’t ever think it should be race specific/racist but I do support “elitist” requirements to get in.

InvisibleUp 6y ago

I think a large part of this (in the USA, anyways) is due to how modern cities are structured. It used to be, 100 or 200 years ago, that your workplace, your home, and your usual hang-out place were all within reasonable walking distance of each other. It wasn't a huge deal to go out and meet new people, as you'd naturally bump into them every day. Nowadays we have a large portion of people in bedroom communities, isolated in a sea of houses. They drive in isolated cars to their workplaces, swing by to get some Starbucks on the way in, and that's the extent of their social interaction. Apart from libraries and parks, there's not many places that you can regularly go and just "hang out" without spending money just to exist in that space. It's incredibly easy to go for weeks or months without any substantial social contact outside of work or your few neighbors. I feel like this is a reason why internet organizations and social media have exploded in popularity, for that matter. It's the new "default place" to hang out and get social interaction, for better or for worse. (I expanded on this in an article I wrote, https://invisibleup.com/articles/31/ https://invisibleup.com/articles/31/, if you want to check that out.)

cpursley 6y ago
This 110%. It's especially obvious after moving out of the US and it's hard to convey how much better cities built for humans are than cities built for cars than by experiencing it for yourself.
- xwdv 6y ago
  Yea so great, until you are struck by a pandemic and your minimalist home is basically now a prison cell where you can't do much because everything there is to do was outside your tiny home. Now I know people shitting on suburbs is the fashion, but the fact is if you are the kind of person who has hobbies that don't involve going out and socializing a bedroom community is perfect. You get your own land and a detached home with plenty of space to do mostly whatever you want. Woodwork, swimming in a pool, running around with your dog, playing loud music and movies, hosting dinner parties, whatever. It's so much more comfortable for people who don't have urges to just "hang out".
  - 6y ago

geofft 6y ago

Meetup is kind of this. There were also a handful of these in the early-2010s wacky startup boom - I remember some acquaintances discussing Grouper, a startup that organized 6-person social outings. I guess one distinction between those and your examples of country clubs, fraternities, and churches is that the latter are long-lasting institutions: you find a group of people, potentially spend an extended period of time interacting with them without commitment, and then you become a "member," which carries informal commitment. (In the case of cults there's formal/irrevocable commitment, but for the rest, you're free to leave, there's just a social norm that you don't do so casually.) The flip side is that a lot of people have either first-hand bad experiences at such organizations or know people who have, and committing to an organization that turns out to be mentally draining (even if not abusive per se) is a worry. So maybe if you want to add some sort of structure on top, find a way to manage that risk. Certainly one step is to not accept as customers/members people who make your organization less fun to join, and be very up front about that. But beyond that, there might be ways to demonstrate to newcomers that the existing members are good people, or to support the organization in establishing social norms that discourage bad experiences, or possibly even figuring out what sorts of things toxic people tend to latch onto and designing your society in a way that lacks those. (One other danger here is that the easy way to provide some of these benefits, like better career opportunities, is to be exclusionary and offer your members favorable treatment from each other and unfairly treating those outside the organization in a correspondingly unfavorable way. Country clubs, fraternities, and churches all have a reputation of helping the rich and powerful remain rich and powerful. It's possible to provide the benefits in a non-zero-sum way, by actually using the connections to make your members better people, but it's harder.)

sjg007 6y ago

Meetup.com doesn’t solve this? I ask cause I work remote and meetups are basically what I used pre-pandemic.

baron816 6y ago
I’ve been the lead organizer of a largish group with a couple hundred very active members. But getting to that point was quite a challenge that was made harder by Meetup. The group still ended up falling apart. The Meetup platform is pretty terrible. It’s designed to get people to join many groups, most of which they never engage with and just get a lot of spam from. I’m sure >99.99% of pre-pandemic “social” Meetup groups were totally inactive. Most of the rest would have semi-regular events that <4 people would sign up for. That said, I think there’s a lot room to build a better version of Meetup.com. The main problem with it is that the managers just don’t know what they’re doing, or are in too deep with tech debt and legacy code. If someone here actually wants to build a better version of Meetup, let me know.
- crooked-v 6y ago
  I think one key to a better Meetup would be to solve the no-show problem. From what I understand this is the greatest issue that large-group organizing has on the platform, to the point that I've seen people regularly write sassy rants on event posts to guilt people into accurately updating whether they're showing up or not.
  - DeafSquid 6y ago
    I think part of fixing the problem of no-shows would be to not let members see who/how many people have said that they're going. If 25 people say they're going to show up, then it's not a big deal if I don't, right? Until half the people have the same idea. There will be more perceived social pressure to keep that commitment if people don't think they're just going to get lost in a crowd.
    - freehunter 6y ago

mertd 6y ago

The closest we have come to this type of experience in the online space was IRC.

