Something has happened recently that scares me. I communicate regularly with 12-16 people. I don't know if it's me or them, or borh, but I've stopped being fully unedited with all but 3, and those 3 are not even the subset I intellectually respect the most. I sense a new more dangerous landscape. At first I thought I was just being paranoid but I'm noticing it among others as well. We don't even trust each other, and that seems bad, but the reasons are complicated, and often about technology.
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Yes, same here to a certain degree.
Whatever is odd & wrong in this time is certainly made worse by tech. My irl friendships have gone downhill from me first ditching FB and then the dead bird site. Final insult by me seems to have been dropping WhatsApp use in my trusted personal communications. A formerly very close friend downright rejected my plea to join me on Signal, because it was "too much extra work". A *skilled developer*. Now they get no personal news from me, where in earlier times there could be dozens of messages a day.
In my case recent neurodivergence discoveries have played a not insignificant part in whom I trust. It's sometimes hard to figure out which came first, people's attitudes towards ND or the tech allegiance issues.
@iita I feel every word of this. thank you for sharing.
@Tarnport @iita I felt every word of this, too.
I feel like we aren't publicly acknowledging, at least not in a big enough way, the incredible social costs / social isolation of being risk aware, risk averse, and intentional in one's choices (tech choices, pandemic choices, it's all a shared universe).
@Tarnport This may not be very responsive, sorry.
I recently had to start editing myself with one of the people closest to me because e.g. I was thinking about violence and the role it plays in society and it scared her.
She didn't think I was wrong, but the topic, and the fact that I was thinking specifically about the topic, scared her.
As much as I love and depend on her, she was not the right person to share with on that topic.
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@CartyBoston no, this is hitting very close to my experience. Thank you for adding it. It's this, across several topics.
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With tech stuff including AI and its societal impact people know so little about tech that I am insufferable.
We're all in a dangerous landscape. The concept of trust is evolving. Should we have been less trusting? Or did these people become untrustworthy?
I've always liked what some Kahnawake Mohawk ironworker told me : "A man has five fingers on his hand to remind him he can only have five true friends, max. Everyone else is just an acquaintance."
