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Hey. Off-topic(ish), but does anyone know of any good places online (other than Lainchan) where I can actually find some decent people? Ideally a place with some kind of focus on debating, philosophy, the notion of freedom, and tech, and a somewhat unique community / style (kind of like Lainchan). I'm thinking of IRC servers / channels, Mumble, imageboards, other forums, etc. And ideally they would be somewhat active, not like a lot of the dying sites I come across with no users. I don't know if any places like this exist right now, but I thought I'd ask anyway. Thanks! (I know this isn't really what /Ω/ is for, but it was the best place for this question I could find, sorry.)

>this fuarrrking thread again Can we not do this anymore?

>>75037 nta but wheres the other instances of a thread like this?

>>75036 Make soykaf that makes a difference. Publish. They will come.

>>75039 Literally every week we get the same thread >gen z meme >"where do I find cool people online" I've seen it like 20 times on here I'm starting to think it's AI generated

>>75041 Bonus points if OP has never used an imageboard Bonus points if OP's photo was something like "the voices r loud xD quirky schizocore" Bonus points if the post was misplaced

>>75042 Where else would I have put this?

>>75039 There are none. People just want to complain about something.

>>75042 And btw, I didn’t put any thought into choosing that stupid fuarrrking image. I just used the first one I saw, regardless of whether it was actually funny.

>>75041 If someone were generating posts for this website, they would not be asking this kind of question. What would even be the point of that? It’s more likely that they would be creating posts to influence people by pushing them towards having a certain viewpoint. No one would waste money on making these kind of posts (which aren’t even that common).

>>75048 >If someone were generating posts for this website, they would not be asking this kind of question. What would even be the point of that? So they can crawl into every little nook and corner of the internet and infect the remaining decent places too. AI or fed, of course both want to know where the cool kids hang out nowadays. They want to ruin everything, no place is sacred for these people. Also, I think Lain is right on this one. Feels very robotic, especially with the "hey" and "thanks" and on top of that this low-quality .jpg that looks like it was ran through some sort of AI. Also if this >Ideally a place with some kind of focus on debating, philosophy, the notion of freedom, and tech, and a somewhat unique community / style (kind of like Lainchan). doesn't set your alarms off then I don't know what will.

I might know some places, but I wouldn't tell the likes of you since you don't even have the decency to post this in the right place, let alone pick an image that is relevant. >(I know this isn't really what /Ω/ is for, but it was the best place for this question I could find, sorry.) A load of nonsense.

>>75050 >>75049 Tell me where to post this then. Where would you ask this question, on this website? Lainchan is the only place I know where I can get remotely decent answers to this type of question. 4chan is soykaf and won’t let me post through Tor, Reddit is even more soykaf and I’ll just get recommended more boring, dead Lemmy sites. I’m not a fuarrrking AI, I’m just a guy who doesn’t want to waste his life on soykafty sites like Reddit or 4chan, and wants to use the Internet as it was meant to be used. Is it really so hard for you schizos to realize that some of us just want help finding the better parts of the Internet? And yes, I know my writing is weird. I can be slightly autistic sometimes, but that was the best way I could find to describe the places I wanted to find. Looking back on it, it does look kind of bad. The image was soykaf, ok? I admit that. As I said, I literally just chose the first image I saw, so that I could post. The image is irrelevant. But you idiots didn’t have to start accusing me of being a fed. It’s possible for a normal person to say “thanks” at the end of their post (I was literally just trying to be nice, especially since I knew I was posting this on a board not exactly intended for this question), and to want to know where the good parts of the Internet are.

>>75052 >Where would you ask this question, on this website? On the 0,1% chance that you are being genuine: probably nowhere. >I’m not a fuarrrking AI, I’m just a guy who doesn’t want to waste his life on soykafty sites like Reddit or 4chan, and wants to use the Internet as it was meant to be used. The reason those remaining sites should not be shared anymore is because starting this year, these popular enough chans are monitored, like everything else popular enough, by ChatGPT/AI and feds. ChatGPT probably already aggregates the information here to the massively growing cesspool it's becoming. Didn't you know? Albeit a bit weak right now, it's already capable of "browsing" the internet. https://help.openai.com/en/articles/8077698-how-do-i-use-chatgpt-browse-with-bing-to-search-the-web The next reason as to not share is simple: it's really easy. You already know how to use Tor. Browse there long enough and I'm pretty certain that you will stumble across those sites you're looking for. >Is it really so hard for you schizos to realize that some of us just want help finding the better parts of the Internet? I do, and I believe there are some people with genuine intentions here. But I think there should also be little more effort from you if you want to get spoonfed information.

