A friend of mine had a neighbourhood event started by one site neighbour. He owns his home every month for conversation. There's a topic each month, and there are rules about listening, being respectful, no phones allowed, etc. It's strictly for having open conversation. My friend loves it.

yeah, this is what I hate. people dont' talk anymore. they preach, the sell, they complain, but they never ever converse.

I managed a third space and around '22 there was a huge shift, people started being adversarial and pushy, and less cooperative and chill. and so many people started trying to sell you something, which is what really rubbed me the wrong way. i don't want to be advertised to constantly, like this one woman would come and endless promote her cold plunge club, and I just got so sick of her, because she wasn't there to participate, she was there to promote her weird little alt medicine lifestyle crap, under the pretense of 'participation'.

the problem is everything gets co-opted by agenda-fueled people. online, and in real life. So many folks have internalized their 'self-branding' they see everyone and everything as product promotion.

I can recall in the 2000s and 2010s have actually long meandering conversations that had substance... I don't meet anyone who can talk like that anymore. Everything is scattershot and nothing of substance can ever be said because it's some sort of imposition now. The way I used to connect to people in college and graduate schools is largely forbidden now. I think about the chats I had back then and all I can see is freaking people out by talking that way in 2026. We used to have talks and debates about things in the world and we didn't HATE each other over our differences on our views about the Iraq War or any of that.