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Nearly Half of Americans Are Lonely

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Re: Nearly Half of Americans Are Lonely

#331

Post by furi »

belorn wrote: post #310
furi wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've said this on here before more or less, but here's the problem for me: If my girlfriend is approached by a man without due cause (such as asking for directions, trying to commission her to work on something, etc.), our immediate reaction is to assume he has sexual intent. The only difference being creepy makes is whether or not it's an assumption or a certainty. I don't like being perceived as though I have sexua…

Those "9/10 times if a guy approaches her without due cause he's got sexual intent" is a actually just a stereotype which if we actually measure it would shrink down to single digit percent. Male sexuality is commonly over exaggerated and part of the expected gender role, with female sexuality in contrast has the opposite expected gender role. Since no one want to perceive a man as being outside his gender role we at…

I'm not going by stereotype here, I'm going by my personal experience. Now what probably is happening is I'm confirmation biasing a bit, it probably isn't quite 9/10 but it's enough that I wouldn't feel comfortable doing it myself.

Re: Nearly Half of Americans Are Lonely

#332

Post by mannanj »

aylmao wrote: post #202
kudokatz wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are likely tens of matches for me within a 5 minute drive, I just don't know how to find them. I have found meetup.com to be exactly this. Not everybody at a meetup will click personally, but they're much more likely to share interests. One meetup group has completely changed my life, and I have met people I consider some of the best people I have ever encountered anywhere. And they all live right near me.

I think a lot of this is economics, culture and the city-scape of the US. In other places (my home country included) there's no meetup.com, but there's just more community and family. Having lived in the US I've noticed the following: 1. Colleges get expensive and matter a lot, so people leave home for college if they want to achieve. Time to make new friends. 2. After college, a lot of people go where the job is-- t…

I think a lot of it is denial and wanting not to admit it to yourself, or to put up the appearance everything is ok. We can get pretty good at even lying to ourselves.

Re: Nearly Half of Americans Are Lonely

#333

Post by Fricken »

closeparen wrote: post #321
Fricken wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars don't save any time. Mass transit, cycling and walking in a city optimized for those modes is just as fast. It's also safer, cheaper, better for mental and physical health, better for the environment, upward economic mobility, and aesthetically nicer. The personal automobile is for signalling status and avoiding poor/black people, which is worth more than all those other things.

No amount of bike lane makes you pedal 60mph. That assertion is clearly absurd. Of course there are tradeoffs other than time, but people aren't evil for valuing it. To replicate the 25 minute commute times that are completely normal across America's car-centric sprawl into a dense and transit-centric area, one has to live in the most central and premium real estate. Great if you can afford it. Most can’t.

When everyone is going 60 mph, going 60 mph gets you nowhere fast. Going that fast takes up a lot of space. To go that fast in cities we had to rip out the places to go to make room for the means of getting to those places at 60 mph, and for room to store your giant protective metal shell when you're not using it.

We stopped building the sorts of places where you can still get somewhere going at a reasonable speed around the end of WW2, and made it illegal, so it's now very expensive to live in a sensible neighbourhood, there aren't many left. It's a simple supply and demand problem, though not so simple once you attempt to unpack the reasons as to why we have this simple supply and demand problem.

There's a banality to true evil. It's a quirk of human social psychology that when everyone is doing the wrong thing, it stops being the wrong thing. This why rape=bad, and destroying the planet=pretty alright if you ask me.

Re: Nearly Half of Americans Are Lonely

#334

Post by mendelsd »

lapaz17 wrote: post #302
mendelsd wrote: post #299

Loneliness, in my experience, can be a symptom rather than a problem in and of itself. I define my past loneliness as: Negative feelings, fed by: - feeling bad in the first instance - feeling powerless to improve my state - feeling that others could improve my state, if only they would show sufficient interest in me Gaining power to work on why I was feeling bad in the first instance (through health and lifestyle int…

How did you achieve it? What were the conditions to change your mental status,opinions?

The conditions were an inescapable sense that something had been going wrong with my life for a long time, and then getting very lucky: an acquaintance of mine is a genius and sort of transitioned several years ago into being a health guru, focused on addressing subclinical health conditions precisely like the kind that had been bugging me. I had a lot of faith in him, worked hard at it, and 8 years or so later am enjoying the benefits. Life is still challenging, but it's great deal better.

The genius is Paul Jaminet. Check out his work if you think you might benefit. I've also benefited from paying attention to the blogs of Chris Kresser, Mark Sisson, and Scott Alexander (his health-related posts of course). Google Scholar and Sci-Hub get huge credit too.

Re: Nearly Half of Americans Are Lonely

#335

Post by steve_musk »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #300
steve_musk wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m curious as to why you think kids using the f word means things are bad? Not trying to imply anything I’m genuinely curious.

When folks are calling others slurs and insults based on sexuality, there is still a lot of taboo around it. If it isn't bad to be part of the LGBT community, it is harder to use any of the words describing folks like me as insults. It is in the same strand as using nationality or skin color references as insults: If it isn't a bad thing, you won't use the insult. Of course, you could be ignorant - especially at a yo…

Ah, yeah I was thinking of a different f word.

Re: Nearly Half of Americans Are Lonely

#336

Post by closeparen »

Fricken wrote: post #333
closeparen wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No amount of bike lane makes you pedal 60mph. That assertion is clearly absurd. Of course there are tradeoffs other than time, but people aren't evil for valuing it. To replicate the 25 minute commute times that are completely normal across America's car-centric sprawl into a dense and transit-centric area, one has to live in the most central and premium real estate. Great if you can afford it. Most can’t.

