Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 222 posts

Re: How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart

#31

Post by Theodores »

The atomisation of society goes back a long way, however, I believe that the era of atomised society we now know was ushered in by Reagan and Thatcher.

What changed then was stranger danger. With schemes such as 'Neighbourhood Watch' (in the UK) people saw strangers as potential threats, just there wanting to break in, steal the VHS player and sell it for heroin. Strangers were not welcomed as visitors, that was not the default.

Much else happened then to destroy community and make it so everyone was out for themselves. In the UK we also had the privatisation of social housing and the privatisation of public transport. The car became king and the poor could end up being those terrifying homeless types that nobody likes to see but take for granted nowadays.

In generations before Thatcher/Reagan there was TV and that apparently destroyed community. True we might not have been going down to the church hall to have a dance or to play board games, however, at least with TV families watched programmes together in the front room. Plus with only a few channels you could talk about TV with people in ways you can't today. There was still a national conversation, even if it was about what David Attenborough had brought to the small screen the night before.

Community is the enemy of consumerism, if people are sat in a public space enjoying company then they are not in their cars going to shops and buying commodity entertainment. But consumerism has kind of died too, people do not shop like they used to as any mall can testify to.

Despite everything that is wrong people are innately wanting to have friends and be part of a community. This will never go away, even if those needs are currently met by proxies in social media and opioids. Although Thatcher grade leaders may want everyone divided and living in an atomised society, human nature will win in the end. Long live the revolution.

Re: How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart

#32

Post by Ensorceled »

clarry wrote: post #24
bragh wrote: post #9

There is a good reason why people are escaping small towns. If you are even a little bit outside of the mold, such as being into reading instead of cars as a guy, you will be ostracized by a huge part of the community. And may God have mercy on you if you are into the really weird stuff, such as liking programming, tinkering with electronics or anime.

I do not believe people are leaving small towns because they can't watch anime or whatever. They're leaving small towns because small towns are not the place to look for education and work. Idk what constitutes small in your book. I grew up in towns of around 10k to 23k people. Had no trouble being a nerd, playing video games, reading, watching anime, coding. Now I'm in a city an order of magnitude larger, and more l…

I grew up near a town of 1200 that was 30km from a city of 20k. I was considered odd for enjoying reading but luckily went to a feeder high school of 1500 kids so met up with fellow geeks.

10k is not a small town.

Re: How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart

#33

Post by [deleted] »

clarry wrote: post #28
npunt wrote: post #17

Suburbs are structurally lonely (your own castle with as little reliance on others as possible), and only ‘work’ when paired with other sources of community. Those sources are disappearing for a variety of reasons but the transfer from physical -> digital, communal [1] -> personalized, eating out -> eating in [2], public space -> private space, friend time —> media time all add up. We also don’t have strong culture a…

> Suburbs are structurally lonely My European perspective. I wouldn't blame it on suburbs in particular. I would blame most if not all forms of city living. Most people live in flats where nobody wants to have anything to do with their neighbor and there is no communality. People move in and move out, nobody cares. The less you have to hear of your neighbor, the better. FWIW I would rather have a 'burb castle than a…

[deleted]

Re: How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart

#34

Post by tezka »

clarry wrote: post #28
npunt wrote: post #17

Suburbs are structurally lonely (your own castle with as little reliance on others as possible), and only ‘work’ when paired with other sources of community. Those sources are disappearing for a variety of reasons but the transfer from physical -> digital, communal [1] -> personalized, eating out -> eating in [2], public space -> private space, friend time —> media time all add up. We also don’t have strong culture a…

> Suburbs are structurally lonely My European perspective. I wouldn't blame it on suburbs in particular. I would blame most if not all forms of city living. Most people live in flats where nobody wants to have anything to do with their neighbor and there is no communality. People move in and move out, nobody cares. The less you have to hear of your neighbor, the better. FWIW I would rather have a 'burb castle than a…

Thats not particularly a European perspective. Sounds like its just yours.

