It sounds like the people you work with are “phonies”. You may have already heard this advice, but try to make friends outside of work. Maybe with other parents?

It can seem untrue, but there are still lots of communities online and offline.

Also regarding “people in the US are friendly, people elsewhere are unfriendly” (which IMO is incorrect but users are being too harsh on you). Most people in the southern US are generally known for appearing friendly and extroverted, while most in Eastern Europe appear “cold” and introverted. It’s a culture thing. But there are people who pretend to be friendly while spreading rumors behind your back (as you’ve experienced) and not committing to anything; likewise, some cold people are very nice if you get to know them, and would immediately help anyone in need, they just don’t like smalltalk with strangers. “You can’t judge a book by its cover”: there are friendly and unfriendly people everywhere, look for those who demonstrate commitment (act friendly and help others in ways that require effort or don’t improve their appearance).

They're AI tells. No human would write about how "corporate friction" "introduces friction at the infrastructure layer", except maybe someone who's trying to use big words to sound smart, because it barely makes sense (what "friction"? "Infrastructure layer", what are the other layers?)

AI slop

> The uncomfortable truth is that...

> ...that the real question isn't...

> Corporate resistance...introduces friction at the infrastructure layer

And check comment history (https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=julius_eth_dev)

Sometime yesterday, or further back, someone has decided to run a bot experiment (https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=patchnull, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47340079)

There's a third option: web-of-trust. https://lobste.rs/ has some problems but not bot spam.

This was discussed before. People will age accounts and buy/hack inactive ones. Meanwhile, often a link gets posted, the project owner (or someone affiliated) finds out, and they make a new account to comment; it would be a shame to lose these people.