When everyone is going 60 mph, going 60 mph gets you nowhere fast. Going that fast takes up a lot of space. To go that fast in cities we had to rip out the places to go to make room for the means of getting to those places at 60 mph, and for room to store your giant protective metal shell when you're not using it. We stopped building the sorts of places where you can still get somewhere going at a reasonable speed ar…

San Francisco's many single-family-home neighborhoods have all you really need to accomodate car storage: garages instead of living space on the ground floor. Houses still come right up the sidewalk and squeeze wall-to-wall against each other.

Typical American suburbia takes density way lower than that. People here seem to value that separation for reasons above and beyond their parking needs. For example, not hearing the neighbors' footsteps through the ceilings or their TVs and family disputes through the walls. Giving each child their own bedroom. Having room for play and gatherings in the backyard. This suggests that, even without cars, we'd still insist on a pretty low densities. (Since it is homeowners in the center who control land use in the center, the frustrations of outer-ring commuters under such an arrangement don't make a difference).

I'm fortunate that I can afford to live in a high-rise district and commute in reasonable time by train and elevator. But even with so many places a short walk from home, it's a big metro area - there are many more I want to go which are not so close. Without a car, I felt isolated and trapped. It's great to have neighborhood businesses, but you get tired of the monotony after a while.

Re: Nearly Half of Americans Are Lonely

#337

Post by aylmao »

mannanj wrote: post #332
aylmao wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a lot of this is economics, culture and the city-scape of the US. In other places (my home country included) there's no meetup.com, but there's just more community and family. Having lived in the US I've noticed the following: 1. Colleges get expensive and matter a lot, so people leave home for college if they want to achieve. Time to make new friends. 2. After college, a lot of people go where the job is-- t…

I think a lot of it is denial and wanting not to admit it to yourself, or to put up the appearance everything is ok. We can get pretty good at even lying to ourselves.

I agree 100%

Re: Nearly Half of Americans Are Lonely

#338

Post by magduf »

bunderbunder wrote: post #96
magduf wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're avoiding a friend-finding app just because of what other people think, that's really sad. Do you go about everything in your life with that mindset? What does being married matter? If your wife wouldn't approve, then that speaks volumes about the quality of your relationship (i.e., you have no trust between you).

It doesn't even have to be because it would actually cause conflict. Even the mildest bit of embarrassment - an opportunity for a little joking at one's expense, for example - can be a pretty powerful deterrent. That said, I think for most of us the potential deterrent is much greater than that. My partner would absolutely mock me a little bit (because mocking each other is how we show love), and then probably sign u…

> My co-workers, on the other hand, would start gossiping. Having that icon seen on my home screen could be a career-limiting move.

Again, I have to ask: why are you showing all the apps on your phone to your co-workers? I don't show my phone to my co-workers, and I certainly don't let them look through all the apps on it. And you don't have to put Bumble on your home screen.

Re: Nearly Half of Americans Are Lonely

#339

Post by magduf »

philipodonnell wrote: post #191
magduf wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not great, and I think it shows our society is fracturing and collapsing, but I don't want to socialize much with any Trump voters either. I have enough problems; I don't need someone spouting insane conspiracy theories to me about how 9/11 was "an inside job", Sandy Hook never happened, etc.

> I don't need someone spouting insane conspiracy theories to me Perhaps, but it may also help that person realize there are normal people in real life who don't share those ideas, despite being told that anyone they disagree with is a horrible person.

This is just like spending a bunch of time with religious zealots trying to convince them their religion is wrong. You're wasting your time, and you're just going to create more conflict. I have one Trump supporter in my social circle and when conversations veer that way with her it's never productive so I completely avoid it.

The bottom line is you cannot use logic to convince people their religious beliefs are wrong. Most rational people already know this about religions and religious people, the problem is they don't realize that right-wing politics (or any extremist politics for that matter) is also a religion.

Now before you try to argue that this only applies to the extremists, the problem in this country is that the entire right wing in this country is extremist. The only non-extremist position in this country is the mainstream Democratic party, which is basically center-right. The Republicans have gone full-on hard-right, so there's just no reasoning with anyone that buys into that stuff.

Re: Nearly Half of Americans Are Lonely

#340

Post by dragonwriter »

magduf wrote: post #339
philipodonnell wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't need someone spouting insane conspiracy theories to me Perhaps, but it may also help that person realize there are normal people in real life who don't share those ideas, despite being told that anyone they disagree with is a horrible person.

This is just like spending a bunch of time with religious zealots trying to convince them their religion is wrong. You're wasting your time, and you're just going to create more conflict. I have one Trump supporter in my social circle and when conversations veer that way with her it's never productive so I completely avoid it. The bottom line is you cannot use logic to convince people their religious beliefs are wron…

> The bottom line is you cannot use logic to convince people their religious beliefs are wrong.

You can, but only if they are peripheral rather than fundamental beliefs, and your chain of logic starts with their fundamental beliefs. Well, at least as much as you can use logic to convince anyone of anything.

The problem (well, a problem) is that you can't easily discern, from the outside, a peripheral belief that depends on fundamental beliefs from a fundamental belief which is rationalized in terms of other fundamental beliefs (though circularity of support between beliefs is a pretty good sign that all are fundamental and the support is mere rationalization.)

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