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How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart

nytimes.com

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Re: How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart

#191

Post by derangedHorse »

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 don’t see how the rise of digital media and independence somehow lead to disassembled communities.

A lot of people argue that the internet takes us away from human connection but I disagree. If anything it brings people closer by allowing individuals to join communities that they could never have assembled with their reach in the physical world.

Furthermore if an individual prefers to be on their device over talking to people near them, it’s probably because they wouldn’t talk to those people to begin with. Or that they feel so comfortable in the community they’ve already built that they don’t care to expand (a problem that exists with or without technology).

Re: How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart

#192

Post by closeparen »

harrumph wrote: post #185
closeparen wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, you’ve clearly never had bad neighbors. Be grateful for that, but it doesn’t give you the right to tell others that the real problem is their frustration.

>you’ve clearly never had bad neighbors No, I’ve had bad neighbors. What I haven’t done is to generalize the experience to seek to avoid neighbors as a class, which is exactly what misanthropy is, as well as exactly what white flight and suburbanism is. Also, as long as you’re prattling about “rights”, please notice how easily you assumed the right to mischaracterize and invent a convenient and false history for me.

Nope, you clearly stated that there is no such thing as a bad neighbor, and anyone perceiving one has a defective moral character, that there is “no mystery here.” You want to complain about generalization, that’s another thing, but so far the only generalization here is yours, that the parent’s experience can’t be real.

Re: How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart

#193

Post by drankula3 »

ziont wrote: post #106

I used to be lonely, I used to want to belong to a group, I used to want an identity. Then I realize these desires are causing suffering. Through meditation and medical marijuana, I've been able to free myself and realize, these are the artifacts of our Tribalistic nature. But we live in a modern world, access to everything except the ones our ancestors used to value. I've come to enjoy solitary more and more.

I think ignoring or suppressing our tribal nature en masse is part of the problem. We evolved in an environment of small, closely related communities, and develop in groups and out groups. Without a sharply defined in group, everyone becomes part of the out group, meaning we default to distrust until proven otherwise. It's sad.

Re: How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart

#194

Post by mikestaub »

cgb223 wrote: post #181

Just an anecdote I live in SF and it has plenty to do. But last night despite aching to get out of the house I couldn’t. I don’t have a ton of friends out here and the ones I have are frequently busy with their own projects/life The typical offered advice is join meetups to meet new people, but a search of meetups going on last night were only for events where you drink heavily (a weekly beer pong tournament for back…

I have many times been in the same situation, and after talking to my friends they have as well. I decided to try to solve the problem with a new type of social network. You may find this interesting: https://peapods.com

Re: How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart

#196

Post by gaius »

war1025 wrote: post #66
RoutinePlayer wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to read that book someday, but doesn't "stressor" seems too negative. Why not the more neutral "cause"?

Hardship brings people together.

Right. People can adapt to and some even thrive on stress. What people cant handle is feeling useless or without purpose.

Re: How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart

#197

Post by projektfu »

I can't help but notice that it's written by Arthur Brooks, the president of the American Enterprise Institute. The AEI is essentially the mouthpiece of large-corporate capitalism. Brooks writes a lot of these articles, if you look at his collection on his website. You take some problem that has in its nature the alienation of people from their meaningful purpose in the world, probably because of the needs of corporate capitalism. Unfortunately, large-scale solutions, such as industrial policy, are not in the allowable repertoire of the AEI, so his proposed solution is for people to ... do something about it. Try harder? Not sure.

Edit - fixed grammar in first sentence.

Re: How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart

#198

Post by haloux »

rubidium wrote: post #76
solatic wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I live in a Christian community focused on in-common living. Community requires commitment to stick things through. Having a common vision is important. More important is having the commitment to sticking with it, and relationship tools to help keep friendships intact in tough times. Some key tools: -right speech: no gossip, slander, or negative humor -forgiveness: saying I’m sorry when offending or harming someone,…

Out of curiosity, is it a community inspired by ‘The Benedict Option’?

Re: How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart

#199

Post by blueprint »

harrumph wrote: post #149
blueprint wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> I can only guess.

Then you shouldn't say "Zero mystery here".. or you could trick yourself and become upset later.

Re: How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart

#200

Post by harrumph »

closeparen wrote: post #192
harrumph wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>you’ve clearly never had bad neighbors No, I’ve had bad neighbors. What I haven’t done is to generalize the experience to seek to avoid neighbors as a class, which is exactly what misanthropy is, as well as exactly what white flight and suburbanism is. Also, as long as you’re prattling about “rights”, please notice how easily you assumed the right to mischaracterize and invent a convenient and false history for me.

Nope, you clearly stated that there is no such thing as a bad neighbor, and anyone perceiving one has a defective moral character, that there is “no mystery here.” You want to complain about generalization, that’s another thing, but so far the only generalization here is yours, that the parent’s experience can’t be real.

Me:

>I’ve had bad neighbors

You:

> you’ve clearly stated there’s no such thing as a bad neighbor

I wish you luck managing the effects of your wild imagination in the future.

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