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Ask HN: How can we solve the loneliness epidemic?

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Re: Ask HN: How can we solve the loneliness epidemic?

#371

Post by fbn79 »

ecshafer wrote: post #45

People need to purposefully and intentionally do things. Sitting home on an app, watching TV is easy. There is no fear or rejection, there is no work to get out of the house, there is no risk. But there is also no reward. My thoughts on this are you need to have multiple roots into your community. This is something that you go to often and talk to people, become a regular, say hi. Think back to how your parents or gr…

Join a religious organization to fight loneliness is like start smoking to loose weight.

Re: Ask HN: How can we solve the loneliness epidemic?

#373

Post by soulofmischief »

publicdebates wrote: post #321
soulofmischief wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, I love you. Since I was a small child, my grandfather used to beat me savagely and shake me and pin me to the ground, screaming that the devil was inside of me and that I would never be capable of loving or being loved. This was literally beaten into me. He'd beat me with the buckle end of the belt, like a whip, hitting my face, arms, whatever he could. He'd keep beating me until I couldn't cry anymore, telling…

I appreciate the sentiment, but knowing that it's entirely coming from you and your experiences, and nothing to do with me and my own personality except for the one thing we have somewhat in common, means that your comment is to me merely a representation of you and what you stand for. Which is great and beautiful, but it doesn't cross the bridge of being a meaningful comment on my end. That's actually the exact prob…

> knowing that it's entirely coming from you and your experiences, and nothing to do with me and my own personality

That's not the point of empathy and not the point of my outreach. I don't need to know you precisely or be within a certain proximity in order to empathize with you.

> A year ago, I was talking to the local Catholic priest (I was donating some religious statues that I had effectively inherited), and it came up in conversation that I was going through a rough time. He went in for a hug, and it felt so absolutely empty and disingenuous.

For what it's worth, the man who did these things to me was a Catholic deacon, and the hypocrisy is blood-boiling. He would give very pleasant-sounding homilies about love, acceptance, patience and understanding, and then come home and savagely beat and torture me through physically painful punishments and extended periods of isolation. I would not go to a Catholic leader if you are looking for surefire genuinity. The institution attracts performative, power-seeking individuals.

> What do I say next? What's the next thing we can do in that interaction, or maybe a later one if I ever see them again?

It's a combination of bridging and bonding. Meeting individuals, like myself or a stranger on the street, and learning that you have something in common which provides substrate for conversation and communication through a shared experience, is bridging. Developing those relationships by building around that core is bonding.

We typically bond contextually: We both go to the same school or office and see each other daily, or we run into each other at the store each week, etc. I once ended up becoming best friends and living with someone who was my cashier at Trader Joes.

Instead of telling me our personalities and experiences have nothing to do with each other, we could discuss our experiences, find commonalities that are more than surface-level, and bond over those. I've met great people on this website. I've met some of them in person. Friends are all over the place, hiding in plain sight.

Re: Ask HN: How can we solve the loneliness epidemic?

#374

Post by kevin061 »

StevePerkins wrote: post #282
kevin061 wrote: post #219

I don't think this will ever be resolved. It's a twofold problem, I believe. People are lonely because of fear of rejection and also actively avoid new people out of caution and high standards. So two people who are otherwise lonely will make no effort to connect. I think social networks have done a tremendous amount of damage to our collective psyche. Because on the web, you can single-click permanently block someon…

Is that REALLY a lot of power, though? Reddit is quasi-anonymous, how "isolated" are you when you can create a different account in seconds?

When I said "Reddit mods" I didn't mean literally Reddit, but the overzealous nature of full-time Internet moderators with too much free time.

Regardless ban evasion is always forbidden so if you slip up or get caught because of the way you type or whatever, you will be banned again.

Re: Ask HN: How can we solve the loneliness epidemic?

#375

Post by rustystump »

bherms wrote: post #91

All of the replies so far are suggesting ideas for an individual but seem to be missing the real crux of the matter... Yes, you'll be less lonely if you join a group, get out of your house, etc... But how do we actively incentivize that? Social media and whatnot have hundreds of thousands of people working around the clock to find ways to suck you in and monopolize your time. While "everyone should recognize the prob…

This is pretty spot on. It is like telling deug addicts to stop buying legal and unregulated drugs. Never gonna work.

Real change will require enforced regulation on the methods and tactics social media is allowed to use. Things like notification limits, rules on gamification, feed transparency, and more.

In the states this will never happen. The corporations own the rules.

Re: Ask HN: How can we solve the loneliness epidemic?

#376

Post by PlatoIsADisease »

fbn79 wrote: post #371
ecshafer wrote: post #45

People need to purposefully and intentionally do things. Sitting home on an app, watching TV is easy. There is no fear or rejection, there is no work to get out of the house, there is no risk. But there is also no reward. My thoughts on this are you need to have multiple roots into your community. This is something that you go to often and talk to people, become a regular, say hi. Think back to how your parents or gr…

Join a religious organization to fight loneliness is like start smoking to loose weight.

Yeah I thought that was weird, along with joining ethnic organizations. I don't really need to explain the religion thing, but ethnic organizations are weird since you are forming an identity based on your unchoosable parent's DNA. I've seen both used by leaders to weaponize their members at their members detriment.

Although, if you are doing politics, I can see this being pragmatically useful.

Re: Ask HN: How can we solve the loneliness epidemic?

#377

Post by BubbleRings »

Aurornis wrote: post #161
pkulak wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place

The common retort is that these don't exist any more, but in my experience they're all over. If you have kids you start seeing them everywhere, too. They're not as classically romantic as an ancient Greek agora, but there are plenty of spaces. During the summer I'm probably at a different space 5 days a week with the kids after school. I think the real problem is that some people forget how to go places. It's so easy…

I wrote on my white board, "There goes today's hour." So if I'm walking by and I read it again, and I just spent some time on some mindless phone thing, I remember that I could find a better use of my free time tomorrow.

Re: Ask HN: How can we solve the loneliness epidemic?

#378

Post by blibble »

kevin061 wrote: post #374
StevePerkins wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that REALLY a lot of power, though? Reddit is quasi-anonymous, how "isolated" are you when you can create a different account in seconds?

When I said "Reddit mods" I didn't mean literally Reddit, but the overzealous nature of full-time Internet moderators with too much free time. Regardless ban evasion is always forbidden so if you slip up or get caught because of the way you type or whatever, you will be banned again.

> Regardless ban evasion is always forbidden so if you slip up pr get caught because of the way you type or whatever, you will be banned again.

so you create another account?

they don't even do IP bans, (er, so I hear)

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