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The end of neighbours

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Re: The end of neighbours

#51

Post by nsxwolf »

scoofy wrote: post #47
nsxwolf wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My suburban neighborhood consists of single family homes on roughly quarter-acre lots. I "bump in" to my neighbors a lot when we're in our front yards. But I hate the "stop and chat", so when I see a neighbor outside I employ the following strategies to avoid neighbor contact: - Driving into the garage and lowering the garage door even when I really wanted to park in the driveway - Peeking through blinds to see when…

Why do you hate chatting? I can understand if one of your neighbors is annoying, but my point is that if you weren't driving, you'd certainly know more than just the annoying one next door, and you almost certainly get a kick out of dogging him with the person on the other side of his house. If not, hey, there's always one or two annoying neighbors, and if you can't find them, it's probably you.

I really don't know! I just get this deeply uncomfortable feeling when I see that I'm going to have to have some kind of unplanned interaction with them. I'm not a terribly shy person, there's just something about the neighbor encounter.

Re: The end of neighbours

#52

Post by Systemic33 »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #44
scoofy wrote: post #41

Good to see they finally point the finger at what is fairly certainly the culprit: the automobile. When i lived in NYC, i knew most of my neighbors. Why? because we literally bumped into each other coming in and out of the building. When you have a common destination (subway, bus, market, etc), it's nice to have someone to chat with, but when your commute is in an automobile, you never get a chance to ask. Living roo…

Unfortunately, you cannot now fix it by removing the automobile. Now, even when you bump into people, you don't have a conversation, because they're on their headphones or texting on their phone or whatever. Nobody's available to talk to, even if you would be willing to do so.

It's quite the paradox that humans are incredibly dependent on social interaction, but we would rather avoid contact because we are afraid of the what consequences it might have on our life.

Re: The end of neighbours

#53

Post by bdkoepke »

Houshalter wrote: post #12
bdkoepke wrote: post #3

Ugh, seems like another article that derives causation from correlation. Specifically: "We have evolved for it, to the extent that those surrounded by a tight-knit group of friends who regularly gather to eat—and, crucially, gossip—live an average of 15 years longer than loners." Perhaps the reason that people with a large group of friends live much longer is that people who are in better health tend to have more act…

I assume the researchers were smart enough to think of that. Don't judge a study based on a one sentence description from a journalist.

I was commenting more on the way that the journalist portrayed the research than the research itself.

Another example: "But, however powerful the economic and social forces behind the disappearing neighbour—and however positive many of its results—according to reams of new research, the transformation is also poisoning our politics and, quite literally, killing us."

These are the kinds of articles that cause people to have an anti-science attitude. "One week coffee is good for me and the next week it causes cancer". It also makes it very difficult to address these kinds of problems because you have one side where people are running around like chicken little and another side that may actually agree that the issues is a problem but they have much more moderate solutions than the majority.

Re: The end of neighbours

#54

Post by bdkoepke »

Swizec wrote: post #8
bdkoepke wrote: post #3

Ugh, seems like another article that derives causation from correlation. Specifically: "We have evolved for it, to the extent that those surrounded by a tight-knit group of friends who regularly gather to eat—and, crucially, gossip—live an average of 15 years longer than loners." Perhaps the reason that people with a large group of friends live much longer is that people who are in better health tend to have more act…

Even simpler than that. Healthy people are more attractive and more attractive people are more successful[1], which in turn makes them more successful socially because people like to associate with people who are more successful than themselves for various reasons[2]. [1] https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&e... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendship_paradox

Yeah your probably right, the halo effect probably plays a roll as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_effect.

Re: The end of neighbours

#55

Post by kilroy123 »

My entire adult life, I haven't known any of my neighbors, until recently.

One day about 8 months ago, we got a note on the door from new neighbors. They were having a "floor party" and invited everyone on the floor to their place.

Almost everyone on the floor, reluctantly went to the party expecting it to be awkward. We all ended up drunk and hanging out until 2 am. Turns out, pretty much everyone on the floor was a 20-30 something couple.

Flash forward to last night, we all had dinner together on the roof, and celebrated someones birthday. I'm close friends with a few of them.

Point is, someone just has to take the initiative. I'm now embarrassed I didn't do it sooner, as I'd live here for 3 years.

Re: The end of neighbours

#56

Post by jiggy2011 »

scoofy wrote: post #49
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, you cannot now fix it by removing the automobile. Now, even when you bump into people, you don't have a conversation, because they're on their headphones or texting on their phone or whatever. Nobody's available to talk to, even if you would be willing to do so.

