Mother Teresa's Order Investigated for Child Trafficking

[JPhillips]

That's all true, but if you look in the not so distant past the membership in those sorts of groups was much higher, so non-religious service can happen.

I think we're losing community at all levels, religious, civic, athletic, etc.

[thesloppy]

Yeah, not surprising that community building these days seem to be happening mostly through the internet and/or smart phones. Unfortunately online communities practically work to separate folks from their physical communities.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by thesloppy

Yeah, not surprising that community building these days seem to be happening mostly through the internet and/or smart phones. Unfortunately online communities practically work to separate folks from their physical communities.

Like finds like, that's human nature. Like even seeks like.

Up the thread somewhere I think someone mentioned the transient/mobile nature of modern society. Since not all locations, however temporary, are chosen on that basis, it seems like a natural evolution. We can probably find "like" on the internet and -- bonus -- those folks are portable when we make our next move.

I've been in Athens 13 years and there's exactly one person in this town that would rate anywhere near the level of closeness I'd put a fair number of FOFC members at. I don't see that as a negative. Removing the online option isn't going to make the locals the least bit more appealing to me, it's only going to make me more isolated.

[JPhillips]

The evidence, though, points towards on-line communities being nothing like a replacement for the real thing. The individual and the society gain far less when the bonds are virtual.

Personally, I think the loss of community is one of the great problems of modern life.

[molson]

Online communities aren't much on their own, but they're a good way to find real life niche communities centered around particular interests.

If you're interested in a particular type of volunteering, or a sport, it's pretty easy to get connected to like-minded people through facebook groups and other social media. And if your geographic community is large enough, but not too large, those groups can start to overlap a little and before you know it, you can have something resembling a "community".

My social life in a city I moved to as an adult was built around social media and group invites after I showed interest in particular things. Now, 13 years in, it's not uncommon to know someone pretty well but have no real memory of how I met them. They just were around, many times, at the same social-media-initiated events and informal get-togethers as me.

[thesloppy]

I think online communities are also devalued by the simple fact that online communication seems to default to hostile opposition. It's tougher to mine positive value out of an environment if you have to face constant negativity in order to get there.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

Personally, I think the loss of community is one of the great problems of modern life.

We're definitely the opposite ends of the spectrum on that topic.

The homicide rate is high enough as it is without forcing a higher rate of f2f contact.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by molson

Online communities aren't much on their own ...

Says the guy with almost 21,000 posts ? (an average of about 3.5/day for nearly 17 years)

*I'm not picking on you (honest) but I don't know if there's a better way to make the point

[molson]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Says the guy with almost 21,000 posts ? (an average of about 3.5/day for nearly 17 years)

*I'm not picking on you (honest) but I don't know if there's a better way to make the point

Oh shit, that many? Ya lose track when the post count isn't on every post anymore....

I like the posters here and obviously enjoy interacting with you all (and on reddit), but I'd differentiate this kind of online community from a facebook group of non-anonymous people based around say, living in a particular neighborhood, or fishing locally, or running locally, or one I'm in that's just extended friends and acquaintances (and friends of those people) who like to get together in the park on Sundays and drink mimosas and eat bacon. (though I'd certainly love to do the latter with anyone here - it's just geography that gets in the way of that).

[thesloppy]

Ask me to help you move and see how strong my bond is.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by thesloppy

Ask me to help you move and see how strong my bond is.

LOL.

Amusingly enough our young adults group at church has basically helped every single one of us move. That's real community right there .

[molson]

I could never ask someone to help me move, so when someone asks me - I am so flattered and impressed that I will do it every time.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by molson

but I'd differentiate this kind of online community from a facebook group of non-anonymous people ...

Yeah, I would too... odds are some of FOFC is ultimately easier to tolerate lol.
(God only knows there's FOFCers who have, say, most of my relatives beat easily)

And hey, FOFC is an outlier simply due to longevity. Some of the oldest hands here can remember me when I didn't have a kid ... and he's 21 now.

By the same token though, I've watched a lot of posters here go through all the various life stuff - births, deaths, marriages, divorces, pets, jobs, you name it ... and I give a lot more shits about those things with you lot than I do about the same stuff for some couple that happens to be living down the street for 18 months until they flip into another house or whatever.

The house next door to me, for example, has been empty for roughly half the time we've lived here, and has had at least three sets of occupants in the other half ... the sum total of words spoken between us & those three sets is quite possibly literally zero (granted, the main entrances are on opposite sides of the houses & there's some wooded area screening between them, so it's not like we even see each other in passing more than once every 2-3 weeks.

Now I will grant this: I'm less "geographically connected" than the average person. I grew up (I'm adopted, remember) in a place that I never had any sense of belonging to the place -- my likings are near the antithesis of "rural lifestyle" -- and after more than three decades of being gone I've never once said / thought "damn, I wish I was back there". Not. Once.

You drill that down to more micro levels (town, street, neighborhood) and it really changes nothing for me. (when your entire county population was only around 8,000 'drilling down' is kind of a moot point I think).

Give me commonality that is more substantial than geographic coincidence. Be a gamer, a rocker, a wrestling fan, a conservative, something, ANYTHING that provides some common ground and it has more meaning to me than mere physical happenstance.

And those things - beyond literal single digits - have pretty much always been something that required extended geography for me to find. I knew maybe 2-3 gamers growing up, a half dozen rockers that were actually into it, a couple of wrestling fans. Take away high school sports & I had to be in the next town over (or more likely 2-4 COUNTIES over) to find more than single digit shared interest people.

(That overlong essay is meant to be by way of explaining why laments about "the death of community" ring entirely empty to me, they simply do not compute to me at all).

[thesloppy]

Yeah, I think you've hit on something with what physical community can/does represent also largely depends on what physical community you belong to, and the smaller that physical community the less likely you are to find folks with common interests other than those that come with proximity.