I think of a community as sort of the inverse of a mob. A mob shares a space for a short time, unifies around a single shared idea or emotion, and destroys the awareness of the individual. A community shares a space for a prolonged time, unifies around a hodgepodge collection of ideas, and maintains the level of individual thought and awareness.

The quality and persistence of the space is critical. Online communities certainly do exist, but the space is ephemeral and lower fidelity than shared physical space because the range of possible forms of communication is constrained.

Do you feel this way about all kinds of online interactions? Or are Zoom calls or group chats better than, lets say, your Twitter feed or Reddit threads?

My top issue with Zoom, which I find absolutely aggravating, is that most of the time there is a scheduled meeting window, and once it's over, the meeting is closed, and there is no way to continue a conversation with someone you are interested in conversing with. It resembles a prison visit more than a community meeting.

Zoom calls and group chats are definitely less bad than Twitter or Facebook or Reddit, but they are nowhere close to as good as IRL.

Note that I have worked mostly remote jobs for a couple years now, so I'm not opposed to partially remote, but frequent visits to the client IRL are necessary, and if you're part of a team it's even more important to meet together.

Only a few more months!

Have we flattened the curve yet?

People aren't going to put up with this anymore , I suspect once most get a vaccine they'll be out enjoying bars / clubs / etc.

It's getting there.

Prior to vaccinations, California had 40,000+ new daily positive cases.

One month into, that's down to 6,000.