Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sell your car and start biking year round. You won't be lonely for long.
this guy clearly lives in the city. Some people live in the suburbs where cars are needed to commute to work
Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?
221–230 of 266 posts
Re: Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?
#222Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not a programmer, cryptographer, sysadmin etc but I like tech and find this site refreshing because of the politeness and respect in interactions like this one. I can apologize and it will be taken at face value, and someone can apologize to me and its sincere. I've been missing that sort of mature intellectual/emotional honesty in interaction irl and online for a long time. So thanks :)
>I'm not a programmer, cryptographer, sysadmin etc WELL THERE'S YOUR PROBLEM! I'm a latecomer to two of those three things, but they're tremendous specs for shut-ins! Due to tons of moving, the most and best friends I've ever had have been people online, so maybe my psyche is too warped to feel the lack of physical interaction. In fact, I think the real world is a terrible place[0], and my ability to express myself i…
A lot of people in Spain hang out by appearance, to show. Even a lot of people do this at bars to drink or have fake talks about soccer so they are not seed as nerds/freaks.
There is a lot of hypocrisy in society.
I would like to be more North-European: just hang out by pleasure, not from habit doing it meaningless.
Re: Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?
#223Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts, although I didn't intend, specifically, for them to seem political. I think your statements lie at the core of American society. My asking was more a sociological inquiry than a political one, largely because I agree with you, the problem is one that stems from all U.S. institutions with any large amount of power. Unfortunately I think inciting any large scale change is impossible…
I've pretty much been smashed down to a Flatland version of Maslow's bottom levels so the deeper philosophical ideas of how to fix anything seem beyond me. I have no idea what there is left in that regard because even those closest to me who supposedly loved me and have seen what I have suffered have all worn down into that distancing/victim blaming thing that seems to common in long term suffering. Were it not for a…
The world would be a better place if we all slowed down and invested in the community instead of the individual.
Re: Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?
#224Interesting. No one has yet mentioned today's lack of community. We don't share a sense of place any more, we move around from job to job, families spread around the country or globe. We rarely share an emotional connection and sense of place with our neighbours that our grandparents would have known. We haven't even kept the sense of virtual community that the BBS's had - social networks amplify dissent and engageme…
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Why not blame modern marketing techniques, the rise of human interaction replacing technology or leaded petrol while we're at it.
The correalations are all there and just as valid.
Re: Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?
#225Interesting. No one has yet mentioned today's lack of community. We don't share a sense of place any more, we move around from job to job, families spread around the country or globe. We rarely share an emotional connection and sense of place with our neighbours that our grandparents would have known. We haven't even kept the sense of virtual community that the BBS's had - social networks amplify dissent and engageme…
That's not true. US labor mobility is the lowest it's been for generations. Our parents' and grandparents' generations had far more people that moved for work. In fact, there's a strong case to be made that a lot of social problems result from people not having the opportunity to move to areas of greater economic opportunity, whether it's because they're caring for elderly parents, or because housing is too expensive in those areas, or credentialism and increased licensing requirements have made it impractical for them to move across state lines. Whatever the cause, a wide range of economists and social scientists believe that more mobility, not less will help solve many of the pressing social issues that we face.
https://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2012/07/labour-...
http://neighborhoodeffects.mercatus.org/2017/01/26/why-the-l...
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/05/upshot/its-not-the-inequa...
Re: Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?
#226Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think this is right. The problem is people being forced or coerced to do things that don't actually make them happy. An ideological rigidity about expectations. But this tribalism is what makes human beings human. We're not going to get rid of that anytime soon, at least not without fundamentally changing the nature of the human animal. The best we can do is tell people "Prefer doing things that make you happy" and…
this tribalism is what makes human beings human. It's perfectly reasonable to construct a tribalism which aids in discovering the truth. Science itself is an example. The best we can do is tell people "Prefer doing things that make you happy" and hope they don't commit their lives, careers, families, etc. to things that don't make them happy. One of the best things we can do, is to have many non-exceptional role mode…
With respect to creating positive and beneficial social systems, however, I'm personally of the opinion that the basics of social development are already nearly fully enumerated, and I think we're not going to stumble across something new which would do a better job than the things that we already know about. I'd love to be wrong, though. And so if what I'm saying is true, then it would seem to point back to education.