Re: How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart

#35

Post by npunt »

clarry wrote: post #28
npunt wrote: post #17

Suburbs are structurally lonely (your own castle with as little reliance on others as possible), and only ‘work’ when paired with other sources of community. Those sources are disappearing for a variety of reasons but the transfer from physical -> digital, communal [1] -> personalized, eating out -> eating in [2], public space -> private space, friend time —> media time all add up. We also don’t have strong culture a…

> Suburbs are structurally lonely My European perspective. I wouldn't blame it on suburbs in particular. I would blame most if not all forms of city living. Most people live in flats where nobody wants to have anything to do with their neighbor and there is no communality. People move in and move out, nobody cares. The less you have to hear of your neighbor, the better. FWIW I would rather have a 'burb castle than a…

Yeah I think it’s not just a suburb problem, they just so happen to be (I think) the most common living situation for Americans. And if not in actuality, certainly culturally we are indoctrinated in a suburb mindset (own a home, go to college, American dream yada yada). It’s one of the reasons moving to a city after college is so exciting for us- it’s usually the first experience we have that challenges that mindset.

Re: How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart

#36

Post by clarry »

tezka wrote: post #34
clarry wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Suburbs are structurally lonely My European perspective. I wouldn't blame it on suburbs in particular. I would blame most if not all forms of city living. Most people live in flats where nobody wants to have anything to do with their neighbor and there is no communality. People move in and move out, nobody cares. The less you have to hear of your neighbor, the better. FWIW I would rather have a 'burb castle than a…

Thats not particularly a European perspective. Sounds like its just yours.

It is just mine, and I am European. I believe it is informative to spell it out in a discussion that points fingers at the (American) suburb.

Re: How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart

#37

Post by npunt »

solatic wrote: post #29
npunt wrote: post #17

Suburbs are structurally lonely (your own castle with as little reliance on others as possible), and only ‘work’ when paired with other sources of community. Those sources are disappearing for a variety of reasons but the transfer from physical -> digital, communal [1] -> personalized, eating out -> eating in [2], public space -> private space, friend time —> media time all add up. We also don’t have strong culture a…

I lived on a kibbutz after college. It has its own set of problems. The closer you live to people, the more politics enters the picture. The less money there is to go around, the more that politics revolves around the relatively financially trivial. You can't force people to like each other just because they live in close proximity. The problem isn't finding people with shared interests and values, it's in building r…

The kibbutz (or kibbutz inspired) idea my friends and I have discussed is more about finding people you like and then forming it. I can definitely see it having downsides if you’re not actively involved in its formation.

Re: How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart

#38

Post by Beefin »

The thesis from Sebastian Junger’s book Tribes esplains it best: when a community has a common stressor, that strengthens the social cohesion. An incredible point made was that Israel has the lowest sucide rate of all the third world countries, and guess what he attributes it to? Mandatory draft. The common stressor that every single countryman can empathasize with each other about is war. While it sounds depressing it serves as an example, do we as a nation, state, city or even neighborhood have a common stressor with each other? Antecdotally I find it challenging to think of something like that for my community.

Re: How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart

#39

Post by kitten_mittens_ »

clarry wrote: post #24
bragh wrote: post #9

There is a good reason why people are escaping small towns. If you are even a little bit outside of the mold, such as being into reading instead of cars as a guy, you will be ostracized by a huge part of the community. And may God have mercy on you if you are into the really weird stuff, such as liking programming, tinkering with electronics or anime.

I do not believe people are leaving small towns because they can't watch anime or whatever. They're leaving small towns because small towns are not the place to look for education and work. Idk what constitutes small in your book. I grew up in towns of around 10k to 23k people. Had no trouble being a nerd, playing video games, reading, watching anime, coding. Now I'm in a city an order of magnitude larger, and more l…

I lived in the Northeast Megalopolis for a bit before moving to Germany.

In the eastern US, I didn’t know anyone prior to moving there for work. The city was very anonymous, to put it lightly. The only people talking to you on the street were homeless.

I’d go to meetups and flit around, but it was hard to put down roots where everyone was friends with their college buddies from MIT or Harvard. The school I went to in the West isn’t famous for anything other than football.

I moved to Germany figuring that I didn’t have much to lose, being deracinated and all. It’s strange how many more people try to talk to you on the street. Mostly drivers and older ladies asking for directions.

Since I don’t speak German, I’m very isolated now though. It’s easy to discount interactions with service workers at CVS or Whole Foods when you’re going through them, but I think that it’s the sort of foundational thing even loners like myself need.

Re: How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart

#40

Post by tezka »

clarry wrote: post #36
tezka wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats not particularly a European perspective. Sounds like its just yours.

It is just mine, and I am European. I believe it is informative to spell it out in a discussion that points fingers at the (American) suburb.

your statement sounds like this is a point of view taken by the majority of people who live in Europe. Simple facts about the number and density of cities through out the history of the continent point to the exact opposite.
Post reply on HN