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The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of loneliness

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Re: The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of loneliness

#261

Post by StreamBright »

residentfoam wrote: post #106

I have been lucky enough to be able to work and live in several countries around the world. One thing in common I noticed in all these places is that guys and girls don't have time and don't want to commit to a stable long relation. They invest pretty much themselves and their time in their career, traveling , parties, dogs, cats and bitcoins :) ! The mantra is to get rich and retire at 40 years old! Travel the world…

And on the child-parent relationship front, we are not doing much better. As a result, kid going to schools that make them fit in cutting out creativity. It is much more rewarding to home school your kids and spends time with them bith in terms of their success later on and emotional development.

Re: The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of loneliness

#262

Post by ecoled_ame »

stronglikedan wrote: post #223
residentfoam wrote: post #106

I have been lucky enough to be able to work and live in several countries around the world. One thing in common I noticed in all these places is that guys and girls don't have time and don't want to commit to a stable long relation. They invest pretty much themselves and their time in their career, traveling , parties, dogs, cats and bitcoins :) ! The mantra is to get rich and retire at 40 years old! Travel the world…

> I have noticed that people have been more and more intolerant to family flying with kids. This alone would encourage me to fly with my kids as often as possible.

You sound mean, and too prone to burning fossil fuels to jet you and your family's fat asses around the world for no particular benefit to humanity.

Re: The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of loneliness

#263

Post by jerkstate »

jniedrauer wrote: post #213
residentfoam wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way I see it is that you don't bring child into the world to "increase" your own personal happiness. They are (at least in my personal case) the result of my own happiness. And yes they require a lot of work, but all the hard work is totally worth it every time your children look at smile at you.

My point is not that they require a lot of work. My point is that they have a massive impact on climate change. You could spend your entire life flying to conferences, living on a cruise ship, dumping trash in the ocean, and none of it would even hold a candle to the environmental impact of having a child.

It really, really sounds like you haven’t done the math. The average per-capita CO2 emissions in the USA is about 15 tons (among the highest in the world) and a round-trip flight between SF and NY is about 1.5 tons, 10% of that. So if you flew to conferences 10 times per year, you would be using the entire carbon footprint of an average US citizen, which is among the highest in the world.

Re: The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of loneliness

#264

Post by sdegutis »

40acres wrote: post #199
residentfoam wrote: post #106

I have been lucky enough to be able to work and live in several countries around the world. One thing in common I noticed in all these places is that guys and girls don't have time and don't want to commit to a stable long relation. They invest pretty much themselves and their time in their career, traveling , parties, dogs, cats and bitcoins :) ! The mantra is to get rich and retire at 40 years old! Travel the world…

I heard someone describe this as the "capstone" vs "conerstone" model. Previous generations got married and had kids much earlier, and built their lives off of that cornerstone. When it comes to me personally and my peers, we see marriage and children more as a capstone -- something to be done once our student loan is paid, or when we're ready to put a down payment on a house, when we get that promotion, etc.

I know two sisters who each got married.

The older one practiced worldly prudence, courted during high school, got engaged at beginning of college, and waited almost a decade until after her fiancé graduated before they got married and started to have children. But now he can't get a job with his degree (pharmacist), she works at some retail job as a manager, and the whole family lives with her parents. He's in >$100,000 debt and briefly went to a medical facility during a nervous breakdown after realizing he realistically can't pay it back.

The younger sister had no such ambitions. Courted in high school, got engaged, married right out of high school, immediately started a family, he works at Walmart making higher than average money, and she stays at home raising the kids. They also live with her parents in the same house.

True stories. This all happened over the past 7 years.

I would say the prudence of the second couple vastly outshines the "prudence" of the first couple.

Re: The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of loneliness

#265

Post by Goronmon »

WalterGR wrote: post #212
kaitai wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "science" you're referring to shows that parenting makes people less "happy" in any given moment while doing it and more "content" overall, more "satisfied" in older age. Moreover, there are significant country-by-country differences in these stats that seem to be tied to availability of high-quality, low-cost childcare and healthcare. One place to look for some overview of some of these studies is https://contem…

Why did you put science in scare quotes?

Probably referencing the use of the phrase "scientifically proven" and doubting the assertion being made and that there is in fact "science" that backs it up.

Re: The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of loneliness

#266

Post by plainOldText »

daemonk wrote: post #94
codingslave wrote: post #7

I would argue that the decline of the family is directly linked to feminism, or better stated, the liberation of women from the home and from conservative sexual values. The two forces behind that are birth control and women entering the work force. These two are magnified by online dating and social media. I am not saying at all that these are bad things, just that we have yet to see the true effects of feminism on…

Perhaps the more interesting question is whether the traditional nuclear family is the "optimal" mode of human society? Is the unhappiness that we may be observing with the decline of family a product of this transition period from traditional family structure to individualism? Is our current society just not well equipped yet to handle this mode of living? Maybe in 50 years, this will become the norm and people who…

I don’t know if it’s optimal, but it sure is intimate and stable.

Your spouse will never move to another city for a new job w/o you. Your kids won’t leave the nucleus, at least not until they’re college ready.

Unlike family, different kinds of arrangements between people result in relationships that are less committed and less durable.

So maybe if you take stability and intimacy into account, it might as well be optimal.

I guess it begs the question, what are we optimizing for? And on what time scale?

What might seem optimal for the time being, could unleash a series of unforeseen circumstances in the future.

But I guess we can keep an open mind, allow people to choose for themselves and then report back after 2-3 generations the consequences of different paths taken.

Re: The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of loneliness

#267

Post by ashika »

codingslave wrote: post #7

I would argue that the decline of the family is directly linked to feminism, or better stated, the liberation of women from the home and from conservative sexual values. The two forces behind that are birth control and women entering the work force. These two are magnified by online dating and social media. I am not saying at all that these are bad things, just that we have yet to see the true effects of feminism on…

I feel you've said more or less the same thing the article is saying, just in more casually dismissive and incendiary terms. TFA refers to many of these factors as being driven by the second demographic transformation. Yes, feminism is a very important part of the SDT, but one needs to be careful with cause and effect. Did feminism cause the SDT? Unlikely. Did the SDT cause feminist ideas to become attractive to more people? That seems far more likely. If that's the case then I wouldn't necessarily lay this (more old people living/dying alone) at feminism's feet. Feminism may provide an ideological argument in favor of certain relationships, but we are the ones choosing to live and die alone, and when we choose we do so for myriad reasons.

Also, women haven't been liberated from the home [1].

[1] https://www.ft.com/content/0c9f068c-711f-11e9-bf5c-6eeb83756...

Re: The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of loneliness

#268

Post by symlinkk »

a3n wrote: post #177
symlinkk wrote: post #141

Dating apps ruined modern relationships. 80% of women go for the top 20% of men.

"Top" defined as how? 80% of women go for the men they like the most.

Top in attractiveness. Lookup the OKCupid 80/20 study.

Re: The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of loneliness

#270

Post by UI_at_80x24 »

flattone wrote: post #207

Better to be lonely sometimes than to be divorced ever IMO.

My first wife might agree with you, me? Not so much.

I'm not the same person I was 10 years ago, so why would I expect her to be the same women I fell in love with 10 years ago?

It's not a crime to change, grow, evolve; so why punish the person you are with?

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