I also have a personal saying that "shared hardship is the key to utopia" but certainly it would seem that education is equally key. Like Will Durant said: "Education is the transmission of civilization". That being said, "One test is worth a thousand expert opinions" and nothing is better at teaching the lesson that war is hell and should not be undertaken lightly than a good old fashioned war (e.g. the Long Peace). Ah, but now here is the main reason I think a human hivemind would truly bring us into a kind of shining Star Trek utopia: I could just share my wartime memories and combat experiences with people that haven't been to war. That would certainly work to turn people off of it. I really kinda went off on a tangent here, sorry!
Re: Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?
#227Earlier quoted context omitted.
this tribalism is what makes human beings human. It's perfectly reasonable to construct a tribalism which aids in discovering the truth. Science itself is an example. The best we can do is tell people "Prefer doing things that make you happy" and hope they don't commit their lives, careers, families, etc. to things that don't make them happy. One of the best things we can do, is to have many non-exceptional role mode…
I think people underestimate the inherent conflict that arises from the complex cultural systems you're talking about. I mean, obviously there is conflict, but I think it's way more intrinsic to our species than most people believe. And the conflict reinforces existing belief structures, stereotypes about outgroup members, and is then used to justify proliferating or escalating the conflict further. I agree with you…
Why would you say that? Other than broad outlines, there are not so many constants in ways of life across history and around the world. Or, are you talking about broad outlines?
I also have a personal saying that "shared hardship is the key to utopia" but certainly it would seem that education is equally key.
My take is that Utopia == Neverland. It's like infinity. It's a useful concept, but you'll never have it physically realized within your grasp.
Re: Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?
#228Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks. I know my email was there in the profile, even if cryptically in the info bit as others have written me. Maybe I changed a privacy setting inadvertently and will check. I dont want you to get spammed posting your email in the open here as they seem to even vacuum up attempts at ciphering them like that, so if you care about that or want to delete yours in the above post I have saved it.
I found it, but contact me when/if you feel you are in the mood. I know how it is, sometimes you want to be alone sometimes you hate how lonely you are.
Re: Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?
#229Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder if metrics are not a conclusion to us. We often see society as a problem, so more and more we try to loosen our need for it. We have more flexibility to move, now more flexibility to speak to people without having much ties with them. We don't have to care much or suffer them if we don't want to. Maybe we're crossing a line of diminishing returns (if not the case for a while already).
> We often see society as a problem, so more and more we try to loosen our need for it I think that about sums up the "loneliness epidemic". Loneliness and social disconnection are exactly the results of seeking to loosen our need for society. Our society (regardless of where you live, the global monoculture is still there), is sick and we see it largely in Western post-industrial nations like the U.K. and U.S.A. As…
I think leaning away from emotion and into metrics is the start.
I think Paulo Freire has the right framework to start viewing how this should go, though he would probably say "These are my ideas, make your own." And that's the key, in my opinion -- live by your own imagination, not on the rails that the world lays down (which usually are laid down by elite power players, not the public).
I'd say it's this unfettered freedom to do literally anything, seems to be a huge issue to me. It's displaced our own ability to imagine, and has us just doing things in the literal world, because that's what the rule book says.
One dude's freedom to make a rocket engine car meant someone else machine parts for a paltry wage and will never have the money to assemble a rocket engine in their garage let alone the entire car. That's how it has to be -- or so the story has gone.
But the rocket car guy and voices in the thread seem like that's exactly what we should be aiming for. OK, but do it without needing a huge factory manned by low-wage earners. Suddenly, Americans are less free, and chafe quite a lot at that notion. The world should be theirs, and if that means other workers in other nations have more of a say, well that can't be right. Or so the conversations I've been a party to for years have gone ("America went through a growing up phase. Those countries should too." as if there's anything more than social opinion requiring that it be this way.)
First world freedom for Rocket Car Guy, who mocks the notion that's absurd and should be regulated, meant a wage slave somewhere was the one doting on the actual mining, smelting, etc.
The same lack of introspection is all over this site. "Make more apps, build more datacenters. Cause I have to sign up more users." Get people to be "more digital". Despite that not being a physical law of reality.
It's contemporary vanity: obviously the world is becoming more digital, so we should lean in. Ignoring the reality of what that requires, and that it's rather a bit fascist to assume future folks would want to go that way. So here comes another global monoculture to fail in a generation.
Re: Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?
#230Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you don't fear being looked at like you have a third eye or people thinking you are a weirdo, then by all means do this.
While you are absolutely correct that people will think you are weird - what does it matter? Having small talk with someone in line at the grocery store is not to create a lifelong friend (although that really is a potential), it is to spread social kindness and communal feeling. The upside, real interaction with individuals who value it, heavily outweighs the downside, a stranger thinking you are weird (you need not…
No, it is to create an immediate enemy (I'm only half-joking)