18 ms·

As an anecdote, I've lived the majority of my life in America (born and raised middle class on the east coast in a wealthy area) and if I was tasked with writin

by ixtli 7y ago

As an anecdote, I've lived the majority of my life in America (born and raised middle class on the east coast in a wealthy area) and if I was tasked with writing an account of my time here it would be focused around one thing: alienation. American life is atomized and consistently getting more so. For anyone who sits around and thinks about why people are the way they are here I highly encourage you to consider that people are alone. Alone in life, alone at their apartment, alone when they struggle, alone when they die. It's to the point where we regard married couples that live a 20 minute drive from anything as not being alone when they really are. Most adults I know have a relationship with their immediate family that I would regard as acquaintanceship. Part of this is culture (Americans fetishize a sort of "rugged individualism" where you alone can solve every problem you're faced with or else it's not a real problem) and part of it is civil engineering. You need a car to live nearly everywhere, there's almost no public transit infrastructure, etc. EDIT: Since this is popular I wanna surface something that people have been saying: it definitely doesn't require being far away physically from others to feel alone. I live in Manhattan and big cities can be extremely alienating depending on the person.

toomuchtodo 7y ago
I agree entirely with this. I can only speak for myself and my wife (mid 30s), but we are making active efforts to combat this in our family and social circle. Our house is large enough to take in parents (parents still have hangups about how "they should be able to take care of themselves and live by themselves"; we'll be waiting if and when they change their mind), extended family, and friends, we host family dinners once a week (family friends are invited, all are welcome), and we prioritize interpersonal relationships over material possession acquisition and meaningless work (some possessions are required, and not all work is meaningless, but I hope I got my point across). Fighting loneliness requires active effort. You are not going to care one bit if you bought that extra widget or got an extra story in on your sprint later in life. Put time into what matters: people.
- ixtli 7y ago
  There might not even be anything you can do if its systemic! Honestly as I get older (im 32) i find how fucking lucky i was to have been brought up in a really really strong family (half is italian, half is european jewish.) Its amazing the degree to which this has helped me be a normal person with good coping mechanisms.
  - AstralStorm 7y ago
    Similar. I got to meet most of extended family at least once, some relatively often. We're spread out but in clusters. This helps if anyone wants to move and it helps keep in touch. (Some went to another country, we haven't heard much of them - distance can still be a barrier and culture in Western Europe is different.)
  - hestipod 7y ago
    I've always been envious of such families. Only one person in my family was really a quality person, and he passed long ago. I moved abroad for a time to a country where families are closer and while it was exhausting and intense in it's own way after my childhood, it was amazingly "safe" feeling. The relationship that brought me into that fold is gone, and while I don't miss my partner, I miss those people in their family greatly.
    - toomuchtodo 7y ago
      You might consider reaching out to that family and exploring if you can be friends without the relationship that brought them into your orbit. No downside to asking.
      - hestipod 7y ago
        I live in a different country now and it's difficult to maintain long distance relationships in the best circumstances. When I lived there and saw them on the street (I lived nearby) it was always nice and they are wonderful people, but there was no way to have a relationship beyond that as my ex, the replacement relationship, and child that followed, were their family then, not me. It's always in the back of my mind as I adored the family and they treated me like one of them. It's just how it goes.
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  In my family and extended family, we keep parents with the kids as they age so that they’re never alone. Free babysitting too. Requires quite a bit of compromise though, but being able to afford a larger well insulated home helps.
- Loughla 7y ago
  >You are not going to care one bit if you bought that extra widget or got an extra story in on your sprint later in life. Put time into what matters: people It's such a hack premise, but this actually happened to me - my mother used to work in a nursing home, and required all of her kids to volunteer there when they were old enough (12 to 21 if you still lived at home). My job, as the rambunctious ADHD youth was to give 'wheelchair rides'. Which was where I would push the elderly around the grounds looking at trees and what-not, and just generally being an audience while they talked. The one thing that literally everyone I gave a ride to, when the topic inevitably turned to death (it always did, old people are so straight up about it) - the absolute only topic that everyone hit on was that they regretted doing 'x' instead of spending time with 'person y'. I gave wheelchair rides to poor people - who regretted not spending more time with their kids because they were busy working or whatever. I gave wheelchair rides to rich people - who regretted not spending more time with their kids because they were busy working or whatever. And that made me into the 'I will work only 40 if that's what is required of me' beast that I am today. In my area of the US, we have a very 1950's 'work until you can't anymore' sort of mentality; the kind where work defines you. I have left several positions in my career because they refused to understand that my time at home with family and friends is more important than my time at work, and that my time is so much more important to me than any financial incentive they could offer past my base salary.
whateveracct 7y ago
