Re: Modern culture assumes that you are a stranger
StJohn Piano
6 October 2026
Post #161
http://tela.network/forum/161/

To expand:
- modern software treats human interactions as _stateless_.
- whether I've booked a meeting with you 40 times or 0 times, the underlying interaction primitive does not vary.
- this is simpler to build.
- it also scales much more rapidly. it helps to maximises engagement.
- but it has the effect of treating the "stranger meets stranger" case as the default case.
-- which is strange and causes uncanny ripples through our social fabric.
-- the effect reminds me of Annihilation / The Backrooms.
-- it pushes everyone towards interacting with each other as though they were strangers or light acquaintances.
- So: A missing primitive in modern social software is the _shared history_.
- Shared history is what makes social life meaningful.
- Today we are making do with posts, likes, and comments to construct meaningful shared history, and it doesn't work very well.
- we should build "thicker" connections rather than "more" connections.