>>75054 Thanks for the advice. This is kind of my problem though. I have actually spent a lot of time on Tor, but still can’t find any decent places. Any recommendations on where to start?

>>75036 Sorry but there's nothing you can do but look around imageboards until someone offhandedly namedrops a place you can check out and see if you like, that's how I found lainchan. I guess you could use one of those "list of chan board" sites to give yourself a base to spring off of but most GOOD places spread thanks to word of mouth, not ads. And because you're anonymous and any anon who comes into this thread could see, no one's gonna link quality stuff, only for some annoying kids to go to the site and spam it. Best advice I can give to you know is just stumble around your interest until you stumble right into something

>>75059 Yeah, that’s understandable. Having some kind of barrier to entry is probably pretty important if you want to prevent your site from getting ruined.

>>75036 I can't say for certain but I think this is basically what the Fediverse is supposed to emulate? Find a worthwhile Mastodon instance or something like that and get active in it. That, or find a project on GitHub to contribute to--nothing makes community like working together on something. Like others pointed out, it is patently ridiculous to ask imageboard users to show a shred of sympathy or interest in other human beings--ask this question on IRC or something next time.

it's like seeing degeneration before your very eyes

>>75039 >>75046 nta but it pops up in /r/ every now and then. >>>/r/38303 is the current thread for it, and >>>/r/36698 is similar enough.

>>75036 I think what I miss the most is that there's absolutely no internet platform I enjoy. Where should I go if I want to meet new people with various interests, have a small-ish community, but also not expect it to suck my time away? Things like discord expect you to be always on them. The chat goes either so fast you need to be there right now, or it doesn't move at all, by the time the community might as well be dead. I really have no interests in that. I rather just write a few posts every 2 days or so. When it comes to social media, I've used few of them and I hate them with passion. I never got a sense of community in them. All of them encourage full on brain rot too. The only plus is that they kinda have people with various interests. Forums are kinda okay, but they are rare and lot of people there just bring the culture from twitter or discord to them. Actually what I seem to miss is actually a nice stand alone place. Everywhere I go it feels like twitter. It's the same language, same jokes, same formats. You can't seem to find a place that really does it's own thing anymore.

>>75036 looks like you want lambda+ buddy

>>75048 90 iq mfs love calling the most eloquent quirky soykaf that could never have come from the "i'm sorry, you're right, the sphincter is located in the solar plexus"-ass sounding LLMs. goddamn people never use the insult correctly on what does sound ai generated

Another Lain here to dunk on OP >>75036 >>75052 You got the order wrong. You are looking for 'decent' and 'interesting' people without having anything to offer yourself. >tech >freedom woah there calm down buddy >debating >philosophy Anyone who says they are into debating online don't actually debate (unless thats what you call twitter arguments) 90% of the time Find something you are interested in, look for a relevant internet community, and grow contact from there naturally. >>75049 this but with 'normal people', people who flood into a community once it reaches a critical mass of attention with no intention or capability to meaningfully contribute. Case study for Neocities: https://bikobatanari.art/posts/2023/state-of-neocities >>75117 if your interest is brewing soykaf with schizos then you can try fediverse every small instance i've joined has had dogshit recommendations though >>75059 if i'm namedropping then it will be in the heart of an unrelated quality thread, not a spoonfeeding one like this

>>75779 Plot twist, they're actually biobots. And the existence of chatGPT reveals their NPC level creativity and wit, hence their accusations.

>>75036 I think the fact that I would have to ask means I'm not invited.

high quality conversations don't exist online anymore

>>75818 It's probably just that you're not generally putting any effort into anything, but I'm curious if you'd define "high quality" for a moment here, because maybe your expectations are just unrealistic.

There's no special secret to it. It's either gonna be big websites filled with soykaf and piss or small dead spaces where there are few people thinking they are unique and quirky. normal people have figured this out years ago. Go outside and touch grass. Go to a good uni with good science clubs where people meet each other.

