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How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart

nytimes.com

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Re: How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart

#201

Post by harrumph »

blueprint wrote: post #199
harrumph wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Then what is its root cause? I can only guess. I'll be thinking about it. I will say that fear -- useful fear, wielded as a whip of control in various ways -- is central to any process of de-socialization. And I know who surely has the greatest interest in de-socialization: the persons at the top of our economy.

> I can only guess. Then you shouldn't say "Zero mystery here".. or you could trick yourself and become upset later.

>then you shouldn’t say “Zero mystery here”

There’s zero mystery about OP showing misanthropy, but I can’t say where it comes from.

Let me know if there’s anything else I can clear up for you as you struggle to remain current in the discussion.

Re: How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart

#202

Post by Spooky23 »

softwaredoug wrote: post #112
Spooky23 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social institutions started falling down once TV appeared and was demanding of attention. You had to be around at 8pm on Tuesday to see your show. Now with phones we have even bigger attention sinks. End of the day, the rise of cheap entertainment and the long decline of mainline religious organizations, erosion of ethnic organizations, etc have led to a lot of social problems. There was an article a few weeks ago su…

In a grant-funded and eyeball driven world, science and media have perverse incentives to cherry-pick data to show trends that don't really exist. You live long enough, you get skeptical of 'sky is falling' narratives...

Really simple things like counting how many people folks talk to in a 30 day period can illustrate the bigger point. It’s a real problem.

Re: How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart

#203

Post by blueprint »

harrumph wrote: post #201
blueprint wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can only guess. Then you shouldn't say "Zero mystery here".. or you could trick yourself and become upset later.

>then you shouldn’t say “Zero mystery here” There’s zero mystery about OP showing misanthropy, but I can’t say where it comes from. Let me know if there’s anything else I can clear up for you as you struggle to remain current in the discussion.

Lol typical response of someone who wants to believe they know something. You'll find out one day. Meanwhile you missed the answer implicit in my reply.

Re: How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart

#204

Post by RealityVoid »

tivert wrote: post #161
tnecniv wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But cities provide you with a means to find a community if you really want one. It's a lot harder and/or less convenient to find groups that do what you like to do if you live in a suburb.

> But cities provide you with a means to find a community if you really want one. It's a lot harder and/or less convenient to find groups that do what you like to do if you live in a suburb. I think there's a problem with equating community with "groups that do what you like." That sounds like a definition that's been infected by the "personalization" the npunt was talking about in his first note. Real communities ha…

Why would it be bad if things were this way? I mean, I have a very varied social circle but enjoy the company of a select few the most.

"Personalization" as you called it, has existed since immemorial times and I don't think it's something new.

Re: How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart

#205

Post by AnimalMuppet »

sudosteph wrote: post #180
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #165

I think that we long for genuinely human interaction. The absence of that makes us lonely. But tech-mediated interactions reduce the amount of human interaction. (Having this conversation on HN isn't the same as us having the same conversation at a bar, even if we say the same things.) We get more interaction via tech (across the world, not just in the same room), but much of the human touch gets lost. But I think th…

You might really enjoy the short book "The Abolition of Man" by CS Lewis. It's not a fantasy or apologetics book like he's known for, doesn't presume any christian or theistic view point, but it describes a very similar phenomenon to your observations, what he calls "men without chests". I will say that there are actually places (in the US at least) where what you describe is not the societal norm at all. But there's…

I've read "The Abolition of Man". It is very simply written, and takes serious thought to get the depths of what he's saying (at least for me). Great book...

... but this comment wasn't based on "The Abolition of Man". It was based on "He Is There And He Is Not Silent" by Francis Schaeffer. (His stuff is not very simply written, and takes even more thought than Lewis does. I've had to re-read it maybe a dozen times over two decades in order to - mostly - get it. Still, highly recommended.)

