Nobody is choosing to be alone. People have become more evil and good people are isolating themselves to keep themselves safe.
What kind of danger do you believe these "good people" face?
[deleted]
Americans are choosing to be alone, but we should reverse that
241–250 of 396 posts
Re: Americans are choosing to be alone, but we should reverse that
#242Earlier quoted context omitted.
Believe it or not, big cities have pretty good quality of life and people who live there do actually have friends and social lives. I grew up in the suburbs, and I've lived in big cities, urban areas in medium sized cities, and exurbs as well. The cities aren't as different as non-urban people think. But also, they're better in a lot of the ways that most people would expect: more things to do, better food, better sh…
Cities have much lower standard of living because no one can afford shelter. There’s too much traffic which means you can’t go anywhere except walking range. So there may actually be equal or less to do in the city simply because your range is so short. And crime is huge problem too, now more than ever
"Nobody goes there, it's too crowded"
Re: Americans are choosing to be alone, but we should reverse that
#243Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, churches do have positive effects on the cohesion of a community. The problem is that the corruption of the churches has countered their positive effects with negative effects and soured people on the church as an institution. In theory, there's no reason we can't have communities with strong senses of cohesion without deferring to a church, but you have to actually build such a thing and not merely rely one to…
People have left churches for a plethora of reasons, many of which stem from the church itself being corrupt. But moreover, as you mentioned people want a sense of community without and of the accountability that Church asks. You don’t want to tithe because you don’t trust leadership with your money. You don’t want to be told you’re doing things wrong, or to fix some of your sins. You don’t want a judgmental group of…
> But moreover, as you mentioned people want a sense of community without and of the accountability that Church asks.
Do churches ask for accountability or conformity?
> You want community without the worshiping God part. You want total freedom without guilt. And you want everything you do to be accepted without judgement.
I believe you are strawmanning here. People who don't attend church experience guilt and have a moral compass likely in equal measure to churchgoers. The judgement that people wish to avoid is the kind that denies LGBTQ people's humanity, among other issues.
Re: Americans are choosing to be alone, but we should reverse that
#244Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bowling Alone was very well received when it came out, but there has been another thread of articles that have been more controversial. I believe a relevant title is: E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-first Century The punchline has been that, if you are not careful, increasing diversity can lead to decreased trust in society, and with it, decreased social capital. The idea is that nobody feels r…
The key to avoiding distrust is by systemically avoiding segregation. There's nothing wrong with diversity itself.
I believe this is in line with "contact theory", the naive version of which Putnam's statistics seem to refute. Unsegregated areas usually have lower trust, at least in the short term.
But.
Categorizations change over time, and many lines that used to be important no longer are. So he holds out hope that the same blurring can occur to the lines that matter today.
He suggests that the formation of higher identity -- perhaps a civic nationalism like we see in Ukraine -- is the way forward. The main positive example he can point to that spans current lines, and not obsolete ones, is the Army, which arguably does just that. To a lesser extent, he also mentions the Catholic Church, which -- like Islam, I will add -- provides a higher identity that spans ethnicities.
I've heard some other authors make similar calls, e.g. Francis Fukuyama.
Re: Americans are choosing to be alone, but we should reverse that
#245Earlier quoted context omitted.
>have you tried the easy ones, like regularly inviting other folks over for a group dinner? Frankly, this made me laugh out loud. 1. Who am I going to invite? It's not like I have old connections to rekindle. 2. I have a tiny apartment and couldn't exactly host many guests. My table could theoretically sit four if I rearranged some things (the max it's ever had is 2) 3. Considering I'm not exactly a socialite now (It…
You live in an apartment? Who else lives on your building? In a decent sized building I bet you’re not the only lonely person. Find the other ones, and create some social thing that’s easy to say yes to. Dinner is straightforward. Other excuses include book clubs, movie viewings, crafts, community garden, volunteering, etc. For a dinner, if your apartment is small, use a common space. If you don’t have a common room,…
> In a decent sized building I bet you’re not the only lonely person.
Why do self-admitted lonely people not jump at every chance to be social? I think therein lies the rub.
Re: Americans are choosing to be alone, but we should reverse that
#246There’s nothing wrong with being alone. Being alone creates stress and stress brings mental and physical illness. Once they find a way to block stress, it won’t matter. ISR. Etc. If you want to be around people just get a job. If you want more intimate contact, get a job that brings that. Work at a daycare center and you’ll start to crave loneliness. Loneliness is a liberal thing. Move to the Midwest. People just blu…
> Loneliness is a liberal thing.
tell that to the decidedly-unliberal areas of the country that are tearing themselves apart with meth and pills
Re: Americans are choosing to be alone, but we should reverse that
#247YES!
I could enumerate the enumerable reasons that have been dancing around and torturing my mind for the last years, but frankly I'm exhausted of trying to explain myself. This stuff should be obvious to people.
Re: Americans are choosing to be alone, but we should reverse that
#248Earlier quoted context omitted.
Believe it or not, big cities have pretty good quality of life and people who live there do actually have friends and social lives. I grew up in the suburbs, and I've lived in big cities, urban areas in medium sized cities, and exurbs as well. The cities aren't as different as non-urban people think. But also, they're better in a lot of the ways that most people would expect: more things to do, better food, better sh…
Cities have much lower standard of living because no one can afford shelter. There’s too much traffic which means you can’t go anywhere except walking range. So there may actually be equal or less to do in the city simply because your range is so short. And crime is huge problem too, now more than ever
Cities have much better hospitals than rural areas, and that's not going to change until super advanced robots are developed.
Re: Americans are choosing to be alone, but we should reverse that
#249Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please don’t try to make literally everything about politics and political teams. Applying politics everywhere is getting us into a hell of a mess.
I say what I see. I don’t make anything to be anything. Liberal thinking vs conservative thinking is very old and has much deeper roots than “people making it about teams.” It’s a way of thinking. I personally believe that it’s largely genetic. Is been like this since the Neolithic. Modern American politics aren’t fundamentally different than roundheads vs cavaliers. And yes, loneliness is definitely a problem that i…
Well I’m glad there are so few conservatives worldwide and throughout history who are lonely! A lot less people to worry about then.
Re: Americans are choosing to be alone, but we should reverse that
#250Earlier quoted context omitted.
It will probably be difficult to have any mainstream support of that idea, because allowing people to be alone and think by themselves goes against the society we’ve built for centuries. Sure, the concept is praised. But even monks were supposed to live in small communities. There’s of course the not so cynical take of people not bound by networks being harder to rope in a common direction. It’s supposed to be a virt…
>There’s of course the not so cynical take of people not bound by networks being harder to rope in a common direction. It's the opposite. People who are isolated are easier to control. Populations that are isolated find it harder to organize against people in positions of power. If you occupy the upper rungs of the societal ladder, you don't need to be a part of a social group, because your power (from wealth, politi…
It’s more complex.
When people belong to a group you don’t have to target individuals, you can deal with the group. For instance the audience of a specific magazine can be reached through that magazine, members of an union will follow the union’s decisions, etc. You might need to fight the influencers of the group to have them align with your interests, but that’s only a few people vs multiple thousands of individuals.
A different way to look at it: cults and ideologies also try to rally isolated individuals as they are easier to target, but in the end they need them part of the group to be manipulated, they can’t stay stray sheeps doing what they want in the wilderness.