Forum for non-English speakers?

PMc We're on the same page, line by line! in three words: human, email and usenet. Meh! there is a situation:

The other day I had a conversation on telephone with one of my relatives, I said it would be nice to arrange a meetup. she said, corona.

This is dangerous, and I will probably soon die from it. I am living alone, there is no one here I could talk to - so I used to frequently travel around and visit certain cultural events (of a rather specific taste ;) ) to get among people. There is nothing of this anymore, I am bound to stay in my room like I were locked into a cage, and never talk to anybody. There was a psychologist who stated that people would actually need caressing otherwise they get ill. I'm not sure about that, but certainly people need to talk to each other in a real way, otherwise they soon get crazy and very likely seriously ill. (Not all animal can be kept in cage. Some just die, for no apparent reason.)

Moving from BBS to Usenet, I understand. Transition from usenet to forums, a mystery tour.

The forums are disappearing by long, already. Many of the special ones are degrading or almost dead, some have closed already 5 years or longer ago. I can somehow understand the transition to forums (more simple for the user, more control for the owner), but I do entirely not understand where people have been moving to and what they use now after they left the forums. And this is two-fold: there probably are new people coming to the internet, with new habits, and these might be satisfied with just clicking 'like' on facebook. But then, 15-20 years ago one could run a forum on some very specific topic, even on rather weird and deviant matters, and there was some gathering of people, and these -people and forums- seem to have just disappeared from the net.

So here on FreeBSD things are really late - this forum appeared when others were already closing. Probably technical support is one of these things were forums do continue to exist: someone appears with a technical issue, and some other know it an can easily help, so this is only a matter of writing it up.
But Forums about philosophical things, where it is not direct problem-solving, but sharing and reflecting of ideas, and where one could express some paragraphs of genuine thinking and discuss that - this does not happen anymore. Those forums did close around 2010 and just kept their wealth of content online - but then as they figured that it cost continuosely to keep a domain online, one after another they entirely disappeared. (I am not sure about other contries, but in german-speaking area there were some adventurous and challenging places that I am missing very much.)
And I wonder what has happened - have people just stopped thinking, all together, all over the planet?

Addendum: ---
Thinking over it, it seems to me that in the current Internet, only those places continue to exist where one can give away money. As an example, say one might be interested in parapsychology. There is a huge business associated for making money, the so-called "esoteric healers" (of all kinds and fashions) - and these webpages have never changed, they are present on the net just like they were 20 years ago. But then there were other pages, which were not focused on money-making, but on exchange among people, to freely share and discuss experiences. And those have gone.
---

Email is a major obstacle. Suggest it to people, as an alternative to messengers. First, you hear whining. Second don't expect any reply. Finally, you will be branded as a throwback.

Ah, yes, that happened to me also. Sometimes it sounds: "yes, I have email, but I do not answer them". Or sometimes, this is just what happens. I always understood that as a way of saying <i don't want to stay in contact with you> - which is to be respected, but is still kind of strange when this developed from a meet at some venue with some brilliant exchange and the shared impression that it should be continued.


So, finally, getting back on topic: it might actually be difficult to run a language specific FreeBSD forum. It might be considered too much hassle (or whatever) to participate in such a forum. The larger audience is reached in the english forum anyway, so such a language-forum would mainly be a bit more intimate place - I would think that nice, but that's exactly what seems to be no longer of interest on the net. Strangely, otoh, when we started to use Unix/FreeBSD, we had enough to talk that we did meet once a week, regularly. And that was just us few guys in that city, at a time when running a computer was a rare habit.
 
But Forums about philosophical things, where it is not direct problem-solving, but sharing and reflecting of ideas
Good point. I have never thought about it before in this context.
This is dangerous, and I will probably soon die from it. I am living alone.
It's not a bad idea to have a meetup section or just one sticky thread in this forums. FreeBSD users can arrange local meetup in their towns. It's healthy.
 
Not all animal can be kept in cage. Some just die, for no apparent reason.
Well, for a very obvious reason... Remember this experiment, where a german king caged children in isolation, and noone was allowed to talk or touch them, to find out about the natural human language. They all died. Sadly (?), this pandemic throws us back to reflect on our basics.
 
It's not a bad idea to have a meetup section or just one sticky thread in this forums.
IRC is a more appropriate medium, much better suited for interactive chats. That said, I'm fine with some general chit-chat in "offtopic". Just don't post anything political or religious as these subjects will inevitably turn sour.
 
Well, for a very obvious reason... Remember this experiment, where a german king caged children in isolation, and noone was allowed to talk or touch them, to find out about the natural human language. They all died.

Yeah I know - and it is just shocking what kind of madness can come out of (some) human's minds, to do such kind of "research".
I just noticed this on my own. I for my part can very well sit in my room and pursue some thing, for a couple of weeks (I can also very well hang out at Wacken or such and enjoy being among people - it's not that I'm afraid of people) - but then when I do that I will notice that I am somehow "running dry" on something - and this is not much different feeling than runnng out of water, our out of vitamin-c, or similar.

