How do alone people find each other online?

Look into your communities events pages or whatever it'll be called and look for things that might be your interest adjacent. Go to community centers and look at their boards. Find a thing you're vaguely interested in ago go. Then meet people there who can either tell you about other things that you might be interested in or continue what you're doing. Churches often have good community boards too, depends on the church. Some are far less evangelical than others, your results may vary.

Try bellawhiskey.ca/trollegle. It's a silly little chat site. Will not necessarily be alive when you join, but there are a few regular visitors. I would recommend to avoid speaking to _ though.
- It's pleasantly surprising to see it getting mentioned it at all. Loved the servers when they were Omegle chatoorms, and it's a bit sad to see it sort of die out with the death of Omegle. But yeah, the people there are generally nice.
  Also, since I mentioned Omegle: I do not recommend any Omegle clones, as they often have an account system in place, which sort of ruins the whole anonymity stuff and also leaves to some stigma to those who do not want to use the account system. Not to mention that these sites generally attracts horny creeps, and finding a good chat partner is thusly hard.

I met someone on Reddit about 5 years ago whilst talking about making a smart mirror for fun. Ended up not making the mirror but did end up in a relationship from it. Was random, I had never exchanged dm's with anyone before that.

For me WebFishing. Some time ago I played VRchat.
Discord is also good but lack of 3d avatars just doesn't provide the feeling of socialisation.

play an MMO game. plenty of ways to break into friend groups there.

Seriously though the only places I've seen any kind of thriving community are invite-only private torrent tracker sites.
- I have an IRL friend who always goes like "oh, sorry, its invite-only torrent (￣y▽,￣)╭ "
  
  That's lame, you're only supposed to be inviting people you really know IRL anyway... Weak excuse from your friend, if you're willing to seed.

Check out https://slowly.app/ - its a penpall service that simulates snail mail which makes for great connections! You can get a random pall or choose one explicitly and the community there is really wholesome.
- In their terms of service, they share data with ad companies and marketers. But I can't copy paste it here because JavaScript
  Edit: grammar
  
  I just quickly read through them, and it just sounded like the usual "we run as here". Could you specify it a bit? Or take a screenshot of the relevant part?

Whatever you do, steer clear of meetup.com - all of their social activities on there now are scientologists thinly veiling their seminars as get-togethers.
- That's not true everywhere, my city has a pretty good meetup scene for various hobbies. However the amount of people who sell their useless courses as "meetup, but I will ask for a 20€ fee from everyone" or shady "we will talk about investing/crypto..." groups has gone up.
- How does that even work lol
  "What do you guys wanna do? Actually I know, let's check out this building" "no you should really check out this building" "get in the fucking building"
  "Guys I wanna leave"
  "Okay but $50 and we will call your phone for eternity"
  
  Here's an example one: https://www.meetup.com/101-dating-relationships/events/307612236/

Videogames.

I posted on lemmy if anyone wanted to play games with me. Someone answered and we talk everyday since then, on most days we spend hours on video calls. Just try posting on whatever you use, you might find people you like.

Play on small game servers at the same time every day. Eventually youll start seeing the regulars and then its just a matter or trying to break into the friend group.
Outside of that you could try discord but its like wading through a sea of shit. If youre over 25 it will be very hard to find a group that doesnt eventually end up filled with kids or everyone has gotten on with their lives.

I want a serious answer, how should I find people online to talk to about anything really other than politics?
You don't.
You don't find people online (or IRL) waiting for strangers to start a discussion on some random topic you feel like talking about. Because people, unlike trolls, are busy with their live.
What you can find is people willing to discuss with someone they find interesting or, with any luck, intriguing on whatever topic you both are interested in.
So, what are you interested in? Have you any hobbies, interests, passions? Find small communities around those topics you're interested in, and start posting. Do the work to show you're there and that, maybe, you're worth discussing with.

You really want online? I guess playing games, discord, vrchat.
My suggestion, do stuff IRL
- Where are you going to meet people IRL? What are you, 12? IRL doesn't have any groups that do anything remotely interesting, and it's expensive asf to travel and those groups are nigh-undiscoverable. And don't harass random strangers, you're not gonna make many friends like that, unless you mean in prison.
  
  tf? 🤨
  
  Brother I'm a young adult, I'll give you some suggestions. Basically any sport, hobby, interest you have you can meet people. I hope this helps you, maybe I'll see you out there.
  Sports
  Pickleball
  Tennis
  Running
  Skateboarding (I have a 30 yo friend that still skateboards)
  All other types of skating
  Surfing
  Golfing
  Rock climbing
  Swimming
  Sporty-ish
  Bowling?
  Go kart racing (like k1 speed stuff like that)
  Outdoorsy stuff
  Hiking
  Backpacking
  Fishing
  More Expensive Hobbies
  Archery
  Scuba diving
  idk how to classify this
  Arcade like dave and busters
  RC cars, planes, etc
  Geocaching (join us)
  Not physical stuff
  Book club
  Model trains
  Volunteering
  Feed the homeless
  Beach Cleanup (I do this monthly because if Geocaching meetip events)
  Staying at home trying to find people
  Discord chatting communities
  Video game servers with chat (some times I do this in CS surf servers)
  Vrchat
  
  Meetup.com has a lot outdoors groups for camping, hiking, outdoors skills, etc. Local outdoor climbing groups are also popular places to meet people, as well as climbing gyms, especially if you meet another solo autobelayer that needs a toprope pal. Your municipal community centers usually host things like dodge ball and other events. Your city is almost guaranteed to have one or two major cycling groups, which offer everything from queer history rides (gentle, 3mi rides) to 200mi long weekend rides.
  There's also singles adventures groups (a paid service) that do everything from high ropes courses to boat excursions to ballroom dancing nights.
  If you're a furry, telegram has a lot of groups for local skiing/mountain biking/gardening/rock climbing/cons/parties. Usually municipal events chats too.
  
