It's possible that what we're witnessing is behavioural sink[0]. It's been observed in other mammals that overcrowding leads to social degradation and eventual total failure of the population.
How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart
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Re: How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart
#112I’m highly skeptical. There’s only one piece of data cited in the article. In that data, the only mention of a possible trend is this > shows that loneliness is worse in each successive generation. Basically if you read the linked to report, the data show older people are less lonely than younger people right now. That’s not the same as showing loneliness increasing over time. There are many plausible reasons for you…
Social institutions started falling down once TV appeared and was demanding of attention. You had to be around at 8pm on Tuesday to see your show. Now with phones we have even bigger attention sinks. End of the day, the rise of cheap entertainment and the long decline of mainline religious organizations, erosion of ethnic organizations, etc have led to a lot of social problems. There was an article a few weeks ago su…
In a grant-funded and eyeball driven world, science and media have perverse incentives to cherry-pick data to show trends that don't really exist.
You live long enough, you get skeptical of 'sky is falling' narratives...
Re: How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart
#113The 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…
> An incredible point made was that Israel has the lowest suicide 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. The second part would explain bigger empathy/cohesion (the have a common stressor), not less suicide. I'd say it's rather that the draft can make you see often BS pers…
How would that help? If the draft makes you hard enough for reala world without killing you, why doesn't the real world make you hard enough for real world without killing you? These "overprotecting parents" are still around in the real world (or not), so what's the difference?
Re: How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart
#114I do actually feel pretty well settled with some sense of community where I live (Montreal), but one thing I've noticed while applying to jobs is how many jobs are super aggressive about relocating me to NYC or the bay area. They almost don't listen to me when I say I'm not leaving Montreal, like I need some sort of excuse to want to actually stay where I currently am.
It's probably more a demand that the new hire be on-site than it is an inability to claim the perfect excuse for remaining in Montreal.
Re: How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart
#115Earlier 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…
The reason your city is so bad is in large epart because the families move away to suburbs. In the burbs, you still get disturbances like constant lawnmowers and leaf blowers, at least in lawn-crazy USA.
Also planning laws - apartments for singles and couples are cheaper to build and higher density than apartments for families. If planning law mandates sufficient accommodation for families the dynamics change.
Re: How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart
#116The 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…
Did he account for a religious population which thinks that suicide is a major sin?
Israel is one of the least religious countries on earth. A much smaller percentage of Israelis are religious than are Americans or the populace of Muslim nations, and Christianity and Islam also generally consider suicide a sin.
Re: How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
The number of radicals might be the same, but the internet gives these existing radicals a much easier way to establish communities than before. As far as I know it's an accepted fact within social psychology that groupthink causes radicals to become more radical, which could suggest that even if the number of radicals is the same, these same radicals might become more extreme.
In the past without electronics there were multiple large groups radical enought to be violent, organize loud disturbing marches, attacked those organizing marches and so on. I am not sure things were calmer back then.
I definitely doubt things were calmer in general, because as you say, there are a bunch of examples of the opposite. However, an interesting point is that the groups in question, in the past, were somewhat restricted to their geographical location, and were in many cases dependend on organized leadership. As I see it, these two points are less of a challenge now.
Re: How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart
#118Fear sells. And the news sell fear.
Something is always tearing america apart. We are always on the brink. The past few months, it's facebook tearing us apart. Last year, it was putin and the russians tearing america apart. The year before that, it was trump/hillary.
Re: How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart
#119The 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…
Did he account for a religious population which thinks that suicide is a major sin?
Most israelies aren't really religious, in the sense that religion guide their actions in a meaningful way .
Re: How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart
#120The non-PC argument here is that diversity directly opposed to community, and I think there's some truth to it. If everyone in an area has lived there for their entire lives, it doesn't really matter if it's apartment buildings, a small high-density European-style town, or suburbs. If the rate of migration in/out is low enough, newcomers assimilate, assuming the society is welcoming and they interact. There are lots…
> The non-PC argument If you want to have a reasonable discussion about these things, don't front-load your argument with labeling people who disagree with you in such broad, and frankly wrong, strokes.
Sadly we have to today. For example, I said that we shouldn't be forcing the idea that people should attend college. Rather we need to tell people to attend vocational schools to replace those who are retiring. I made the argument that the vocational schools will get you a good wage. You'll help the community. I was promptly down voted.