25 ms·

I made a website for lonely people, and got >100 people to log their locations

216 points by bubblic 4y ago

bubblic 4y ago
The idea is that knowing there are lonely people out there can help you cope with loneliness a little. This is a minimum "viral" product for my upcoming project that allows meaningful connections between anonymous people using audio. With such fantastic response, I think I got a form of validation that there is a market demand for connecting the lonely souls.
- low_tech_love 4y ago
  One thing that always bothered me is how much wasted potential there is in tools like Omegle or chatRoulette. On paper they sound amazing, and a few years ago back when they started and not everyone was aware, I remember having two or three amazing (and entirely SFW) interactions with some random people from around the world. It was genuinely exciting in a super legit way. And then, yeah. It turned into what it is today. I wonder if there is any way to ever do it right.
  - bubblic 4y ago
    I totally feel you. There is magic in connecting people from all over the world with the power of the internet, but it gets ruined by the few who spam and abuse the platform. I hope to prevent this by not offering any vanity feature right now (no pictures or cam) and by making it super open, instead of a 1:1 chat. The holy grail would be to put this behind a paywall and only those who need this service the most would pay to use it, guaranteeing some standard of behavior
  - sameers 4y ago
    I think you need some moderation technique for any community - mores are not inherent in a society, they are formed through dialogue and enforcement. Digital communities are not immune to this dynamic. The digital tools could help you enforce rules more efficiently but someone still has to formulate the rules and adjudicate tricky situations. The good thing is that the prior experience of lesser-known and more-famous online communities/media outlets has given the next entrant in this space plenty of accumulated wisdom to capitalize on. Paywalls are part of the solution but they can't be the only one because there's always the tradeoff there between making the cost high enough to weed out the majority of bots and fly-by-night spammers, but also low enough that it's not a significant barrier to entry for community growth.
    - bubblic 4y ago
      You get me. I am torn between releasing cool features to help people feel connected and holding them back until I have established some sort of code of conduct. Move fast and break things along the way, or try to do it right, especially when the people on the platform would bias towards the vulnerable ones. The engagement I am seeing right now feels magical, and I am afraid if I don't move fast enough, people would lose interest and not come back.
      - sdenton4 4y ago
        Simple up/down thumb feedback and some graph theory... See if you can find large components of positive interaction, and only connect the people who get more than a couple down-thumbs to each other. And maybe a 'did this person show you their penis?' feedback toggle for good measure.
        bubblic 4y ago
        haha, that last category is a must in any social platform where you can show pic/vid or draw something!
      - sameers 4y ago
        People WILL lose interest and not re-engage - that's the default state for any social network. You have to figure out why they would come back - is it to re-connect with someone they spoke to, or to read some new content on the site, or to express again how they are feeling? And how do you make this all easy through the features you build? You can start with some basic Code of Conduct that let's say Github, Reddit or Twitter uses - no need to reinvent the wheel. Then you can modify it as time goes to suit what's working or not for your community. If you have a good model for iterative improvement that puts the user in the loop somehow, it'll be reflected in your engagement stats.
  - mLuby 4y ago
    Using Call of Duty (a military game) with voice chat was oddly similar experience. You can match with two other teammates, then you chat as you help each other succeed in the game, naturally building rapport. Then the game round ends and… that's it, you'll never talk to those people again. It's very abrupt and makes the whole interaction feel weirdly transactional.
    - tchock23 4y ago
      I’ve noticed the same thing. It’s awkward to send a ‘friend’ request after one round, yet if you enjoyed the round it would be great to do another.
      - MasterBel2 4y ago
        Recently in LoL I've been sending a friend request to anyone I have more fun with than the average random, and queueing with friends whenever possible. It is a little awkward, but definitely nicer than just randoms. Some players I'll play a few with then unfriend, if I learn that they're generally dislikable. Wonder if you could ask them before the round ends, "y'all wanna play another?"
    - nofreelunch 4y ago
      That game is pro-war US military propaganda. Feed your brain better things. At least PUBG doesn't have a real world agenda.
anigbrowl 4y ago
(off topic) This is a nice visual framework, can I ask what it is?
- bubblic 4y ago
  Thanks anigbrowl! I used a pre-built template from Tim for visual front end: https://www.creative-tim.com/templates/react-free https://www.creative-tim.com/templates/react-free . For hosting front and backend, I used AWS serverless architecture https://github.com/aws-samples/websocket-api-cognito-auth-sample https://github.com/aws-samples/websocket-api-cognito-auth-sa...
blakesterz 4y ago
I'm reminded of tired.com for some reason. There's not much there, but there's been some really interesting stories about them over the years https://slate.com/culture/2004/07/the-perplexing-success-of-tired-com.html https://slate.com/culture/2004/07/the-perplexing-success-of-...
- bubblic 4y ago
  Thanks for sharing the link! This stood out to me the most: "Correspondents rarely confess to the sort of skanky, self-destructive behavior found on Group Hug (“I slept with someone I work with. He’s married. I’m friends with his wife.”). And why should they? There’s no guilty thrill of public catharsis. Tired.com isn’t another outlet for exhibitionists. It’s an unexpected invitation to quietly complain about the same old same old to a stranger who might actually listen." Complaining to strangers who might actually listen, instead of seeking the guilty thrill of public catharsis... Something I am definitely taking note on
- metadat 4y ago
  For anyone else who missed Group Hug at the time and is curious, here's a sample: https://web.archive.org/web/20120207131807/http://grouphug.us/ https://web.archive.org/web/20120207131807/http://grouphug.u...
  - jacquesm 4y ago
    I don't know these people at all, obviously, but I really hope they got the help they needed (and it likely wasn't from an internet site).
  - pigeonhands 4y ago
    This looks similar to http://gentle.earth/ http://gentle.earth/
bubblic 4y ago
Someone had a very good point that the wording seems to only imply that the loneliness is caused by lacking the listed qualities when in fact, some are lonely because of their strong attributes (good looking, smart, wealthy). I made an update so that all future messages will "attribute" to these qualities, instead of these qualities 'holding them back'. Thank you, anonymous user!
- epistemer 4y ago
  A person claiming to be lonely because they are too smart/wealthy/good looking sounds incredibly narcissistic. I highly doubt that is actually the issue with their loneliness.
  - skirt8193 4y ago
    That doesn't mean their loneliness is any less real
demarq 4y ago
EDIT: realising adding a comment here contributes another datapoint.
- bubblic 4y ago
  the algorithm works this way: The geolocation acquired by the webpage is in the form of latitude and longitude. Let's say it is lat: 10.123456, long: 30.123456 I want to approximate it to 3 mile accuracy (diagonal of a box, so in one dimension, would be sqrt(3^2 /2) = 2.12 mile in lat or long). 3 mile, in geographical coordinate would be equivalent to : 3 mile / 3960 mile (Earth radius) * 180 deg / pi rad = 0.0434 degree. I divide each dimension by 0.0434, and round it to a whole number (essentially, mod 0.0434). Then, I multiply that number by 0.0434 and save that as the location. This means that a user's location can lie anywhere inside a box with 3 mile diagonal length at that geolocation. If you see inconsistency in my logic, please let me know.