Sadly (?), this pandemic throws us back to reflect on our basics.

I doubt anybody would dare to reflect. Remember, even before that pandemic was widely known, it was already publicly declared that any reflection on the matter would be considered a conspiracy theory. So don't do this.
 
I spent so many hours on IRC back in the day. Haven't been there for a long time though, but I'll be hanging around on #FreeBSD on EFnet if you need to talk. IRC is old-school, applications like Slack, Hip-chat and Discord are basically modern equivalents with a lot more features.

Popular IRC clients are irc/irssi, irc/bitchx and irc/hexchat (replacement for irc/xchat).
 
There was a psychologist who stated that people would actually need caressing otherwise they get ill.

What most people forget - or just don't want to hear about - is that we are great apes. And great apes are social animals, they can't live alone, relationships are what makes they lives worth living.

Probably technical support is one of these things were forums do continue to exist

Definitely, because forum pages get indexed in Google and you can quickly and easily find solutions to your problems thanks to this.

have people just stopped thinking, all together, all over the planet?

Yes, they have. Our current way of life could not be further from what biology and evolution have shaped us for. It is definitely not sustainable, and even if it were, the change has been way too sudden for us to adapt.
99% of Earthlings simply don't have the emotional maturity, the capacity of reflection and/or enough background to support any reflection. The only way for them to survive is to definitively lock themselves up in a Land of Dreams - drugs, new age, veganism, video games, TV series, etc.

That's fine for them, but the remaining 1% feels terribly lonely.
 
the thing about the pandemia is that some people dont respect the protocol and came out to parks(with childrens) or another public places,
tired of been locked in their house.
For me is a shame tell you this but in my country is like that...(not in my case)
the president make crazy things like "flexible quarantine days or weeks"
and the people thing that the virus is like a cold..I see it every day
is 50% and 50% dont take awareness
😞

in the other hand are people that are losing their jobs because this,
but for the other hand also are people who dont respect the quarantine,at all
 
I'll be hanging around on #FreeBSD on EFnet
I often (or rarely!) use #FreeBSD, ##C ##asm on Freenode. I'll have to check EFnet again. I've installed irc/irssi on my personal computer. that's my favourite. Unfortunately on this laptop, which I have no control over it (only update OS, Firefox and Thunderbird), I have to use Thunderbird.
[...] RC is old-school, applications like Slack, Hip-chat and Discord are basically modern equivalents with a lot more features.
These slack/teams/... things are dangerous entities. They destroy every aspect of a one man personal/private life. These are 24/7 engagement [*] tools. Stay out of these.
[*] engagement: this is one of those words. It literally sound off-key to my ear
 
I often (or rarely!) use #FreeBSD, ##C ##asm on Freenode.
I don't think I've ever been on Freenode. Back in the day I usually hung out on Undernet or Dalnet.

These slack/teams/... things are dangerous entities. They destroy every aspect of a one man personal/private life. These are 24/7 engagement [*] tools. Stay out of these.
[*] engagement: this is one of those words. It literally sound off-key to my ear
Many years ago I worked for an ISP, the admins had various scripts reporting on issues and status updates through IRC (hidden channels with passwords). Discord, Slack, etc. aren't any different in this respect. It's left up to you to actually logon, or not.
 
[...] 99% of Earthlings simply don't have the emotional maturity, the capacity of reflection and/or enough background to support any reflection. The only way for them to survive is to definitively lock themselves up in a Land of Dreams - drugs, new age, veganism, video games, TV series, etc. That's fine for them, but the remaining 1% feels terribly lonely.
These numbers are exaggerated. Except for indigenous people living their very traditional lifestyle, IMHO it's more towards 50/50%. And the 1st group suffers from (a certain kind of) lonelyness, too.
 
These numbers are exaggerated.

Yes, probably, I've not carried on a thorough study.

However, my 99% include all those people who don't adhere to new age movements (for instance) but whose fears prevent from reasoning despite their intellectual abilities.
You speak with them and at some point, conversation switches to a different topic that is just interesting to you but panicking to them and you see their expression and attitude completely change, instantly. When this happens, it's no use bringing solid arguments, they are unable to even hear them. And you can just helplessly watch them turning around angrily in their own blatant lies until they can calm down.

You can't imagine how I wish it were less than 99%!
 
Alright, check it out: Colin Wilson, The Mind Parasites, 1967
Thanks for book suggestion. I'm going to read this one. Now I have go out, find a real book store and borrow/buy a used paperback copy of this book. I think I'm going to break all sort of protocols.
 
the thing about the pandemia is that some people dont respect the protocol and came out to parks(with childrens) or another public places,
tired of been locked in their house.

That is indeed difficult. How can we teach people that their owners only need them to work and consume, and they can do that as well while being cage-kept?

It's the same with my mom - she loved to cook and bake and then arrange for diners inviting aquanintances. Now neighbours carefully observe that she does only sit apathetic in her room because she is not allowed to do anything else. Now how to explain to her that it is important for her to live and sit in her cage, and, most important, to consume lots of medicine, because our healthcare industry depends on these profits?
 
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