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Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?

nytimes.com

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Re: Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?

#211

Post by stcredzero »

tischler wrote: post #208
oldcynic wrote: post #52

Interesting. No one has yet mentioned today's lack of community. We don't share a sense of place any more, we move around from job to job, families spread around the country or globe. We rarely share an emotional connection and sense of place with our neighbours that our grandparents would have known. We haven't even kept the sense of virtual community that the BBS's had - social networks amplify dissent and engageme…

.

The liberation of women has basically caused a diffusion of responsibility of communal tasks...Yeah, so maybe it was actually a bad idea.

Well, heck, you could say the same thing for Capitalism, which has also benefited billions materially. Liberation is bound to cause social disruption. The problem isn't the liberation. It's how society needs to (re)organize itself around change. It's ossification in how society views itself, which may exist in the older, traditional part, as well as in newer conceptions. The problem is ideological rigidity, which can be found in both the religious right and the secular left. You shouldn't be rigid when it's time to adjust.

Re: Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?

#212

Post by fapjacks »

stcredzero wrote: post #211
tischler wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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The liberation of women has basically caused a diffusion of responsibility of communal tasks...Yeah, so maybe it was actually a bad idea. Well, heck, you could say the same thing for Capitalism, which has also benefited billions materially. Liberation is bound to cause social disruption. The problem isn't the liberation. It's how society needs to (re)organize itself around change. It's ossification in how society vie…

I think this is right. The problem is people being forced or coerced to do things that don't actually make them happy. An ideological rigidity about expectations. But this tribalism is what makes human beings human. We're not going to get rid of that anytime soon, at least not without fundamentally changing the nature of the human animal. The best we can do is tell people "Prefer doing things that make you happy" and hope they don't commit their lives, careers, families, etc. to things that don't make them happy. And make "happiness discovery" much easier by changing the way we educate our young. Perhaps also it would help to give people an easy way out of things they don't enjoy doing? Kinda hard if those "things" are marriages or children, so I'm not sure how feasible it is.

Re: Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?

#213

Post by adamjc »

heedlessly3 wrote: post #173
jchrisa wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sell your car and start biking year round. You won't be lonely for long.

this guy clearly lives in the city. Some people live in the suburbs where cars are needed to commute to work

For a given definition of 'suburb'. My commute is 10 miles each way, not a problem.

Re: Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?

#214

Post by rdschouw »

yohann305 wrote: post #14
machinecontrol wrote: post #3

Sometimes I feel like social media actually makes us more lonely and disconnected from others.

This phenomenom has a name: it's called: The "social network paradox". (social networks are anti-social) TC wrote a whole article about it: https://techcrunch.com/2011/08/28/the-social-network-paradox...

From the article: "Therein lies the paradox of the social network that no one wants to admit: as the size of the network increases, our ability to be social decreases."

For this reason I've a tiny community of close friends and family on Path (remember that) where we socialize. The slogan is "what's on Path stays on Path". It really works well, it's like Facebook in the early days.

Re: Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?

#215

Post by b0rsuk »

oldcynic wrote: post #52

Interesting. No one has yet mentioned today's lack of community. We don't share a sense of place any more, we move around from job to job, families spread around the country or globe. We rarely share an emotional connection and sense of place with our neighbours that our grandparents would have known. We haven't even kept the sense of virtual community that the BBS's had - social networks amplify dissent and engageme…

My pet peeve: matchmaking in games vs dedicated servers. Yes, dedicated servers had problems, and required some technical know-how to run as well as decent hardware. But they were mini communities. And some people actually enjoy matches with some level of imbalance. Mopping up a few players, getting smashed when you stumble upon a great one. There were some to watch out for.

Long story short these days I play single player games and board games. As a bonus, a well thought out board game stays relevant forever. It never has its servers disabled or becomes incompatible with new system.

Re: Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?

#216

Post by mortenjorck »

pmoriarty wrote: post #150

I've been going to a lot of meetups (from meetup.com) in the past year, and sadly I've come away pretty disappointed, for a number of reasons: 1 - I'm just not in the least bit interested in the overwhelming majority of meetups out there. So there really aren't a lot of interesting meetups for me to choose from. 2 - Way too many of the meetups are actually businesses in disguise. They're looking to sell you a class o…

This has unfortunately been my experience with not just meetups, but other things where common wisdom says you can make friends, like volunteering. I volunteer every few weeks at a soup kitchen, but despite having done it for a couple of years, none of my fellow volunteers have become more than casual acquaintances.