  - JonChesterfield 4y ago
    That would leak if there are multiple data points. In the extreme case, two points just either side of the 3 mile circle resolution would locate precisely (where the two circles touch). Given N points within M meters or so, which is roughly what you get for multiple measurements of "home" with an error on the measurement, I think you could have a reasonable stab at deriving the location from an estimate of the error on the geolocation plus which circles they fell into. All in same circle makes near centre more likely than near edge. edit: daily check in, so all the above needs is a tendency to check in from roughly the same location each day.
- metadat 4y ago
  > Pinpoints down to the nearest street This information isn't personally identifiable by itself. Even combined with your original HN comment, the information leakage cross section and associated risk is minutely small. I understand the concern about your privacy, but in practical terms what outcome are you afraid of in this instance? Getting less lonely inherently requires some degree of trust in and vulnerability to other human beings. It's tragically sad when privacy fears prevent someone from living a colorful, stimulating, and deeply fulfilling life. In case you're open to unsolicited advice: Develop the skill of Discernment. When the "privacy threat" part of your brain activates, take a moment to analyze the degree of the threat and intentionally choose your response accordingly.
mikestew 4y ago
EDIT: doh! Gotta turn on location services for Safari. Looks great, would like to give it a whirl. But under "Share with the World", I can't get the button to become enabled with something other than "Loading...". Turned off the pi-hole in case there was a DNS query getting blocked, no joy. Safari 16.2, macOS Ventura 13.1.
- bubblic 4y ago
  Do you see the green message after you submit your location? If you keep seeing the red message, then it means the location has not been submitted, so the survey would not be available. Please keep me posted here if you keep experiencing it so I can solve it for you and future users :)
GauntletWizard 4y ago
You may want to dynamically change the radius and or add skew. Not that I care, but my entry (in Preston, WA) draws a neat circle around... a short private road, centered on my house. There's about 100 people in that circle, which is not a lot, and I'm not even in the real boonies.
DoesntMatter22 4y ago
Curious what you used for maps. I always want to build stuff with maps but the costs can be really high
- mythrwy 4y ago
  Mapbox GL is pretty reasonable, or even free under 50K loads.
- bubblic 4y ago
  I used Deck.gl and CARTO basemaps. https://deck.gl/docs/api-reference/carto/basemap https://deck.gl/docs/api-reference/carto/basemap You don't need a token to use this map, as long as you keep the usage to a reasonable limit (I think it says 1,000,000 tiles per month)
- caspg 4y ago
  You can always start with tiles from https://openstreetmap.org https://openstreetmap.org Or use one of the commercial providers which offers free tiers. There are quite a few smaller providers that are not super expensive. You can always setup your own tile server. It's not that hard and can be cheap (if you don't count your time). I recommend, checking https://github.com/onthegomap/planetiler https://github.com/onthegomap/planetiler
noobermin 4y ago
I was very lonely for my college years because I lived in a religious uni that was far away from any city, partly because the mission school I went to (went to school outside of America) offered tuition scholarships to go there. Within the first year of leaving to an actual city, I lost my virginity, had my first successful relationship, and generally found my place in the world. People underestimate how much mundane things like "changing your location" can do about loneliness (hint: cities are much better than rural and suburban places for that kind of thing)
- bubblic 4y ago
  I feel you! The prime motivation to create this webapp (and the future project that is in the oven) was from my extreme loneliness during grad school. I never thought that I would be someone to experience loneliness because I thought I was a generally happy person with quite a few close friends I can talk deeply with. I thought, why is it that in this today and age with ultimate connectivity, there is not a reasonable way to make new friends? I agree physical location plays a huge role because you feel the most connection when you are in person with someone. But with remote learning and working on the rise, this loneliness situation will only get more pervasive. I think there is a better digital medium/channel/mode of interaction/environment that can abstract as much of the genuine human connection from real-life interaction as possible, and the current social media landscape is severely lacking at it. I am building Lonely World to learn as much about the loneliness 'market' if you will, and validate my hypotheses for the better digital social platform. I am happy so far that people have cheered me on my mission.
  - siwatanejo 4y ago
    Hey nice initiative! I have similar ideas as you, maybe we should collaborate?
    - bubblic 4y ago
      cool, DM/email me :)
- 4y ago
grapesurgeon 4y ago
this reminds me of the game Kind Words by popcannibal, like just a chill place where people share their frustrations and just wanna be heard. https://popcannibal.com/kindwords https://popcannibal.com/kindwords i do recommend adding an option for people to change the scope of their location, such as limiting to just state/region, country or continent for privacy reasons. this is a really cool idea
- bubblic 4y ago
  That game is real cool! There was a comment on its Steam page, describing the game like, this is a game that shouldn't exist yet it does. The fact that this game is selling shows that there is a market for a product like this. People are lonely out there.
adityapurwa 4y ago
I made something similar during Covid to help people cope, but it was specific for people who played Sky: Children of The Light game. The game launched right before Covid hit us and it helped people to went through the isolation. https://thatskywish.netlify.app https://thatskywish.netlify.app if you wanted to give it a try. It follows the same principle that allows people to leave message for a friend anonymously. Wish that we have more website like this.
- bubblic 4y ago
  Nice, I love the graphics. Which framework did you use? Phaser? or just React?
  - adityapurwa 4y ago
    Thank you! It is built with Vue. The star animations is built with canvas. The constellation was a collection of div and a canvas to draw the lines. I recently open sourced the star animation at https://github.com/adityapurwa/starflies https://github.com/adityapurwa/starflies if you want to take a look.
- KomoD 4y ago
  Just visited it and saw several racial slurs and other profanity.
  - adityapurwa 4y ago
    Thank you for mentioning this. I moderate the content of this site once per week so there might be some message that temporarily pass through or I missed. I have removed some of the harmful messages.
senectus1 4y ago
Is loneliness really such an issue? Maybe i dont have an issue with it because I'm an introvert?
- acrophiliac 4y ago
  I agree, as an introvert, I'm pretty happy being alone. But apparently it's a big deal. The former U.S. surgeon general calls it an "epidemic". https://www.vivekmurthy.com/post/2017/10/10/work-and-the-loneliness-epidemic-harvard-business-review https://www.vivekmurthy.com/post/2017/10/10/work-and-the-lon...
  - shubb 4y ago
    I wonder if loneliness == being alone... many people report being lonely in a crowded place, being lonely in a marriage, or being lonely at work. But this leads to the conclusion that the solution to loneliness may not always be 'meeting people'.
- bubblic 4y ago
  oh yes, it is a huge issue! This article from 2013 already described that 50% of adults were suffering from loneliness. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-24522691 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-24522691 And it definitely got way worse during/after pandemic. I would suggest you check out some Reddit forums if you are curious to know the other half of the population. r/ForeverAlone, r/lonely, r/loneliness, r/alone, r/LonersEmpire
  - senectus1 4y ago
    yikes. while I may not win in the office for being and introvert it sounds like i win outside the office :-P
- drakonka 4y ago
