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Ask HN: Where are the best online gathering places for humans?
Where are the best online spaces where humanity is attested in a decentralized way, using web-of-trust or something similar?
- haebom 1y agoPersonally, I think it's x or Reddit. Of course, there are many bots too.
- shortrounddev2 1y agoI can't think of a worse website to talk to people on than Twitter these days
- al_borland 1y agoI went on X today for the first time in a long time. I mentioned something in a thread about an experience a fried had that was relevant to the parent post. Someone (who claimed to be the CTO of some company in his bio), called me a liar, then proceeded to call me and the friend I mentioned a bunch of derogatory names, after I attempted to expand on and clarify things based on his earlier accusations. Does Reddit still ban people for having discussions in good faith, if they think you’re on the wrong side of the group-think? That was my fate there. Between the culture and the bots, both of those sites are pretty bad. AI has just made it worse.
- muzani 1y agoX is the 4chan of 2025. Porn, politics, racism, "hot takes", but with more celebrities and less anonymity. It's a little worse because people think they can make money dunking on others. Reddit's group think can be a little weird. There was a phase where r/openai was full of OpenAI haters. r/writers was full of people who would dunk on Stephen King and JK Rowling. r/cooking was full of people who think that cheap wine should be used for cooking. That was my frustration with reddit. At least with HN, only half of the community hates AI and NFT.
- hiAndrewQuinn 1y agoX gets my vote, but I have had outsized positive experiences from it (including getting married and a few job offers). It isn't a platform for the faint of heart. You have to commit to posting things other people actually regularly find interesting on there to get the most out of it, which is simply not a bar most people pass. Even then can take a few months before you start to find your footing.
- jMyles 1y agoReddit in particular feels totally lost. The overwhelming majority of posts and especially comments are milquetoast, LLM-feeling, uninsightful, centrist drivel. It's so loud that it's easy to forget that real humans crave real interactions and learning.
- shortrounddev2 1y agoIRC feels more authentic than discord to me
- t0duf0du 1y agoWhat are some good IRCs? Can you please tell me?
- shortrounddev2 1y agolibera.chat is probably the biggest. Rizon is the unofficial home of various 4chan affiliated IRC channels.
- krapp 1y agoThe fediverse. Mastodon is good if you curate properly. Lemmy might also be good but I don't follow it as much.
- nis0s 1y agoI’d just caution that a lot of the Fediverse is heavily Marxist-Leninist. If that’s for you, go for it.
- krapp 1y agoI'd say it's far more generally leftist than Marxist-Leninist, although there are a lot of card-carrying Marxists and communists around. I just mute the most exasperating of the lot who post thirst traps of Castro and gas up BRICS.
- nis0s 1y agoHonestly, the economic tools are just that, it’s the cultural and political baggage they carry which make them a problem. That said, whenever someone says “left”, I like to make the distinction between rational progressive, radical progressive, or left libertarian. There are few rational progressives on the Fediverse, at least from my experience.
- muzani 1y agoreminds me of this: https://www.reddit.com/r/comics/comments/1j5kbeb/nazi_bar/ https://www.reddit.com/r/comics/comments/1j5kbeb/nazi_bar/
- bilsbie 1y agoBitchat might take off one day. I keep checking and no one is on yet.
- zywoo 1y agoFor me, if you can tolerate a more blue-leaning political climate, Bluesky feels better than X. It may not explode as fast, but the long-tail effect is real. Anonymity is also a bit stronger there.
- alecsm 1y agoBlue leaning? I wouldn't mind that. The problem there is that every topic is mixed with politics and it drains me. I'm already bombarded with political stuff from every angle and when I want to talk about tech I don't want more politics into it. In that regard even X is better. I can keep it pretty clean by following few people and not looking at the For you page.
- zywoo 1y agoHaha, true, but I’m really interested in political theory and philosophy. So occasionally when I come across some very in-depth original content on Bluesky, it feels great. I’ve even made some friends there with whom I can have long-term conversations, for example, discussions on Bayesianism, rationalism and empiricism, as well as Spinoza’s Ethics. I’m not really interested in topics about the Democrats or Republicans, Biden or Trump.
- jMyles 1y agoI like Bluesky, but it feels just as overrun by bots and LLMs as X.