> Most adults I know have a relationship with their immediate family that I would regard as acquaintanceship. America is also _big_, which I think also contributes here. It isn't unusual for family members to move away within America but be far enough that frequent face-to-face interaction isn't possible.
- BurningFrog 7y ago
  But moving away is a choice to abandon your family.
  - mocha_nate 7y ago
    “abandon” is an interesting word choice. Moving isn’t always about moving away from something, sometimes it’s about moving towards a happy prospect. Your family could respect the action.
    - BurningFrog 7y ago
      Yeah, I shouldn't have used such a loaded word.
    - FiddlerClamp 7y ago
      Sometimes moving away is abandoning your family...or burdening one family member with having to care for elderly parents when nobody else is available.
- zorked 7y ago
  So is Europe, Russia, China, India, Brazil, etc. Moving is an option.
andreilys 7y ago
To live alone one must be either a beast or a god, says Aristotle. Leaving out the third case: one must be both - a philosopher. - Nietzsche
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  How do the logistics of being born alone work? In my experience, at least one other human is required.
- vonseel 7y ago
  I have been living alone for most of the past 5 years. I probably avoid loneliness by spending a ton of time on creative endeavors and artwork, and I am at peace with the solitude and do not need the comfort or attention of others. I have gone months only leaving the house to buy groceries and not visiting family or friends in person (working from home). I do not think an average person would be able to live like this. It takes a certain type of driven, focused personality who can dive into their work or hobbies and be happy with their head below water for a while without seeing anyone. I suspect Aristotle and Nietzsche both had these qualities.
jacobmoe 7y ago
This seems right to me. I would point out that you don't have to live a 20 minute drive from anything to be alone. Loneliness is as much a problem in cities as anywhere else. Also, isn't loneliness also a major issue in other cultures, like Scandinavian or Japanese cultures?
- hrktb 7y ago
  I think Japan has issues of isolation more than loneliness (basically the inverse issue: people shutting down social interactions as flight mechanism)
  - AstralStorm 7y ago
    On top of that you have academic and work achievement put on pedestal. And not, say, being a decent social human being.
- ixtli 7y ago
  This is a very good point and im gonna update my comment. The distance between people physically is just something that really sticks out to me having lived in tokyo and manhattan. My party trick degree is in japanese lit and oh the giant book i could write on this topic. It's complex and yea they have a big loneliness problem.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
I think there's another part of it: It is easier to sell things to people who are discontent, and the human animal is a social one that isn't usually content with isolation. I'm not saying this is some kind of conscious conspiracy, but along with fetishizing rugged individualism America also fetishizes the market. We encourage things that make the amount of money moving around increase, and discourage the opposite.
rev12 7y ago
Very well put. Often when I hear about the older generation of my family, who immigrated and lived in Brooklyn for years before moving to the "burbs", I think they had good intentions but didn't do any favors for the subsequent generations. My parents grew up and stones throw away from grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins - a lot even lived in multi family, multi generational homes. When my mom had kids she had a support system that included people from 3 different generations, all willing to lend a hand. Their social lives revolved around interacting with all different family members, and get together were happening almost daily just because of the inherent (lack of) distance between them all. Now, we all live in the burbs, with long distances between each other. The grandparents see the kids a few times a year and we all have to make concrete plans to have get togethers. Interacting with most extended family is reserved for weddings or funerals and the lack of true support systems takes it toll on all of us. I could possibly be romanticizing the past, but when compared to the current lifestyle, I truly believe it wasn't for the best.
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  It’s a consequence of our inability to predict the future and measure certain gains and losses. It’s easy to measure safety, comfort, convenience of single family detached homes with garages. It’s difficult to measure benefits of community and family, except perhaps the cost of babysitting versus leaving with grandparents. Not only is it hard to measure, but the trade offs are hard to compare and so we end up going with the easy, obvious choices.
- JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
  My parents lived around all of their siblings. They're close, they make a point of seeing each other regularly. My generation? We all live in different states. I worry once my parents are gone, that the fabric of my family will no longer exist, because nobody puts the work into keeping us all together. When we do see eachother, it's because we have a meeting point (parent's home) and a holiday (e.g., Christmas) or something.
  - cylinder 7y ago
    The hustler culture indicts us to a life of packing up and moving across the country just for a marginally better job offer or degree or cheaper mansions. You see this even on comment threads here discussing where to live in the US. People "shop" for the best city right now to move to because it has cheaper housing or taxes or whatever. Scan the entire thread and you don't see being close to family or community roots ever mentioned.
MiroF 7y ago
Guys, you need to move the frick out of the suburbs. They're soul-killing. Cities are also atomized, but not to this extent. They're vibrant, booming, the schools are fine/good, and in my opinion, far worth the cut to house size.
- taborj 7y ago
  Suburbs can be soul-killing for some people. Personally, I find cities to be excessively busy and annoying, full of folks I generally don't want to be around socially. But I'm an introvert, who enjoys being away from the crowds. I personally find suburbs to be a bit too crowded, if I'm honest. I don't need a big house - I just need big personal space; I prefer my small 1000sq ft house, but I wish it was in the middle of a few acres.
