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I think the greater context here misses the trauma behind being forced to move out of a home. Being separated from your social network, familiar surroundings, i

I think the greater context here misses the trauma behind being forced to move out of a home. Being separated from your social network, familiar surroundings, into a new and unknown environment can be highly traumatizing to the people who move and the community which loses its members. Children have their educations interrupted, elders lose a family of support, adults need to forge new friendships in a time where we know the majority of friendships occur in childhood. The greater question is if it's okay for someone to undergo the trauma of being moved because they can no longer afford the geographic location that they didn't choose to be born and raised into.

skybrian 8y ago
Does it have to be a trauma? After all, most people don't live with their parents forever. Finding your own place is a rite of passage. Most college students graduate and move somewhere else. One way of preventing trauma would be to make sure people don't have to move. Another way would be to make moving something to look forward to, rather than a trauma.
- orcdork 8y ago
  Yes, of course having to move due to no longer being able to afford living in the place you've lived on for say 10+ years, downsizing probably not only in living space, but also quality of surroundings, is comparable to leaving your college dorm in your early 20s. I guess one way of preventing trauma is pretending it doesn't exist by making ridiculus comparisons.
  - skybrian 8y ago
    It wasn't intended to be that close an analogy, but okay, here's another scenario: many retirees in the Northeast move to Florida and love it. (And if you don't like that scenario either, maybe you can come up with a better one?)
- yourapostasy 8y ago
  > Another way would be to make moving something to look forward to, rather than a trauma. This assumes your own lived experience is prescriptively good for everyone else. There's more than one way to the same goal. Let's put the situation another way. At a certain socioeconomic strata, which describes most of HN's readership, networking is loosely coupled to one's geographic nexus. Walk the gradient beyond that strata with decreasing incomes, and networking increasingly and greatly emphasizes a locus. Blithely dismissing these different networking modalities devastates the value built up by the networks but not registered in the official econometrics. The neighbors that trade shade tree mechanic automotive fixes for a quarter-fridge-large pile of tamales. The elderly couple who get groceries delivered in trade for watching out for suspicious activity while a young family is away at pre-K and work. The general contracting single dad who builds a porch in exchange for math and SAT tutoring for his daughter. The BBQ block parties done on the cheap instead of at a restaurant or a rented meeting space, where more of these trades are discovered and initiated, often not as quid pro quo trades but just neighbor helping neighbor when an opportunity to help arises. These arrangements take decades to establish into thriving networks because human trust is either hugely expensive to enforce, or hugely time-consuming to ascertain. These communities are capital starved (especially so if you want to enforce trust via attorneys), so they trade time and evolved cooperative relationships for capital. No amount of "gig economy" unicorn'ism will pencil out to less capital outlay by these residents than a richly diverse network with deeply-established trust protocols. Break up these networks and you impoverish those forced to move away in a very real economic sense, even though it isn't measured. It just comes out in stories of misery that are then blamed upon poor people too lazy to "look forward to" their change.
  - skybrian 8y ago
    Social networks are certainly important and I don't mean to dismiss anything. Instead I'm suggesting that there may be more than one way to deal with a problem, but this is rarely discussed. What can be done to help people make connections after a move?
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
analognoise 8y ago
"Trauma" - moving? Your ancestors could handle a trip across the country (or an ocean) where half the people died along the way, but people can't handle moving out of some shitty midwestern town entirely supported by the coal plant that's scheduled to shut down to pursue a job because the local Church and T-ball league they're involved with is there? I'm increasingly not sure the boom in population has been worth it for humanity if these are the kinds of people we're dragging along.
- SolaceQuantum 8y ago
  I would make the suggestion to practice good-faith examination as to why I would state that moving under economic pressure is traumatic. It isn't "local Church and T-ball". It's "local Church, whose pastor is the only person who supported me when I was assaulted in school". It's "T-ball league, where my son has developed lifelong friendships that I'm ripping him out of". Humans need their social network to survive. Moving strips them of their social network and forces them to build again, much of it less successful than the original.
  - analognoise 8y ago
    I don't care about those people's connections to subsidize them. Let them learn to adapt, like everyone else.
    - SolaceQuantum 8y ago
      This is a distinctly different claim than my claim that it is traumatic to be forced to move and the subsequent non understanding what is traumatic about it. Instead it is a claim that the trauma does not matter. I would then argue that it does matter, in that the lack of compassion towards traumatic events actually prevents efficient calculations in understanding why people don’t move or why assuming people will learn to adapt isn’t necessarily reflective of reality. The claim is not that people will not adapt, but that the quality of their lives will be fundamentally lowered as a result of being forced to move, due to massive loss in human interaction infrastructure. That this doesn’t matter to you is your choice, of course. I’m merely stating that this is a consequence that should be acknowledged during the transition period.

