Comment on Human Intelligence Sharply Declining

• LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  …Yeah? At least I don’t think I do. English is my second language so maybe I’m missing some nuance here, but no I have never heard of a “community” IRL.

  A community to me is just members of something like an online forum or a subreddit or subscribers of a content creator. I’m not that young either, I remember being on IRC back in the day and I’d call that a community.

  People I know IRL are disparate acquaintances and friends and friends of friends, none of them know each other or share anything in common, so I don’t think that’s a “community”.

  People at work are coworkers. Neighbours are just people forced to cohabit nearby due to finite amounts of land, you’re usually enemies with them or on friendly terms, so that’s not community.

  Most of the time I hear “community” it’s a dog whistle meant to make something sound more polite than “people” so e.g. “LGBTQ community” - there is no such thing, it’s just people, but no one would read articles saying “LGBTQ people fight for rights” because that sounds too sad, so they say “community” or e.g. “migrant community”. It’s a euphemism.

  source

  • Infynis@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Interesting. Well, community is a common word lol

    It’s usually used to refer, non-specifically, to people that live around you. You’ll see it in places like “community gardens” or “community centers”. The usage on the Internet is pretty recent, linguistically, obviously lol

    source

    • LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      See that’s counter-intuitive to me because doesn’t it usually imply some level of knowledge of the people or at least something you have in common?

      I don’t know them, I’ve never seen any of them more than once, I’ve never spoken to or been spoken to by them anywhere I lived, because people IRL generally keep to themselves and just talking to random strangers is pretty weird all in all.

      With your usage of the word “community” in “community centre” i just figured it’s an extremely old timey generic way to generically refer to a settlement, including cities, towns, residential areas/neighbourhoods, districts, zones, boroughs, areas and other localities.

      In that case I’m not sure how OP is using the word community because I don’t know how I’d do anything with literally random collections of people on the street lol.

      source

      • Infynis@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        …doesn’t it usually imply…something you have in common?

        Yes. That you live in the same area. You have the same elected representatives, you use the same public services, you shop at the same stores, you live with the same stakes. That’s why people say you need to get involved in your community. Whether or not you acknowledge it, you’re part of it

        source

        • -> View More Comments