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US friendship is in freefall – shredding bonds and cutting lives short

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Re: US friendship is in freefall – shredding bonds and cutting lives short

#41

Post by aredox »

araes wrote: post #17

The article in the New York Post, appears to be referencing this article by Daniel Cox of the "Survey Center on American Life". [1] The article itself on americansurveycenter website is far more extensive with a much larger discussion. [1] https://www.americansurveycenter.org/research/disconnected-p... Much of the article that is the source is actually devoted to the discussion about working class vs educated divides…

I think this is taking it backwards: communal places are dying because of a deeper trend of di-socialization. You can't make those spaces work for long if nobody comes there.

What I notice here (Switzerland) which has a lot of clubs and associations is that less and less people come and less and less volonteer to help manage the club's functions. Notice that the clubs are still there; the opportunity to socialize is present, the club exists, has a place for its activities, a program; yet less and less people take the opportunity.

Re: US friendship is in freefall – shredding bonds and cutting lives short

#42

Post by aredox »

natmaka wrote: post #30
jaxtracks wrote: post #12

I'm really fortunate to be in a very outdoors and offline community that values our personal ties above most things. We spend a lot time playing music around campfires, backpacking in the mountains, and cooking up good food together. We spend the hard times together too. Sometimes you drop everything to go winch a buddy's truck out of the mud, help someone move, or take five hours of your day to go on a hike long eno…

L. Kohr (who was the inspiration of "small is beautiful"), shows how and why it is of paramount importance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_Kohr#The_Breakdown_of_...

I read the wikipedia summary, and it was full of half-truths or outright lies.

>small state is internally democratic and its government has to serve the individual

This has never been true, there is no relationship at all between size and democratic nature. In fact, I'd argue the opposite: small societies are more oppressive.

Neither has there been any relationship between "small states" and Peace. Again, one can see the opposite throughout History.

>disputed territories such as Alsace could become autonomous or sovereign instead

...Not even wrong.

>He predicts that the unity of the Western world will be realised by "by every Frenchman, Dutchman, or Italian becoming an American".

A prediction completely wrong.

A theory completely disconnected from Reality.

Re: US friendship is in freefall – shredding bonds and cutting lives short

#43

Post by wkat4242 »

rightbyte wrote: post #39
wkat4242 wrote: post #14

I think the extreme political hardlining makes this happen too. I've never been to the US but this extreme-right stuff has made its way to Holland too. They already gained 30% of votes in the last election. Meaning I had to drop a lot of friends. Once they start screaming about "woke" or bitching about trans people they are forever out of my life. At first I used to try to reason with them. I thought sure, it's just…

> Meaning I had to drop a lot of friends. Once they start screaming about "woke" or bitching about trans people they are forever out of my life. This is somewhat unfortunate. People like this need to go to a political meating and see what is talked about. There might be exceptions but the media and thus public conception about what parties talk about and think are prioritised question seems more or less made up. I ag…

I don't want to deal with this anymore. In particular demonising my trans friends is unacceptable. They have a right to be respected too.

Like I said I have tried dialogue but it didn't work. And it's not like every one of them has a unique "opinion". It's all the company line.

Re: US friendship is in freefall – shredding bonds and cutting lives short

#44

Post by rightbyte »

wkat4242 wrote: post #43
rightbyte wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Meaning I had to drop a lot of friends. Once they start screaming about "woke" or bitching about trans people they are forever out of my life. This is somewhat unfortunate. People like this need to go to a political meating and see what is talked about. There might be exceptions but the media and thus public conception about what parties talk about and think are prioritised question seems more or less made up. I ag…

I don't want to deal with this anymore. In particular demonising my trans friends is unacceptable. They have a right to be respected too. Like I said I have tried dialogue but it didn't work. And it's not like every one of them has a unique "opinion". It's all the company line.

Sorry I meant bilateral communication problem in general, not anything about you.

I feel the prevalence of the t in hbt movement is so low (edit: at least when I was in my 20s in the late 90s) that they are mostly talked about and not with especially in nominally supporting political parties.

Re: US friendship is in freefall – shredding bonds and cutting lives short

#45

Post by acdha »

readthenotes1 wrote: post #20
tyleo wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Friendship kinda costs money. I had a friend loose a job like a year ago. I used to see them every other week but it became like twice a year while they were broke.

Is that because y'all couldn't think of ways to spend time with one another that didn't cost money? Seems like a fairly tenuous friendship...