rubidium 6y ago

Agreed. I’ve set up my life to foster and form in person social interactions (and organizations to the extent that they help) in my neighborhood. It’s affected where I live, what kind of house I have, each weeks schedule, my kids education, and what jobs I’ll consider. But it’s totally the main thing that we have to work on as humans.

jamestimmins 6y ago
Care to share more details? I'm very curious what this looks like in practice.
- teatree 6y ago
  +1 to @jamestimmins' comment
moralestapia 6y ago
I'l piggyback on @jamestimmins' comment. Let us know more, I have similar issues and intentions to try to improve up the social fabric around my neighborhood.

aidenn0 6y ago

> Church goers regularly give up 10% of their (gross) income to be part of that Having seen the finances for several churches, I can say pretty confidently that most church-goers do not tithe 10%.

mensetmanusman 6y ago
True, http://gruberpeplab.com/teaching/psych131_fall2013/documents/15.1_Dunn2008_Spendingmoneyothers.pdf http://gruberpeplab.com/teaching/psych131_fall2013/documents... There are fascinating implications for those that are closer to 10% than the average tithe.

whatyesaid 6y ago

Beyond remote work, this will be an even bigger issue with automation in the future. I can't see university grads opting for 5 remote work days a week unless they've already got a big bubble. It's the people in their 40s with kids already who love fully remote work the most.

gfxgirl 6y ago

I would argue the issue is there are only so many people talented at this particular skill, "making a meet up that works" and so it doesn't scale. There are all kinds of issues. Setting an agenda. Getting people to follow the agenda. Fostering conversation. Finding venues. Getting the right mix of people. I've been to so many meetups where these kind of issues were not handled well. If you just want random people you can go to a bar. If you want "like" people it's much much harder.

pharke 6y ago
Victorian etiquette was on to this. You need social market makers who are skilled at knowing a lot of people, introducing them to each other, starting conversations based on common interests and butting out when no longer needed. Formalizing this process would help to some extent, technology could help with remembering names, interests, and whether people have been introduced. Somebody could build this, gamify it and make money all day long if they did it right.
- baron816 6y ago
  I’ve been thinking for a while that this is needed too. This is a big role that priests play in communities. If I were to start something up, it would start with a clubhouse and probably two employees—one is an event organizer who plans parties and other special gatherings, and the second would be a host/hostess that is responsible for welcoming new members and ensuring they’re comfortable as they try to fit in. Maybe something like an “onboarding partner” would work too when you’re trying to scale.
  - kjaftaedi 6y ago
    The problem with any idea in this direction is that someone ends up having to deal with all of the toxic people, and in this market, there are a lot of them.
    - pharke 6y ago
      In my experience the toxicity you're talking about doesn't usually carry through to in person gatherings. Most people have at least some manners even if they are awkward and being in a group face to face adds social pressure to mind them. It's fairly rare that you see someone who is a complete boor since they are usually excluded from gatherings due to their behaviour. To make something like this work you'd need to leverage all of that cultural machinery that's already in place, networks of trust and reputation, consensus, expectations of politeness, etc. We still have all that social technology that's been built up over millennia, I think we're mostly just lacking the hubs around which we used to organize. Build the hub and people will provide the etiquette.