  I'm also an introvert and am usually happy to be alone. On the weekend, I'd much rather stay in and do my own thing with my cats than go anywhere or meet anyone. But I do have bouts of longing for connection with other humans sometimes. It can be difficult to reconcile. Even if I make plans to go out and make friends or meet an existing one during one of these slumps, by the time the planned day rolls around I usually have to force myself to actually do it. Once I force myself out there I have fun, but it takes so much effort to actually do it and not stay in my own little world reading or coding or whatever. I think I've come to terms with the fact that even though I really love being alone, I do need to put in an effort to make more meaningful connections over the long term.
geuis 4y ago
After I pinch and zoom to my location and tap on a circle the map seems to jump to a random place in the world. Also the slider is really difficult to drag on iPad os. Like the concept.
- bubblic 4y ago
  It jumps to random places because a new person just logged their location! I wanted to make the whole experience dynamic and real. It worked well when there weren't so many people logging their location all at the same time haha I will need to add features to: make toggle more user friendly; and have option to make the map jump around or not. Thank you for feedback!
  - codingminds 4y ago
    I suggest to disable the map jump by default or make that information very prominent in the map. This way it felt very broken and frustrating. But a nice idea :)
    - bubblic 4y ago
      I just turned off map-jumping for now. You should now have uninterrupted map-scrolling experience. Please refresh the page for the updated version. Sorry for the confusion :P
  - mikeuxinnuendo 4y ago
    It's hella laggy, you have too many results in the page, a simple case of too many divs I think.
    - bubblic 4y ago
      I think it was caused by too frequently updating map. If you get a chance to check it out again, let me know if the issue has been resolved :)
petodo 4y ago
How did you reach first 100, how many fake people were there at beginning to attract real people to not be the first ones on empty site?
- alper111 4y ago
  I was wondering the same; whether the comments were produced by chatgpt.
  - bubblic 4y ago
    The comments were by genuine people, answering the survey questions. YC startup school videos had a concept called 'hair-on-fire' problem. There are many lonely people in the world whose 'hair-on-fire' problem is loneliness, and they are willing to try things to make it go away. I think my app managed to tap into their needs, and I am honestly more glad that they have found it somewhat useful than that they shared me their locations for my app.
- bubblic 4y ago
  I logged myself into it, but clearly I was only logging only where I was at that point. I had the option to manipulate the database to pretend there were people there, but I chose not to. So, I had about 10 logs where I lived, and 1 log where my parents lived when I first released it haha I posted this on Reddit forums for lonely folks (there were 4~5) and got 1000's of engagements there, out of which about 20 people logged their locations per day. It trickled to 0 after about a week. At that point I had ~150 logs. I learned a ton from that experiment, namely: 1. People do like this stuff, 2. Website needs to have better UI/UX and be faster because they reported not being able to view the site due to server overload (was using free Streamlit hosted webapp), and 3. people's attention span is short. I am getting awesome engagement now after having posted on this forum, but I am at the same time ready for it to tank down just a week later. It is kind of like releasing a movie: it can have a huge box office weekend, but it will not sustain that because it is the same content and not too many people watch the same movie over and over again. The only way to avoid that is to offer new features that people can actually interact with, I think, so the iteration never stops. The whole story so far has been genuine, including all the datapoints on the website, messages, and the fact that I relate to the lonely souls out there since I have personally been through one during my PhD. I think the authenticity resonated with the people and led them to interact with what I have built.
supermatt 4y ago
> Only approximate location is uploaded (~3 mile accuracy). I believe where this is done by other services they account for the density of population in a geographic area. (IIRC there was an article posted here a few years ago) In my case a 3m radius would mean I’m one of 4 households, for example.
- bubblic 4y ago
  Great point. I need to look into this. If you find a link to it, please keep me posted
  - em-bee 4y ago
    is there maybe some way to find the nearest population center from any given location? say the nearest town with 100.000 inhabitants? something like this: https://citiesnear.com/me https://citiesnear.com/me
    - bearmode 4y ago
      The nearest town with 100k inhabitants means that places such as Greenland are completely excluded, since its largest town by far only has a population of 18k
      - em-bee 4y ago
        well, a different threshold could be chosen. or a list of exceptions. so for greenland it would always choose the capital or the biggest town. or make it user configurable. ideally i would just like to enter the name of the nearest town myself, regardless of size or location. maybe provide a dropdown list of nearby population centers and let the user choose their preference.
paulcarroty 4y ago
https://ikaria.co https://ikaria.co, raised $35M.
- bubblic 4y ago
  That seems to be focused on creators. I want a platform for the people.
quickthrower2 4y ago
Makes me think of the Eleanor Rigby lyrics (Beatles)
- bubblic 4y ago
  all the lonely people~ where do they all come from~ they are all around us, suffering silently.
kmoser 4y ago
Neat idea, but I find the fact that so many people are depressed to be even more depressing, especially since there's no real way for them to connect. If the site had a secret sauce, it would be the ability for the users to connect with each other in a meaningful way. Maybe sending each other affirmations of some sort? Sort of like the Sarahah website (https://sarahah.top/ https://sarahah.top/). I hope you can crack that code to build something people really engage with.
- bubblic 4y ago
  I think I have the recipe for the secret sauce, which I am running tasting sessions in my head and my partners haha Definitely, there is a need to actually TALK to people, not just shouting into the void. I think there are plenty of forums/text messaging apps out there. I am trying to solve with voice, but a bit nuanced from Clubhouse, Discord, or Twitter spaces. Hope to add the feature soon here!
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
ThinkBeat 4y ago
Loneliness is increasing rapidly, and it is becoming a major issue. Studies show that it can lead to or increase the risk of increased obesity, substance use disorder, risk of depression, cardiovascular disease, risk of high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. It is also something people feel great shame over. I remember when i started my loneliness group on Facebook. I then posted it existence in a large group for immigrants. One admin messaged me to say how pathetic and dumb it was and recommended shutting down the group right away. "Just go out and meet people. it is not hard" He was an extreme extravert who spent most of his time networking with new people he meets or perhaps he knows. He cannot imagine the it being a problem.
- creshal 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - TheCowboy 4y ago
    The idea that tendencies for extroversion and introversion somehow perfectly line up with partisan pandemic politics is quite a terrible take. It's also unreasonably hostile towards a lot of people and you might want to consider what motivates you to post such a comment here of all places.
    - creshal 4y ago
      In Europe, it wasn't very partisan? You had left wingers holding rave parties masked as "political demonstrations dropping the bass to drop the patriarchy" just as much as you had right wingers holding rave parties masked as "political demonstrations dropping the bass to drop the jewish conspiracies".
- pjerem 4y ago
  > He was an extreme extravert Yes probably :) But also an asshole, if you allow me to be polite. Extraversion is not an excuse to not having the bare minimum of empathy.