Re: How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart

#206

Post by unforeseen9991 »

Spooky23 wrote: post #92
oldboyFX wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me play devil's advocate for a moment: Is there any hard data that proves that people are becoming increasingly tribal? Perhaps the number of radicals is the same like it was 20 years ago, but the internet and social media now give those radicals a voice. Because of this it feels like we are becoming increasingly tribal, when in reality we're not. Similar to how the crime rates are going down, but most folks thin…

I believe there is data that shows that online interactions lead to more extreme opinion. You’re seeing this now with racist groups... it’s easy to talk about this stuff and absorb the propaganda in the privacy of your own home, while in public it’s harder to speak of it or interact with the true believers.

That makes sense to me as well, simply along the lines of the concept of "Skin in the game". With the internet, the amount of risk you take to "be yourself" is small to nil, where in the real world there can be immediate and large consequences to you and your family.

Re: How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart

#207

Post by Faark »

RealityVoid wrote: post #204
tivert wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But cities provide you with a means to find a community if you really want one. It's a lot harder and/or less convenient to find groups that do what you like to do if you live in a suburb. I think there's a problem with equating community with "groups that do what you like." That sounds like a definition that's been infected by the "personalization" the npunt was talking about in his first note. Real communities ha…

Why would it be bad if things were this way? I mean, I have a very varied social circle but enjoy the company of a select few the most. "Personalization" as you called it, has existed since immemorial times and I don't think it's something new.

Sure, it always existed and isn't necessarily always a problem. But, as with anything, it can quickly become a problem once we get better at it and turn it to eleven.

Last century, forming a sect was hard work. Now this kinda seems to happen accidentally all the time when someone tries to launch a new social media platform. For those examples the problem isn't preferring a select few, but shielding yourself from others.

But yes, favoring select few can end bad as well. When you network with and thus effectively give positions or contracts to only your select few, you can end up with a self-reinforcing feedback loop and thus quite homogeneous subset of people. And then end up with e.g. woman complain they cannot obtain senior positions or more frequent conspiracy theories about how jews run the world. Having lots of people think they are treated unfairly is generally bad for a society, especially our democratic ones.

Re: How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart

#208

Post by jiveturkey »

jonahrd wrote: post #68

I do actually feel pretty well settled with some sense of community where I live (Montreal), but one thing I've noticed while applying to jobs is how many jobs are super aggressive about relocating me to NYC or the bay area. They almost don't listen to me when I say I'm not leaving Montreal, like I need some sort of excuse to want to actually stay where I currently am.

it’s called recruiting.

Re: How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart

#209

Post by liberte82 »

npunt wrote: post #17

Suburbs are structurally lonely (your own castle with as little reliance on others as possible), and only ‘work’ when paired with other sources of community. Those sources are disappearing for a variety of reasons but the transfer from physical -> digital, communal [1] -> personalized, eating out -> eating in [2], public space -> private space, friend time —> media time all add up. We also don’t have strong culture a…

I've recently been looking for a house cleaner and decorator as I have a hard time keeping up due to working busy hours at my job (and I really hate cleaning & decorating).

I was chatting with a friend of mine who needs a web application for something he volunteers for. We came up with the bright idea that he would clean my place then do the interior design. At the same time he's working on that, I work on his app.

We sort of organically discovered a business contract and so far it has been working great. He enjoys cleaning and design and I like programming and both of us either hate or can't do the other. In addition, it gets us both off our asses as we're generally working on these things at times that we would normally be watching TV or doing other useless things. So far it feels win-win-win and it gets to the heart of what you were talking about - how to fill in that community between hired help and your close family. The alternative was that both of us spent our own money for these services and probably end up not as happy with what we got.

Re: How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart

#210

Post by [deleted] »

liberte82 wrote: post #209
npunt wrote: post #17

Suburbs are structurally lonely (your own castle with as little reliance on others as possible), and only ‘work’ when paired with other sources of community. Those sources are disappearing for a variety of reasons but the transfer from physical -> digital, communal [1] -> personalized, eating out -> eating in [2], public space -> private space, friend time —> media time all add up. We also don’t have strong culture a…

I've recently been looking for a house cleaner and decorator as I have a hard time keeping up due to working busy hours at my job (and I really hate cleaning & decorating). I was chatting with a friend of mine who needs a web application for something he volunteers for. We came up with the bright idea that he would clean my place then do the interior design. At the same time he's working on that, I work on his app. W…

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