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How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart

nytimes.com

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Re: How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart

#141

Post by badpun »

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?

I made my lifelong friends playing competitive magic the gathering in college. It was thousands of hours together, playtesting, improving our game, trading, going to tournments across Europe... All done on a tiny budget, which created hardship, which helped the bonding. It would be impossible to expend anywhere near this level of time commitment while holding a full-time job BTW.

Re: How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart

#142

Post by FeralAlien »

baursak wrote: post #123
WaltPurvis wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Israel is one of the least religious countries on earth Not according to this Gallup poll: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Importance_of_religion_by_coun...

According to that Israel is less religious than the US, and is among the least religious countries (top 30%) - looks like OP stretched a bit but not by much.

Re: How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart

#143

Post by FeralAlien »

baursak wrote: post #122
petra wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most israelies aren't really religious, in the sense that religion guide their actions in a meaningful way .

I'd consider 51% to be a significant chunk of the population: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Importance_of_religion_by_coun...

Relative to the others it is low. Furthermore that's a 10 year old poll this one is more recent and shows it closer to 42%

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_irrelig...

Re: How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart

#144

Post by throwaway713 »

> There is profit to be made here. The “outrage industrial complex” is what I call the industries that accumulate wealth and power by providing this simulacrum of community that people crave — but cannot seem to find in real life.

... does The NY Times lack self-awareness or are they doing this on purpose? If I had to blame one media organization for increasing polarizarion and divisiveness with the goal of increasing readership profits, it would be the NYT without a doubt.

Re: How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart

#145

Post by tnecniv »

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…

But cities provide you with a means to find a community if you really want one. It's a lot harder and/or less convenient to find groups that do what you like to do if you live in a suburb.

Re: How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart

#146

Post by fromthestart »

How much of this loneliness is caused by romantic longing? Marriage is increasingly devalued, the age of virginity loss is rising[1], maybe romantic partners just recently had a greater role in keeping these feelings at bay?

1.https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2018/p0614-yrbs.html

Re: How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart

#147

Post by Baeocystin »

ido wrote: post #104
tokyodude wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting that the my image is the exact opposite. Downtown no one talks to each other. They live in fancy apartment buildings and go out to their events. In the Suburbs, neighbors have BBQs, block parties. I knew all the people around the house when I lived in the suburbs. The Garys next door with their bull dog and their daughter Diane living in a detached apartment above the garage. The Alberas with a farm in th…

I think you may be confusing being a child/adult (or having kids/childless) vs suburb/urban. We live in an apartment in an urban but not central part of Berlin and we know plenty of neighbours, especially since having kids. How many childless adults do you remember taking part of these suburban activities/communities?

Not the parent commenter, but in my experience, lots. When we had block parties, the whole block, non-children-having folks and kids alike, was involved. In fact, the parents in particular seemed to really enjoy these BBQ times because they got to have conversations with other adults while the collective kids of the neighborhood ran around doing their own thing. It was fun!

Re: How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart

#148

Post by xtian »

blueprint wrote: post #139
harrumph wrote: post #121

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. 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?

Typically our view of the outer world is a reflection of our view of the inner world, and usually that state is obscured and perpetuated by fear/clinging to an idea of security.

Re: How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart

#149

Post by harrumph »

blueprint wrote: post #139
harrumph wrote: post #121

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. 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?

>Then what is its root cause?

I can only guess. I'll be thinking about it.

I will say that fear -- useful fear, wielded as a whip of control in various ways -- is central to any process of de-socialization.

And I know who surely has the greatest interest in de-socialization: the persons at the top of our economy.

Re: How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart

#150

Post by hasbot »

booleandilemma wrote: post #51

I’ve lived in the US my entire life, and I’ve come to feel like American society is one big competition to be more well-off than everyone else. Does anyone else feel this way? I think this is why I have difficulty making friends.

Not at all. I, someone that too has lived in the US my entire life, have never seen any such competition.
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