RamblingCTO 4y ago
What the discussion about loneliness almost never talks about is skills that people that are lonely might lack or any mental health issues they might have. I had a very strong social anxiety 10 years ago. I never left the house. I lacked the skills to cope with that. (Therapy in that case helps.) If you're lonely because you don't know how to connect with people, that's an even easier skill to acquire (i.e. read "say what you mean"). I am quite good at connecting with people nowadays and don't feel lonely anymore because I learned how to tune in to my needs, how to communicate with other people and get my needs met. Took a lot of reading, practicing, failing and therapy, but imho that's a viable way to solve that on an individual basis. The modern society is way too disconnected because of false beliefs and easy traps to fall in to (apps "solving" your problem being the problem).
- TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
  Were you an only child by chance?
  - RamblingCTO 4y ago
    Quite the opposite ;) why?
- bubblic 4y ago
  What if I framed it as “helping people with what I can offer”? I am one person with one set of experiences. I would not claim to know what causes loneliness for everyone, and the helping hand that I offer might be of no help to many. But I try my best, based on my personal experience of loneliness and what I had wished to be there when I was lonely, maybe I can build something for that other person who may be going through something similar and they would cope with it faster and better that I had. That is all. I am no messiah claiming to have a panacea for loneliness, but just a human being offering help to other human beings.
  - nicbou 4y ago
    That's a lovely approach to the situation.
idiocrat 4y ago
The Hedgehog's dilemma is relevant for loneliness. From Wikipedia: "The hedgehog's dilemma, or sometimes the porcupine dilemma, is a metaphor about the challenges of human intimacy. It describes a situation in which a group of hedgehogs seek to move close to one another to share heat during cold weather. They must remain apart, however, as they cannot avoid hurting one another with their sharp spines. Though they all share the intention of a close reciprocal relationship, this may not occur, for reasons they cannot avoid. Arthur Schopenhauer conceived this metaphor to describe what he considers to be the state of the individual in relation to others in society. The hedgehog's dilemma suggests that despite goodwill, human intimacy cannot occur without substantial mutual harm, and what results is cautious behavior and weak relationships. With the hedgehog's dilemma, one is recommended to use moderation in affairs with others both because of self-interest, as well as out of consideration for others. The hedgehog's dilemma is used to explain self-imposed isolation."
- growt 4y ago
  I’m not going to mess with Schopenhauer, but I feel this is wrong in respect to hedgehogs and also humans.
  - Delk 4y ago
    It's probably wrong with respect to hedgehogs, but then, it's a metaphor, and what it's trying to say about human relationships makes sense to me in some way. The more intimate you are with someone, the more you're also aware of their pain and hardships. Intimate relationships involve conflicts and require compromises you would be able to avoid or not get into in a more distant relationship. They involve vulnerability and trust. The vulnerability and trust and the deep emotional meaning that intimate relationships have can make those conflicts all the more painful. Sometimes the compromises required or the shared pains can amount to damage. Of course that's not the only side of intimate relationships, as the metaphor also says. I'm not sure I'd agree with the interpretation that we (or most people) should be wary or moderate with closeness to other people. But I do get the idea that it's not without a significant cost that wouldn't be there when keeping a greater distance. Where each of us falls on the spectrum between the joys and pains (or even damage) of close relationships probably depends both on personality and our experiences.
DieBruderBauer 4y ago
So stoked for this. Long live bubblic!
- bubblic 4y ago
  :) thanks!!
ranting-moth 4y ago
I'd like a website to find people with same/similar hobbies. Not a dating site, just to find other geeks around me.
- fiala__ 4y ago
  sites like meetup.com or reddit can be great for that sort of thing
  - trompetenaccoun 4y ago
    I made the mistake of organizing a meetup through reddit once. The people that showed up were weird and socially awkward. Not saying that to hate on the site, it's just something I'll definitely never do again. Meetup is slightly better because it's more of a mixed bag but you still regularly get creepy or annoying people. The problem with all these sites for using them to meet people imo is that they're too open. If you spent the time to get to know everyone you want to meet it would probably be fine but at that point you'd have spent hours upon hours forming virtual friendship, which to me defeats the purpose of casual meetups. I'd love a site that lets you set strict and sophisticated filters. Maybe with the option to quiz users and sort out those who can't give interesting answers to certain questions. Not sure why no one's attempted to make that yet, the obvious advantage of the digital world is that we can go through large numbers of individuals, filter the noise and match exactly the ones that are suitable for each other based on shared interests. Yet the best we got is swiping left or right based on someone's photoshopped profile picture?
    - boring_twenties 4y ago
      Wouldn't this strongly select for only desperately (for lack of a better word) lonely people? For everyone else, simply talking to strangers in real life is less friction than tackling some online quiz.
      - trompetenaccoun 4y ago
        My thinking is talking to random people is... random. We can do this outside the internet, don't really need an app for that. Being able to prescreen is less friction than spending time meeting uninteresting people. And having no barriers seems to be a recipe for that in my experience, it attracts those who're desperate because they can't meet people any other way. So if I want a way to remove those people, I'd want to have a higher barrier, not lower. Is the idea flawed?
nathias 4y ago
very ominous title
totetsu 4y ago
This reminds me of the work of the Japanese artist Watanabe Atsushi. He collaborated with people living shut in lives to all take photos of the moon together and collected them into an visual art work. Even though they're all alone everyone is looking at the same moon. https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/special/hikikomori/pages/articles_108.html https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/special/hikikomori/pages/article...
- nofreelunch 4y ago
  This is wonderful. Would love to see the book someday. (It is titled I'm Here if anyone is curious but doesnt want to dig thru a bunch of kanji)
  - totetsu 4y ago
    That book is about his work where he breaks out of a concrete room with a sledgehammer, and smashes concrete objects that are symbols of his shutin period and reconnects the pieces with golden metal.
    - nofreelunch 4y ago
      Whoops, my mistake, but that book also sounds great.
mahathu 4y ago
"We live in the most connected age, but we feel lonelier than ever. We experience: a sense of isolation feeling "out of tune" with people around us having no one to turn to" Do "we"? I don't. Thats kind of a condescending accusation to make on the landing page of a website!
- bubblic 4y ago
  Hm.. maybe then the website is not for you.
bloak 4y ago
Is there a way to see/check/correct one's own location, particularly for people using a desktop OS on a VPN?
supernihil 4y ago
Interesting idea but i got too annoyed by the unresponsive ui to spend more than my 15 seconds there. The map especially is blocking too much, please fix and ill be back
- bubblic 4y ago
  Hey supernihil, could you expand on your comment? I would like to know so I can make the changes. Did that happen in the past few hours? I made changes 8 hours ago to fix some minor issues btw
sanbruno478 4y ago
Hi bubblic, this seems like an really interesting idea. Would you be open to discuss more? If so, what's the best way to contact you?
- bubblic 4y ago
  Feel free to reach me at albert@bubblic.co