skybrian 8y ago

Does it have to be a trauma? After all, most people don't live with their parents forever. Finding your own place is a rite of passage. Most college students graduate and move somewhere else. One way of preventing trauma would be to make sure people don't have to move. Another way would be to make moving something to look forward to, rather than a trauma.

orcdork 8y ago
Yes, of course having to move due to no longer being able to afford living in the place you've lived on for say 10+ years, downsizing probably not only in living space, but also quality of surroundings, is comparable to leaving your college dorm in your early 20s. I guess one way of preventing trauma is pretending it doesn't exist by making ridiculus comparisons.
- skybrian 8y ago
  It wasn't intended to be that close an analogy, but okay, here's another scenario: many retirees in the Northeast move to Florida and love it. (And if you don't like that scenario either, maybe you can come up with a better one?)
yourapostasy 8y ago
> Another way would be to make moving something to look forward to, rather than a trauma. This assumes your own lived experience is prescriptively good for everyone else. There's more than one way to the same goal. Let's put the situation another way. At a certain socioeconomic strata, which describes most of HN's readership, networking is loosely coupled to one's geographic nexus. Walk the gradient beyond that strata with decreasing incomes, and networking increasingly and greatly emphasizes a locus. Blithely dismissing these different networking modalities devastates the value built up by the networks but not registered in the official econometrics. The neighbors that trade shade tree mechanic automotive fixes for a quarter-fridge-large pile of tamales. The elderly couple who get groceries delivered in trade for watching out for suspicious activity while a young family is away at pre-K and work. The general contracting single dad who builds a porch in exchange for math and SAT tutoring for his daughter. The BBQ block parties done on the cheap instead of at a restaurant or a rented meeting space, where more of these trades are discovered and initiated, often not as quid pro quo trades but just neighbor helping neighbor when an opportunity to help arises. These arrangements take decades to establish into thriving networks because human trust is either hugely expensive to enforce, or hugely time-consuming to ascertain. These communities are capital starved (especially so if you want to enforce trust via attorneys), so they trade time and evolved cooperative relationships for capital. No amount of "gig economy" unicorn'ism will pencil out to less capital outlay by these residents than a richly diverse network with deeply-established trust protocols. Break up these networks and you impoverish those forced to move away in a very real economic sense, even though it isn't measured. It just comes out in stories of misery that are then blamed upon poor people too lazy to "look forward to" their change.
- skybrian 8y ago
  Social networks are certainly important and I don't mean to dismiss anything. Instead I'm suggesting that there may be more than one way to deal with a problem, but this is rarely discussed. What can be done to help people make connections after a move?
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]

analognoise 8y ago

"Trauma" - moving? Your ancestors could handle a trip across the country (or an ocean) where half the people died along the way, but people can't handle moving out of some shitty midwestern town entirely supported by the coal plant that's scheduled to shut down to pursue a job because the local Church and T-ball league they're involved with is there? I'm increasingly not sure the boom in population has been worth it for humanity if these are the kinds of people we're dragging along.

SolaceQuantum 8y ago
I would make the suggestion to practice good-faith examination as to why I would state that moving under economic pressure is traumatic. It isn't "local Church and T-ball". It's "local Church, whose pastor is the only person who supported me when I was assaulted in school". It's "T-ball league, where my son has developed lifelong friendships that I'm ripping him out of". Humans need their social network to survive. Moving strips them of their social network and forces them to build again, much of it less successful than the original.
- analognoise 8y ago
  I don't care about those people's connections to subsidize them. Let them learn to adapt, like everyone else.
  - SolaceQuantum 8y ago
    This is a distinctly different claim than my claim that it is traumatic to be forced to move and the subsequent non understanding what is traumatic about it. Instead it is a claim that the trauma does not matter. I would then argue that it does matter, in that the lack of compassion towards traumatic events actually prevents efficient calculations in understanding why people don’t move or why assuming people will learn to adapt isn’t necessarily reflective of reality. The claim is not that people will not adapt, but that the quality of their lives will be fundamentally lowered as a result of being forced to move, due to massive loss in human interaction infrastructure. That this doesn’t matter to you is your choice, of course. I’m merely stating that this is a consequence that should be acknowledged during the transition period.