Off-topic, but the following had me thinking:

>"However, I’m not the most social of person, and I’m rarely on social media other than here so I could definitely be wrong."

Do you people of the HN consider HN as a social media?

I personally don't, to me it feels more like an aggregator of knowledge and useful opinions.

The way I read HN is that I first look at the comments, and then based on that decided if I'll read the article.

I understand why social medias exist, but to me they feel useless and quite often they have many serious negative effects. None of which are present here on HN.

> Do you people of the HN consider HN as a social media?

Yes, definitely.

At times when I'm really busy, I'll even occasionally blacklist it to avoid distractions. The feelings HN gives me are very similar to the feelings that Reddit/Facebook would give me. I think that platforms like Reddit have additional downsides that HN has managed to avoid, but HN is a social forum.

Yes, definitely. I kind of see it like a hobby subreddit from 5 years ago or a niche forum from 15 years ago.

It is well-moderated (thanks dang!), it doesn't have the critical mass of users which leads to wider adoption, it has a narrow focus on thought-provoking material, it is pseudonymous, and you don't need to download an app to use it.

But even though I occasionally learn useful things from HN, I still think it fits the definition of "social media": it is a way to waste time when you are otherwise lonely and bored, and it involves interacting with other people.

I don’t. I also don’t consider other anonymous post-comment sites like Reddit to be social media. It’s only social if there are actual connections, relationships, friendships, etc. being formed or perpetuated. That doesn’t happen on here or on Reddit or on other similar anonymous sites. There is a particular sub-reddit for a hobby that I spend a ton of time on. I honestly don’t know if any of the comments I have ever read on there are from people I’ve previously read comments from. I never read usernames and wouldn’t remember them anyway. For all I know, every comment was left by a bot. There is no community, no relationships, no friendships, etc. Just like HN. That’s not social media.

I would call it a forum. You can’t follow people, which I would consider a necessary condition for social media.

That’s a good point.

I do by definition (because I enjoy reading some of the conversations), but it could easily be used just as a news site. So I’m my mind it’s usually in a separate place than other social media. Also, as much as I’ve heard some people critique the quality of conversations on HN, it’s definitely a lot better than most, if not all, other conversation based platforms.

Maybe random forums are better, but I don’t consider those social media really.

Today's HN fills the hole in my heart where BIX, CompuServe, and my own old BBS network used to be.

Maybe a good rule of thumb is to sit down, do an instropection on all the things you love and identify the one that assures the most financial stability and security.

Choose that thing as your job and make the rest your hobbies.

The next generation after millennial - they're like 18 right? That doesn't sound like a generation thing that sounds like a teenager/young adult thing. And I think the hippies in the 60s were way further on the "follow your heart" thing than teenagers now, and a lot of them grew up to be like conservative bankers or whatever.

The number of hippies from the 60s are vanishingly small proportion of the population. There're 100x people spitting on Vietnam protesters than there were protesters.

And there are probably an even smaller number of 18 year olds telling their mentors that they're going to leave behind their dreams of being a physicist to become a rock climber. Those stories stand out and get all the attention, and people really want to find ways to claim following generations are going astray, but the 100x people in gen z going on to study STEM fields and getting well paying jobs get outshadowed as people decide that the random person that wants to be a rock climber is going to define the trend. And hey, it's early days - rock climbing competitions and stuff need a winner too, and while I wouldn't expect every person that makes the call to leave a "Boring" path to become a rock climber or a musician or actor or whatever to succeed, id expect to successful ones to have stories along those lines. People had to be that way to create this generation of daredevils and movie starts, why would the next generation be any different?

Totally! And I wish her all the best and when people ask for a reference I send them to her (because I don’t like spending my time teaching newbies anymore). I just have these anecdotes that could mean nothing but are concerning to me. Now that I think about it, I probably am more concerned about all the people out there who live cookie cutter lives without honest introspection.

maybe climbing was the better career move.

if astrophysics is anything like most of academia, there are a lot of low-paying, unstable short-term positions as everybody scrambles for the few permanent jobs. i'm sure there are a lot of astrophysicists struggling to survive in adjunct/lecturer/lab assistant positions who wish they had just gotten a normal job that pays more rather than pursuing what they love.

That’s a great point, but I’ll let you know that there aren’t many jobs in climbing and the number that actually pay well are very small as well. So maybe both are impractical? But that is a good point.