216 points by bubblic 4y ago

The idea is that knowing there are lonely people out there can help you cope with loneliness a little. This is a minimum "viral" product for my upcoming project that allows meaningful connections between anonymous people using audio. With such fantastic response, I think I got a form of validation that there is a market demand for connecting the lonely souls.

low_tech_love 4y ago
One thing that always bothered me is how much wasted potential there is in tools like Omegle or chatRoulette. On paper they sound amazing, and a few years ago back when they started and not everyone was aware, I remember having two or three amazing (and entirely SFW) interactions with some random people from around the world. It was genuinely exciting in a super legit way. And then, yeah. It turned into what it is today. I wonder if there is any way to ever do it right.
- bubblic 4y ago
  I totally feel you. There is magic in connecting people from all over the world with the power of the internet, but it gets ruined by the few who spam and abuse the platform. I hope to prevent this by not offering any vanity feature right now (no pictures or cam) and by making it super open, instead of a 1:1 chat. The holy grail would be to put this behind a paywall and only those who need this service the most would pay to use it, guaranteeing some standard of behavior
- sameers 4y ago
  I think you need some moderation technique for any community - mores are not inherent in a society, they are formed through dialogue and enforcement. Digital communities are not immune to this dynamic. The digital tools could help you enforce rules more efficiently but someone still has to formulate the rules and adjudicate tricky situations. The good thing is that the prior experience of lesser-known and more-famous online communities/media outlets has given the next entrant in this space plenty of accumulated wisdom to capitalize on. Paywalls are part of the solution but they can't be the only one because there's always the tradeoff there between making the cost high enough to weed out the majority of bots and fly-by-night spammers, but also low enough that it's not a significant barrier to entry for community growth.
  - bubblic 4y ago
    You get me. I am torn between releasing cool features to help people feel connected and holding them back until I have established some sort of code of conduct. Move fast and break things along the way, or try to do it right, especially when the people on the platform would bias towards the vulnerable ones. The engagement I am seeing right now feels magical, and I am afraid if I don't move fast enough, people would lose interest and not come back.
    - sdenton4 4y ago
      Simple up/down thumb feedback and some graph theory... See if you can find large components of positive interaction, and only connect the people who get more than a couple down-thumbs to each other. And maybe a 'did this person show you their penis?' feedback toggle for good measure.
      - bubblic 4y ago
        haha, that last category is a must in any social platform where you can show pic/vid or draw something!
    - sameers 4y ago
      People WILL lose interest and not re-engage - that's the default state for any social network. You have to figure out why they would come back - is it to re-connect with someone they spoke to, or to read some new content on the site, or to express again how they are feeling? And how do you make this all easy through the features you build? You can start with some basic Code of Conduct that let's say Github, Reddit or Twitter uses - no need to reinvent the wheel. Then you can modify it as time goes to suit what's working or not for your community. If you have a good model for iterative improvement that puts the user in the loop somehow, it'll be reflected in your engagement stats.
- mLuby 4y ago
  Using Call of Duty (a military game) with voice chat was oddly similar experience. You can match with two other teammates, then you chat as you help each other succeed in the game, naturally building rapport. Then the game round ends and… that's it, you'll never talk to those people again. It's very abrupt and makes the whole interaction feel weirdly transactional.
  - tchock23 4y ago
    I’ve noticed the same thing. It’s awkward to send a ‘friend’ request after one round, yet if you enjoyed the round it would be great to do another.
    - MasterBel2 4y ago
      Recently in LoL I've been sending a friend request to anyone I have more fun with than the average random, and queueing with friends whenever possible. It is a little awkward, but definitely nicer than just randoms. Some players I'll play a few with then unfriend, if I learn that they're generally dislikable. Wonder if you could ask them before the round ends, "y'all wanna play another?"
  - nofreelunch 4y ago
    That game is pro-war US military propaganda. Feed your brain better things. At least PUBG doesn't have a real world agenda.

anigbrowl 4y ago

(off topic) This is a nice visual framework, can I ask what it is?

bubblic 4y ago
Thanks anigbrowl! I used a pre-built template from Tim for visual front end: https://www.creative-tim.com/templates/react-free https://www.creative-tim.com/templates/react-free . For hosting front and backend, I used AWS serverless architecture https://github.com/aws-samples/websocket-api-cognito-auth-sample https://github.com/aws-samples/websocket-api-cognito-auth-sa...

blakesterz 4y ago

I'm reminded of tired.com for some reason. There's not much there, but there's been some really interesting stories about them over the years https://slate.com/culture/2004/07/the-perplexing-success-of-tired-com.html https://slate.com/culture/2004/07/the-perplexing-success-of-...

bubblic 4y ago
Thanks for sharing the link! This stood out to me the most: "Correspondents rarely confess to the sort of skanky, self-destructive behavior found on Group Hug (“I slept with someone I work with. He’s married. I’m friends with his wife.”). And why should they? There’s no guilty thrill of public catharsis. Tired.com isn’t another outlet for exhibitionists. It’s an unexpected invitation to quietly complain about the same old same old to a stranger who might actually listen." Complaining to strangers who might actually listen, instead of seeking the guilty thrill of public catharsis... Something I am definitely taking note on
metadat 4y ago
For anyone else who missed Group Hug at the time and is curious, here's a sample: https://web.archive.org/web/20120207131807/http://grouphug.us/ https://web.archive.org/web/20120207131807/http://grouphug.u...
- jacquesm 4y ago
  I don't know these people at all, obviously, but I really hope they got the help they needed (and it likely wasn't from an internet site).
- pigeonhands 4y ago
  This looks similar to http://gentle.earth/ http://gentle.earth/

bubblic 4y ago

Someone had a very good point that the wording seems to only imply that the loneliness is caused by lacking the listed qualities when in fact, some are lonely because of their strong attributes (good looking, smart, wealthy). I made an update so that all future messages will "attribute" to these qualities, instead of these qualities 'holding them back'. Thank you, anonymous user!

epistemer 4y ago
A person claiming to be lonely because they are too smart/wealthy/good looking sounds incredibly narcissistic. I highly doubt that is actually the issue with their loneliness.
- skirt8193 4y ago
  That doesn't mean their loneliness is any less real

demarq 4y ago

EDIT: realising adding a comment here contributes another datapoint.

