[flagged]
Go make a list of the felony theft threshold in all fifty states then come back here and post where $950 falls among them.
Study finds growing social circles may fuel polarization
41–50 of 245 posts
Re: Study finds growing social circles may fuel polarization
#42[flagged]
> The polarization is due to progressive politics messing up the country.
Yeah that's why the most progressive areas of the country are the ones struggling the most, right. Like Mississippi, Appalachia, Arkansas...
Maybe if you guys would actually deal with some of your issues instead of bashing your bibles your kids wouldn't be running the fuck out of your towns as soon as they're able to, but I'm sure it's still some poor Portlandian black transwoman's fault for being alive while not knowing you exist or whatever, and definitely not the ideological positions of everyone you've elected in the last 5 decades.
Re: Study finds growing social circles may fuel polarization
#43[flagged]
That's exactly right. For a long time people of color were relegated to lower paying jobs and faced higher police scrutiny. Similarly, less than a century ago women were practically property - unable to even get a bank account without a man's permission.
Over the past century we've made significant progress in remediating these injustices. Unfortunately, this has caused the recent rise in reactionary politics. "Make America Great Again" = take me back to when women were property and people of color knew their place.
As for me, I'm willing to put up with a few tantrums if it means that we're that much closer to treating people as people.
Re: Study finds growing social circles may fuel polarization
#44better connectivity -> people finding better friendship matches -> groups are more homogenous -> more polarization
I think the causal relationship is not quite that way.
better connectivity -> destroyed physical limits on group size -> groups not only get larger but also more ideologically homogenous because they're moderated by a central authority like how physical crowds are moderated -> people make friends more easily in those homogenous groups OR get kicked and start their own group, which also has the potential to get larger and more homogenous without limit -> groups have larger differences and clash harder
More friends is a symptom rather than a cause.
Re: Study finds growing social circles may fuel polarization
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
Keep in mind that it is "average" and it is about close friends. Anecdotally, the pandemic was the great cutting of weaker ties. I talk to far fewer people than I did pre-pandemic (and most friends report the same), but I speak to those people more often. I can easily see that ending in a way where some 20% find themselves with nobody. I would say I have 4 close friends. But some 10 weaker ties disappeared from my li…
I would agree - usually close friends are limited to people that share the same values and ideas as you. Having more close friends that all think alike would increase rejection of ideas not shared by other close friends. It is harder (but not impossible) to have close friends that have dramatically different lifestyles, ideals, or socioeconomic class. Weaker ties would include friends that have less in common, and ha…
> usually close friends are limited to people that share the same values and ideas as you
That stirkes me as myopic. My closest friends--the ones I trust with all my secrets, with whom have have practically no secrets, the ones I'd hide if it came to that or risk my life to save--are all over the place values and ideas-wise. It's what makes their company fun. It's also what makes their advice useful, because they'll call me out on my bullshit in a way a mirror image of me could not.
Re: Study finds growing social circles may fuel polarization
#46> "Despite minor differences between individual surveys, the data consistently show that the average number of close friendships rose from 2.2 in 2000 to 4.1 in 2024," says Hofer. If true, this is an astonishing social transformation, because it goes against everything we here about the loneliness epidemic getting worse . Or have people redefined what they consider to be "close friends"? Or are people actually genuin…
I have a sinking feeling it's a situation where people who are adept at creating and maintaining relationships are getting more of them, whilst people who struggle socially are being excluded more than ever as a result. The overall count grows, but a substantial slice of the population still has barely any.
I have no data for this, just a gut feeling. I still see so many people on the day-to-day who are completely socially inept. I don't even mean just like, rude or abrasive, I mean people who don't have the emotional intelligence to like, navigate basic conflicts.
Re: Study finds growing social circles may fuel polarization
#47> "Despite minor differences between individual surveys, the data consistently show that the average number of close friendships rose from 2.2 in 2000 to 4.1 in 2024," says Hofer. If true, this is an astonishing social transformation, because it goes against everything we here about the loneliness epidemic getting worse . Or have people redefined what they consider to be "close friends"? Or are people actually genuin…
Keep in mind that it is "average" and it is about close friends. Anecdotally, the pandemic was the great cutting of weaker ties. I talk to far fewer people than I did pre-pandemic (and most friends report the same), but I speak to those people more often. I can easily see that ending in a way where some 20% find themselves with nobody. I would say I have 4 close friends. But some 10 weaker ties disappeared from my li…
Many of my friends live abroad. We started a weekly Zoom meeting during Covid-19 lockdown. Now we have a WhatsApp group too. Does that change the classification from plain friends to close friends?
Re: Study finds growing social circles may fuel polarization
#48> "Despite minor differences between individual surveys, the data consistently show that the average number of close friendships rose from 2.2 in 2000 to 4.1 in 2024," says Hofer. If true, this is an astonishing social transformation, because it goes against everything we here about the loneliness epidemic getting worse . Or have people redefined what they consider to be "close friends"? Or are people actually genuin…
It could also be something structural about how the "friendship graph" looks. The mean number of friendships isn't the median or typically experienced number of friendships, and if friendship relationship distributions follow some kind of power law, a change in the power-law exponent could make those diverge.
Re: Study finds growing social circles may fuel polarization
#49> "Despite minor differences between individual surveys, the data consistently show that the average number of close friendships rose from 2.2 in 2000 to 4.1 in 2024," says Hofer. If true, this is an astonishing social transformation, because it goes against everything we here about the loneliness epidemic getting worse . Or have people redefined what they consider to be "close friends"? Or are people actually genuin…
>> goes against everything we here about the loneliness epidemic getting worse This seems like a hot-take. IMHO one does not and cannot cure loneliness by having more online friends .
Yeah, if anything I would say that leans in to the loneliness epidemic, if we take things like Dunbars Number to be true.
Having more shallow friends is actually much more isolating than having fewer deep friends.
Re: Study finds growing social circles may fuel polarization
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
Keep in mind that it is "average" and it is about close friends. Anecdotally, the pandemic was the great cutting of weaker ties. I talk to far fewer people than I did pre-pandemic (and most friends report the same), but I speak to those people more often. I can easily see that ending in a way where some 20% find themselves with nobody. I would say I have 4 close friends. But some 10 weaker ties disappeared from my li…
Many of my friends live abroad. We started a weekly Zoom meeting during Covid-19 lockdown. Now we have a WhatsApp group too. Does that change the classification from plain friends to close friends?
Oh god flashback, I remember the zoom calls, and people acting like they didn’t know how zoom worked 10 months into it or that the host can mute anyone that doesn’t know how to mute themselves
I opted out of the extended family ones and the social ones
I wonder if they’re still doing that, I’d rather watch paint dry, which I did for a few months in San Francisco