The Loneliness Epidemic • Hacker News Board

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic

#261

Post by chowells » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 8:36 PM UTC

fromthestart wrote: post #229

chowells wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Selfish? All of those things make society better. Business is the party with selfish demands. Yes, society should absolutely tell business that it isn't as important as it thinks.

>All of those things make society better There is no intrinsic benefit to society at large in pursuing a degree - only those degrees which enable one to contribute in some form, and even then the benefit only occurs if one uses the knowledge obtained to conduct useful work. >Yes, society should absolutely tell business that it isn't as important as it thinks. Businesses have the goal of generating some sort of value.…

Businesses have the goal of generating money for their owners. That's what capitalism is. Capital puts up money to start a business expecting a return on that money. Businesses are formed when the expected (in the probability sense) return on the business is considered a good deal.

There are some theories that this magically coincides with creating value in an ideal model, but no period in history has actually worked that way. There are many proposed explanations for why it doesn't, but I'm not much interested in why. All I care about is that those models don't describe reality.

So businesses are all about generating income for their owners. But society is about all people in it, not just those who control the capital. It is necessarily true that there will be cases where the best thing for society is not the best thing for businesses.

Business has pushed the public narrative too far towards blind support of "business is a good thing." Your post even seems to just assume that as a given. You claim that a goal is "selfish (from the perspective of society)" when the only thing you can criticize about it is that it isn't maximizing business value.

Business isn't everything. Sure, a society needs a functioning economy in order to survive. But that's a far cry from assuming "good for business" is the same as "good for society".

The latter is certainly more nebulous, though, and I can understand why you might wish they were the same thing. It would allow you to optimize society with simple quantitative measures instead of complex qualitative discussions about which sets of opposing goals have the better overall outcome. But the real world doesn't cooperate with such things. There are always going to be conflicts over goals, priorities, and even values. Resist the temptation to believe in an easy answer. Reality isn't easy.

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic

#262

Post by 50656E6973 » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 8:50 PM UTC

Konnstann wrote: post #36

rofo1 wrote: post #3

It only makes sense for this epidemic to take place in the society we've developed. We are tearing apart the fabric and the bond that kept everyone feeling as a part of community; namely, religion. Religion was never designed for people to fear the man upstairs; it was always about the values and the bond it created between each member of that religion. Individualism and decadence are being more or less encouraged, o…

Religion was created as a tool to control people and explain natural disasters. It's no coincidence early hierarchies were headed by whatever the priest class was in that particular society, even going back to the first civilizations. Modern religions (not even all) may be about the bond between practitioners, but that's only because we can explain weather patterns, and the governments of most states don't rely on th…

>Religion was created as a tool to control people and explain natural disasters.

Mythology and religion also orignally served the role of upholding a unified value system and conception of reality which is critical for social cohesion and survival.

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic

#263

Post by rayiner » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 8:54 PM UTC

thaumaturgy wrote: post #258

rayiner wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 st…

I would suspect that, on average people who live near extended family and childhood friends will be less lonely than people who don’t have families and move around a lot.

My mom grew up in a family of 11 siblings in Bangladesh, most of whom lived with their families in the same city when I was a kid. It’s hard to express rich and full life was back there.

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic

#264

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 8:55 PM UTC

davidw wrote: post #139

I miss the social aspects of living in Italy. It just felt easier to connect with people there. People are kind of weird and standoffish here in the US, and in some cases feel a bit fake. If you ask if someone wants to grab a beer (or spritz/wine/whatever) in Italy, and they respond enthusiastically, it seems there's a good chance they'll try and make it happen.

> People are kind of weird and standoffish here in the US, and in some cases feel a bit fake.

Supposition: It's because of all the marketing. Most of the time someone trying to talk to you is trying to sell you something, and you build up a defensive behavior to combat it.

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic

#265

Post by BurningFrog » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 8:57 PM UTC

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…

The world keeps constantly getting richer and richer, which means more and more of us move in to the upper middle class!

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic

#266

Post by slx26 » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 9:01 PM UTC

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…

Choosing to be alone (isolation) is not the same as loneliness. Honestly, the world has changed a lot, and that might end up not being a big problem in the future; maybe having isolation become more socially accepted wouldn't be that bad.

The problem we are seeing right now is that it looks like everything is moving towards a kind of social-contact-unfriendliness. Too much stress, connection (the expectation of being always reachable, and therefore available for work), busy streets, dominated by cars, big and impersonal chain stores, etc. Many of these are not necessarily bad by themselves, but they also had an important role in social interaction that has shifted now, and we might need time to find new spaces and solutions for that interaction.

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic

#267

Post by agumonkey » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 9:01 PM UTC

ryanmercer wrote: post #231

agumonkey wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TV when it was a single screen in house could still serve as social gathering time. As a kid, having my own TV meant countless hours of video games and my own movies too. I enjoyed it more than I abused it. Are smarphone/tablet TVs worse or the same ? One difference, the kind of entertainment you had on TV wasn't that much thinking or discussing. It has different effects I suppose. Also TV had a different ethos (if I…

>As a kid, having my own TV meant countless hours of video games and my own movies too. I enjoyed it more than I abused it. For me int he early 90s was "Hey Aaron/Jimmy/Dani it's raining outside so we can't go ride bikes, wanna play a game?" and then either taking turns or playing a two player game and talking the entire time. Then early 95 when more than one or two of us had computers in the homes it was similar, if…

I agree that it's weirder nowadays. But maybe we just enjoyed cultural inertia because we were born just before 24/7 multi screen entertainment became the norm. I too find that it just takes too much space in our daily lives. Back in the days tech was one part of our life, and it was small scope entertainment, now it's the centralized hub for everything and it sucks your mind.

Playing evil's advocate a bit just to poke my own bias.

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic

#268

Post by opportune » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 9:05 PM UTC

mynameishere wrote: post #255

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?

There's nothing wrong with having issues with the community where you came from. I also come from a place with many bigots

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic

#269

Post by fuzz4lyfe » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 9:17 PM UTC

filoleg wrote: post #260

calcifer wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That "comfy existence" in Thailand is also relative, you get to live in a house with air conditioning and indoor plumbing, just like in the west. Wages are lower so you can hire people to do things for you but an iPhone costs the same.

People seem to actually believe that 5 thousand a year gives you a middle class lifestyle in the third world. The cost of eating only rice and beans and living in a tin shack with dirt floors is pretty much the same everywhere.

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic

#270

Post by mntmoss » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 9:26 PM UTC

buboard wrote: post #240

barberousse wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'r…

1. nobody said the do or that they should "be inclusive" 2. miasma is a negative word (means repulsive) I agree however, it is actually one of the reasons that more well-off people tend to socialize less: other people are not always "wonderful"

A known phenomenon is that being homeless can work wonders for one's social skills.

Being poorly presented and inarticulate is a form of privilege - it's traditionally associated with academia, but with the rise of the "computer nerd" stereotype, it has increasingly slipped into other venues. What comes to mind is Tfue, the world's top Fortnite player, whose Twitch streams largely consist of him grunting "uuggggghn" and complaining about "stream snipers" with coarse language. He gets millions of viewers.