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Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?

nytimes.com

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Re: Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?

#231

Post by dvtv75 »

hestipod wrote: post #36
irremediable wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really sorry to hear you're struggling with loneliness. Out of interest, how are you stuck? (Obviously, feel free not to indulge me if you'd rather not discuss your situation with a well-wishing but uninformed stranger.)

My life was destroyed by medical errors and my present situation is the culmination of things collapsing and not being able to shrink anymore. Been saying for ages I am gonna lay the story out here and hope for some miracle plan. Intend to post tomorrow morning. Was going to today (keep stalling out of fear of negative or null results, and things keep happening) but this morning my amazing 1mpbs spotty rural internet…

You will get negative responses, accept that before you post. Perhaps there is some value to be gained from the negative responses, but you will also get people who care enough trying to help. Some of those will look negative, but read everything and sit on them for a few days.

I'm sure you've figured out that it's really hard to offer helpful advice to someone when you don't know their situation, which is something that keeps coming up here.

Post away, I'm looking forward to reading it in the hope that I may be able to offer some help.

Re: Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?

#232

Post by irrational »

amelius wrote: post #153

Maybe a cliche, but if you're in the pit of loneliness, perhaps a good strategy is to get a dog. You will have a friend, it allows you to practice your communication skills (good for introvert people), and it can help getting into contact with others. Downside of course is that you can't leave the house for longer periods.

Other downsides include shedding, dog poop/vomit/urine, vet bills, dog food costs, potential lawsuits from dog bites (I have experience with this one), etc.

Re: Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?

#233

Post by anvandare »

marnett wrote: post #170
anvandare wrote: post #32

"You see, loneliness is the price we have to pay for being born in this modern age, so full of freedom, independence, and our own egotistical selves." - Sōseki, Kokoro

Do you recommend this book? Is this a core theme of the novel? I've never heard of it, but I'd love to read about thoughts on social isolation caused from modernism that are 101 years old!

I definitely recommend the book. If I had to say what the core theme was (without spoiling anything), I suppose I'd say "how a person, out of fear of loneliness, can force themselves deeper into it - like quicksand".

You can read it online here, if you'd like:

http://www.ibiblio.org/eldritch/ns/soseki.html

Re: Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?

#234

Post by fapjacks »

stcredzero wrote: post #227
fapjacks wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people underestimate the inherent conflict that arises from the complex cultural systems you're talking about. I mean, obviously there is conflict, but I think it's way more intrinsic to our species than most people believe. And the conflict reinforces existing belief structures, stereotypes about outgroup members, and is then used to justify proliferating or escalating the conflict further. I agree with you…

However, I'm personally of the opinion that the basics of social development are already nearly fully enumerated, and I think we're not going to stumble across something new which would do a better job than the things that we already know about. Why would you say that? Other than broad outlines, there are not so many constants in ways of life across history and around the world. Or, are you talking about broad outlin…

So, I'm not going to get too much into semantics because it's not interesting, and we could grind on it forever. But the essence of social interaction and group dynamics has hundreds of thousands of years of permutation behind it, and I'm pretty confident that human beings aren't going to come up with a new way of reducing friction at the interfaces of its tribalism without changing the definition of human being. The definition which includes what it means to be a human individual or a group, or what it means to communicate between human individuals and groups.

Re: Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?

#235

Post by stcredzero »

fapjacks wrote: post #234
stcredzero wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However, I'm personally of the opinion that the basics of social development are already nearly fully enumerated, and I think we're not going to stumble across something new which would do a better job than the things that we already know about. Why would you say that? Other than broad outlines, there are not so many constants in ways of life across history and around the world. Or, are you talking about broad outlin…

So, I'm not going to get too much into semantics because it's not interesting, and we could grind on it forever. But the essence of social interaction and group dynamics has hundreds of thousands of years of permutation behind it, and I'm pretty confident that human beings aren't going to come up with a new way of reducing friction at the interfaces of its tribalism without changing the definition of human being. The…

I'm pretty confident that human beings aren't going to come up with a new way of reducing friction at the interfaces of its tribalism without changing the definition of human being.

This is manifestly false. We went from murdering all out-group, to cultures of hospitality to strangers. We went from killing all members of defeated groups to enslaving them, then eventually went on to abolish slavery. We went from unfettered squabbles and mob violence to having the guilty hold bars of iron to prove their innocence before a deity to due process and trials.