Re: Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?

#217

Post by watwut »

tischler wrote: post #208
oldcynic wrote: post #52

Interesting. No one has yet mentioned today's lack of community. We don't share a sense of place any more, we move around from job to job, families spread around the country or globe. We rarely share an emotional connection and sense of place with our neighbours that our grandparents would have known. We haven't even kept the sense of virtual community that the BBS's had - social networks amplify dissent and engageme…

.

Another reason you cannot revert is that many women will fight you as much as they can to not revert to 1960 era. The idea is scary, I would much rather have you lonely then me being women in 1960.

Sacrificing confidence, feeling like I am actually capable, social status, ability to be independent and all that in exchange to emptiness of lonely largely pointless household work and forced dependence sounds like bad deal.

Re: Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?

#218

Post by stcredzero »

fapjacks wrote: post #212
stcredzero wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The liberation of women has basically caused a diffusion of responsibility of communal tasks...Yeah, so maybe it was actually a bad idea. Well, heck, you could say the same thing for Capitalism, which has also benefited billions materially. Liberation is bound to cause social disruption. The problem isn't the liberation. It's how society needs to (re)organize itself around change. It's ossification in how society vie…

I think this is right. The problem is people being forced or coerced to do things that don't actually make them happy. An ideological rigidity about expectations. But this tribalism is what makes human beings human. We're not going to get rid of that anytime soon, at least not without fundamentally changing the nature of the human animal. The best we can do is tell people "Prefer doing things that make you happy" and…

this tribalism is what makes human beings human.

It's perfectly reasonable to construct a tribalism which aids in discovering the truth. Science itself is an example.

The best we can do is tell people "Prefer doing things that make you happy" and hope they don't commit their lives, careers, families, etc. to things that don't make them happy.

One of the best things we can do, is to have many non-exceptional role models, on which younger generations can make incremental improvements. What's needed isn't a whole-cloth re-imagining of the entire social reality. We need a kind of progressive traditionalism, where people can try and evolve towards a better society without dropping complex cultural systems which create value and human well-being.

Perhaps also it would help to give people an easy way out of things they don't enjoy doing? Kinda hard if those "things" are marriages or children, so I'm not sure how feasible it is.

I think it's far better to make people aware of the "price" up front, so such deep commitments are made by people who are ready.

Re: Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?

#219

Post by tripa »

astura wrote: post #141
tripa wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually don't see why it shouldn't. As mentioned above, most churchgoers are nice people, and I can't conceive of anyone throwing the atheist out on grounds of “convert or leave”.

That's pretty wishful (or perhaps naïve) thinking. A family member of mine literary hasn't spoken to me in over two decades because I told her I didn't believe in god when I was 12. She asked me out of nowhere, I said no, that was it, I was no longer to be in her life in any capacity. She also tries to meddle in my business telling other people I am not to be trusted because "you can only trust someone who fears god.…

> That's pretty wishful (or perhaps naïve) thinking. A family member of mine literary hasn't spoken to me in over two decades because I told her I didn't believe in god when I was 12. She asked me out of nowhere, I said no, that was it, I was no longer to be in her life in any capacity. She also tries to meddle in my business telling other people I am not to be trusted because "you can only trust someone who fears god."

I'm afraid I'm tempted to dismiss this as anecdote. This is one personal experience. That seems quite personal. That seems far more family-related than church-related.

> Its been my experience that most people who are devout enough to go to church are exactly the "convert or leave" type. Church is a very tribal place.

Not around here. Feels weird to "defend" it, I can't even remember when I actually last attended a service.

> Not to mention that the type of people who want to spend their time doing church activities are people I find horrifically boring and have ZERO common ground with.

Can we agree on the fact this has nothing to do with the initial controversy that churches would be unwelcoming to atheists? This only describes atheists' (well, yours, but you seem to intend to represent a global viewpoint) likely aversion to churches.

> May be less so if you're male.

I wish we didn't live in a world where this came up so often, but ok, now I'm this deep in the debate I will bite: what's this got to do with anything? Personal/local trivia or something deeper?

Re: Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?

#220

Post by scruple »

13of40 wrote: post #192
jchrisa wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sell your car and start biking year round. You won't be lonely for long.

Biking and walking to work are a couple of the loneliest activities I've tried.

I like to play "Will anyone smile and say, 'Hello!' back to me today?" whenever I'm out walking/cycling/running. The answer is more often than not, "Nope, no takers today."
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