David Jay Launches Nametag Online Networking Service!

[Pramana]

David Jay has launched an innovative new online networking service called Nametag designed to fight loneliness through facilitating relationships built around activist causes! I've included below a link to the website for the service, plus a link to a blog post by David Jay explaining the theory behind it!

https://nametag.chat
https://medium.com/@davidgljay/a-world-without-loneliness-d49ed0b73a00

[Tabula Rasa]

That's cool!

 

Is there a way to ensure that it's used for its intended purpose? I wouldn't want something like this to be misused.

[Horse Ham Radio]

It's a cool concept, but - and this is going to sound pessimistic - I can't really see how this offers any benefit over other apps and websites already out there serving this same purpose. If you want to find people with similar activist ideas to talk to, then there are already a lot of places out there from the very specialised sites aimed at niche groups, to the more general ones.

 

I might be missing the point here tbh.

[Pramana]

I think it's a nice idea in principle, although I'm unsure how much of an advantage the software offers over preexisting options. There are also questions surrounding the difficulty of getting people to volunteer for a cause, especially when people lack a strong personal connection to the issue.

[LeChat]

I was surprised to read his statement about conversations on the internet getting worse, not better (I kind of thought I was the only person who sort of felt that way about it for years, or that perhaps that I wasn't aware of confrontations on the internet, decades ago because I wasn't allowed on it much, growing up, and my father blocked adult websites with sexual content on me and my sibling's accounts.)

 

So, what stood out to me about David Jay's chat, that, perhaps, makes it a little different from other ones, is that, in the demo, before anyone's allowed to join the chat, there are reminders to be polite and open to others' thoughts or ideas. So, it felt to me as though he's perhaps, trying to help change current society's aggressive or confrontational attitudes on the internet, maybe in hopes of having a return to how the internet used to be or appeared to be, decades ago, when others first started groups on the internet and there didn't appear to be as much discord or arguments with others.

 

I'm thinking though, that perhaps society always had confrontational attitudes (because I saw it offline); it's just that, back then, the internet wasn't as widespread or accessible for many people, so, perhaps, not as much of it was seen or expressed.

[Pramana]

5 hours ago, InquisitivePhilosopher said:

I'm thinking though, that perhaps society always had confrontational attitudes (because I saw it offline); it's just that, back then, the internet wasn't as widespread or accessible for many people, so, perhaps, not as much of it was seen or expressed.

I attribute much of the unreasonableness online to anonymity and to people fighting over opinions that are often based on unstated emotional commitments. So I think there might be some hope for David Jay's idea to foster small discussion groups centred around personal stories rather than personal opinions.