cblconfederate 6y ago

> with the rise of remote work, social disconnection is only going to rise No, it's going to drop. Think immigrants who can move from crowded cities back to their country or a place that feels more like home

cocoa19 6y ago
Immigrants won't give up their high salary in the developed world. Employers won't pay a first world salary while living in a low cost country.
- cblconfederate 6y ago
  > won't pay a first world salary Do tech companies also charge less for their products in non-rich countries?
  - jason0597 6y ago
    > Do tech companies also charge less for their products in non-rich countries? Yes they do. They heavily adjust for PPP and local currencies
    - cblconfederate 6y ago
      can u give an example? e.g. adwords charges less depending on business location? or AWS ?
      - imtringued 6y ago
        Steam has regional pricing. Here is a price chart for Cyberpunk 2077: https://steamdb.info/app/1091500/ https://steamdb.info/app/1091500/
      - ValentineC 6y ago
        > can u give an example? Spotify, Netflix, YouTube Premium.

peruvian 6y ago

(Pre-covid of course) I think about this often, but then I go for a walk (or in other cities, a drive) and see packed bars and restaurants every night with people from all ages having a good time. Makes me feel like the problem is on me - people are obviously able to make friends and hang out without any special apps beyond what is available now.

shoulderfake 6y ago
Ya my thoughts exactly. People are definitely hanging out. The ones that aren't simply don't want to.
pestatije 6y ago
The ones that don't you don't see, that's why.
freehunter 6y ago
Pre-covid I went to bars a lot to hang out. Ranging from suburban “family dining” bars to downtown dive bars to hipster breweries, I’ve been a regular at a lot in the last 10-15 years. Most people at my bars come in with friends and really only talk to existing friends or friends of friends. Maybe/rarely the strangers directly next to them if they’re feeling extra social, but not much more than a bit of small talk. From the outside a bar looks like a great place to meet new people and make new friends but in my experience that’s just what it looks like and not how it is. The only new people I’ve met at bars are friends of friends, not random strangers. And when people are with their group of friends, it’s hard for a stranger to jump into that dynamic.
- xenihn 6y ago
  Going to bars in other countries and/or frequenting bars that attract tourists is the solution to your problem. You'll have less inhibition when traveling, or at least I do. I would never start a conversation with a stranger in the US, but it just feels...easier when abroad?
- Leherenn 6y ago
  Yeah, it's pretty tough, especially the older you get. You need to find people that are also looking for friends, it makes it much easier. A good opportunity is to look for language exchange or expats groups, local people are always very welcome in my experience since they are rare.

tedjdziuba 6y ago

> Church goers regularly give up 10% of their (gross) income to be part of that group. We sorted out the tithe issue a while ago. Heads rolled. You can show up to any Christian church on a Sunday morning and be welcomed with open arms, no matter how rich or poor you are.

ilaksh 6y ago

I think that people will be surprised in the near future how realistic (and similar to in-person) VR and AR interactions will be. Especially with eye tracking that will enable virtually looking the other people in the eyes. Think about as optical waveguide technology becomes more affordable enabling very lightweight comfortable headsets that actually are close to normal glasses in comfort. Combined with pose detection from cameras with fast AI. Things like VR Chat are already pretty good. And actually I think the potential to create perfectly tailored 3d workspaces in VR could make those spaces preferred in some cases over real ones. To me the biggest issue is the size and comfort of the headsets and new technologies are coming to mass deployment in the next couple of years to address that.

teatree 6y ago
Just like porn is not real sex, VR / AR is a long way from making in person friends and acquaintances.

dkulchenko 6y ago

Agreed. Why is there no Tinder/online dating equivalent for making new friends locally? Instead of dating-specific qualifiers, it'd ask for your interests, hobbies, values, age and other demos, then match you based on overlap. Not Meetup - it's not quite solving the same problem, and so it solves things differently (focusing on shared interests and on discrete meetup events).

albntomat0 6y ago
Bumble has both a friends and business section. I've never used either, but I feel it likely suffers from "The problem with Tinder is that everyone on it thinks Tinder is a good idea" issue.
godtoldmetodoit 6y ago
My wife met one of her best friends on Bumble BFF - it's the dating app but for friends.
dpeck 6y ago
Because every time someone builds this it turns into a dating (charitably) app. If there is a way to find sexual partners in a medium, people will do so.
- tomjen3 6y ago
  Now I wonder how many people have hooked up via HN.
  - dpeck 6y ago
    Sample size would pretty much guarantee more than 0
baskire 6y ago
There is. Try bumble BFF. https://bumble.com/bff https://bumble.com/bff
yoyonamite 6y ago

illiilliiililil 6y ago

I wonder if Antifa is one such organization, just a dystopian one, a confederacy of angst.

nimski 6y ago

It is possible to build technical solutions that take the work and luck out of social organization by shouldering the heavy lifting, but then get out of the way once people meet IRL. The best tool for this right now is calendar and email. There's a lot of room for improvement. Please PM me if you're interested in a deeper discussion. I've thought a bit about what this tool might look like and how to get it off the ground.

morenoh149 6y ago
How can we PM you? Also, PM me if you're working on this problem (to anyone reading this :)).
- moralestapia 6y ago
  You can both send me an email (see profile), this is something that gets me very excited as well!

