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The Loneliness Epidemic

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Re: The Loneliness Epidemic

#251

Post by badpun »

peckrob wrote: post #155
gordaco wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of this is 100% correct. In particular: the amount of choices that have become "career killers" and therefore unacceptable is terrifying. Choose a degree that appeals to you, where you will learn what you like, instead of one which acts as a stepping stone for a higher paying job? Even in countries with sane tuition prices (read: not the US) plenty of people will blame you, and that decision in particular, for an…

> Stay in your job for 15 years because you like the people, the work itself or some particular perk? When you finally leave, your next job will pay less than if you had hopped around each 2 years. That's if someone wants to hire you. This is so true, and the weirdest thing in the world to me. Especially in tech, you get really heavily punished for staying at a job more than a few years. To the point where, in interv…

Maybe the ability to be content is not that common and people who just cannot do it are secretly envious of and angry at those who can? For example, I've never been content in any job (barring some honeymoon periods or particularly interesting short episodes). It's pretty much always a grind to get that paycheck at the end of the month. At this point, I don't think I could be content with any job. It's possible that I've chosen a wrong career and have broken myself over years of working in it - hard to tell.

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic

#252

Post by war1025 »

watwut wrote: post #206
cosmodisk wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Kids don't have to be isolating. You just have to adjust your life to do things that are if not kid-friendly, kid-accepting.

Also have to get over the fear that people will judge you for taking your kids with you out into the world.

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic

#253

Post by badpun »

intuitionist wrote: post #214
Balero wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They only hunter/gathered for that long. How much time was spent in meetings, how much time preparing food, fixing clothes, patrolling territory, scouting things out, making home improvements etc. If the modern person only worked for food, then I think a few hours a week would suffice.

ah yes, meetings, that famous bane of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle

I wonder if they have a scrum master, who tells everyone what to do, but no one has ever seen him hunting.

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic

#254

Post by KurtMueller »

mcdramamean wrote: post #244

Why do we need to "run away" from loneliness? Maybe we all need to spend more time alone AND off the phone to discover what really "makes us tick"? Find yourself, find a mission, find a purpose. Go do something. There is SOOOO much to be done... I mean it.. Like RIGHT NOW. If you don't have a mission.. Bruh... Go get one. Loneliness is simply childish. Children sit around and wish someone would talk to them. Adults g…

Have you done this yourself and if so, how successful have you been?

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic

#255

Post by mynameishere »

barberousse wrote: post #203

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 so…

Removed some emotional language

The part where you condemned the people you grew up with? Oh, you left that in. What on earth did you remove--something about kicking dogs?

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic

#256

Post by wolfgke »

peckrob wrote: post #155
gordaco wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of this is 100% correct. In particular: the amount of choices that have become "career killers" and therefore unacceptable is terrifying. Choose a degree that appeals to you, where you will learn what you like, instead of one which acts as a stepping stone for a higher paying job? Even in countries with sane tuition prices (read: not the US) plenty of people will blame you, and that decision in particular, for an…

> Stay in your job for 15 years because you like the people, the work itself or some particular perk? When you finally leave, your next job will pay less than if you had hopped around each 2 years. That's if someone wants to hire you. This is so true, and the weirdest thing in the world to me. Especially in tech, you get really heavily punished for staying at a job more than a few years. To the point where, in interv…

> > Stay in your job for 15 years because you like the people, the work itself or some particular perk? When you finally leave, your next job will pay less than if you had hopped around each 2 years. That's if someone wants to hire you.

> This is so true, and the weirdest thing in the world to me. Especially in tech, you get really heavily punished for staying at a job more than a few years. To the point where, in interviews, you are asked why you stayed so long. Why would you penalize someone who might make a long-term commitment to your company? You're basically flushing all the training and institutional knowledge they hold down the drain.

In Germany, the mentality is different. If you switch jobs after few years, you have to give very good reasons - for exactly the outlined reasons.

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic

#257

Post by badpun »

mcdramamean wrote: post #244

Why do we need to "run away" from loneliness? Maybe we all need to spend more time alone AND off the phone to discover what really "makes us tick"? Find yourself, find a mission, find a purpose. Go do something. There is SOOOO much to be done... I mean it.. Like RIGHT NOW. If you don't have a mission.. Bruh... Go get one. Loneliness is simply childish. Children sit around and wish someone would talk to them. Adults g…

> you know you tried your hardest to make a difference

Did you actually do that? For how long?

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic

#258

Post by thaumaturgy »

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…

Why are you trying to counterargue a growing recognition of widespread loneliness by citing figures about people moving? Do you think loneliness doesn't happen if people live close to mom, or that people who never leave their home town or their home state aren't lonely?

I'd expect those to be the loneliest of people. At least people who travel often learn how to meet and make new friends and rarely find themselves stuck in social isolation.

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic

#259

Post by SolaceQuantum »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #118
SolaceQuantum wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Since in 2019, you can't say: religion, race, nationality and nation without being labeled one way or another." I think this implies this has not always been the case, which I don't think is true, at least in my country in USA. People came to America partially to avoid religious persecution. And of course, slaves were also brought to America and a whole field of pseudoscience was created to explore how black people…

>think this implies this has not always been the case, This was the case at least through most of the 20th century. Even in the 50s and 60s when "white flight" was cleaning out the predominantly ethnic urban neighborhoods those people were moving to suburbs where they had a lot in common with most of the people there and the people left in the city had a lot in common with each other. >People came to America partiall…

Please note explicitly what I had highlighted- in fact, this point validates my claim that it has always been the case that people put each other in buckets and segregated based on identity politics.

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic

#260

Post by filoleg »

calcifer wrote: post #232
ryanmercer wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm definitely lower middle class, I make 34k a year...

Not sure how accurate this [1] is, but 34k USD puts you in the top ~0.88% richest people on the planet. If that's true, you are not "lower" anything... [1] http://www.globalrichlist.com/

Everything is relative in the context, so your global stats aren't especially helpful. 34k USD a year can lend you either an extremely comfy king-like life in Thailand or poverty level existence in San Francisco. Saying to someone from the latter situation that they are in ~0.88% richest people on the planet is neither helpful nor relevant.
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