>>75036 http://us3xsdrhmhk4h3bkuq7ttkp6pocs4726esycpgwtogrpu3nfjj6eroqd.onion here

Look OP, the barrier to entry of a place is correlated with its quality. Barriers you may have seen are any number of things like physical presence, direct invitation by a member, proof of ability, or things like minor skills and fragments of knowledge that the target demographic share at their lowest common denominator that act as minor filters. Filters can be 'hard', like a language or ability to use an IRC client, or soft like your ideology or basic tendencies. Really there are three types of ways a community/culture can form- physical space, digital space, or or a 'scene'. For example in a real-world community, you can only be in 1 place at a time, have to be obeying the local laws, local norms, paying money to live there, and then sinking in lots of time talking and doing thing with many people in the area for many years, to be part of the 'community' An internet community could be based on a game server, where all users have a pc, know the game, play on a particular server on a particular gamemode for a long enough time to get to know the users and branch out into third party comms, and there is a social circle of some hundreds or thousands of people- something like this develops its own culture and so on. On 4chan there is a filter- anyone with thin skin or with weak discipline that doesnt apply clientside filters, has a bad time on the website. However the gold:soykaf ratio is so low now that most non-specific boards or boards with bad jannies, are irredeemable. The old warez scene had a filter for anyone who actually did some cracking or at least ASCII art, and was somewhat of a minor computer nerd at minimum. The actual crackers a heavy filter, cuz they are trusting each other with their lives and can literally kill their friends with a tap of the keyboard, so they have stronger relationships than most people will ever have with people they know IRL in their entire lives. So OP and any lurker reading, know this: you will scarcely find a good board that has a low barrier to entry (even soft obscurity barriers like what lainchan has). Open forums and boards are by their nature not conducive to high quality discussion, unique culture, whatever, because more openness + more users = soykaf quality. IMPORTANT --> The only reliable way to find good places online is to start at some place with at least minor filters that act as an advertisement for the type of user who frequents the place. Then, from that pool you just nab some other users like yourself into some channels (IRC, matrix, jabber, mumble, or even a private board for your friends). Things should work on a mostly invite-only basis for the core of your comms, just let any decent user invite people. If you have value yourself, and you try to assemble others who have value, then the group is good. Also, you should sometimes just ask other users what places they like- it's like crawling a DHT, but with human beings. You will find good answers if you do this every so often. For lurkers: As for filters, you need to prefer false positives when filtering. You're not missing out on jack.

>>75963 To add, this is why almost all chans and forums that people attempt to start fail. A messageboard is a complementary tool. Once you have some social phenomenon going, with many dozens of people who actually do things together, then maybe a messageboard is good for archiving and consolidating your knowledge, preserving interesting and fun things of note. Starting a new board ex nihilo and hoping for something good is like prayer, it does not work. A web of friendships and other social relationships, shared history, rapport, trust, reputations, culture/memes, projects, and anything else that anchors a community together will not just spawn into existence because you wish it were so. There needs to be an actual reason for someone to hang out in an online space, and the reason is something that takes some effort to build up, not something that appears if you shout into the void 'plz want good board!' long enough.

>>75963 >>75964 This all sounds obvious but I wasn't really thinking about it in a conscious way, so the best way for me, OP and everyone else wanting better threads/boards/websites/etc is to get more and better skills and starting something yourself to lure in other people that will know at least as much as you and you will make more connections and find those hidden cool spots, got it. Time to start working on those skills.

>>75047 Shouldn't you have selected a relevant image though?

>>75965 Pretty much the gist of it. My posts were less refined than previous rants i've made about it in some text files, but yeah. I've been thinking about this a lot, because the general theme of my mind for the last few weeks has been that of what is worth doing, what is worth thinking about, what information is worth taking in, that kind of thing. Now while you're still here- are u interested in computers at all? Maybe if you use irc or matrix we could chat eh? I haven't been talking to anyone in quite a long time online, not even posting to boards.

>>75969 I'd be down to use irc, have you tried the lain one?

>>75049 >Also, I think Lain is right on this one. Feels very robotic, especially with the "hey" and "thanks" and on top of that this low-quality .jpg that looks like it was ran through some sort of AI. I wouldn't go as far as to say the post is AI generated. I don' think it is. >>75052 >4chan is soykaf and won’t let me post through Tor Yes because nobody is stupid enough to post child pornography on there from their home IP address. They do it for a reason.

