I love it.

Perhaps social media has done that to some people. But I still see my neighbors out in their garden, and even outside with musical instruments. My musical friends come over and play outside with me. I garden alone because socializing over everything is insane to me.

I disagree there’s a real problem.

Re: people living at home still.

That trend was there before social media and COVID. Along with women having kids later, and adults finding career success later.

The economic math always points to the gerontocracy locking up capital, and of course their generational peers in government refuse to use their legislative powers to do anything but hand sacks of capital to their buddies, who then point us toward shovels.

This isn’t magic. We know where the problem is. Believing we need to import another fad for people to consume is ridiculous.

People still think that people making 6 figures are the elite and cheer every time a progressive income tax targeting someone marginally richer than them is introduced by their government. They are not the enemy, they're not the people lobbying the government so their business can make extra millions or avoid paying taxes with loopholes.

The political discourse always ends up on some hot issue backed by group identity (whether it's minorities, poor people or some other kind of victim). I don't think the government will ever be able to tackle this conflict of interest and actually impact the ultra rich which maintain politicians.

I just hope we won't get to a violent revolution and physically killing of the rich middle class (kulaks 2.0)

Every single person in this country that makes more than $100,000 has outsize political clout and the capacity to change things for the better, and simply don't. Your retirement is more important, or your children's education, or your career. Fiddling while Rome burns.

"But the cost of living." What about it? Take a stand. You make $100k, $200k a year. Collapse the property value pyramid scheme with direct action. Throttle your mortgage payments. Throw out eviction notices. Hire gangbangers to protect your house when the police come to throw you out. Organize with your neighbors to build a series of self-governed mini-ethnostates based on the first two digits of your house addresses, where your trashed credit score and criminal record are meaningless.

Clearly I'm halfway joking. I'm not clever enough to come up with a real solution. But to act like making twice, thrice, quadruple the average household income as an individual still leaves you handcuffed is farcical. You all pay too much for necessities and you buy goods and services you don't need, and you use it to justify inaction while 2/3 of the rest of country languishes in sickness and poverty. Figure out what you're willing to sacrifice to make this better for everyone, gather it up into a big ball and catapult launch it at the walls of the establishment. If a few days off work and some posterboard can set cities ablaze, the power of someone with 5-6 figures to burn and the willingness to really do something substantial would be awesome indeed to behold.

And (completely serious this time) don't tell me that people with six-figure incomes don't donate to political campaigns because you do.

... in the US. The world extends slightly beyond the US of A, where your statement doesn’t necessarily apply.

Especially since a lot of that inheritance is going to be stakes in critical businesses that the heirs are in no way, shape, or form qualified to run.

Except a lot of the meetups where I live either haven't come back or they are "virtual". :(

Once you realize social media is mostly fake validation seeking behavior you can decide if that's what you want . Ends up being tons of stress and mental anguish for nothing at all. I'll say without a doubt people are absolutely meaner via social media vs real life. I recall when I lived in Chicago how everyone in certain areas knew each other. Act like a jerk and word travels fast. Thus this keeps people friendly. On Reddit, which I had to step back from , it take 10 seconds to create a username. Then you can throw out all types of vitriol at people you'll never meet. Why be apart of that ? I do find Reddit to be very helpful if you have a specific technical question, but the moment you venture out of tech people get really nasty really fast. I'm still debating if it's worth returning to.

It's at the point where I might hire someone to run the social media accounts for a product I may be releasing. I have absolutely no interest in using social media myself.

I have a sort of live now list for once Corona ends

HN is somewhat unique in not fostering or tolerating that sort of thing. Sure, sometimes a comments gets downvoted, because it expresses an unpopular view, but not so much if it is well thought-out & presented. And it's extremely rare to come across comments that are mean or otherwise unproductive without it quickly going dead. It's no Utopia of internet peace & tranquility, but you can have a real conversation.

We have a similar problem in The Netherlands. For starters it is hard to buy a house (mortgage), free sector rent is expensive, and social housing is in huge shortage. Result: Young adults remain living with their parents. Daughter of my neighbor is well within her 30s, still living with mom.

Generic going out meetups tend to be very strange, and socially awkward.

Before Corona hit I would go to tech meetups and board gaming meetups. I'd specifically warn against going to a Meetup thinking that you're going to get anything out of it aside from just enjoying the Meetup itself.

With that in mind, I happen to meet a nice girl last year after asking if she was there for the meetup. She wasn't , but she took my number down and we enjoyed each other's company.

But if you're looking at meetups in your area, and you're imagining which one's going to be the best, to meet someone you're not going to have a good time . You'll be so focused on that, you won't enjoy yourself.

You're in the US so there's probably not English meetups, but there's probably an Esperanto interest group or you could try to find a group for another language you're learning.

I haven't personal been to SF but I figure you there's SIGs for a tech stack you like.

Read _Industrial Society and Its Future_. It has the path paved out already. Japan is, as seems to be customary, ahead of the curve in some respects.

So why the finger pointing like all the other commenters on HN? Go out and fix it! If this problem could be solved with some NOSQL, a Raspberry PI, and soldering, this forum would collectively rally behind the solution. But suddenly when a problem is deemed "social" our hands go in the air and it's not in my backyard?

We're both techies, myself I'm pivoting my career into psychology 5 years after I thought I was done with college. We need more techies fixing this, and you clearly have some interest this problem, why not join the solution?

The problem is that there's usually a 1000x discrepancy between how a comment appears to the person making it vs. the person receiving it. Comments in the rear-view mirror are much larger than they appear!

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

That's already a technical solution to this problem.

I've seen startups which appear to be meetup alternatives as well.