Great point, the feeling of community has slowly faded from many parts of the country. Not all, of course. Hard to do it completely. But the loss of "third plac

Great point, the feeling of community has slowly faded from many parts of the country. Not all, of course. Hard to do it completely. But the loss of "third places" -- places you can exist with others in a non-vocational or business context -- is probably a big part of it. Many places still sort of exist through stuff like farmer's markets, some clubs, libraries, swap meets, etc, but they seem less generalized for socializing. I haven't met with my neighbors or sat down to chat with them. It does feel kind of alien and, dare I say it, rude to intrude on someone's life that way. Maybe it's not really an intrusion, and an atmosphere of fear and distrust has trained us to separate. I remember my parents meeting people and scheduling times to hang out all the time. Children from different families would mingle while the adults mingled, everyone got some dose of community. I couldn't tell you where programming hobbyists meet up in my area. I might have to go up to Tacoma before I find any no-or-low-cost hacker groups. But, don't many communities also have common places they go routinely? I'm thinking gaming and TTRPG, TCG shops might be a good start to build a third place, despite being a business themselves.