>>75970 Ok, here's my fingerprint btw F9FC E4E3 4E67 403F 8EF2 9083 FAD2 F8E1 EB0F E020 i think i will name myself 'purple' when i get into there I will also check here

I always forget that people aren't literally on the same page as me as far as media they've watched but Luke Smith has a video on this exact topic. I thought Luke Smith's opinions were a matter of common knowledge in places like this https://youtu.be/RH3D1cpm6do I'm not the biggest fan of Luke, but I actually agree with this one wholeheartedly, and it answers OP's question

>>75978 Good video, even though I too am not the biggest fan of Luke. Yet I think it's missing one thing, and OP is kinda looking for that too. Why do so few places where you can discuss things "seriously" exist? There used to be tons of forums about any topic you could find. I don't mean I expect everyone to write super long detailed responses or anything like that. But I want to write to someone who acts like a human. People on discord feel fake. No one talks or acts like you see on there in real life. Why is there some random ass person talking about bullshit in a public chat? It's literally bullshit. They spam images or text. Often without any meaning. I get doing it as a joke, but there's little value in discord servers beyond that. It just doesn't feel genuine and real. Nothing nowadays feels genuine and real. Hell, even in real life people talk about internet bullshit. I learned recently that my boss is a crypto bro when he started telling me about how he thinks crypto is the future and what not during a lunch break. Sure, the fact I work as a programmer might make the chance of meeting a crypto bro way more likely, but still. The fuarrrk. I don't know what's was hip to talk about 20 years ago, but I can't imagine in 2004 anyone in real life taking about online bullshit during a lunch break. At least not while using all these meaningless buzzwords. At worst they would show me some cool site with a funny flash player screamer or something like that. I can't put it in words. I tried many times but I can't express it. But I feel as if close to everything is mixed in bullshit. People say words that mean nothing, make gestures that mean nothing. Feels like they had a lobotomy and can't think up things of their own. And I don't mean this as some "be an independent thinker bro" type of way. I mean, just act in a way that is true. Cause I can pick up that whatever someone is telling doesn't come from themselves. They don't actually believe their own words or even care about them. They just be talking soykaf.

>>75978 A comment I'd like to make about Luke's video is that he perhaps doesn't consider that these same people who make these immature comments online are the same people as in real life, but the main difference is that they do not show that side of themselves in real life. But I also find the funny that a grown man who based his entire persona off of /g/ memes would call others "cringe." I also disagree that most well-adjusted people are living out in real life instead on the internet to some extent. It seems hard to find people who aren't on the internet. I've cut most of this soykaf out, and I'm the odd one out for not wanting to use these botnet apps and engage in this nonsense. College has a group I want to join? Good, you have to use their Instagram to find out anything related to their meeting dates. I'm in class just minding my own business? Dean of the college comes to class to take a picture of us to post on social media! It seems really invasive.

>>75986 I feel that, in my college there was some voluntary cybersec group i wanted to join, but the only way to contact them is a discord server or a Whatsapp group. It feels pretty discouraging.

>>75988 That is surprising yet it is not at the same time. I vaguely non-seriously toyed with the idea of becoming a cybersecurity major perhaps wondering if the individuals around me would be more security concerned. But to add more to my train of thought, a lot of millennials who grew up with the internet and grew up with social media are starting to become college professors, and this is bringing these aspects into the classroom. Some of my college assignments were related to discussing social media, and it seems that social media is often the topic of focus in class. It's really fuarrrking hard to avoid the internet and to avoid online communities because they've become so intertwined in everything. In the library, in the cafeteria, in the elevator, I always overhear things along the lines of people talking about "insta," "snapchat," and "tiktok." It's no avoiding it, it seems, and "touch grass" has almost become deprecated because that is no longer how the world functions anymore.

>>75986 >Dean of the college comes to class to take a picture of us to post on social media! I always wondered why people do this. And it happens in every type of organization. It's in schools, at workplaces. I can imagine that you want to show something off to your family or something. But then send the pictures directly to people and let them share it if they want to. Why post it online for everyone to see? It's not like anyone sees it voluntary and with intention. They look at it when scrolling for a second, then forget it existed. Will anyone changes his mind about anything because of that picture? Will anything happen besides your face being scraped for some AI face recognition bot? It seems like completely pointless action. It's not even exactly fun. In general, how much all these platforms pretend to be about "fun", they have way more in common with casinos than they do with real life social interaction.

>>75036 That's the neat part. You don't.

>>75971 >Yes because nobody is stupid enough to post child pornography on there from their home IP address You underestimate people's stupidity, young padawan