The death of partying in the USA • Hacker News Board

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#731

Post by bluefirebrand » Sat, Jul 12, 2025, 9:54 PM UTC

SideQuark wrote: post #702

vjvjvjvjghv wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One important data point is that houses have become much more expensive compared to income in the last decades. When I lived in CA, my plumber neighbor told me he bought his house in the 70s for 80000 on a salary of 40000. Today he would probably pay 800000 for the same house but make maybe 100000 or a little more. It's definitely harder to buy a house these days.

Houses today are vastly larger. Cost/sq ft in all but the few most expensive places has been nearly constant under inflation adjusted price for an incredibly long time. A huge majority of the population lives in such places. Here's a size list that is commonly shared https://www.newser.com/story/225645/average-size-of-us-homes... When you figure in # of people in such houses, the avg person has vastly more space http…

New builds may be larger today but the vast majority of real estate on the market are not new builds

I bought my house in 2018. It was built in 1997

It is not vastly larger than it was in 1997, but I still paid 2018 prices for it

Most people aren't buying new builds

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#732

Post by bluefirebrand » Sat, Jul 12, 2025, 9:59 PM UTC

orangecat wrote: post #338

Gigachad wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To some extent but there are differences. You have housing stability, a fixed price going forward, the ability to renovate most of the internals, and the ability to affix things to the walls without worrying about marks when you have to move out.

a fixed price going forward Property taxes, HOA fees, maintenance, appliances randomly breaking and resulting in bills of thousands of dollars... the ability to affix things to the walls without worrying about marks when you have to move out If you care about the sale price you will worry about that, among many other things.

> If you care about the sale price you will worry about that,

Marks on the walls from hanging pictures is not going to meaningfully change the sale price of a house, please be serious

However it could absolutely lose you your damage deposit when renting

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#733

Post by bluefirebrand » Sat, Jul 12, 2025, 10:13 PM UTC

brewtide wrote: post #129

zoomablemind wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought a prime time for contacting the parents is right after school when picking up the kid. Everyone is there waiting, so it's just natural to chit chat, esp when the kids are friends.

My local school killed this with COVID. Now you are no longer able to stand and wait, everyone has to line up in their cars. Viva la community!

What are they going to do if you ignore this, out of curiosity?

It may be a good time for some small social disobedience to push back to how things used to be

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#734

Post by bluefirebrand » Sat, Jul 12, 2025, 10:29 PM UTC

luckydata wrote: post #590

bluGill wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are friendly everywhere, but they mostly already have a full friend group and so are not looking to add more. Thus breaking in as a new comer is hard. However there are always people who need new friends it is just hard to find them.

According to data nobody has friends anymore, especially men.

It's tough out there

I moved cities in 2017 and it was an incredible move for me. Better work opportunities, I met my wife, I own a house now, life is great

But I have made zero male friends here. I have some online friends I chat with and game with, but otherwise I'm pretty isolated

No idea how to make new male friends. Any time I meet people, they seem to always have a tight knit group already and are not really interested in spending any time building new friendships

I am sure I'm not the only lonely dude looking for friends but I dunno

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#735

Post by 47282847 » Sat, Jul 12, 2025, 10:30 PM UTC

rufus_foreman wrote: post #710

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #249

This was a post on the GenX subreddit (from a Gen Zer) from just a couple days ago asking about if parties as portrayed in late 90s/early 00s "teen movies" were actually a real thing: https://www.reddit.com/r/GenX/comments/1lu102v/were_parties_... The responses from the Gen Xers were a mix of bewilderment and sadness, stuff like "What do you mean parties like this, it's just a normal teenage party!? I feel so ancient…

>> It's really sad to me how we have completely fucked a lot of youth We? We, kemosabe? I did not completely fuck up a lot of youth. Don't include me in this.