- nkingsy 7y ago
  In the suburbs I have many neighbors in similar life situations to me. With minimal effort I can make friends with people a block away with kids the same ages as mine. Just go to a park and start a conversation I’m finding modern life requires tribal flexibility
- twoheadedboy 7y ago
  Completely disagree. I don't think humans are meant to live in cities. Something about being around that many people and ongoings makes me and from what I can tell a lot of other people, on edge so to speak. I grew up in a suburb and it was not at all isolating. We had close communities and nearby family. I was friends with kids on my block and had freedom to explore and be independent. I would say technology is what is driving people to isolation.
  - brlewis 7y ago
    Does your first paragraph apply to smaller cities like Boston?
    - war1025 7y ago
      As someone from the Midwest, I'm very amused by your categorization of Boston as a "smaller city". Edit: For reference, this [1] was the "big city" to me growing up. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mason_City,_Iowa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mason_City,_Iowa
shoes_for_thee 7y ago
> (Americans fetishize a sort of "rugged individualism" where you alone can solve every problem you're faced with or else it's not a real problem) Nearly any attempt paint American Culture with broad strokes is going to fail.. but using absolute terms like you're doing here A) is wildly inaccurate, and B) negatively portrays a pretty neutral personal ideology. I value individualism for the same reasons I devalue conformity -- I generally want to be left to my own devices to do pretty much whatever I want. This trope about detrementally fetishizing rugged individualism, which is unbelievably common and doesn't seem to ever be subject to a skeptical eye, is a subtle dig at people who want what I want: To be left alone and to be free.
- taborj 7y ago
  Yes, thank you! This is exactly right.
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  I don’t think it negatively portrays any ideology. No one is alone in this world, and no one’s actions happen in a vacuum. The consequences can not be contained to those who commit the action, so while you might want to be left alone and free, the world you live in doesn’t allow for it. There are compromises to be had between freedom and lack of freedom for the benefit of the community.
  - hestipod 7y ago
    >The consequences can not be contained to those who >commit the action, so while you might want to be left >alone and free, the world you live in doesn’t allow for >it. Also nobody does it all alone, with the possible exception of some rare frontiersman who chops down trees and builds his own house in some wilderness. People want to be left alone, but still use the benefits of society that suit them. People aren't as independent as they imagine but want to feel as such. I live amongst people who happily use services and comforts and infrastructure, but take every opportunity to attack the communal systems that create them as evil and have some idea it should be hundreds of millions of individuals doing what they want how they want.
- deleted 7y ago
BurningFrog 7y ago
> Part of this is culture (Americans fetishize a sort of "rugged individualism"... I seriously doubt it. I think all modern rich cultures have this. Sweden certainly does. As everyone gets rich enough to get your own house, you end up lonely, as you're no longer naturally interacting with others, since you don't need to.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
  Huh. Maybe its paradox of choice then? In our past we were pretty much forced into a community, and this is still largely true of the impoverished, but once you have a certain amount of wealth you're able to choose your community, and so PoC kicks in and paralyzes you.
  - homonculus1 7y ago
    No need to tarnish this discussion with disgusting racial paranoia
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
      ...what the fuck are you talking about?
      - hestipod 7y ago
        I think they took PoC to mean "Person of Color" rather than whatever the parent comment meant, which I think was quite clearly not that.
        AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
        I can buy that. I thought it would be obvious what I meant from simply having read the words "paradox of choice" earlier in the sentence. Of course, that doesn't explain how anyone could have seriously thought that "Person of Color" made any sense at all in this context...
cwperkins 7y ago
I see you say you’ve lived in America and it sounds like you’ve emigrated. May I ask why? I’m also from America and this couldn’t be further from my own experience. I come from a more religious family from the Midwest, but grew up in the suburbs of nyc. Through my community I’ve never felt alone and my dad is actively involved in the church. In nyc amongst the yuppies especially I see a dog eat dog mentality and how everyone is fighting for themselves. But once I step out of the hustle and bustle and go back home, I have the community that is there for me and our family. I don’t intend for this post to be an advertisement for the church, but I think in America it will be more and more important to form a community aspect, like a church, but not a church where people feel like they belong and get to know their neighbors. Without knowing your neighbors and community it’s easy to feel isolated.
- PopeDotNinja 7y ago
  I had a friend who moved to Texas with his family to take a job. He didn't go to church, and said that alone made it pretty hard to make friends there. He moved back to CA for that reason. So I guess going to church is one way to make friends, if you're into that.
- hestipod 7y ago
