Personally I'm more positive about the impact of online communities than the author is. But you for sure need offline friends and experiences, alongside the on

Personally I'm more positive about the impact of online communities than the author is. But you for sure need offline friends and experiences, alongside the online ones, to keep yourself grounded in reality; the online experience has loads of biases, some obvious and others very subtle, and only by keeping one eye on the real world can you know when you're encountering them. Also you're not going to meet your future wife or husband through HN.