>>1177357I have definitely seen the second thing, where people don't have genuine discussion but rather just loudly affirm their opinions to one another, but I have also seen small, close-knit communities in which people discuss and reasonably debate ideas and arguments. It is my suspicion that, while being anon allows you to get it off your chest without fear of repercussion, that it also just enables the exact kind of weightless, valueless posting which you are surely referencing.
In a similar vein, I think that more often than you realize, people do "grow up" and quit posting here. I, like you, have also given up on every board that isn't this one, and have similarly moved on to other activities (by and large; addiction still keeps me coming back here once or twice a month, hence my responses here). It is my baseless assertion, perhaps just my hopeful opinion, that there are a lot of people who post here when they're young, but who simply move on as they grow up. It's not all that noticeable here, however, because 1) there are always more teenagers to replace them, and 2) everyone is anon, so no one "really" exists here, it's all a faceless monolith, and thus the posts you despite all blend into one "anon" that is eternal (because the new anons replace old anons and learn from and follow the same meta).
I would conclude by saying that I don't think you are wrong to hate internet conversation, but that your dismissal is too heavy-handed, and possibly centered on this website in particular. My response would be to work carefully to control your conversation group, and to work to find or build a community in which people align themselves in good faith, and do not spew out clever-sounding quips and low-level arguments in the pursuit of likes and upboats. I won't pretend that it's easy, but I believe it is possible, and I have seen it before. At the very least, sitting around in the scum and muck won't save us, and so I toil toward that end.
