The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of loneliness

Luis CK once said the choice between marriage and staying single is like the choice between being frustrated and being lonely.

As someone originally from a second-world country I can say that I feel people have it good these days in terms of their basic needs for survival. When you're not fighting for something, it's easy to feel like you're not fulfilled and it's hard to rally with others who are fighting for basic needs.

Can't it be both? Late Stage Capitalism & Neoliberalism are responsible for the dissolution of traditional family values and other meaningful relationships?

I always felt that my mother, as a traditional housewife, seemed rather lonely, and that she blossomed once she started working outside the home. But the social support she provided for my dad and us kids took a hit. I would argue the net effect was still a positive one for the family.

Arguably this all comes down to economics/capitalism.

Unpaid favors to family aren't measured in GDP and can't be taxed. Breaking down extended family into individual workers is good for the economy. Having stay-at-home moms work while sending their kids to group childcare is also more economically efficient.

What's good for the economy may not be good for individual humans though. We aren't homo economicus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_economicus

if you look at various surveys comparing countries outside of north america countries with no rapid colonization and urbanization like in the America, or East-Asia, people report feeling happier and less isolated. But difference between NA and EA is that NA had that European style "settling"--move out, claim your land, start a family, or divorce, repeat.

Our social DNA built for human connection, sense of belonging and family, centered around agriculture was quickly snuffed out in the West with the oncoming of Industrial Revolution, and the countries that subscribed to this model. Basically genders ended up being divided into a binary class of workers with one clearly a 2nd citizen and subsequently their social status. It used to be that women were largely limited to taking care of home and kids but with WW2's end, this has increasingly been changing.

Women from 1920s vs 2020 have drastically different liberties in socio,sexual, and economic areas. The erosion of domestic manufacturing industries through implementation of "free market" ideals where the invisible hand that moves jobs is capital itself, the cheapest and the best producer retains the capital until it cannot maintain this low cost of production, mainly through political suppression and threat of paramilitary forces of dictator. Women are repeatedly underpaid compared to men according to statistical findings, its more so that they are undervalued unconsciously by society due to its period of rapid industralization and "splitting" of genders. (fun fact: FDR used to crossdress).

Yet the latter situation with countries that has reached rapid urbanization through industrialization, this is not unique thing to North America, people in Korea and Japan are killing themselves, people are isolating themselves in urban areas, very much like the North Americas.

This social void-via-capital (jobs, capital move to cheapest cost of operations) or void-via-automation (really the same thing since automation is dirt cheap labor that gets cheaper by several folds every few years) leads to the deviation from traditional family operated around agriculture and rapid urbanization that followed high-capital industries with overseas outsourcing of manufacture, has changed the roles of the Mother or Father. This can be found in most democratic capitalist of a major economy. So is the entrance of women the culprit? If that was the case then why is it that in the Philippines, ppl aren't reporting on surveys as being less miserable or isolated as say a Brit, where many husband takes the role of rearing children while the Filipino women contribute to being the world's highest remittance destinations? Clearly it was never to do with gender being fundamentally destined for specific roles, but rather the presence of one of the parent in a child's formative years, relatively compared to absence or non-biological substitute caretakers due to unavailability of both parents due to both working or not working, has produced an increasingly self-isolated, self-caring, self-obsessed, self-exhibitionist society distracting itself through material possessions and entries in a database somewhere with arbitrarily valued "digital scores" that creates the illusion of tribal hierarchy and belonging? Or how about that we are largely rewarded for creating/contributing to products to increase the pace of this isolation?

I don't know what the solution is. But people from small town are often spooked by people not saying hello when passing by in large cities. I can feel the difference being in downtown vs rural areas. People outside of North America seem tightly integrated with their families and communities. I'm talking the super taboo thing in north america, being an adult and living with parents. Yet, its practiced in many parts of the world. I know I've been trying to get my ass out the door but honestly my addiction issues and struggling with complex post traumatic stress disorder has been crippling. Writing this probably isn't good for my job prospects. I can only hope that my SaaS makes money when it launches on Monday, so I can move out, be alone. Life is fucked and I can only hope to unfuck it a little bit at a time.