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> We often see society as a problem, so more and more we try to loosen our need for it I think that about sums up the "loneliness epidemic". Loneliness and soc

> We often see society as a problem, so more and more we try to loosen our need for it I think that about sums up the "loneliness epidemic". Loneliness and social disconnection are exactly the results of seeking to loosen our need for society. Our society (regardless of where you live, the global monoculture is still there), is sick and we see it largely in Western post-industrial nations like the U.K. and U.S.A. As more an more people realize the problems inherent to a postmodern, secular, capitalistic worldview, the more they intentionally disconnect to seek shelter from the onslaught of mixed messages, targeted advertising, disinformation campaigns, etc. , the more they realize that cutting themselves off is the only way out. I don't say this to explicitly bash capitalism or postmodernism - I see these statements as social facts that we're all stuck with for the time being. Despite U.S.'s place near the top of the list of social ills amongst industrialized nations (drug addiction, depression, obesity, bad Gini coeff, low life span, bad healthcare, etc.), it's worth saying that these and other problems still exist to some degree in other post-industrial nations. As we've steadily chipped away at traditional life, people have struggled to find replacements for family, religion, social outings, dating/marriage, work and play. While some people find success, other still are in limbo - raised in a world that no longer exists and unsure of how to bridge the gap into a world that offers fewer and fewer opportunities for an "analog" life. Since modern life is primarily digital, the only escape from it is by intentionally seeking an analog existence. We can all see that excessive social media use, excessive email-checking, and constant connectivity cause social and emotional problems: addiction, feelings of inferiority, feeling drained, overall dissatisfaction. But the alternative is to purposely cut yourself off and suffer the other loneliness, where no one ever messages you, your crush never likes your photos, you never beat that person in a political argument on FB, you never see that cute picture of your friend's children or dog. At the cost of these things, you may gain back fun interactions with strangers, better catch-up conversations when you run into old friends who haven't been able to stalk you on social media, a more romantic first date when you finally talk to that person you've been seeing at the grocery store... At the risk of injecting my own experiences into this rant, the loss of social media in my life has precipitated a person who is more social when it comes time to be social and more at peace when it's time to be alone. The solution to the broader problems though, of a society we feel we need to disconnect from, it would seem, is to start by fostering societies that we don't see as inherently problematic. Truly healthy societies don't breed drop outs, rebels, "lone wolves"... they breed people who want to get along and can at least stand each other enough to share some notion of the public good. How we do that is beyond me, though.

marnett 9y ago
Much of what you said, discussions on post-industrial, post-modern societies with capitalistic incentives driving more-and-more societal aspects, echoes the sentiment from Daniel Bell's The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism.
musage 9y ago
Worth a read, or three: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/67977.The_Sane_Society https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/67977.The_Sane_Society
oi23uwe23 9y ago
I think building and theorizing a new monoculture is exactly the wrong place to start. Not that you are, you say at the end it is beyond one builds a truly healthy world/society. I think leaning away from emotion and into metrics is the start. I think Paulo Freire has the right framework to start viewing how this should go, though he would probably say "These are my ideas, make your own." And that's the key, in my opinion -- live by your own imagination, not on the rails that the world lays down (which usually are laid down by elite power players, not the public). I'd say it's this unfettered freedom to do literally anything, seems to be a huge issue to me. It's displaced our own ability to imagine, and has us just doing things in the literal world, because that's what the rule book says. One dude's freedom to make a rocket engine car meant someone else machine parts for a paltry wage and will never have the money to assemble a rocket engine in their garage let alone the entire car. That's how it has to be -- or so the story has gone. But the rocket car guy and voices in the thread seem like that's exactly what we should be aiming for. OK, but do it without needing a huge factory manned by low-wage earners. Suddenly, Americans are less free, and chafe quite a lot at that notion. The world should be theirs, and if that means other workers in other nations have more of a say, well that can't be right. Or so the conversations I've been a party to for years have gone ("America went through a growing up phase. Those countries should too." as if there's anything more than social opinion requiring that it be this way.) First world freedom for Rocket Car Guy, who mocks the notion that's absurd and should be regulated, meant a wage slave somewhere was the one doting on the actual mining, smelting, etc. The same lack of introspection is all over this site. "Make more apps, build more datacenters. Cause I have to sign up more users." Get people to be "more digital". Despite that not being a physical law of reality. It's contemporary vanity: obviously the world is becoming more digital, so we should lean in. Ignoring the reality of what that requires, and that it's rather a bit fascist to assume future folks would want to go that way. So here comes another global monoculture to fail in a generation.

marnett 9y ago

Much of what you said, discussions on post-industrial, post-modern societies with capitalistic incentives driving more-and-more societal aspects, echoes the sentiment from Daniel Bell's The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism.

musage 9y ago

Worth a read, or three: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/67977.The_Sane_Society https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/67977.The_Sane_Society

oi23uwe23 9y ago

I think building and theorizing a new monoculture is exactly the wrong place to start. Not that you are, you say at the end it is beyond one builds a truly healthy world/society. I think leaning away from emotion and into metrics is the start. I think Paulo Freire has the right framework to start viewing how this should go, though he would probably say "These are my ideas, make your own." And that's the key, in my opinion -- live by your own imagination, not on the rails that the world lays down (which usually are laid down by elite power players, not the public). I'd say it's this unfettered freedom to do literally anything, seems to be a huge issue to me. It's displaced our own ability to imagine, and has us just doing things in the literal world, because that's what the rule book says. One dude's freedom to make a rocket engine car meant someone else machine parts for a paltry wage and will never have the money to assemble a rocket engine in their garage let alone the entire car. That's how it has to be -- or so the story has gone. But the rocket car guy and voices in the thread seem like that's exactly what we should be aiming for. OK, but do it without needing a huge factory manned by low-wage earners. Suddenly, Americans are less free, and chafe quite a lot at that notion. The world should be theirs, and if that means other workers in other nations have more of a say, well that can't be right. Or so the conversations I've been a party to for years have gone ("America went through a growing up phase. Those countries should too." as if there's anything more than social opinion requiring that it be this way.) First world freedom for Rocket Car Guy, who mocks the notion that's absurd and should be regulated, meant a wage slave somewhere was the one doting on the actual mining, smelting, etc. The same lack of introspection is all over this site. "Make more apps, build more datacenters. Cause I have to sign up more users." Get people to be "more digital". Despite that not being a physical law of reality. It's contemporary vanity: obviously the world is becoming more digital, so we should lean in. Ignoring the reality of what that requires, and that it's rather a bit fascist to assume future folks would want to go that way. So here comes another global monoculture to fail in a generation.