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This will boil down to the cost of a human life at the end of the day, not unlike the speed limit debate where we know cars kill a bunch of people every year, a

This will boil down to the cost of a human life at the end of the day, not unlike the speed limit debate where we know cars kill a bunch of people every year, and yet people want to get places 5 minutes faster. Historically, the cost of a human life has mostly been low but was offset by a sense of community. We've gotten rid of community by allowing people to migrate in large numbers. Migrate from state to state, from country to country, from job to job, from marriage to marriage, from casual sex partner to casual sex partner. All this migration makes it difficult to create lifelong bonds and without those, you really are screwed in the ways the twitter thread describes. It's uncomfortable and our current political and mass media setup makes it impossible to have long form conversations on these topics - so I just don't know how things can possibly get better for the average citizen. Sad.

geofft 7y ago
On the other hand, allowing people to migrate from marriage to marriage lets them create lifelong bonds that actually help them when their first partner turns out to be callous and uncaring. And there's nothing forcing people to migrate if they're happy with their current community. It's true that the old system was better for some people - e.g., callous and uncaring partners got to have someone obligated to keep taking care of them. I suppose it's a tradeoff.
caconym_ 7y ago
I think you're confusing "allowing people to do what they want" with "institutionalizing socioeconomic factors that push people apart and keep them there". When you have to drive 2 hours each way to and from the city every day to work your minimum-wage janitorial job in a tech office, how much time do you have left over to help build a community? When you're stressed to the breaking point, staring down the barrels of a hundred different problems without the money and/or time to solve all of them, depressed and anxious and not sleeping, how much time and energy do you have left over to build a community? These problems stem from the same root as those described in OP's link: a government that doesn't care about its citizenry, and corporations taking advantage of that fact to squeeze workers for all they're worth in order to enrich a very few at the top. But sure, let's prevent people from seeking better opportunities outside of their current abusive relationships with individuals and corporations. Great—that'll really level the playing field. I think you really hit the nail on the head!

geofft 7y ago

On the other hand, allowing people to migrate from marriage to marriage lets them create lifelong bonds that actually help them when their first partner turns out to be callous and uncaring. And there's nothing forcing people to migrate if they're happy with their current community. It's true that the old system was better for some people - e.g., callous and uncaring partners got to have someone obligated to keep taking care of them. I suppose it's a tradeoff.

caconym_ 7y ago

I think you're confusing "allowing people to do what they want" with "institutionalizing socioeconomic factors that push people apart and keep them there". When you have to drive 2 hours each way to and from the city every day to work your minimum-wage janitorial job in a tech office, how much time do you have left over to help build a community? When you're stressed to the breaking point, staring down the barrels of a hundred different problems without the money and/or time to solve all of them, depressed and anxious and not sleeping, how much time and energy do you have left over to build a community? These problems stem from the same root as those described in OP's link: a government that doesn't care about its citizenry, and corporations taking advantage of that fact to squeeze workers for all they're worth in order to enrich a very few at the top. But sure, let's prevent people from seeking better opportunities outside of their current abusive relationships with individuals and corporations. Great—that'll really level the playing field. I think you really hit the nail on the head!