bubblic 4y ago
the algorithm works this way: The geolocation acquired by the webpage is in the form of latitude and longitude. Let's say it is lat: 10.123456, long: 30.123456 I want to approximate it to 3 mile accuracy (diagonal of a box, so in one dimension, would be sqrt(3^2 /2) = 2.12 mile in lat or long). 3 mile, in geographical coordinate would be equivalent to : 3 mile / 3960 mile (Earth radius) * 180 deg / pi rad = 0.0434 degree. I divide each dimension by 0.0434, and round it to a whole number (essentially, mod 0.0434). Then, I multiply that number by 0.0434 and save that as the location. This means that a user's location can lie anywhere inside a box with 3 mile diagonal length at that geolocation. If you see inconsistency in my logic, please let me know.
- JonChesterfield 4y ago
  That would leak if there are multiple data points. In the extreme case, two points just either side of the 3 mile circle resolution would locate precisely (where the two circles touch). Given N points within M meters or so, which is roughly what you get for multiple measurements of "home" with an error on the measurement, I think you could have a reasonable stab at deriving the location from an estimate of the error on the geolocation plus which circles they fell into. All in same circle makes near centre more likely than near edge. edit: daily check in, so all the above needs is a tendency to check in from roughly the same location each day.
metadat 4y ago
> Pinpoints down to the nearest street This information isn't personally identifiable by itself. Even combined with your original HN comment, the information leakage cross section and associated risk is minutely small. I understand the concern about your privacy, but in practical terms what outcome are you afraid of in this instance? Getting less lonely inherently requires some degree of trust in and vulnerability to other human beings. It's tragically sad when privacy fears prevent someone from living a colorful, stimulating, and deeply fulfilling life. In case you're open to unsolicited advice: Develop the skill of Discernment. When the "privacy threat" part of your brain activates, take a moment to analyze the degree of the threat and intentionally choose your response accordingly.

mikestew 4y ago

EDIT: doh! Gotta turn on location services for Safari. Looks great, would like to give it a whirl. But under "Share with the World", I can't get the button to become enabled with something other than "Loading...". Turned off the pi-hole in case there was a DNS query getting blocked, no joy. Safari 16.2, macOS Ventura 13.1.

bubblic 4y ago
Do you see the green message after you submit your location? If you keep seeing the red message, then it means the location has not been submitted, so the survey would not be available. Please keep me posted here if you keep experiencing it so I can solve it for you and future users :)

GauntletWizard 4y ago

You may want to dynamically change the radius and or add skew. Not that I care, but my entry (in Preston, WA) draws a neat circle around... a short private road, centered on my house. There's about 100 people in that circle, which is not a lot, and I'm not even in the real boonies.

DoesntMatter22 4y ago

Curious what you used for maps. I always want to build stuff with maps but the costs can be really high

mythrwy 4y ago
Mapbox GL is pretty reasonable, or even free under 50K loads.
bubblic 4y ago
I used Deck.gl and CARTO basemaps. https://deck.gl/docs/api-reference/carto/basemap https://deck.gl/docs/api-reference/carto/basemap You don't need a token to use this map, as long as you keep the usage to a reasonable limit (I think it says 1,000,000 tiles per month)
caspg 4y ago
You can always start with tiles from https://openstreetmap.org https://openstreetmap.org Or use one of the commercial providers which offers free tiers. There are quite a few smaller providers that are not super expensive. You can always setup your own tile server. It's not that hard and can be cheap (if you don't count your time). I recommend, checking https://github.com/onthegomap/planetiler https://github.com/onthegomap/planetiler

noobermin 4y ago

I was very lonely for my college years because I lived in a religious uni that was far away from any city, partly because the mission school I went to (went to school outside of America) offered tuition scholarships to go there. Within the first year of leaving to an actual city, I lost my virginity, had my first successful relationship, and generally found my place in the world. People underestimate how much mundane things like "changing your location" can do about loneliness (hint: cities are much better than rural and suburban places for that kind of thing)

bubblic 4y ago
I feel you! The prime motivation to create this webapp (and the future project that is in the oven) was from my extreme loneliness during grad school. I never thought that I would be someone to experience loneliness because I thought I was a generally happy person with quite a few close friends I can talk deeply with. I thought, why is it that in this today and age with ultimate connectivity, there is not a reasonable way to make new friends? I agree physical location plays a huge role because you feel the most connection when you are in person with someone. But with remote learning and working on the rise, this loneliness situation will only get more pervasive. I think there is a better digital medium/channel/mode of interaction/environment that can abstract as much of the genuine human connection from real-life interaction as possible, and the current social media landscape is severely lacking at it. I am building Lonely World to learn as much about the loneliness 'market' if you will, and validate my hypotheses for the better digital social platform. I am happy so far that people have cheered me on my mission.
- siwatanejo 4y ago
  Hey nice initiative! I have similar ideas as you, maybe we should collaborate?
  - bubblic 4y ago
    cool, DM/email me :)
4y ago

grapesurgeon 4y ago

this reminds me of the game Kind Words by popcannibal, like just a chill place where people share their frustrations and just wanna be heard. https://popcannibal.com/kindwords https://popcannibal.com/kindwords i do recommend adding an option for people to change the scope of their location, such as limiting to just state/region, country or continent for privacy reasons. this is a really cool idea

bubblic 4y ago
That game is real cool! There was a comment on its Steam page, describing the game like, this is a game that shouldn't exist yet it does. The fact that this game is selling shows that there is a market for a product like this. People are lonely out there.

adityapurwa 4y ago

I made something similar during Covid to help people cope, but it was specific for people who played Sky: Children of The Light game. The game launched right before Covid hit us and it helped people to went through the isolation. https://thatskywish.netlify.app https://thatskywish.netlify.app if you wanted to give it a try. It follows the same principle that allows people to leave message for a friend anonymously. Wish that we have more website like this.

bubblic 4y ago
Nice, I love the graphics. Which framework did you use? Phaser? or just React?
- adityapurwa 4y ago
  Thank you! It is built with Vue. The star animations is built with canvas. The constellation was a collection of div and a canvas to draw the lines. I recently open sourced the star animation at https://github.com/adityapurwa/starflies https://github.com/adityapurwa/starflies if you want to take a look.
KomoD 4y ago
Just visited it and saw several racial slurs and other profanity.
- adityapurwa 4y ago
  Thank you for mentioning this. I moderate the content of this site once per week so there might be some message that temporarily pass through or I missed. I have removed some of the harmful messages.

senectus1 4y ago

Is loneliness really such an issue? Maybe i dont have an issue with it because I'm an introvert?

acrophiliac 4y ago
I agree, as an introvert, I'm pretty happy being alone. But apparently it's a big deal. The former U.S. surgeon general calls it an "epidemic". https://www.vivekmurthy.com/post/2017/10/10/work-and-the-loneliness-epidemic-harvard-business-review https://www.vivekmurthy.com/post/2017/10/10/work-and-the-lon...
- shubb 4y ago
  I wonder if loneliness == being alone... many people report being lonely in a crowded place, being lonely in a marriage, or being lonely at work. But this leads to the conclusion that the solution to loneliness may not always be 'meeting people'.
bubblic 4y ago
oh yes, it is a huge issue! This article from 2013 already described that 50% of adults were suffering from loneliness. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-24522691 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-24522691 And it definitely got way worse during/after pandemic. I would suggest you check out some Reddit forums if you are curious to know the other half of the population. r/ForeverAlone, r/lonely, r/loneliness, r/alone, r/LonersEmpire
- senectus1 4y ago
  yikes. while I may not win in the office for being and introvert it sounds like i win outside the office :-P
drakonka 4y ago
I'm also an introvert and am usually happy to be alone. On the weekend, I'd much rather stay in and do my own thing with my cats than go anywhere or meet anyone. But I do have bouts of longing for connection with other humans sometimes. It can be difficult to reconcile. Even if I make plans to go out and make friends or meet an existing one during one of these slumps, by the time the planned day rolls around I usually have to force myself to actually do it. Once I force myself out there I have fun, but it takes so much effort to actually do it and not stay in my own little world reading or coding or whatever. I think I've come to terms with the fact that even though I really love being alone, I do need to put in an effort to make more meaningful connections over the long term.