Wump 6y ago

Absolutely agree. I've been reading a lot about this recently, recommend: Lost Connections by Johann Hari The Great Good Place by Ray Oldenburg Better Together by Robert Putnam

trianglem 6y ago

Yeah I think we’re slowly coming around to it again. It’s time we bought back the men’s clubs and women’s clubs. Fantastic places to find mentors.

0xBABAD00C 6y ago

I am working on an idea in this space. Anyone interested can ping me (contacts in profile), it's in early stealth mode but it is targeting exactly this problem.

rainpain 6y ago

I've been living in the USA for a year and I don't think I will ever get over this odd 'spaced out' way of living. I see 3 lane roads that would work so much better as a mixed tram/bicycle lane. Crossing roads is also terrifying. Nix the thought of walking to do the following activities: - fetching a missing ingredient from a local shop/store that would take 25min round trip and benefit you with additional exercise. - spending an evening going between bars being mildly intoxicated but not requiring a taxi.

rendall 6y ago
Depends on where you live. Towns and cities with a vibrant downtown exist, from Carmel, California to New York, NY Bedroom communities established during the mid century tend not to have those. My experience with those have been Fairfax County, VA; Fayetteville, Arkansas; and the suburbs around Sarasota, Florida. These are places that if you walk or bike around or take a bus, people seem to assume you are poor or a servant

healsdata 6y ago

> Humans have a long history of dishing out lots of money to be parts of strong communities too I think this is the reason Crossfit got so popular. People could go every day, see the same people, compete against them, etc. Definitely more expensive than a regular gym but offered more than just renting time on equipment.

EricMausler 6y ago

I think a lot of this does exist, it just isn't formalized. In person socialization happens at a public place. If you go to the same public place the same time each week, odds are you'll find yourself as part of a casual community after a few months. Coffee shops are great for this. Game shops as well

bartligthart 6y ago

In the Netherlands we have something like 'Verenigingsleven', loosely translated to club life. At the end of 19th century workers got better working hours. In the hours after work they set up clubs for everything you can think of. Sports, rabbit breeding clubs, pigeon clubs, shooting clubs etc. Tot this day it's still a thing, and it's in the canon of the Netherlands. https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=nl&tl=en&u=https://www.canonvannederland.nl/nl/page/32646/verenigingsleven https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=nl&tl=en&u=https:/...

dayvid 6y ago

Meetup’s been doing a good job at this for some time. I’ve made friends and I’ve known people who have made lifelong friends from it. I think it’s hard to build a community around people who just want one, and it’s more effective if it’s based around a starting ground of an interest and better yet shared values.

slothtrop 6y ago

I believe this will be more important as the nature of work changes. In the short run, owing to more remote work as you say, and in the long-run, owing to jobs themselves being increasingly automated away. Irl organizations surrounding particular interests do materialize as extensions of online enthusiasm (we see this for meetup groups) but this is still insufficient. What's missing is accessible infrastructure to facilitate new connections. For instance, there are today collaborative workspaces and makerspaces (or even University grounds): these can be a good spatial medium for meeting like-minded people. However, the cost of renting is a deterrent. So, that can be addressed in a myriad of ways. As a remote worker, prior to COVID, I'd periodically hit the coffee shops but this did not appear to be an appropriate medium for engaging others. We are going about things backwards, because it was all we could do: create organizations surrounding particular subjects, then have people join in. In many cases people are surfing around these groups as a means to an end, they don't care the slightest about the subject but they need it as a medium to connect with others. Not only is this contrived, it can lead to friction between individuals who want to focus on the subject and others who want to go on tangents away from it. This problem disappears if you simply have a space where people can choose to mingle or focus on their projects. Historically, physical spaces like this were always important large communities. Now our socially acceptable avenues for engaging others we don't know include very loud pubs, just barely, sports complexes and the like.

