Bits of empathy - a safe space to talk about things like loneliness, relationships, family, and career
https://bitsofempathy.co
It took me a couple days but I put together https://bitsofempathy.co to create a safe space for talking about things like loneliness, relationships, family, and career. It's less about giving advice and more about showing empathy. Surprisingly, that might just be what we need in order to solve our own problems. Hope this can help someone. I'd be grateful for any feedback as well.
Question: Do folks want this to be more community driven? Most people I've spoken with have that assumption.
If so, what do you think it would look like if you logged into your own account?
Will you choose a category of self help and respond to other people's needs? Or, will you look to get help from another member of the community [all via real-time chat]
I like the idea of a decentralized approach - just looking for some feedback on it!
I'd say it would make more sense to be community driven than one person being overwhelmed trying to empathize with who-knows-how-many-requests. Unless you are a super computer like from the movie "Her". Trying to empathize half-way without knowing the full circumstance of others may lead to "good intentions, disastrous consequences." There's nothing more dangerous than saying "I understand" when in reality, no two human beings can ever fully empathize. We may attempt, give our good heart with good intentions. But mistakenly hurt others more deeply or leave permanent scars. That's why counseling is an area of expertise where people pay for professionals. If people are looking for a listening ear through anonymous platforms like this, I think collective intellect through anonymous forums or threads might provide more wisdom, in my two cents.
Yeah, I'm following the logic there, and it sounds like it has a lot more potential. I've spoken to 16 people so far who have legitimately opened up about some real problems, and they've mostly said the anonymous ear has allowed them to do so.
I guess I'm trying to figure out if it's worth the effort on my part. I've been burned in the past by spending a lot of time coding before really understanding the market and the problem. That was certainly my fault and inexperience was to blame, so I'm trying to be careful not to make the same mistake twice ya know. So my approach has been minimal effort up front to try and gauge the market and the problem first.
What makes this a safe place compared to other anonymous platforms such as Reddit? Not criticizing, just trying to provide some constructive feedback?
Knowing that the other person on the other end will prioritize empathy over anything else, really. Not saying you can't find the same on reddit, you can. Certain subs like r/selfhelp and r/selfimprovement come to mind.
So, this would be mostly talking to anonymous people (or AI) about your problems?
I've heard this a couple times, and the messaging might be confusing. I'm the only person who responds to each message [manually]. So there's no AI, and it's not really a community for people to talk to other people since it's me responding to each message.
Would be open to both AI and making it more of a community though. I was going for market validation first before making some of those decisions.