geuis 4y ago

After I pinch and zoom to my location and tap on a circle the map seems to jump to a random place in the world. Also the slider is really difficult to drag on iPad os. Like the concept.

bubblic 4y ago
It jumps to random places because a new person just logged their location! I wanted to make the whole experience dynamic and real. It worked well when there weren't so many people logging their location all at the same time haha I will need to add features to: make toggle more user friendly; and have option to make the map jump around or not. Thank you for feedback!
- codingminds 4y ago
  I suggest to disable the map jump by default or make that information very prominent in the map. This way it felt very broken and frustrating. But a nice idea :)
  - bubblic 4y ago
    I just turned off map-jumping for now. You should now have uninterrupted map-scrolling experience. Please refresh the page for the updated version. Sorry for the confusion :P
- mikeuxinnuendo 4y ago
  It's hella laggy, you have too many results in the page, a simple case of too many divs I think.
  - bubblic 4y ago
    I think it was caused by too frequently updating map. If you get a chance to check it out again, let me know if the issue has been resolved :)

petodo 4y ago

How did you reach first 100, how many fake people were there at beginning to attract real people to not be the first ones on empty site?

alper111 4y ago
I was wondering the same; whether the comments were produced by chatgpt.
- bubblic 4y ago
  The comments were by genuine people, answering the survey questions. YC startup school videos had a concept called 'hair-on-fire' problem. There are many lonely people in the world whose 'hair-on-fire' problem is loneliness, and they are willing to try things to make it go away. I think my app managed to tap into their needs, and I am honestly more glad that they have found it somewhat useful than that they shared me their locations for my app.
bubblic 4y ago
I logged myself into it, but clearly I was only logging only where I was at that point. I had the option to manipulate the database to pretend there were people there, but I chose not to. So, I had about 10 logs where I lived, and 1 log where my parents lived when I first released it haha I posted this on Reddit forums for lonely folks (there were 4~5) and got 1000's of engagements there, out of which about 20 people logged their locations per day. It trickled to 0 after about a week. At that point I had ~150 logs. I learned a ton from that experiment, namely: 1. People do like this stuff, 2. Website needs to have better UI/UX and be faster because they reported not being able to view the site due to server overload (was using free Streamlit hosted webapp), and 3. people's attention span is short. I am getting awesome engagement now after having posted on this forum, but I am at the same time ready for it to tank down just a week later. It is kind of like releasing a movie: it can have a huge box office weekend, but it will not sustain that because it is the same content and not too many people watch the same movie over and over again. The only way to avoid that is to offer new features that people can actually interact with, I think, so the iteration never stops. The whole story so far has been genuine, including all the datapoints on the website, messages, and the fact that I relate to the lonely souls out there since I have personally been through one during my PhD. I think the authenticity resonated with the people and led them to interact with what I have built.

supermatt 4y ago

> Only approximate location is uploaded (~3 mile accuracy). I believe where this is done by other services they account for the density of population in a geographic area. (IIRC there was an article posted here a few years ago) In my case a 3m radius would mean I’m one of 4 households, for example.

bubblic 4y ago
Great point. I need to look into this. If you find a link to it, please keep me posted
- em-bee 4y ago
  is there maybe some way to find the nearest population center from any given location? say the nearest town with 100.000 inhabitants? something like this: https://citiesnear.com/me https://citiesnear.com/me
  - bearmode 4y ago
    The nearest town with 100k inhabitants means that places such as Greenland are completely excluded, since its largest town by far only has a population of 18k
    - em-bee 4y ago
      well, a different threshold could be chosen. or a list of exceptions. so for greenland it would always choose the capital or the biggest town. or make it user configurable. ideally i would just like to enter the name of the nearest town myself, regardless of size or location. maybe provide a dropdown list of nearby population centers and let the user choose their preference.

paulcarroty 4y ago

https://ikaria.co https://ikaria.co, raised $35M.

bubblic 4y ago
That seems to be focused on creators. I want a platform for the people.

quickthrower2 4y ago

Makes me think of the Eleanor Rigby lyrics (Beatles)

bubblic 4y ago
all the lonely people~ where do they all come from~ they are all around us, suffering silently.

kmoser 4y ago

Neat idea, but I find the fact that so many people are depressed to be even more depressing, especially since there's no real way for them to connect. If the site had a secret sauce, it would be the ability for the users to connect with each other in a meaningful way. Maybe sending each other affirmations of some sort? Sort of like the Sarahah website (https://sarahah.top/ https://sarahah.top/). I hope you can crack that code to build something people really engage with.

bubblic 4y ago
I think I have the recipe for the secret sauce, which I am running tasting sessions in my head and my partners haha Definitely, there is a need to actually TALK to people, not just shouting into the void. I think there are plenty of forums/text messaging apps out there. I am trying to solve with voice, but a bit nuanced from Clubhouse, Discord, or Twitter spaces. Hope to add the feature soon here!

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

ThinkBeat 4y ago

Loneliness is increasing rapidly, and it is becoming a major issue. Studies show that it can lead to or increase the risk of increased obesity, substance use disorder, risk of depression, cardiovascular disease, risk of high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. It is also something people feel great shame over. I remember when i started my loneliness group on Facebook. I then posted it existence in a large group for immigrants. One admin messaged me to say how pathetic and dumb it was and recommended shutting down the group right away. "Just go out and meet people. it is not hard" He was an extreme extravert who spent most of his time networking with new people he meets or perhaps he knows. He cannot imagine the it being a problem.

creshal 4y ago
[flagged]
- TheCowboy 4y ago
  The idea that tendencies for extroversion and introversion somehow perfectly line up with partisan pandemic politics is quite a terrible take. It's also unreasonably hostile towards a lot of people and you might want to consider what motivates you to post such a comment here of all places.
  - creshal 4y ago
    In Europe, it wasn't very partisan? You had left wingers holding rave parties masked as "political demonstrations dropping the bass to drop the patriarchy" just as much as you had right wingers holding rave parties masked as "political demonstrations dropping the bass to drop the jewish conspiracies".
pjerem 4y ago
> He was an extreme extravert Yes probably :) But also an asshole, if you allow me to be polite. Extraversion is not an excuse to not having the bare minimum of empathy.