Yes, you can. If everyone is walking to a centralized transit location, then those that would like to know each other will easily identify themselves. Catch the bus at 8AM? You'll soon learn who else is walking that route. Headphones or not, human interaction isn't that awkward. Even if you never talk in that context, it only takes one out-of-context interaction to end that. At a coffee shop: "hey, don't we walk the…

When I used to take public transport to work, I'd see lots of the same people every day but never spoke to any of them. They didn't speak to each other either.

Re: The end of neighbours

#57

Post by _delirium »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #34
clarkmoody wrote: post #22

Since we're living around like-minded individuals but subjected to top-down centralized lawmaking, there is a large disconnect between what's happening in our backyard, in the state capital, and in Washington. Often the City Council office is out of touch with one part of the city or another, imposing rules on all that about half disagree with. The federal system in America is supposed to emphasize differences in the…

I still think one of the causes of the federal over-expansion was to make Senators popularly elected rather than appointed by state legislatures. The point of the Senate was to create a check by the states on federal power. Now it's just an incentive for lower population states to expand the federal government since they have disproportionate representation in directing who the expansion benefits.

I think there are a few other reasons:

1. National businesses in many cases (though not all) want uniform regulations to ease doing business. So they lobby for federal preemption of state regulations. For example, car manufacturers don't want to have to meet 50 separate safety codes in order to sell cars nationwide, so they successfully lobbied for a federal code with express state preemption. Advocates of tort reform often have similar motivations: a key proposal of tort reform is to federalize product liability, because manufacturers dislike the current system where litigation will always end up being initiated in the most plaintiff-friendly county of the most plaintiff-friendly state.

2. The last time state vs. federal power came to the point of an outright test of strength, the federal government won. And what's worse for the states, its victory has in retrospect been very popular, which has done quite a bit to boost the popularity of federalization and stigmatize the slogan "states' rights". JFK sent troops to Alabama in 1963, removed the governor's control over the state national guard, and imposed federal law by force; and nowadays most people think he did the right thing.

3. People move around a lot, which makes it increasingly impractical to deal with things like social security or Medicare at the state level, when you might be born in one state, work in three others, and retire in a fifth. (This one is becoming a problem in Europe, too, and will probably lead to some kind of EU-standardized "portable pension" scheme in the medium-term future. An EU-wide health card has already been created, though its terms are not yet standardized.)

Re: The end of neighbours

#58

Post by jiggy2011 »

lutusp wrote: post #38
cylinder wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question - why is it considered so inherently important to spend time with your neighbors? I don't understand why I'm supposed to have a natural connection to certain individuals just because we chose to live in the same area. If my social circle consists of people who don't happen to live on my street, is that so bad? We don't really need to worry about having someone to come check up on us from next door bec…

> why is it considered so inherently important to spend time with your neighbors? It's propaganda disseminated by unhappy single women. :) I said it that way because not all single women are unhappy -- some prefer being alone, just as some men do. Recent statistics tell us that almost 1/2 of Americans are single, and they're about to become an absolute majority.

What does this have with the GPs point?

Re: The end of neighbours

#59

Post by kghose »

design-of-homes wrote: post #25

A UK perspective: over the past decade there has been an enormous growth in the buy-to-let market and the UK is now overun by the worst type of property owner: the buy-to-let (buy-to-rent) landlord or "property investor". They treat housing as a pure profit-making exercise. When more and more homes in your area get bought by property investors and buy-to-let landlords it can have a detrimental effect (I've seen it ha…

In suburbs of Boston this is a very common thing. They are "all cash buyers" and often beat out regular folk who want to buy a home via a mortgage.

Re: The end of neighbours

#60

Post by rahimnathwani »

design-of-homes wrote: post #25

A UK perspective: over the past decade there has been an enormous growth in the buy-to-let market and the UK is now overun by the worst type of property owner: the buy-to-let (buy-to-rent) landlord or "property investor". They treat housing as a pure profit-making exercise. When more and more homes in your area get bought by property investors and buy-to-let landlords it can have a detrimental effect (I've seen it ha…

Are you suggesting that people shouldn't have the flexibility to move easily if they get a new job/partner or have a change in circumstances? That's what happens if every home must be owner-occupied and there isn't a liquid rental market.

I moved to China a few years ago. I am glad that I was able to let my flat (to responsible tenants who have paid the rent on time for >3 years) and that I was able to rent an apartment in Beijing. Selling my flat in London and buying one on Beijing would have been impossible and, even if it had been possible, why should I invest in a property in Beijing just because I want to live here for a few years? And why should I sell my flat in London?

EDIT: s/chance/change

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