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Should more of us be moving to live near friends?

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Re: Should more of us be moving to live near friends?

#431

Post by refurb »

nox101 wrote: post #278
grumpy-de-sre wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Anglo cultures kids aren't usually moving away from home until they are at least ~18 years old. This is not a factor in teenagers feeling isolated. Suburbia and the decline of third places probably play a far greater role in this demographic. It's a common trope on here to lament on how the Anglo cultures don't value family ties strongly enough. I'd argue not overly valuing family ties has been a big competitive a…

what is your definition of "high trust society". I don't consider the USA a high trust society having lived in Japan and Singapore. In Japan and Singapore, I trust that others won't steal my stuff. I trust that I won't be mugged. I trust that my packages won't be stolen. I trust that my car will not be broken into. In the USA and Europe I trust none of that. I've had cars broken into 5 times, bikes stolen 5 times, ca…

Having lived in Asia I disagree it's a "high trust" society. I also see it described as "less individualistic and more concerned about the group".

What I observed was a deference to authority. Harsh government punishment for anti-social behavior is accepted and seen as the "role" of the government. While people in Anglo countries might protest against unfair government action, in Asian countries it's much more rare. People in Singapore grumble about how the government might punish behavior, but they keep those conversation to their family and close friends.

In terms of trust or concern, it doesn't extend much beyond the immediate family unit in Asia. I would say respect or concern for strangers is higher in Western countries Many people in Asia are happy to rip off others in Asia (if they think they can get away with it), but even the deadbeat cousin gets money from the family because "it's the right thing to do".

Re: Should more of us be moving to live near friends?

#432

Post by Suppafly »

xocnad wrote: post #425
diordiderot wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the American South community is as easy as picking a church and going to your kids public school sporting events. Are there problems, of course, like all societies. But it's easy and it works.

This presupposes both an interest in religion and organized sports.

>This presupposes both an interest in religion and organized sports.

Sorta but not really. Lots of people just fake it for the community aspects.

Re: Should more of us be moving to live near friends?

#433

Post by lamp_book »

DavidPiper wrote: post #141
chasd00 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if it’s just in America but people love to tear others down to lift themselves up by comparison. Once it clicks and you understand what is going on it’s easy to just ignore them.

OT, but it's interesting to hear this about America. Just yesterday I was in a conversation about how that (i.e. Tall Poppy Syndrome, what you're describing) is Australia's defining characteristic, and things are much better in America. But maybe not.

The tall poppy thing exists well in the pocket of the US midwest I grew up in (Rust Belt) - I understand it to be a cultural inheritance from the Irish/English/Scottish working class which remain cohesive communities. When you scope out to the broader American culture it dissipates, though I wouldn't be surprised to find it in other kinds of communities.

Re: Should more of us be moving to live near friends?

#434

Post by simmanian »

rayiner wrote: post #420
derefr wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, racist. I took my (Asian) partner back with me to visit the small town I grew up in, and I could not believe some of the shit coming out of people's mouths when they saw her. Literally 1 in 5 people she talked to while we were there would do some sort of "funny" voice or ask her some real stupid shit; and 1 in 20 people we passed while walking around in the downtown area would shout slurs at her from across the…

Is she one of those Asians who thinks it’s “racist” when people ask questions that merely acknowledge that Asians are highly likely to be immigrants or children of immigrants? Like: “where are you really from?” I find it impossible to believe that people are literally “yelling slurs” to anyone in street unprovoked. I look like a 9/11 hijacker and nobody has ever done that to me even walking around bumblefuck south Ge…

Why are you asking this given what the parent comment described? Are you accusing them of lying or blowing things out of proportion? I'm truly, honestly happy that you have not experienced anything like what the parent comment described. But I grew up in west coast America and I still experienced a lot of casual racism. Park next to someone? They yell, "This ain't China, don't park so close." Walk home from school? Students yell ching chong at me. Shit is messed.

Re: Should more of us be moving to live near friends?

#435

Post by odyssey7 »

phil21 wrote: post #417
odyssey7 wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps it’s just my bubble, but I mainly see this happen with people who do knowledge work which could definitely be 100% completed online. Even if this is just a “tiny fraction” of workers, allowing them the liberty to easily pursue their career while also maintaining close relations with their family would be good, not merely something to write off as negligible. Every human life matters.

It simply creates an even more privileged knowledge worker class. I recently spent a lot of time in some more rural parts of the US. There is rapidly growing resentment over this topic. It came up nearly daily in casual conversation/overheard at bars/etc. It might be good for 5-10% of the population, but at what cost to social cohesion? These were certainly not CEO type of folks, and they were not terminally on-line…

I grew up in a rural area, where everyone has a southern accent, which sounds like nothing but music to me. My relatives tend to live next to expanses of farmland, as I myself previously lived for years. Although I’ve recently moved to the city that’s about 45 minutes from where I grew up—-due to a return-to-office policy and also managing to use years of experience to land a solid software job in my home state—-I regularly drive out through woods and fields to spend time with people to whom I mean a great deal more than I ever will to any employer. Having a larger salary than most doesn’t change who I am in the least. I am one of those very people for whom you claim to speak.