History has clear examples of human beings "reducing friction at the interfaces of its tribalism." Human beings have, in fact, done this by changing the philosophical understanding of what constitutes a human being, so not far off from, "changing the definition of human being." This conception used to just mean a body. Then it came to incorporate a "soul." In many cultures, the person was equivalent with their "honor," which kind of amounted to their public image and reputation. (It was so in the early days of the USA, in fact.) Now we have a much more sophisticated notion of humanity and the self, which is evolving still.

The definition which includes what it means to be a human individual or a group, or what it means to communicate between human individuals and groups.

Clearly this is changing and evolving. Much of the time, it appears to be getting closer to some kind of objective truth.

Re: Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?

#236

Post by JBlue42 »

jchrisa wrote: post #83
hliyan wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Perhaps this is not exactly what you meant, but I do feel that shared spaces are shrinking and private spaces are expanding. I found this particular quote from The Atlantic quite telling: "The United States is in some ways becoming a medieval society, in which people live and work in the modern equivalent of castles--gated communities, apartment buildings with doormen, and office buildings with guards--and tr…

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

Just to give an alternate take on the comment from how others are replying:

Maybe look at it as joining a community, not specifically being about cycling. Being a cyclist gives you something in common with someone else that you can talk about it and, when doing it, it's rather visible. A running club, writing group, etc. can be similar.

Re: Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?

#237

Post by [deleted] »

taurath wrote: post #119

Yes it is, especially in the US. A "successful" person lives in subdivisions, cul-de-sacs, or nimby enclaves, we're in our cars most of the time to get anywhere because everything is too far to walk except for exercise. There's little expectation of shared culture other than the weather, and on top of that there are very few spaces that people can mix together without sharing a hobby. If you go out to a suburban or r…

[deleted]

Re: Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?

#238

Post by aurelianito »

jsmthrowaway wrote: post #178
hestipod wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with this notion advice is mostly rooted in similar experience. 15 years of anecdata anyway have shown me differently. It's mostly rooted in well meaning of course, and I am not implying people are being malicious or anything. People do commonly ignore relevant issues that change the playing field in any given situation. Also when you do meet others in bad situations that have overcome there is a strong su…

> Sort of wish downvotes weren't a thing honestly. I was fine with them until the graying out thing, which turned them into basically a demonstration of the power of silencing. All it takes is four people to consider your comment unworthy, and you might as well have not said anything at all; it's oddly futuristic, to use a safe adjective, that the more people who dislike your comment the more difficult it becomes to…

That's why I upvote most of the grayed out comments. I hope other people do it too.

Re: Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?

#239

Post by erikpukinskis »

stcredzero wrote: post #209
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…

No one has yet mentioned today's lack of community...We rarely share an emotional connection and sense of place with our neighbours that our grandparents would have known. A big part of this is the degree to which people in their 20's and 30's are willing to unperson someone in public spaces -- even in person -- just for the suspicion of holding to the wrong ideological viewpoint, or even just for being from the "wro…

I came out of academic circles in California in my young adulthood, and I see the snap judgements you refer to quite often in myself.

I think I was on a track where I valued learning and inference above everything, and that gave me a kind of a weird cognitive bias. Things I could rationalize that weren’t obvious got ++points in my head. The result being I overtrained towards using “scant” information, to use your nomenclature, and undertrained more abundant information sources that were more easily apprehended.

Kind of a masochistic information bias.

It did open my mind to some (very real) things that few people notice. Which is useful. But it also closed me off to some quite useful but more mundane realities. I probably share a lot with conspiracy theorists in that way.

It’s been hard reorienting myself out of that. In some ways I’ve overcompensated now and become more gullible.

Re: Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?

#240

Post by btrettel »

jchrisa wrote: post #83
hliyan wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Perhaps this is not exactly what you meant, but I do feel that shared spaces are shrinking and private spaces are expanding. I found this particular quote from The Atlantic quite telling: "The United States is in some ways becoming a medieval society, in which people live and work in the modern equivalent of castles--gated communities, apartment buildings with doormen, and office buildings with guards--and tr…

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

Depends on what you mean by lonely, I think.

I'm a transportation cyclist, but I don't think being a cyclist has measurably increased the number of friends I have. It did give me something in common with quite a few of my friends, but I didn't meet any of them through cycling. For a while I tried joining a cycling club, but I found that I didn't have much in common with racing cyclists.

Being a cyclist did however does apparently increase the number of people who seem willing to harm me, unfortunately. That's not loneliness, but it's not good either.

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