Responsibility, the ability to respond. Since you are able to do stuff, you also share responsibility, also for things you do not act upon, even if you don’t want to take it on. You can and you were definitely able to make different choices of what you want and wanted to engage with, and what you decided to ignore. You are an active part of society, if you want that or not.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#736

Post by bluefirebrand » Sat, Jul 12, 2025, 10:37 PM UTC

DaSHacka wrote: post #721

lbrito wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a father of 2 in Canada, I feel the same. Loving the discussion here. Seems like an opening to build a SaaS to encourage kids to socialize. /s

> Seems like an opening to build a SaaS to encourage kids to socialize. that's... not actually a terrible idea

SaaSifying every single part of life has honestly been building a pretty bad society so I have to disagree

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#737

Post by jolmg » Sun, Jul 13, 2025, 3:11 AM UTC

9rx wrote: post #665

JSteph22 wrote: post #576

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you have some compelling evidence to the contrary, this cannot be dismissed as "edge cases" when cultural norms have changed across the board and all it takes is one complaint...

It is possible. But take a risk! Don't fall into the trap of allowing your children to be scared of everything like you are.

Pre-teen walking to a friend's house a mile away, probably semi-frequently?

Is that a risk or a near certainty?

Looking for online guidelines, I find this:

> According to an American Academy of Pediatrics survey of social workers that was posted in Science Daily, children under 12 years old should not be left alone for more than four hours. The social workers who were surveyed also concluded that child neglect will likely be considered when children are injured during that time period. --- https://www.tedbakerlaw.com/child-unsupervised-neglect/

A scraped knee might be injury enough.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#738

Post by hn_throwaway_99 » Sun, Jul 13, 2025, 5:38 AM UTC

amenhotep wrote: post #583

starkparker wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The ROI isn't where I want it. I know this is HN, but sometimes - maybe, hopefully, sometimes - neither R nor I is involved in an action. If you aren't enjoying doing it then by all means stop doing it. But throwing a party isn't supposed to have deliverables or action items.

It's a slightly jargony way to say "it isn't worth it to me", which is totally fine. Come on.

It still seemed weird to me, and I'm trying to view it in the most generous light possible.

When I was younger there were folks who were just known as "the people who threw parties", simply because they loved throwing parties. They didn't view it as some expenditure where they expected any mutual return - the party was the return.

Now, of course there were some actual expenditures for food/drinks, and also the cleanup time. But the host would simply ask people to pitch in, and people always did.

The "ROI" comment just struck me as a mindset that views relationships transactionally. Yes, relationships are and always have been at least someone transactional (not many folks are going to continue spending time and effort on a relationship they don't feel is adding to their life), but not in this "mathmatical" tabulation of it.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#739

Post by biohcacker84 » Sun, Jul 13, 2025, 6:21 AM UTC

Addictive tech in your hand is an evolutionary trap.

Much like cars are to squirrels, squirrels have evolved to run into a straight line to the nearest tree at the hint of any danger. And for all threats other than cars that is the correct thing.

But many squirrels are "trapped" by evolution to cross the path of a car when there is no need to do so.

Humanity's curiosity, sociability and OCDness have all been trapped by algorithms and smart phones.

And it is shortening lives and even more so reducing reproduction. A faint hope is, that with all such evolutionary pressure, we can evolve our way out of them.... eventually.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#740

Post by tuna74 » Sun, Jul 13, 2025, 7:31 AM UTC

udkl wrote: post #127

taeric wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happened is that everything turned into playdates? When we were kids, the general direction was GTFO, and don't be late for dinner. Who did you go play with? Whoever was at the park. When you got older, you hopefully had access to the skating rink. Or maybe a bowling alley. Before that, kickball at the park. Pretty much every day. Maybe see if you can over shoot the swing again.

The concept of playdates is amusing to me as an immigrant. In Indian cities where most people live in apartments, the kids just go down and play around with the 10s of kids from the neighborhood. Adults get free time and kids get to socialize and enjoy.

From which ages? Would you let out your 3-year old kid unsupervised?