My family was heartbroken over the years that I lived away from them. At times, they wondered what they might have done wrong to cause me to leave them. Moving away from my roots, to pursue my only job offer after undergrad, was the opposite of social cohesion. Many of my peers from high school——the size of my graduating class was 69——do not make anywhere near my income, and none of them feel any resentment towards me about it, just like they don’t resent the farmers who own hundreds of acres of farmland (my tech salary doesn’t come close to what some rural people make) or the classmates who went to medical school or got their JD. If anything, we feel mutual pride for what one another has accomplished. (The accomplishment, in fact, is not the money, but in living true to one’s values and contributing to something greater than yourself, something I was at times forced to betray to work in software.) I feel that your sampling method didn’t pick up on something really crucial about small, rural communities, where people tend to grow up together and to know one another for life, in continuation of multi-generational relationships among their families.

Rural areas will do just fine if people like myself choose to live modestly among people they care about, in a county that doesn’t even have the convenience of a grocery store, instead of in one of the most expensive places on earth.

Re: Should more of us be moving to live near friends?

#436

Post by CMCDragonkai »

grumpy-de-sre wrote: post #212
dlisboa wrote: post #71

Coming from a Latin American the idea of re-starting your life across the country for college and then again for work (multiple times sometimes) while away from family and friends is very foreign. A lot of the conversation around modern American youth feeling isolated, lacking socialization and not building strong relationships seems that stem from this drive. Another thing that’s really weird and related is another…

In Anglo cultures kids aren't usually moving away from home until they are at least ~18 years old. This is not a factor in teenagers feeling isolated. Suburbia and the decline of third places probably play a far greater role in this demographic. It's a common trope on here to lament on how the Anglo cultures don't value family ties strongly enough. I'd argue not overly valuing family ties has been a big competitive a…

I think coliving is going to come back into vogue.

Re: Should more of us be moving to live near friends?

#437

Post by CMCDragonkai »

llamaimperative wrote: post #414
hyperliner wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two good ones: “The Typical American Lives Only 18 Miles From Mom” https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/12/24/upshot/24up-f... “More than half of Americans live within an hour of extended family” https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/05/18/more-than...

If you’ve lived within 20 minutes of a friend versus 2 minutes of a friend, it’d be immediately obvious how irrelevant “only 18 miles” and “within an hour” are. Someone 45 minutes away might as well require a flight, as far as I’m concerned

It's like that thing about radio waves. I proposed the inverse square law on friendship versus temporal distance.

Re: Should more of us be moving to live near friends?

#438

Post by lazide »

the_af wrote: post #357
lazide wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Risky US cities are pretty risky though. Which is why I said that.

Let me rephrase then: average Latin American cities in many countries are comparable to average US cities. There are trouble hotspots (and countries) just as there are trouble hotspots in the US. It's not true that Latin America as a whole is "unsafe". It's not Ciudad Juárez everywhere. I live in Buenos Aires and there's crime comparable to any big city (with better and worse periods, of course).

And large portions of the population (much more than in the US) live in areas that have violent crime and murder rates higher than the worse parts of Oakland. And that isn’t even counting Guatemala as it’s just ‘adjacent’.

Southern South America isn’t bad, but also doesn’t have many people in it.

Re: Should more of us be moving to live near friends?

#439

Post by tekknik »

xocnad wrote: post #425
diordiderot wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the American South community is as easy as picking a church and going to your kids public school sporting events. Are there problems, of course, like all societies. But it's easy and it works.

This presupposes both an interest in religion and organized sports.

With this mindset you likely wouldn’t live in the south anyway as you’d end up miserable. Just like a southerner living in CA.

Re: Should more of us be moving to live near friends?

#440

Post by tekknik »

JustExAWS wrote: post #363
phil21 wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is slowly (rapidly?) devolving into a low-trust society. What used to be pockets of low-trust are spreading rapidly by my estimation. It's been sad to watch it slowly get worse every year. It goes for all things, not just petty/street crime though. Everything from business owners not prioritizing doing good work and building local reputation, employees slacking off as much as possible, investors demanding extr…

America has always been a low trust society when it came to “others”. Jim Crow was the law when my still living parents were growing up. They literally didn’t trust people to drink from the same water fountain

My also still living father born in 1945 in the south didn’t live under this after the 60s or so. So how do you explain the gap for the last 65 years?
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