American society is set up around spending money - since it was rebuilt around car travel in the 20th century, simply meeting up with your friends often requires a fair amount of money and time and public spaces have been steadily curtailed or made less pleasant to try to discourage homeless people from using them. If you live in a dense urban area, yes, you can probably walk, bike, or take the bus to a park or library but if you live in many suburbs that option either doesn’t exist or means an hour trip each way with nothing else to do nearby.

Re: US friendship is in freefall – shredding bonds and cutting lives short

#46

Post by slackfan »

wkat4242 wrote: post #14

I think the extreme political hardlining makes this happen too. I've never been to the US but this extreme-right stuff has made its way to Holland too. They already gained 30% of votes in the last election. Meaning I had to drop a lot of friends. Once they start screaming about "woke" or bitching about trans people they are forever out of my life. At first I used to try to reason with them. I thought sure, it's just…

>Meaning I had to drop a lot of friends.

Sounds like you're in a cult.

Re: US friendship is in freefall – shredding bonds and cutting lives short

#48

Post by concerndc1tizen »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #31
catlikesshrimp wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"El Que Tranza, No Avanza" You got the exact opposite of what that means. Unless you forgot to negate Tranza. "El que NO Tranza, NO avanza" Source: Native Spanish Speaker.

I'm not native but had some family-esque members tell it to me. And I tried to copy the quote from a search precisely to prevent this. How embarrassing. But yes, I'm sure I missed the first no.

Just because something rhymes, doesn't make it true, it just makes it more interesting.

I like your version better: He who cheats, does not advance.

Or you could say: He who cheats, cheats but himself.

It shapes every relationship and experience of life, until you accept it as reality, but it is the reality of a cheating man. A cheating man would say women are whores, because he's never been worthy of trust.

Re: US friendship is in freefall – shredding bonds and cutting lives short

#49

Post by araes »

aredox wrote: post #41
araes wrote: post #17

The article in the New York Post, appears to be referencing this article by Daniel Cox of the "Survey Center on American Life". [1] The article itself on americansurveycenter website is far more extensive with a much larger discussion. [1] https://www.americansurveycenter.org/research/disconnected-p... Much of the article that is the source is actually devoted to the discussion about working class vs educated divides…

I think this is taking it backwards: communal places are dying because of a deeper trend of di-socialization. You can't make those spaces work for long if nobody comes there. What I notice here (Switzerland) which has a lot of clubs and associations is that less and less people come and less and less volonteer to help manage the club's functions. Notice that the clubs are still there; the opportunity to socialize is…

Personally, tend to believe it's iterative (like the iterative method in software).

Basically, it has both issues. Your rationalization is valid, and its one side of what's going on. Society de-socializes, the clubs and activities still exist, yet less and less people take the opportunity. Those activities and clubs then wither and fade away with lack of participation.

However, on the other side, once those clubs and activities vanish, then opportunities that might have been there before no longer exist to even attempt. An opportunity for socialization vanishes, thereby accelerating the de-socialization.

Very tragedy of the commons type result. There's a communal field. Then some participants start abusing the communal field. Then people accepted of the communal situation previously (because of fair behavior) start pulling back and becoming stingy / paranoid / anti-sharing in response to the exploitive actions of their neighbors. Then the communal resource no longer exists and is ruined for all participants. People who might have joined the communal field use previously no longer have a communal resource to join.

Re: US friendship is in freefall – shredding bonds and cutting lives short

#50

Post by araes »

xracy wrote: post #37
araes wrote: post #17

The article in the New York Post, appears to be referencing this article by Daniel Cox of the "Survey Center on American Life". [1] The article itself on americansurveycenter website is far more extensive with a much larger discussion. [1] https://www.americansurveycenter.org/research/disconnected-p... Much of the article that is the source is actually devoted to the discussion about working class vs educated divides…

The sad part here is that the 4-year degree vs high-school also feels like it's probably more of a class divide than anything else.

That was kind of my take on the situation also. Something of unspoken class divide in America.

I've seen the same on several discussion forums, where writers talk that way, using terms and self descriptions that are like internalized societal denigration. Like they're not really part of America, because they didn't get the 4-year degree that's expected.

They get some form of implicit "you're not book smart" response, or "you're not pursuing societally 'correct' behavior", and that turns into a class divide. Often it seems to arise like resentment or hate for not choosing whatever it was you're "supposed" to do to be socially acceptable.

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