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The Loneliness Epidemic

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Re: The Loneliness Epidemic

#201

Post by barberousse »

buboard wrote: post #152
dexwiz wrote: post #34

The Screen and the Job have displaced almost everything else is our lives. Loneliness is just a primary symptom. The Screen, whether it’s TV, computer, or phone, has supplanted almost all social interactions. This manifests itself in things like SitComs on TV (just a bunch of friends or family hanging out) or Social Media on phones. It’s very easy to fill the social needs of right now with a Screen. But under even a…

> The Screen and the Job have displaced The screen and the Job have no volition of their own. It's humans themselves that choose to spend more time with them instead of interacting with nearby humans. And this is happening despite the fact that we 're no longer in the industrial age, and people don't need to live near the factory where they work. The Job provides people with enough money to frequently escape from nea…

As a software engineer who comes from the lower class (the West side ghetto of Chicago, in fact), let me tell you right now that lower class people socializing with their neighbors doesn't mean those interactions are at all inclusive of different approaches to life. Yeah, you get more socializing and connections, but those interactions tend to be constrained by forces like homophobia, racism, etc. Just because they're socializing doesn't mean they are also re-enforcing a world where everyone can feel accepted. It strikes me as naive to think the working class are this miasma of authentic relations, they socialize better because the set of considered opinions is virtually uncontested.

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic

#202

Post by Damogran6 »

rayiner wrote: post #115
dexwiz wrote: post #34

The Screen and the Job have displaced almost everything else is our lives. Loneliness is just a primary symptom. The Screen, whether it’s TV, computer, or phone, has supplanted almost all social interactions. This manifests itself in things like SitComs on TV (just a bunch of friends or family hanging out) or Social Media on phones. It’s very easy to fill the social needs of right now with a Screen. But under even a…

> The average person has to consider all options in the light of both the current employer and the specter of tomorrow’s. Moving across the country for a high paying job? Great! Moving to be closer to friends? That’s a career killer. The median person lives just 18 miles away from their mom. 57% of Americans have never lived outside their home state. A third have never lived outside their hometown. The more I read ab…

That doesn't make it a non-issue.

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic

#203

Post by barberousse »

I just hope people don't think the working class somehow has this all down pat and that this is merely a case of bourgeois overconsumption. As someone who comes from a ghetto and became a software engineer, I can tell you now that a lot of people I grew up with engage in combinations of racism, homophobia, transphobia, etc. The working class are only this candyland of authentic relations if you also accept all the socio-political tenets that go with that particular community. That's no better than being alone.

Edit - Removed some emotional language

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic

#204

Post by zaphod4prez »

aszantu wrote: post #147
devtul wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems to be more a problem of expectations than anything else, people are too focused on being successful than being happy, on having it all. I would gleefully take a pay cut to have a 35h work week _if my wage still allows me to eat out once 3x a week_, but I will work 40h + commute and feel always exhausted until I get there. See how easy is to fall on that trap.

why not make it a habit to talk to a stranger on the commuting train?

In many parts of the US this is so out of the norm that people would be freaked out by you trying to talk to them (SF, NYC for sure but even in Chicago which is supposed to have that Midwestern friendliness... it'd be weird and often unwelcome)

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic

#205

Post by watwut »

oposa wrote: post #172
LordFast wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. Anecdotally, this checks out. All of my middle/lower-middle class friends from high school have long been married and raising families, almost in all cases raising them with their extended families. Most of my professional tech friends are barely getting started in their late 30s, and everyone who's started had basically put their career into a slower gear first. I made a similar choice a couple of years…

By definition you wouldn't know many lonely people. The chronically lonely ones are going to be the people who didn't end up getting married when they "should" have, couldn't make it into a proper career or fell out of one at some point. Most upper middle class people won't be lonely since if you can afford a career you can afford a social life or you might even be forced into one. But of course uncertainty and insec…

It just does not work like that. Many people with stable jobs are lonely. Long hours means that you don't have connection with family even if you have it. You live separate life from partner and your children are not close to you.

One partner working long hours is enough for both partners to be lonely in marriage. Partner having time consuming hobby is enough for you to be lonely in marriage.

People in work are not friends, they are competitors, allies, enemies, whatever. They are not people you can talk with openly. Moreover, there are plenty of jobs where you work mostly alone or have only temporary relationships.

End result is loneliness.

