Have you ever read Adams’ book God’s Debris? It’s really thought-provoking.

Never, I have read books from Allan Kardek , ‘The Book of Spirits’ and ‘Nosso Lar’

Programmer71 said:
Joej , at times I think that my days as a graphics engineer are numbered, I will never be able to beat nanite or lumen, so was it worth to spend all this time on rendering tech ? i am starting to think I have wasted a considerable amount of my precious years.

We need to transition our mindset from ‘Make the next big thing’ to ‘have fun on our way’.
I'm working on it. If it turns out that all the work was for nothing, i should be somehow… prepared :D

taby said:
Sorry. What I was going to say was that we, as 40 year olds, are past our sexual prime. Our network shrinks, as we prepare for death.

Well, yes. My biggest fear is not that somebody else comes up with the same GI algorithm before me, but that i die before i get done.

I think the age thing is common, and the midlife crisis around age 40 is a real thing, either as a full crisis or as a smaller re-evaluation of priority based on the reality of age and mortality. That may be a part of what you described.

I had someone realize in another community that they had limited their views to the community alone. As sport kite fliers, the person said that even though they had talked about kites with other kite fliers for years, they never really talked about people's lives outside of kites. They did not know about day jobs, they vaguely knew about where people lived, and did not know about religions, politics, family, or other interests. The person felt like they had developed friendships with perhaps a hundred people, but suddenly realized just how shallow the relationship was. Because they personally were so focused on the single subject, they had no connection beyond the single facet of the community connection. There were plenty of conversations that blended interests, but the person did not get involved with those chats.

Being online makes that limited focus easier to do. I tend to post mostly regarding game development here, mostly about kites in kites groups, mostly about watercolor and figure drawing and photography in those specific groups, about religious views and political views on groups focused on those things, and so on. Online there is less opportunity to mix fields, especially when people stay on topic. In talking about game development the other topics rarely – but occasionally – come up.

Here on the site, The Lounge has historically had a great mix of other topics, but has dropped off a few years ago, especially with the rise of more segmented, focused discussion boards elsewhere. We have had many great discussions about religion, politics, culture, and personal beliefs. This is something that I miss about how the site specifically and the Internet generally has evolved. We used to be limited by technology to fewer places to talk so those discussions blended more topics, and by doing so we sometimes agree, sometimes disagree, and learn about the complexity of the people around us. Now we can keep focused topics on tight groups that share views on the limited topics.

It is up to the individual about how they participate, and part of the group dynamics, and even about how the group meets. People who have to physically be in the same space are exposed to more, especially as more time is spent together. Co-workers who spend the day talking will talk about many topics, co-workers who are mostly quiet all day and rarely talk will cover less, showing that personality is an important factor and even unavoidable extended time together isn't enough. I think it is true regardless of field, some game developers are talkers, some are quiet, some people I have come to know and share many things, others I really don't know at all.

People online can still engage in the discussion with others they don't align with, but it is extremely easy to avoid the conflicts and discomfort that come with it when it is not forced by external factors.

Embassy of Time said:

@a light breeze

“If I stick to a few online forums, it's mainly because it's hard to find non-toxic forums where interesting discussions take place.”

The weird thing is, people say this in many forums. I get that there are horrible forums out there (or YouTube comment sections….shiver), but it seems more and more like people are just painting many forums they do not frequent as in some way bad. This seems more and more to me like people really want to isolate themselves in a few places, but feel they have some special reason for it.

Oh, I'm sure there are lots of perfectly nice forums for discussing pretty much anything on the internet. That doesn't make finding them any easier. You can't exactly type “non-toxic forum <topic>” into Google and expect to get good results.

What is toxic about forums ???

I know what you are saying in italy we had IndieVault, which was a forum made entirely of toxic and entitled people, I left that forum , but not before having a row with everyone in there