  Back 10-15 years ago a friend tricked me into trying social dancing (think swing, salsa, tango, etc.) by telling me we were going bowling. They drove so I could not escape. Turns out I like it and since it's not partnered a lot of people come alone and if you can summon up basic courtesy and respect, many of them will dance with you if you just ask. Different dances have different vibes. Swing is wholesome and a bit retro-nerdy, salsa is more flirty and extroverted, tango is intense and deeply technical. I made thousands of IRL acquaintances and dozens of friends doing this over the years. I never went or continued doing it because of the people, but they sure made it worth going. I never saw myself doing or liking this until I tried it. Now I can't imagine my life without and I seek it out in every city I travel to. I imagine other hobbies could be similar. You can find group bike rides for various skill levels. Maybe your area has a nature hike club or a mycological society (people who study mushrooms). Poetry slams can be surprisingly cool too. None of this is advertised well, but a great place to look is in the back of an alternative newspaper that covers music and art and stuff like that. Like the back back, just before the weed and escort ads.
  
  Where are you going to meet people IRL?
  OP specifically said online.
  
  it really helps to live in a city i think. run/cycling, ski meetups are where is at for me

Meeting people is much possible in the real world.
- Is it? Fucking where? And how? Because all the people I know I've met through dating apps up, online forums, or knew them from school or uni. I have plenty of hobbies, but there aren't any even vaguely related groups for them, and if they are, they aren't very discoverable.
  
  How do you not meet people? Even if you're stuck in front of a computer all day you can go out to a pub or something at the weekend. Put yourself in a social environment and be friendly. It sounds like you even have experience of that from school and uni.

I don't have an answer about online methods... I went through the phase of how to meet people as well, and eventually decided to join / try out some group activities. I did some rookie dragon boating, table tennis, stand up paddle, and eventually met my forever spouse as she taught me scuba diving. PS: other than the scuba diving, those were all free activities for beginners. Good luck

I meet tons of people on Discord.

Hey people have dated and married over gaming chats before. I knew someone in college he met his then about to engage fiance. I lost contact after graduation though

A couple years ago I had my discord nametag as my Mario Kart Wii nickname, zheg#someNumbers, random people added me and then talked with them while playing. Those were good ol' days.

Love yourself and be content in being alone, get to know the real you. When you do that, you will find the right people. It will be instinctual.
- No offense, but "be content in being alone" is not a good answer to "how do I meet new people for a chill time"
  
  None taken. I'm advocating for introspection, as in, why did they come here and ask the question in the first place? Why not just seek out a like-minded community? So, how can one possibly get directions from another when they don't know where they want to go? At that point, any direction is valid.
- Or you'll just be alone with your cats forever because you no longer leave the house, but like it's cool because you're fine being alone.
  Would still be neat to find a partner, though, but the likelihood she shows up at my house is pretty slim. Maybe I should order more doordash..
  
  I never leave the house and people are constantly messaging me online and trying to be friends in a lot of cases.
  The hack is to be useful to people. Then you’ll have friends even if you don’t leave the house.
  
  When you find yourself, it won't be in your house. That's hiding from yourself.

thinked
You don’ thunk hard
- Thank. Doot doot.

I hear Lemmy is pretty good as a sort of forum, maybe you've heard of it?
But more seriously, I've found that social media platforms (even the fediverse ones) tend to limit connections to surface-level. I personally wouldn't rely on them to find people to talk to. But if you're looking for communities who share similar interests, it's very good at that. If you're looking for individuals, the next best thing is sliding into someone's DMs to have a more focused one-on-one conversation. I'd recommend against doing that without some other interaction first (it looks scammy).
In case you want to chat, my DMs are open.

VRChat is an option. Takes effort to make your way to the cool people tho.
- Ancients or relics depending on your timezone OP. That's the good shit, some of the coolest people I've met.

What things are you interested in? Video games, ttrpgs, anime, cinema, woodworking, sports, fast cars, sneakers, programming, yoga, wines, bdsm, books, drawing, dogs, veganism, religion, music, hiking?
Whatever the answer is, find a community for it or adjacent to it. On Lemmy, Reddit, Discord, Matrix, or some obscure forum.
And then, the last step, is engage with that community.
- This.

You make bids for connection and continue the ones that are reciprocated.
- No disrespect, but I laughed when I read your comment.
  That is exactly what I am asking, Where do I do that?
  🌹
  
  Make comments that leave room for discussion, ask people what they think about things, continue conversations that start, etc. Be open.
  I'm not sure this is a good place to cultivate conversation but it's certainly possible.

We could easily make some sort of Lemmy instance where lonely people could find friendship and love, right? Maybe it's been created already? I met my now wife online (about a decade ago) so don't lose hope, you never know what tomorrow holds!

For me, what worked best has been smaller sites/communities! Specifically art/roleplay spaces (with the caveat these spaces also have a lot of drama and people who live for said drama) and virtual pet sites somehow lol. But I also feel like people online just aren't as interested in talking or having actual conversations as much as they used to, so it's less about looking in specific places and more about just... Getting lucky and finding someone on your same wavelength I suppose.
Gaming can be another way to meet people too. Can't speak from experience there, but my brother was super involved in the Hearts of Iron IV modding community for years and made friends through it!

They don't.
If you want to talk to real people you've got to go out in the real world.
Volunteer for something. Animal shelters and community theaters always need extra hands.

What is it that you want to talk about? There's plenty about programming, math, and stuff like that. Maybe other stuff too, but that's the stuff I'm into. Hacker News is definitely overrated and always has been though.