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic

#206

Post by watwut »

cosmodisk wrote: post #198
LordFast wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. Anecdotally, this checks out. All of my middle/lower-middle class friends from high school have long been married and raising families, almost in all cases raising them with their extended families. Most of my professional tech friends are barely getting started in their late 30s, and everyone who's started had basically put their career into a slower gear first. I made a similar choice a couple of years…

What you described here is essentially 'survivorship bias'. Also,just because someone married away into a cosy suburb with 2 kids and a nice hubby,it doesn't mean they aren't lonely. There are millions of people out there who would kill for a chance to have someone outside that "perfect" life just to talk openly with... All those "desperate housewives" don't get created without reason.

Suburbs and 2 kids are both isolating. Especially when kids are small.

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic

#207

Post by AdrianB1 »

peteey wrote: post #108
major505 wrote: post #73

Really. I think the big problem here is social networks. Nobody interact face to face.I used to go to bars , look for a pretty girl and pay her a drink to start a conversation. Nowdays this is considered creep. They expect that I download an app, wait for a match ans just goeet for a quick chat and maybe some action. Just turn of your computers and go to a bar. Interact to people. Start conversations with stranger pe…

Offering strangers liquid drugs in hopes of "some action" was probably creepy back in the day too. Alcohol and hookup culture are not mutually exclusive to loneliness.

Offering a drink in a bar was never creepy when I was younger. Offering a home-made drink that nobody but you knows what's in it, that is creepy. Calling a gin tonic "liquid drugs" is grotesque in the context.

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic

#208

Post by zaphod4prez »

brighter2morrow wrote: post #193
jdietrich wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's particularly helpful to compare the present day to the late 19th century. The fact that things used to be worse does not excuse the fact that things also used to be better; living standards for the average American have regressed in many ways since the 1970s, which should be a cause of urgent concern.

>living standards for the average American have regressed in many ways since the 1970s, With women's entry into the workforce plus the 1964 Hart-Cellar Act's lifting of immigration quotas the workforce more than doubled in the 70s. At that rate how was work compensation ever supposed to keep up? I'm not saying the trade-off wasn't worth it, but you can't 2-3x the labor pool and then pretend we don't know why wages de…

This is an extremely simplistic reading of a complex real-world issue. There multiple other factors that almost definitely dominated the changes you cite. Including population growth, other massive changes in the regulatory, political, economic, and technical environment... Point being, mentioning one shift in the labor supply is really not a useful frame for "the state of labor in the US."

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic

#209

Post by AdrianB1 »

bluntfang wrote: post #138
major505 wrote: post #73

Really. I think the big problem here is social networks. Nobody interact face to face.I used to go to bars , look for a pretty girl and pay her a drink to start a conversation. Nowdays this is considered creep. They expect that I download an app, wait for a match ans just goeet for a quick chat and maybe some action. Just turn of your computers and go to a bar. Interact to people. Start conversations with stranger pe…

the creepy part is going to a public place and sexualizing it by explicitly seeking out "pretty girl"s and buying them drinks. Going out and seek genuine connections with people instead of buying "pretty girl"s drinks is not creepy.

You don't go in a bar for a deep conversation, you have the library and local groups of interests for that. A bar is just for relaxing and socialization, you can talk anything you want as long as you find someone to listen (or ignore) you.

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic

#210

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #180
slothtrop wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm jumping ahead on the timeline, yes. Early Roman Empire had a polytheistic religions in common. It expanded its power after monotheism. Obviously it's possible to have a large, shared polytheistic religion. We still have those today. The religion being a common denominator is more in the spirit of the point I was trying to make. Using a single God as a means to unite people was more palpable to some leaders. Muham…

> Early Roman Empire had a polytheistic religions in common. It expanded its power after monotheism. No, it didn’t “expand its power after monotheism”. The Roman Empire didn’t even begin its official flirtation with Christianity until well into the 4th century CE. However, most historians consider the Roman Empire to have been in its waning days then, as it never fully recovered from all the shocks of the 3rd century…

I suppose you could possibly argue for the Eastern Empire? Maybe? But then that's still built upon the core of the original polytheistic structure, and I don't think it's a strong argument that Christianity played into it.

If anything Christianity seems to cause a problem for organized military - after Rome we don't see an organized, professional military for another thousand years. People may think of "the crusades", but let's be honest, the majority of that was really more a rag-tag rabble causing trouble, rather than any sort of organized and united fighting force.

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