  I am not OP but I will answer as I have relevant experience. I grew up in Midwestern US suburbs and rural areas and find the problems he/she mentioned to be accurate. "Church" is always trotted out by people there as THE community but not everyone is a religious person or finds that arrangement suitable. Transportation is a huge problem regardless as there are no buses or trams or trains in large swaths of the country. Culture, politics, and lifestyles in the bulk of the Midwest, while possibly ideal for you or others, are NOT for equally as many people. My "neighbors" are not nearby, not sociable at all, and not people I would choose to be around anyway for a number of reasons. I have heard your opinion of cities my entire life growing up, and believed them until I lived in one. For me it was life changing and gave me access to people like me and culture I enjoyed and awareness that not everyone had the politics I was told were "correct", and being dragged back here was equally life changing in a negative way.
  - 7y ago
merpnderp 7y ago
Just get to know your neighbors and make an effort to spend time with them, even if it's just a 15 minute chat after work. I've made the effort and am now on weekly hanging out terms with nearly 20 people in my neighborhood. And that's literally just the people within a short bike ride of my place.
- AstralStorm 7y ago
  All the neighbors are working and few are open to socializing. People are way too busy nowadays.
  - war1025 7y ago
    I've found that "busy" people aren't often actually as busy as they say. What it really means is that they don't prioritize you in their life. If someone is interested in doing something, they find a way. The trick is to find the people that are actually interested in being part of your life.
Miner49er 7y ago
Exactly. Cooking your family a meal, or helping your neighbor repair their house doesn't increase the GDP. However, ordering food with Uber and hiring someone to work on your house does. Being involved in your community, helping your neighbors and family, etc, isn't a "productive" activity. Another good example is programming side projects. How many people are looking to make money on their side project? Rather then just help people? Or how many people only have side projects because they feel like they have to in order to stay competitive in the job market? Probably the vast majority. We've developed a culture where we fetishize productivity and always making money. People now feel guilty if they're not busy or productive all the time.
- linuxftw 7y ago
  Nothing fetishized about it at all. The middle class is being destroyed, it's eat or get eaten. Society is more competitive than it's ever been. It's going to get much worse.
- cr0sh 7y ago
  > People now feel guilty if they're not busy or productive all the time. People have forgotten the quality of Slack: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_SubGenius#Conspiracy_and_%22Slack%22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_SubGenius#Conspi...
  - vonseel 7y ago
    TLDR for those of us who aren’t about to read this strange cult-like document?
- coryrc 7y ago
  They don't have to, they're just greedy and "need" to have a new BMW and Lexus every few years, live in fashionable neighborhoods in expensive metros, and have "important" jobs. You don't need that shit in Cleveland.
  - BiosElement 7y ago
rayiner 7y ago
The public transit angle seems like a red herring to me. My wife and I lived in cities for several years after law school. (New York, Baltimore, Philly, DC.) We didn’t feel alone in school, but felt quite alone after we graduated and had a kid. By contrast, now we live in the ‘burbs near my parents, and we feel far less alone than we have for years. We’ve got neighbors with kids we see regularly. We see other parents at school, church, the park, birthday parties, etc. We see my parents multiple times per week. Sure, we have to drive everywhere, but that’s hardly a deal breaker. (I see people more now that I have to drive to see, than friends I had in DC who lived in the same apartment building.)
- cylinder 7y ago
  Yeah I lived in Manhattan, never geographically closer to so many friends and rarely saw them. Everyone's too tired or too scheduled. In the suburbs we were often bored and open to just hanging out and not stressing about optimising our time. I always say the burbs are where new culture is created and the big cities are where it is commercially consumed.
JoeAltmaier 7y ago
Living in the wrong cities. I live in (near) a middle-sized to small city. I can talk to nearly anyone on the street or in a shop, and I often do. I can make faces at strangers' babies and get them to smile, and get a smile back from the parent. I imagine if I cried "Is there a doctor here who can help?" while standing over an injured person, two or three people in the immediate vicinity would instantly respond (if they weren't already hurrying to the scene). Yes big cities can be alienating. That's why I opted out.
your-nanny 7y ago
I just want to pipe in here and mention that there is lots of evidence that Americans are moving around far less than they used to, and this has economist worried because of its implications for economic mobility. See: https://www.npr.org/2017/08/04/541675186/fewer-americans-are-moving-to-pursue-better-jobs-across-the-nation https://www.npr.org/2017/08/04/541675186/fewer-americans-are... Andrew Yang has even made that part of his policy platform.
dade_ 7y ago
Toronto is easily the worst city in Canada for this, but also has transit so I don't think that is the cause. Something broken in western culture, but I think it is a combination of factors.
lr4444lr 7y ago
I sympathize with your general sentiment, but your Manhattan example is a glaring contradiction to your point that this has anything to do with public transit options, the lack of which I do not think has anything to do with the alienation you describe.
cylinder 7y ago
They're even alone as babies. Americans have this weird obsession with putting babies to sleep in separate rooms as soon as possible, including newborns, as if this develops some rugged independence. All the research (and common sense) shows they need to sleep as close to the mother as safely possible. Yet this mentality persists. And then the move to kick them out of the house at 18, why?
- 0942v8653 7y ago
  18 is a good age to begin the transition from being dependent on parents to bearing responsibilities themselves. Keeping the kids in the house too much longer than that can make it more difficult for them to adapt.
- paulryanrogers 7y ago
  Really, babies need to sleep next to parent? https://edition-m.cnn.com/2016/05/24/health/cry-it-out-sleep-training-ok/index.html https://edition-m.cnn.com/2016/05/24/health/cry-it-out-sleep...

