The direction we're headed, humanity is going to become utterly isolated pods, never interacting. We're going to end up with humanity being one rich dude, a staff of robots, and some humans under his patronage. The other bit of humanity is a rich woman, with a staff of robots, and some humans under her patronage, because nobody can deal with there being other humans that are as gross and sloppy and suck, just as much as they do.
Relationships are hard. They're a lot of work. Not just romantic relationships, but all other kinds of relationships: family, friendship, mentorship, chosen family, colleague, manager, mentee, client, neighbor, teammate, student, citizen, creative partner, audience. Instead of having any kind of relationship with people, I can just hide away, work remote, become hikikomori.
Where does that leave humanity? As Ms Deejay says, do you think you're better off alone?
Because individual humans no long need to coexist with their neighbors, it means the best and worst will flourish. For every supportive person that accepts gay people, there's another person that wants to stone them. Interacting with lots of other people is the only way to develop nuanced opinions of groups of other people, and without any kind of forced interaction, there won't be any, further isolating everybody from everyone else.
I think there is a lot of hypberbole in your argument. People interacting because they have no other choice is not a good thing. Do you think forced arranged marriages are good? Do you think being stuck in a toxic relationship of any kind is good? Even on the milder side, boomers and gen-x are chok full of marriages that started because people didn't want to be alone, or because it's "what everybody else does" and then they end up in divorce, and you have all sorts of messed up "children of divorce" left behind.
I don't think anyone would choose a relationship with a computer, or isolation when the alternative is a healthy relationship of their own choice. There is still no replacement for real and authentic human relationships.
Relationships are hard, but entering them should be voluntary, not coerced. and my answer to Ms Deejay is: Yeah, we're better off alone than being stuck in a coerced toxic relationship. No one goes "hikomori" or "forever alone" when they could have just put up with some disagreements and uncomfortable situations.
It's important for people to learn to be alone and ok with it. to be content and happy with your own company. If I was being a reductionist, I would even claim that most of the ails of the world are rooted in coerced relationships. Conflict as the default state of a relationship is not better than solitude. But solitude as the default state of a person isn't healthy either.
Balance is key to most things. Have relationships, put up with the messiness of people, but up to a point. Be comfortable with solitude, but up to a point only. Be your own friend first, so you can be one to others.
People are being more isolated, but not because they want to be to the most part, and not because of techonology, but by the reconstruction of society so that the most labor and capital can be extracted from a person. Public transportations, public spaces, walkable cities, social media that isn't a brainwashing machine, AI that isn't trained to manipulate human psychology,etc.. those are the changes we need. The false dichotomoy of "all or nothing" you eschew is anathema to the goals you seek.
Hermits have been around since forever. You can hunt in the woods, read books and chill with your dog in the Alaska or any number of remote places, and many have done that all through history. Your sentiment is similar to how they thought people won't even talk to each other anymore in person after the invention of telephones. People talked less in person for sure, but we still talk to each other in person, even when a call is easier.
> No one goes "hikomori" or "forever alone" when they could have just put up with some disagreements and uncomfortable situations.
Without interviewing a group of people that aren't looking to be interviewed, how can you make that claim? I can't say I've done that either, but in the total range of humans I've met over my time on Earth, there is a huge spectrum of the level of uncomfortable that people are able to put up with. As simplistic example, how much hot/cold humans are able to put up with before complaining varies from individual to individual. Some complain at the slightest temperature change. Other would rather pass out than complain. If there's such a wide variation on such a simple measure, so, too, we should expect variation on the level of ability to "just put up with some disagreements and uncomfortable situations."
I'm not here to try and somehow sell the idea that forced arranged marriages are a good thing, or that we should go back to the 1950's where women were more chattle than people. Or that people should stay in toxic relationships that are slowly killing them inside.
I seek none of those things.
The question is, how do we, at large, as a society, make toxic people less toxic? An absolutist approach towards it failed the 2024 US election.
What is increased polarization, in the people around me and in the world. I don't know how to heal that. How to lessen the toxicity being spewed about, even here. (Not remotely accusing you of it, mind you, just there are certain threads/topics that HN does not do well.)
> People are being more isolated
Some people are being more isolated simply because they can afford to. Part of the reason there is a housing crisis is that more people are choosing to live alone. If a house previously housed 6 people is now housing one, maybe two, the demand for housing shoots way up. That is not the only reason, but we can't ignore it either.
The telephone required another person on the other end of it. If people don't talk in-person because of the telephone, they still need to talk to another person, who's personality is lumpy and spiky and loveable in their own way. Anthropomorphization aside, LLMs aren't people and so my concern, which may prove to be "old man yelling at clouds", only time can tell; my concern is that we'll collectively get used to talking exclusively with LLMs and not need the social skills necessary to interact and live amongst other humans.
In a society that's becoming increasingly polarized, going no contact with the toxic people in your life is the right move for individual self-preservation, but those toxic people find other toxic people and become even more toxic. And we all each have one but one vote to give. Well, billionaires get a couple more because we worship the rich, but the rest of us; the rest of us each only have one.
Yes?