I think that's still a very narrow view of things. I have made lifelong friends on internet forums. I went to a meetup in August of this year and had the time of my life with the people I finally got to meet face-to-face. I can honestly that it was one of the most enjoyable three days of my life and I can't wait until we do it again next year. I also have friends in other countries that I met on forums who I've been talking to privately for years now.
And, of course, you can learn things from forums too. There's plenty of things people post on Lemmy that contain interesting information. Communities like c/science has lots of interesting and informative posts.
It was enjoyable because you got to meet them face-to-face. Without that face-to-face interaction, it's all hollow. If the internet facilitates a meet up then that's great, but the comments section itself is a pale comparison to real human interaction. That's why I don't believe arguing on the internet has any value.
Also, forums are not comments sections. That's a different medium. Forum topics can be bumped in perpetuity, forum posters are identifiable by an avatar and a tagline and all sorts of stuff, but a comments section is ephemeral by its very nature. We're two user names briefly interacting for a while and then that's it. This doesn't matter.
Lemmy is a link aggregator with a comments section for every link. A forum isn't built around links, it's built around community. On a forum, our discussion here would bump the thread up to the top of the forum topic every time we post. Forums are built for long term discussions over months and years, rather than ephemeral topics that fade off the front page in a day or two.
Just because you haven't developed any real friendships with people online says a lot more about you than anyone else.
People used to have friendships solely through letters. People who never met and yet thought of each other fondly and shared their lives with each other.
There's many collections of these published over the years. I recommend the book 84 Charing Cross Road about a very close friendship that developed between a book lover in New York and a bookseller in London who never met in their lifetimes.
Once again, you do not get to tell me about my friendships or how meaningful they are.
Comment sections are no different than sending letters. My friendships with people I met on forums are no different than the relationship between Helene Hanff and Frank Doel except their correspondence was far slower and there was far less of it.
I get that you can't make such friends. It's bizarre to me that you think this is a universal thing even when you're directly being told it isn't.
No, but I don't think I was saying your friendship is impossible anyway. I said arguing on the Internet is pointless and that you can't convince anyone of anything here, and then you dragged me off topic. Enjoy your friendships, as unlikely as they are - friendship can happen in unlikely places after all.
But no matter how much you might wish it, nothing you post will impact the election even slightly. You have to log off and talk to people face-to-face for that.