by ixtli 7y ago

toomuchtodo 7y ago

I agree entirely with this. I can only speak for myself and my wife (mid 30s), but we are making active efforts to combat this in our family and social circle. Our house is large enough to take in parents (parents still have hangups about how "they should be able to take care of themselves and live by themselves"; we'll be waiting if and when they change their mind), extended family, and friends, we host family dinners once a week (family friends are invited, all are welcome), and we prioritize interpersonal relationships over material possession acquisition and meaningless work (some possessions are required, and not all work is meaningless, but I hope I got my point across). Fighting loneliness requires active effort. You are not going to care one bit if you bought that extra widget or got an extra story in on your sprint later in life. Put time into what matters: people.

ixtli 7y ago
There might not even be anything you can do if its systemic! Honestly as I get older (im 32) i find how fucking lucky i was to have been brought up in a really really strong family (half is italian, half is european jewish.) Its amazing the degree to which this has helped me be a normal person with good coping mechanisms.
- AstralStorm 7y ago
  Similar. I got to meet most of extended family at least once, some relatively often. We're spread out but in clusters. This helps if anyone wants to move and it helps keep in touch. (Some went to another country, we haven't heard much of them - distance can still be a barrier and culture in Western Europe is different.)
- hestipod 7y ago
  I've always been envious of such families. Only one person in my family was really a quality person, and he passed long ago. I moved abroad for a time to a country where families are closer and while it was exhausting and intense in it's own way after my childhood, it was amazingly "safe" feeling. The relationship that brought me into that fold is gone, and while I don't miss my partner, I miss those people in their family greatly.
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    You might consider reaching out to that family and exploring if you can be friends without the relationship that brought them into your orbit. No downside to asking.
    - hestipod 7y ago
      I live in a different country now and it's difficult to maintain long distance relationships in the best circumstances. When I lived there and saw them on the street (I lived nearby) it was always nice and they are wonderful people, but there was no way to have a relationship beyond that as my ex, the replacement relationship, and child that followed, were their family then, not me. It's always in the back of my mind as I adored the family and they treated me like one of them. It's just how it goes.
lotsofpulp 7y ago
In my family and extended family, we keep parents with the kids as they age so that they’re never alone. Free babysitting too. Requires quite a bit of compromise though, but being able to afford a larger well insulated home helps.
Loughla 7y ago
>You are not going to care one bit if you bought that extra widget or got an extra story in on your sprint later in life. Put time into what matters: people It's such a hack premise, but this actually happened to me - my mother used to work in a nursing home, and required all of her kids to volunteer there when they were old enough (12 to 21 if you still lived at home). My job, as the rambunctious ADHD youth was to give 'wheelchair rides'. Which was where I would push the elderly around the grounds looking at trees and what-not, and just generally being an audience while they talked. The one thing that literally everyone I gave a ride to, when the topic inevitably turned to death (it always did, old people are so straight up about it) - the absolute only topic that everyone hit on was that they regretted doing 'x' instead of spending time with 'person y'. I gave wheelchair rides to poor people - who regretted not spending more time with their kids because they were busy working or whatever. I gave wheelchair rides to rich people - who regretted not spending more time with their kids because they were busy working or whatever. And that made me into the 'I will work only 40 if that's what is required of me' beast that I am today. In my area of the US, we have a very 1950's 'work until you can't anymore' sort of mentality; the kind where work defines you. I have left several positions in my career because they refused to understand that my time at home with family and friends is more important than my time at work, and that my time is so much more important to me than any financial incentive they could offer past my base salary.

whateveracct 7y ago

> Most adults I know have a relationship with their immediate family that I would regard as acquaintanceship. America is also _big_, which I think also contributes here. It isn't unusual for family members to move away within America but be far enough that frequent face-to-face interaction isn't possible.

