"Hyper independence" is the same brand of nonsense "Every man is an island" theory behind libertarianism
Many rightfully note that the concept of every man being an island in a hyperconnected modern world is nonsense. We all use shared spaces and structures to make our way through our lives - roads, grocery stores, the Internet, utilities, and of course the shared knowledge that humans have built over hundreds of thousands of years among many, many, many other things and institutions.
But I see a cohort of users here, most of whom I would guess are very far from libertarianism, falling into the same trap and declaring themselves "hyper independent." This is essentially a way to describe someone that may lack close interpersonal relationships but that is only enabled by their ability to depend on the strangers that build the modern society they're cocooned in. They just don't see the systems they depend on. They are in fact as dependent on others as everyone else, they just aren't as social but that doesn't sound as self-aggrandizing as "hyper independence". This requires the same sort of illogical thinking that allows someone living in a city to believe that every man is an island in any sort of functional sense.
Posted Jun 3, 2026, 11:46 AM UTC · locked