https://hexbear.net/create_post?community=philosophy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Good_Place_(book)

I read this book, The Great, Good Place years ago for a college course and it stuck with me. I first encountered it back in the days of myspace, friendster, etc, the days of relative innocence, of "look ma, no hands!!" Then along came sites like reddit and digg, becoming mainstay even though ultimately tragic flings (Digg) and long-term affairs (reddit, a 16 year journey participating in promise, devolving to ruin). Did social media become the great new places? Or something entirely different?

By the time I turfed reddit I was done anyways, so full of frustration and anger over what could have been, the feeling consisting mainly of being ground underfoot. The Great, Good Place argues that "third places"--Where people can gather, put aside the concerns of work and home, and hang out simply for the pleasures of good company and lively conversation - are the heart of a community's social vitality and the grassroots of democracy. But with the advent of social media, its quite possible they've gone the way of the dinosaur.

I tried some other places, but either they were the online equivalents of round files for spam to be dumped in, or so full of outright racist bloat masquerading as "free speech", that it made my blood levels rise just like as on reddit. Try as I might, I couldn't "hang in there" and make it work, to filter out the bad for truth of finding the occasional good in a place.

Somehow I stumbled upon this site (Hexbear, touted as a place for leftists to gather) and it has me hopeful. Striking similarities to the comradery of discus, combined with the social bookmarking that structures like reddit once offered. Hoping there is political diversity that I can learn new things, and not feed from the same plate day after day, a plate that's been about as far left as you can get since back in my mid-eighties Oly/Evergreen days.

And now for the final question of my rant: Digg, what happened to ye???!!!! Such promise! I've ne'er seen a possibility drained of all potential in such a sudden, and final way. Ok, ok, probably not the best question to end a post that found its way onto the Philosophy forum. So perhaps I ought frame the question along these lines: in this day and age, with the internet going through in one day what took a year back in the early days, do we stand the chance of achieving a great, good gathering place that won't subside into commercial ruin?