BurningFrog 7y ago
But moving away is a choice to abandon your family.
- mocha_nate 7y ago
  “abandon” is an interesting word choice. Moving isn’t always about moving away from something, sometimes it’s about moving towards a happy prospect. Your family could respect the action.
  - BurningFrog 7y ago
    Yeah, I shouldn't have used such a loaded word.
  - FiddlerClamp 7y ago
    Sometimes moving away is abandoning your family...or burdening one family member with having to care for elderly parents when nobody else is available.
zorked 7y ago
So is Europe, Russia, China, India, Brazil, etc. Moving is an option.

andreilys 7y ago

To live alone one must be either a beast or a god, says Aristotle. Leaving out the third case: one must be both - a philosopher. - Nietzsche

lotsofpulp 7y ago
How do the logistics of being born alone work? In my experience, at least one other human is required.
vonseel 7y ago
I have been living alone for most of the past 5 years. I probably avoid loneliness by spending a ton of time on creative endeavors and artwork, and I am at peace with the solitude and do not need the comfort or attention of others. I have gone months only leaving the house to buy groceries and not visiting family or friends in person (working from home). I do not think an average person would be able to live like this. It takes a certain type of driven, focused personality who can dive into their work or hobbies and be happy with their head below water for a while without seeing anyone. I suspect Aristotle and Nietzsche both had these qualities.

jacobmoe 7y ago

This seems right to me. I would point out that you don't have to live a 20 minute drive from anything to be alone. Loneliness is as much a problem in cities as anywhere else. Also, isn't loneliness also a major issue in other cultures, like Scandinavian or Japanese cultures?

hrktb 7y ago
I think Japan has issues of isolation more than loneliness (basically the inverse issue: people shutting down social interactions as flight mechanism)
- AstralStorm 7y ago
  On top of that you have academic and work achievement put on pedestal. And not, say, being a decent social human being.
ixtli 7y ago
This is a very good point and im gonna update my comment. The distance between people physically is just something that really sticks out to me having lived in tokyo and manhattan. My party trick degree is in japanese lit and oh the giant book i could write on this topic. It's complex and yea they have a big loneliness problem.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago

I think there's another part of it: It is easier to sell things to people who are discontent, and the human animal is a social one that isn't usually content with isolation. I'm not saying this is some kind of conscious conspiracy, but along with fetishizing rugged individualism America also fetishizes the market. We encourage things that make the amount of money moving around increase, and discourage the opposite.

rev12 7y ago

Very well put. Often when I hear about the older generation of my family, who immigrated and lived in Brooklyn for years before moving to the "burbs", I think they had good intentions but didn't do any favors for the subsequent generations. My parents grew up and stones throw away from grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins - a lot even lived in multi family, multi generational homes. When my mom had kids she had a support system that included people from 3 different generations, all willing to lend a hand. Their social lives revolved around interacting with all different family members, and get together were happening almost daily just because of the inherent (lack of) distance between them all. Now, we all live in the burbs, with long distances between each other. The grandparents see the kids a few times a year and we all have to make concrete plans to have get togethers. Interacting with most extended family is reserved for weddings or funerals and the lack of true support systems takes it toll on all of us. I could possibly be romanticizing the past, but when compared to the current lifestyle, I truly believe it wasn't for the best.

lotsofpulp 7y ago
It’s a consequence of our inability to predict the future and measure certain gains and losses. It’s easy to measure safety, comfort, convenience of single family detached homes with garages. It’s difficult to measure benefits of community and family, except perhaps the cost of babysitting versus leaving with grandparents. Not only is it hard to measure, but the trade offs are hard to compare and so we end up going with the easy, obvious choices.
JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
My parents lived around all of their siblings. They're close, they make a point of seeing each other regularly. My generation? We all live in different states. I worry once my parents are gone, that the fabric of my family will no longer exist, because nobody puts the work into keeping us all together. When we do see eachother, it's because we have a meeting point (parent's home) and a holiday (e.g., Christmas) or something.
- cylinder 7y ago
  The hustler culture indicts us to a life of packing up and moving across the country just for a marginally better job offer or degree or cheaper mansions. You see this even on comment threads here discussing where to live in the US. People "shop" for the best city right now to move to because it has cheaper housing or taxes or whatever. Scan the entire thread and you don't see being close to family or community roots ever mentioned.

MiroF 7y ago

Guys, you need to move the frick out of the suburbs. They're soul-killing. Cities are also atomized, but not to this extent. They're vibrant, booming, the schools are fine/good, and in my opinion, far worth the cut to house size.

taborj 7y ago
Suburbs can be soul-killing for some people. Personally, I find cities to be excessively busy and annoying, full of folks I generally don't want to be around socially. But I'm an introvert, who enjoys being away from the crowds. I personally find suburbs to be a bit too crowded, if I'm honest. I don't need a big house - I just need big personal space; I prefer my small 1000sq ft house, but I wish it was in the middle of a few acres.
nkingsy 7y ago
In the suburbs I have many neighbors in similar life situations to me. With minimal effort I can make friends with people a block away with kids the same ages as mine. Just go to a park and start a conversation I’m finding modern life requires tribal flexibility
twoheadedboy 7y ago
Completely disagree. I don't think humans are meant to live in cities. Something about being around that many people and ongoings makes me and from what I can tell a lot of other people, on edge so to speak. I grew up in a suburb and it was not at all isolating. We had close communities and nearby family. I was friends with kids on my block and had freedom to explore and be independent. I would say technology is what is driving people to isolation.
- brlewis 7y ago
  Does your first paragraph apply to smaller cities like Boston?
  - war1025 7y ago
    As someone from the Midwest, I'm very amused by your categorization of Boston as a "smaller city". Edit: For reference, this [1] was the "big city" to me growing up. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mason_City,_Iowa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mason_City,_Iowa