RamblingCTO 4y ago

What the discussion about loneliness almost never talks about is skills that people that are lonely might lack or any mental health issues they might have. I had a very strong social anxiety 10 years ago. I never left the house. I lacked the skills to cope with that. (Therapy in that case helps.) If you're lonely because you don't know how to connect with people, that's an even easier skill to acquire (i.e. read "say what you mean"). I am quite good at connecting with people nowadays and don't feel lonely anymore because I learned how to tune in to my needs, how to communicate with other people and get my needs met. Took a lot of reading, practicing, failing and therapy, but imho that's a viable way to solve that on an individual basis. The modern society is way too disconnected because of false beliefs and easy traps to fall in to (apps "solving" your problem being the problem).

TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
Were you an only child by chance?
- RamblingCTO 4y ago
  Quite the opposite ;) why?
bubblic 4y ago
What if I framed it as “helping people with what I can offer”? I am one person with one set of experiences. I would not claim to know what causes loneliness for everyone, and the helping hand that I offer might be of no help to many. But I try my best, based on my personal experience of loneliness and what I had wished to be there when I was lonely, maybe I can build something for that other person who may be going through something similar and they would cope with it faster and better that I had. That is all. I am no messiah claiming to have a panacea for loneliness, but just a human being offering help to other human beings.
- nicbou 4y ago
  That's a lovely approach to the situation.

idiocrat 4y ago

The Hedgehog's dilemma is relevant for loneliness. From Wikipedia: "The hedgehog's dilemma, or sometimes the porcupine dilemma, is a metaphor about the challenges of human intimacy. It describes a situation in which a group of hedgehogs seek to move close to one another to share heat during cold weather. They must remain apart, however, as they cannot avoid hurting one another with their sharp spines. Though they all share the intention of a close reciprocal relationship, this may not occur, for reasons they cannot avoid. Arthur Schopenhauer conceived this metaphor to describe what he considers to be the state of the individual in relation to others in society. The hedgehog's dilemma suggests that despite goodwill, human intimacy cannot occur without substantial mutual harm, and what results is cautious behavior and weak relationships. With the hedgehog's dilemma, one is recommended to use moderation in affairs with others both because of self-interest, as well as out of consideration for others. The hedgehog's dilemma is used to explain self-imposed isolation."

growt 4y ago
I’m not going to mess with Schopenhauer, but I feel this is wrong in respect to hedgehogs and also humans.
- Delk 4y ago
  It's probably wrong with respect to hedgehogs, but then, it's a metaphor, and what it's trying to say about human relationships makes sense to me in some way. The more intimate you are with someone, the more you're also aware of their pain and hardships. Intimate relationships involve conflicts and require compromises you would be able to avoid or not get into in a more distant relationship. They involve vulnerability and trust. The vulnerability and trust and the deep emotional meaning that intimate relationships have can make those conflicts all the more painful. Sometimes the compromises required or the shared pains can amount to damage. Of course that's not the only side of intimate relationships, as the metaphor also says. I'm not sure I'd agree with the interpretation that we (or most people) should be wary or moderate with closeness to other people. But I do get the idea that it's not without a significant cost that wouldn't be there when keeping a greater distance. Where each of us falls on the spectrum between the joys and pains (or even damage) of close relationships probably depends both on personality and our experiences.

DieBruderBauer 4y ago

So stoked for this. Long live bubblic!

bubblic 4y ago
:) thanks!!

ranting-moth 4y ago

I'd like a website to find people with same/similar hobbies. Not a dating site, just to find other geeks around me.

fiala__ 4y ago
sites like meetup.com or reddit can be great for that sort of thing
- trompetenaccoun 4y ago
  I made the mistake of organizing a meetup through reddit once. The people that showed up were weird and socially awkward. Not saying that to hate on the site, it's just something I'll definitely never do again. Meetup is slightly better because it's more of a mixed bag but you still regularly get creepy or annoying people. The problem with all these sites for using them to meet people imo is that they're too open. If you spent the time to get to know everyone you want to meet it would probably be fine but at that point you'd have spent hours upon hours forming virtual friendship, which to me defeats the purpose of casual meetups. I'd love a site that lets you set strict and sophisticated filters. Maybe with the option to quiz users and sort out those who can't give interesting answers to certain questions. Not sure why no one's attempted to make that yet, the obvious advantage of the digital world is that we can go through large numbers of individuals, filter the noise and match exactly the ones that are suitable for each other based on shared interests. Yet the best we got is swiping left or right based on someone's photoshopped profile picture?
  - boring_twenties 4y ago
    Wouldn't this strongly select for only desperately (for lack of a better word) lonely people? For everyone else, simply talking to strangers in real life is less friction than tackling some online quiz.
    - trompetenaccoun 4y ago
      My thinking is talking to random people is... random. We can do this outside the internet, don't really need an app for that. Being able to prescreen is less friction than spending time meeting uninteresting people. And having no barriers seems to be a recipe for that in my experience, it attracts those who're desperate because they can't meet people any other way. So if I want a way to remove those people, I'd want to have a higher barrier, not lower. Is the idea flawed?

nathias 4y ago

very ominous title

totetsu 4y ago

This reminds me of the work of the Japanese artist Watanabe Atsushi. He collaborated with people living shut in lives to all take photos of the moon together and collected them into an visual art work. Even though they're all alone everyone is looking at the same moon. https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/special/hikikomori/pages/articles_108.html https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/special/hikikomori/pages/article...

nofreelunch 4y ago
This is wonderful. Would love to see the book someday. (It is titled I'm Here if anyone is curious but doesnt want to dig thru a bunch of kanji)
- totetsu 4y ago
  That book is about his work where he breaks out of a concrete room with a sledgehammer, and smashes concrete objects that are symbols of his shutin period and reconnects the pieces with golden metal.
  - nofreelunch 4y ago
    Whoops, my mistake, but that book also sounds great.

mahathu 4y ago

"We live in the most connected age, but we feel lonelier than ever. We experience: a sense of isolation feeling "out of tune" with people around us having no one to turn to" Do "we"? I don't. Thats kind of a condescending accusation to make on the landing page of a website!

bubblic 4y ago
Hm.. maybe then the website is not for you.

bloak 4y ago

Is there a way to see/check/correct one's own location, particularly for people using a desktop OS on a VPN?

supernihil 4y ago

Interesting idea but i got too annoyed by the unresponsive ui to spend more than my 15 seconds there. The map especially is blocking too much, please fix and ill be back

bubblic 4y ago
Hey supernihil, could you expand on your comment? I would like to know so I can make the changes. Did that happen in the past few hours? I made changes 8 hours ago to fix some minor issues btw

sanbruno478 4y ago

Hi bubblic, this seems like an really interesting idea. Would you be open to discuss more? If so, what's the best way to contact you?

bubblic 4y ago
Feel free to reach me at albert@bubblic.co