Who Americans spend their time with, by age • Hacker News Board

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#161

Post by jjice » Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 5:48 PM UTC

jvanderbot wrote: post #85

I cannot wait until the nursing home lan parties. During pandemic I have rekindled relationships with 2-3 friends, some out of state, and we've played games at least 2x a week. The opportunity for casual interaction (via discord) while focusing on another task (the challenging game), perfectly mimics the environment to build deep longlasting relationships through shared struggle, trust building, communication, feedba…

I had this experience as well. Two friends of mine and I hop on Discord and watch a few episodes of a show or a movie once or twice a week. It's been fantastic, especially earlier in the pandemic when I was in a distant city.

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#162

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 5:48 PM UTC

jvanderbot wrote: post #134

dcolkitt wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Western nuclear family is a very unnatural social arrangement. Anthropologists have found that in most hunter-gatherers, the average infant is held at one point or another by 30+ people in a typical day. The nuclear family has the twin downsides of putting tons of stress on parents of young kids, who shoulder the entire childcare burden, and deprives a lot of grandparents, aunts, cousins, and others of meaningful…

A more "natural" arrangement occurs if we all don't run to large cities chasing glory and gold (which I have done, full disclosure, much to my child-caring woes). There is nothing wrong with nuclear families if you add in something like "nuclear communities". In many small towns or suburban cities, 3 generations live nearby, with all the aunts and uncles. Help with care is always next door, and children are raised wi…

[deleted]

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#163

Post by csomar » Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 5:49 PM UTC

_qulr wrote: post #31

dcolkitt wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Western nuclear family is a very unnatural social arrangement. Anthropologists have found that in most hunter-gatherers, the average infant is held at one point or another by 30+ people in a typical day. The nuclear family has the twin downsides of putting tons of stress on parents of young kids, who shoulder the entire childcare burden, and deprives a lot of grandparents, aunts, cousins, and others of meaningful…

I'm not defending the nuclear family, but I don't think our primitive past says anything about what's "optimal". For example, human life expectancy is much longer now. I'd much rather be a modern person with modern technology and medicine than a hunter-gatherer. Evolution != good. It's just history, and history is often ugly.

Longer life expectancy is a statistical lie. My grandparents died around ~95 but life expectancy at that time was probably lower than ~40. My grandmother had 4 kids who died very young (around 1-2 years of age) and that skews the numbers significantly.

We are baby-sitting lots of adults that couldn't make it past 1-3 years old of age before the medical revolution. Some of them might never be able to be productive and only consume resources from their families or the public. So maybe evolution was not such a bad idea after all.

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#164

Post by mcguire » Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 5:51 PM UTC

k__ wrote: post #44

_qulr wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not defending the nuclear family, but I don't think our primitive past says anything about what's "optimal". For example, human life expectancy is much longer now. I'd much rather be a modern person with modern technology and medicine than a hunter-gatherer. Evolution != good. It's just history, and history is often ugly.

I think, "the nuclear family is bad" and "living without modern technology is good" don't have anything to do with each other.

Silicon Valley operates on a constant influx of 22-year-olds.

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#165

Post by disgruntledphd2 » Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 5:52 PM UTC

_qulr wrote: post #56

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your general point, but much of the growth in life expectancy is driven by the massive drops in infant mortality. In general, modern advances have maybe added 10+ years to an average adult lifespan. The quality of the added lifespan is harder to assess though.

> The quality of the added lifespan is harder to assess though. Is it? In a sense, the choice is still available to adopt the hunter-gatherer lifestyle, if you wanted. I don't know many who would want to do that.

I'm not aware of any plains with bountiful mammoth and fruit trees that I can colonise with my hunter-gatherer tribe, but then I'm not an expert in Google maps ;)

Nonetheless, i'm not sure that the last ten years of my Dad's life (suffering from vascular dementia) were particularly good for him (I know that they were super hard for the rest of us).

I think the general point is that it's hard to trade-off the quality of those extra years, which is the point I was trying (unsuccessfully, it appears) to make.

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#166

Post by souprock » Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 5:55 PM UTC

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #20

I wonder what are the strategies folks can adopt to see that they don't become victims of loneliness.

Nothing is certain. It helps to be a likable and outgoing person. It helps to make a huge family.

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#167

Post by nsajko » Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 5:55 PM UTC

_qulr wrote: post #31

dcolkitt wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Western nuclear family is a very unnatural social arrangement. Anthropologists have found that in most hunter-gatherers, the average infant is held at one point or another by 30+ people in a typical day. The nuclear family has the twin downsides of putting tons of stress on parents of young kids, who shoulder the entire childcare burden, and deprives a lot of grandparents, aunts, cousins, and others of meaningful…

I'm not defending the nuclear family, but I don't think our primitive past says anything about what's "optimal". For example, human life expectancy is much longer now. I'd much rather be a modern person with modern technology and medicine than a hunter-gatherer. Evolution != good. It's just history, and history is often ugly.

Indeed, it seems the post you replied to is using a flawed argument: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_nature

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#168

Post by iguy » Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 5:56 PM UTC

watwut wrote: post #105

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The western nuclear family is exactly what you get in agrarian societies of the past. It wasn't just some random thing the people of the 1950s made up on the spot. When 4/6 of your sons grow to adulthood you can't live in the same household as all of them. You live with one of them (probably the most or least functional one). 2 of the others have their own farms (one probably gets yours, maybe you split your farm bet…

Multi generational households were the norm for much of the history.

Depends where, but in western Europe for the last thousand years, probably not.

I think the best data is for England, and centuries before the industrial revolution, the pattern is very strongly not multi-generational. Young couples expected to set up new households together, not to live with their parents.

(The royal family & such of course were different, and still are.)

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#169

Post by k__ » Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 5:56 PM UTC

mcguire wrote: post #164

k__ wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think, "the nuclear family is bad" and "living without modern technology is good" don't have anything to do with each other.

Silicon Valley operates on a constant influx of 22-year-olds.

They should try to outsource to Amish communities then.

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#170

Post by ska » Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 5:57 PM UTC

burlesona wrote: post #36

The thing that seems crazy to me is how much time alone increases with age. There are many many reasons for it, but one thing I think is especially sad is how much this is a consequence of our built environment. If you live in a village with multiple generations of a family around, it’s much easier for grandparents to be involved day too day in helping with little things in the village, especially keeping an eye on t…

> The thing that seems crazy to me is how much time alone increases with age.

I think your focus on construction is looking at a symptom - this is an unintended consequence of the nuclear family emphasis; the construction changed to support it.