shoes_for_thee 7y ago

> (Americans fetishize a sort of "rugged individualism" where you alone can solve every problem you're faced with or else it's not a real problem) Nearly any attempt paint American Culture with broad strokes is going to fail.. but using absolute terms like you're doing here A) is wildly inaccurate, and B) negatively portrays a pretty neutral personal ideology. I value individualism for the same reasons I devalue conformity -- I generally want to be left to my own devices to do pretty much whatever I want. This trope about detrementally fetishizing rugged individualism, which is unbelievably common and doesn't seem to ever be subject to a skeptical eye, is a subtle dig at people who want what I want: To be left alone and to be free.

taborj 7y ago
Yes, thank you! This is exactly right.
lotsofpulp 7y ago
I don’t think it negatively portrays any ideology. No one is alone in this world, and no one’s actions happen in a vacuum. The consequences can not be contained to those who commit the action, so while you might want to be left alone and free, the world you live in doesn’t allow for it. There are compromises to be had between freedom and lack of freedom for the benefit of the community.
- hestipod 7y ago
  >The consequences can not be contained to those who >commit the action, so while you might want to be left >alone and free, the world you live in doesn’t allow for >it. Also nobody does it all alone, with the possible exception of some rare frontiersman who chops down trees and builds his own house in some wilderness. People want to be left alone, but still use the benefits of society that suit them. People aren't as independent as they imagine but want to feel as such. I live amongst people who happily use services and comforts and infrastructure, but take every opportunity to attack the communal systems that create them as evil and have some idea it should be hundreds of millions of individuals doing what they want how they want.
deleted 7y ago

BurningFrog 7y ago

> Part of this is culture (Americans fetishize a sort of "rugged individualism"... I seriously doubt it. I think all modern rich cultures have this. Sweden certainly does. As everyone gets rich enough to get your own house, you end up lonely, as you're no longer naturally interacting with others, since you don't need to.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
Huh. Maybe its paradox of choice then? In our past we were pretty much forced into a community, and this is still largely true of the impoverished, but once you have a certain amount of wealth you're able to choose your community, and so PoC kicks in and paralyzes you.
- homonculus1 7y ago
  No need to tarnish this discussion with disgusting racial paranoia
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
    ...what the fuck are you talking about?
    - hestipod 7y ago
      I think they took PoC to mean "Person of Color" rather than whatever the parent comment meant, which I think was quite clearly not that.
      - AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
        I can buy that. I thought it would be obvious what I meant from simply having read the words "paradox of choice" earlier in the sentence. Of course, that doesn't explain how anyone could have seriously thought that "Person of Color" made any sense at all in this context...

cwperkins 7y ago

I see you say you’ve lived in America and it sounds like you’ve emigrated. May I ask why? I’m also from America and this couldn’t be further from my own experience. I come from a more religious family from the Midwest, but grew up in the suburbs of nyc. Through my community I’ve never felt alone and my dad is actively involved in the church. In nyc amongst the yuppies especially I see a dog eat dog mentality and how everyone is fighting for themselves. But once I step out of the hustle and bustle and go back home, I have the community that is there for me and our family. I don’t intend for this post to be an advertisement for the church, but I think in America it will be more and more important to form a community aspect, like a church, but not a church where people feel like they belong and get to know their neighbors. Without knowing your neighbors and community it’s easy to feel isolated.

PopeDotNinja 7y ago
I had a friend who moved to Texas with his family to take a job. He didn't go to church, and said that alone made it pretty hard to make friends there. He moved back to CA for that reason. So I guess going to church is one way to make friends, if you're into that.
hestipod 7y ago
I am not OP but I will answer as I have relevant experience. I grew up in Midwestern US suburbs and rural areas and find the problems he/she mentioned to be accurate. "Church" is always trotted out by people there as THE community but not everyone is a religious person or finds that arrangement suitable. Transportation is a huge problem regardless as there are no buses or trams or trains in large swaths of the country. Culture, politics, and lifestyles in the bulk of the Midwest, while possibly ideal for you or others, are NOT for equally as many people. My "neighbors" are not nearby, not sociable at all, and not people I would choose to be around anyway for a number of reasons. I have heard your opinion of cities my entire life growing up, and believed them until I lived in one. For me it was life changing and gave me access to people like me and culture I enjoyed and awareness that not everyone had the politics I was told were "correct", and being dragged back here was equally life changing in a negative way.
- 7y ago

merpnderp 7y ago

Just get to know your neighbors and make an effort to spend time with them, even if it's just a 15 minute chat after work. I've made the effort and am now on weekly hanging out terms with nearly 20 people in my neighborhood. And that's literally just the people within a short bike ride of my place.

