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How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart

nytimes.com

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Re: How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart

#131

Post by SolaceQuantum »

grawprog wrote: post #60
softwaredoug wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this is true, I’d expect loneliness to be higher in diverse urban centers and lower in rural areas. Is this the case? Anecdotally I’ve notice the opposite... that diverse urban areas are less lonely and isolating.

Personally, I find life in my culturally diverse city lonelier than when I lived in a small rural town. If only because most people would say hi or smile even if you didn't know them as they walk past you. In the city you tend get glared at or even have people act open hostile as they walk by. People seem to be less open to random conversation or just meeting strangers in general. More people around doesn't always eq…

I found living in a small town lonelier because all those small indications of friendliness were not genuinely similar to myself. Ie. Meeting my eyes and saying hello implies you actually know me or have much to do with me. Generally this wouldn’t be the case, as my hobbies have little overlap with small town life. I felt uncomfortable and lonely. In a city there’s no pretending or pretense that random strangers want to bond, and I can find my own group through meetups.

Re: How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart

#132

Post by haloux »

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…

Blaming it on community planning might be pointing to the symptom rather than the problem. I’d hazard that the real problem is intolerance born from individualism. In the American context we have a society such that people both clutch and invent their own rights while insisting that all others respect and maintaining them. This would be fine if tolerance actually existed and the relationship were bidirectional. The relationship has proven to be unidirectional in a lot of cases which has led to the polarity that we are experiencing. Abstracting further, I’d say that these situations could largely be reduced to groups of people misunderstanding the significance of difference between tolerance and affirmation.

Last words: yes it is simplistic and reductionist to boil it down like this. I’m comfortable with staging the problem like this because we aren’t considering an ultra specific case here that requires precision.

Re: How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart

#133

Post by SolaceQuantum »

tekla wrote: post #130
astura wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most "friendships" with people you work with feel like this. Try spending time with people you don't work with.

I have friends by the sheer fact that we went to HS together and ended up in the city. If I didn't have that, I would have no friends at all. How the hell do people make them?

Personally, I went consistently to specific social groups regularly (for months at a time). Eventually you get to know other regulars and one or two or more will become a bond with you. Then invite them out for lunches or dinners. Suddenly you unofficially have a lunch with them weekly or every other week. Maybe group chats over coffee. Texting about work. Etc.

Re: How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart

#134

Post by wenc »

androidgirl wrote: post #84

Is there anything we can do to stop being lonely? Over the past few months, I have made great progress on developing habits to fight my depression. I wake up very early, hike, work on my side projects, and go to communal hacker spaces sometimes. However, I and many others still feel very lonely, it's like we all live in seperate bubbles and can't connect deeply. I have no idea what causes this divide. Have humans alw…

Are you in therapy? It can be very helpful for learning to develop change strategies and coping mechanisms. Depression is particularly hard to deal with alone, and your problems may be very specific.

Re: How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart

#135

Post by clarry »

JackFr wrote: post #88
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…

> And I think I'd rather get to know the neighbors over at the adjoining castle than the scum in these neighboring flats. Don’t worry — I’m sure the scum feel pretty much the same about you.

> Don’t worry — I’m sure the scum feel pretty much the same about you.

Quite possible, and that's part of the point I'm making. There's no communality, everyone just wants to have as little to do with their neighbor as possible. Even if it turns out that quite a few of these neighbors (me included) do not throw parties, do not smoke inside, do not drink and fool around, do not have loud kids or animals, do not throw trash around and break things in shared spaces, don't blast music at 3 AM...

There's too many people for people to care, kind of? And a bunch of bad apples ruin it for everyone.

Re: How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart

#136

Post by ams6110 »

reaperducer wrote: post #48
cylinder wrote: post #26

I blame this on the built environment of the US. Nothing is human scale or people oriented. It's commerce and cost oriented. Very few independent shops in most cities. No concept of a high street or village of shops, no public square, nothing. I'm referring to the post WW2 America. Obviously, you'll find these things in the old core of New England and parts of the South.

That sounds like a old, outdated stereotype from a 1990’s cartoon. Many (most?) American cities of any size have spent the last 20-25 years trying hard to make their cities more pedestrian friendly. Some even require that any new building over xx floors have street-level retail or other gathering places in order to make urban life more vibrant. Unfortunately, success is scattered. It’s a chicken-and-egg problem. But…

Yes but it's all artificial. All those ground floor shops are places that sell things or offer services that most people are not interested in.

Re: How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart

#137

Post by clarry »

fjsolwmv wrote: post #94
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…

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.

The constant lawnmowers get on my nerves for sure.

But even the families with loud kids and dogs and late night backyard parties never managed to disturb me as much as what I've come to expect as the norm in flats.

Re: How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart

#139

Post by blueprint »

harrumph wrote: post #121
black-tea wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The language might seem harsh to you, but you'd understand it if you'd ever lived with or near such people.

>The language might seem harsh to you, but you'd understand it if you'd ever lived with or near such people. I understand it perfectly well, I've lived in densely populated cities my whole life. It's a naked display of something called misanthropy and it's a core tenet of an ethos of self-obsession plus empathy absence that persons in technology AND lifelong US suburbanites far, far too often are afflicted with. Zero…

Then what is its root cause?

Re: How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart

#140

Post by Pica_soO »

harrumph wrote: post #121
black-tea wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The language might seem harsh to you, but you'd understand it if you'd ever lived with or near such people.

>The language might seem harsh to you, but you'd understand it if you'd ever lived with or near such people. I understand it perfectly well, I've lived in densely populated cities my whole life. It's a naked display of something called misanthropy and it's a core tenet of an ethos of self-obsession plus empathy absence that persons in technology AND lifelong US suburbanites far, far too often are afflicted with. Zero…

A million individuals, all thinking they are the hero of the story, all others NPCs, decoration, either criminally stupid, or worth of worshiping.

I blame protestant work-ethics.

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