ValentineC 6y ago
> We are going about things backwards, because it was all we could do: create organizations surrounding particular subjects, then have people join in. In many cases people are surfing around these groups as a means to an end, they don't care the slightest about the subject but they need it as a medium to connect with others. As a long-time member of a hackerspace, I've always envisioned it as a "church" (of sorts) for tech. I feel like I've learnt quite a bit from just immersing myself in the place, and having conversations with people from various disciplines. Unfortunately, we're always struggling to make rent. It's a pity that the concept doesn't seem to work well in high-rent areas — many people view use of such spaces as a transaction, and won't contribute financially if it's just like any other office or co-working space.

analyte123 6y ago

"Working on" in-person social organizations (particularly starting new ones or restoring deteriorated ones) seems to require a good amount of personal charisma, ambition, social skills, organizational ability, and not desiring to simply make as much money as possible, plus a long-term focus on community health and success over your own personal gain. People with the first set of skills can make a lot of money in the marketplace. If you make a social organization instead of a unicorn, your "exit" would be being loved and respected, along with having your own friends and family growing up in a good community that maybe, eventually increases everyone's collective financial value instead of just your own.

AudaciousCo 6y ago

The UK appointed a Minister of Loneliness in 2018. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/minister-loneliness-appointed-united-kingdom-180967883/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/minister-lonelines... The reality is the changing social dynamics of a population spending increasing amount of time on the internet and less inclined to do things in-person, amplified by people choosing to have 'busier' lives, is the direction we are currently heading in. We need top down (govt) and bottom up (community) efforts to start real change that can gain momentum (network effects for the founder inclined). Working on experiments to chip away at this from the bottom up .

lc9er 6y ago

Whole social clubs may have been on the decline for decades, there’s been a pretty big growth in group fitness. CrossFit has been huge for over a decade and BJJ had really begun to explode, prior to Covid. I hit my two-year mark in jiu jitsu, right before the pandemic. While I still maintain contact with a few members, I really miss the camaraderie. I have no interest in returning to my office for work, but the moment it’s safe for me and my family, I’ll be restarting BJJ. And possibly reforming dormant bands I’ve played in.

akouri 6y ago

I was surprised at how many "dating apps" there are that are simply focused on showing people pictures and expecting that simply seeing a picture of someone is going to be a strong enough signal to filter out who is and isn't a viable candidate for dating. It's a tired argument to say it's superficial and shallow, but there are tons of people still doing dating apps like Tinder, Hinge, Bumble, etc. If you think about it more, I think this is a statement on just how much demand is out there [to meet new prospects] to put up with such a miserable experience. When I tried using these apps, I found myself trying to reverse engineer the algorithm to figure out exactly how it was ranking me and how to optimize my match rates. Most of it comes down to picture quality and your looks in those pictures. I learned this by running my own A-B tests using different pictures, but unfortunately the apps don't really give any stats on which pictures on your profile are and are not performing. This gave me an idea to create an app to do just this. I called it Cupid's Critics, and you could upload candidate pictures and get people of a certain demographic to vote on them and collect statistics before pushing them live. What I realized is that this is a band-aid to a broken system. I think a new system is needed entirely, which is why I am now trying to figure out how to make group dinner party dating scale. If anybody is interested in building it out with me, please send me a DM. If you're interested in an invite/signing up for a group date, please fill out this survey: https://kadray.typeform.com/to/VmhktNHD https://kadray.typeform.com/to/VmhktNHD

chkaloon 6y ago

Decline of churches is one aspect. Society is becoming more secular, and there is nothing replacing those weekly religious services. There are no replacement "myths" that groups can cohere around.

seesawtron 6y ago

Wait, aren't all social media platforms with their rooms and groups not promoting the idea of finding like minded strong communities? Sure its all digital and sometimes it leads to events happening in real. The "moderators" in these groups take their positions a bit too seriously sometimes.

LdSGSgvupDV 6y ago

If you don't mind the virtualized social organizations, MMORPG or VRChat or Streaming are good places to get connection.

tonymet 6y ago

Look up fraternal orders like Kiwanis , Rotary Club, Elks Lodge , Free Masons etc