AstralStorm 7y ago
All the neighbors are working and few are open to socializing. People are way too busy nowadays.
- war1025 7y ago
  I've found that "busy" people aren't often actually as busy as they say. What it really means is that they don't prioritize you in their life. If someone is interested in doing something, they find a way. The trick is to find the people that are actually interested in being part of your life.

Miner49er 7y ago

Exactly. Cooking your family a meal, or helping your neighbor repair their house doesn't increase the GDP. However, ordering food with Uber and hiring someone to work on your house does. Being involved in your community, helping your neighbors and family, etc, isn't a "productive" activity. Another good example is programming side projects. How many people are looking to make money on their side project? Rather then just help people? Or how many people only have side projects because they feel like they have to in order to stay competitive in the job market? Probably the vast majority. We've developed a culture where we fetishize productivity and always making money. People now feel guilty if they're not busy or productive all the time.

linuxftw 7y ago
Nothing fetishized about it at all. The middle class is being destroyed, it's eat or get eaten. Society is more competitive than it's ever been. It's going to get much worse.
cr0sh 7y ago
> People now feel guilty if they're not busy or productive all the time. People have forgotten the quality of Slack: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_SubGenius#Conspiracy_and_%22Slack%22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_SubGenius#Conspi...
- vonseel 7y ago
  TLDR for those of us who aren’t about to read this strange cult-like document?
coryrc 7y ago
They don't have to, they're just greedy and "need" to have a new BMW and Lexus every few years, live in fashionable neighborhoods in expensive metros, and have "important" jobs. You don't need that shit in Cleveland.
- BiosElement 7y ago

rayiner 7y ago

The public transit angle seems like a red herring to me. My wife and I lived in cities for several years after law school. (New York, Baltimore, Philly, DC.) We didn’t feel alone in school, but felt quite alone after we graduated and had a kid. By contrast, now we live in the ‘burbs near my parents, and we feel far less alone than we have for years. We’ve got neighbors with kids we see regularly. We see other parents at school, church, the park, birthday parties, etc. We see my parents multiple times per week. Sure, we have to drive everywhere, but that’s hardly a deal breaker. (I see people more now that I have to drive to see, than friends I had in DC who lived in the same apartment building.)

cylinder 7y ago
Yeah I lived in Manhattan, never geographically closer to so many friends and rarely saw them. Everyone's too tired or too scheduled. In the suburbs we were often bored and open to just hanging out and not stressing about optimising our time. I always say the burbs are where new culture is created and the big cities are where it is commercially consumed.

JoeAltmaier 7y ago

Living in the wrong cities. I live in (near) a middle-sized to small city. I can talk to nearly anyone on the street or in a shop, and I often do. I can make faces at strangers' babies and get them to smile, and get a smile back from the parent. I imagine if I cried "Is there a doctor here who can help?" while standing over an injured person, two or three people in the immediate vicinity would instantly respond (if they weren't already hurrying to the scene). Yes big cities can be alienating. That's why I opted out.

your-nanny 7y ago

I just want to pipe in here and mention that there is lots of evidence that Americans are moving around far less than they used to, and this has economist worried because of its implications for economic mobility. See: https://www.npr.org/2017/08/04/541675186/fewer-americans-are-moving-to-pursue-better-jobs-across-the-nation https://www.npr.org/2017/08/04/541675186/fewer-americans-are... Andrew Yang has even made that part of his policy platform.

dade_ 7y ago

Toronto is easily the worst city in Canada for this, but also has transit so I don't think that is the cause. Something broken in western culture, but I think it is a combination of factors.

lr4444lr 7y ago

I sympathize with your general sentiment, but your Manhattan example is a glaring contradiction to your point that this has anything to do with public transit options, the lack of which I do not think has anything to do with the alienation you describe.

cylinder 7y ago

They're even alone as babies. Americans have this weird obsession with putting babies to sleep in separate rooms as soon as possible, including newborns, as if this develops some rugged independence. All the research (and common sense) shows they need to sleep as close to the mother as safely possible. Yet this mentality persists. And then the move to kick them out of the house at 18, why?

0942v8653 7y ago
18 is a good age to begin the transition from being dependent on parents to bearing responsibilities themselves. Keeping the kids in the house too much longer than that can make it more difficult for them to adapt.
paulryanrogers 7y ago
Really, babies need to sleep next to parent? https://edition-m.cnn.com/2016/05/24/health/cry-it-out-sleep-training-ok/index.html https://edition-m.cnn.com/2016/05/24/health/cry-it-out-sleep...