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Honestly does anybody NOT feel alienated in our current society? The US is overly hostile, we imported the whole world and all its cultural hangups with it. I m

Honestly does anybody NOT feel alienated in our current society? The US is overly hostile, we imported the whole world and all its cultural hangups with it. I mean if you're white people are shitting on you, if you're black people are shitting on you, if you're male people are shitting on you, if you're female people are shitting on you... like what exactly is this country FOR? Does anybody REALLY feel like they belong in America? Maybe the rich?

RobertRoberts 5y ago
Not where I live, rural America. All the insanity is _literally_ in the big cities. There are minorities out here and we all get along just fine. It's political groups and the media that get people whipped up into hatred for each other, not individuals or communities. The times have changed, and the media and agitators (no better term?) that don't want to admit they are part of the problem.
- Svperstar 5y ago
  >There are minorities out here and we all get along just fine. I wonder if we talked to minorities in rural communities if they would agree with your assessment.
  - xvedejas 5y ago
    I think they would, but mostly just because of selection effects. There aren't so many minorities in rural areas, and the ones that end up there probably had better-than-usual reasons to end up in rural parts.
    - MisterBastahrd 5y ago
      I've lived in rural areas and they would say that when you get called "the good colored folk" by the white people in the area that there's a reason for that "good" description and it's not because they believe in racial equality.
  - adamrezich 5y ago
    it's difficult to imagine parts of the world being different than the part of the world you live in and/or the depiction of the world portrayed by the media.
  - RobertRoberts 5y ago
    That is a great idea. I have found that people that don't like being questioned/challenged have something to hide like a con-man or someone selling fake luxury goods.
    - setpatchaddress 5y ago
      Spoiler alert: I have done this and they disagree with you. Look, everything is contextual -- your rural area may be superior in some respects to the ones I've been to. But you also shouldn't assume that your experience is universal. Edited to add: if you haven't been to a big city in a while, you should take a trip. They're not generally the hellholes you've been led to believe by right-wing news media.
      - RobertRoberts 5y ago
        I've had to drive around riots coming home living in a big city. With life/limb threatened by both police and rioters. Never once came close in rural America, ever.
  - tejtm 5y ago
    In my experience rural Americans tend to live in abject terror of just how fine they would feel were they treated as they treat minorities and it is compounded by a deep down understanding they are already the minority, it just has not arrived there yet. I wish I could alleviate their fear. Given the opportunity, people are people, good & bad do not stratify in any meaningful way along the arbitrary lines that get drawn.
  - TimedToasts 5y ago
    I am and I would.
    - notriddle 5y ago
      I used to live in rural America. I don't any more. There are reasons for that. Cities usually kill people by ignoring them until they die. Exceptions are so rare that they become the stuff of history books. The big upside of cities is that nobody cares enough about you to actually hate you. If you're running away from something, that can be pretty inviting.
- Stronico 5y ago
  It can be nice in big cities too, maybe a little harder, but still pretty easy - all you have to do is remove social media and the clickbait/outrage web and life becomes pretty normal.
  - Zababa 5y ago
    I'm not sure it does. I see weird people in the subway most days, I see all the time people that look like they spend all their day being outside - doing nothing, there are people making noise at 2 am on a week night, there are people going at crazy speeds on the street, at night or during the day. I feel like lots of people have some kind of weight on their shoulder, and/or one or multiple things bothering them a lot. Sometimes the atmoshpere feels a bit tense and everyone seems a little crazy. I think it's a bit reductive to put all that on social media and the web. People are packed together in cities, sometimes you smell piss while going to and getting back from your job, sometimes people make noise when you want to sleep, it's hard to see nature, it's hard to be alone, it's hard to escape the noise and the light, public transportation can feel suffocating, the air isn't clean, it's very hard to have space to grow some food or practice some hobbies. Most of it is "normal" in that many people live like this. However, I feel like all that I mentionned has a negative impact on my mental health, and on the mental health of the people around me. One that could translate to people being more aggressive, more tense in general.
    - abdabab 5y ago
      > I see weird people in the subway most days, I see all the time people that look like they spend all their day being outside - doing nothing, there are people making noise at 2 am on a week night, there are people going at crazy speeds on the street, at night or during the day. Is it New York?
    - atweiden 5y ago
      > I feel like lots of people have some kind of weight on their shoulder, and/or one or multiple things bothering them a lot. With very few exceptions, there’s nothing healthy or normal about living in chaotic, densely populated urban areas with high crime and endless noise, air and light pollution. In addition, there’s nothing natural about needing to work a bullshit job just to survive. People ought to really start asking what is being afforded exactly when it comes to making city life “affordable”.
- dnissley 5y ago
  This is a very rosy view of rural America, to which I am a frequent visitor. Just a few dysfunctions off the top of my head: - Reactionary politics were born in rural America, urban America is just catching up these days. - The value system of rural America is dismissive of nerdy/intellectual pursuits, and so it drives out talent that was already enticed by the opportunities present in cities. - More broadly there is a kind of pride in being very separate/distinct from the other parts of America, but it seems pretty shallow to me -- the emphasis seems mostly to be on the material trappings of "ruralness" (being a farmer, having a big truck, wearing camo patterns), and not on the values themselves. - And perhaps rolled up in politics, but I feel the need to call it out because I sense it on display in your comment: An eagerness to play the victim to the rest of America. "It's just those city folks that cause all our problems."
  - RobertRoberts 5y ago
    Come live out here for a while, talk with people, understand them. I've lived all over, including LA, east coast, south, Chicago, near the border of Mexico (I worked with illegals there even in sweat shops). Rural America is garden of peace and contentment compared to the urban areas. Your views are admitedly from a visitor... and there is no way you can compare them equally that way. Ignore Foxnews & CNN and get to know rural America before condemning it.
    - MisterBastahrd 5y ago
      No it isn't. People in rural America assume that if you're in rural America then you already believe the exact same things that they do, based largely on skin color. Try living there and going against that grain and see how "peaceful and contented" they are.
      - nitrogen 5y ago
        My experience has been that that's true of the city too, just from the other side.
        5y ago
- Kye 5y ago
  As someone outside a city, I can assure you it's out here too.
cko 5y ago
I know that was a rhetorical question, but I think low-key rich escapes most of the getting shit on.
- lapetitejort 5y ago
  Just wait until the richer guy builds a better rocket, then you'll feel shat upon.
  - ericd 5y ago
    Comparison is the thief of joy. It’s also not necessary.
    - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
      Absolutely. You can never win with comparison, you can only lose. Am I rich? Arguably, yes. Am I richer than my neighbors? Not sure. But if I were, then we move to, Am I richer than anyone in my city? State? Country? World? When you climb, when you get to the point that you win the comparison game, you realize that you were only comparing yourself to a subset, and there's a bigger pond to play in... in which you're currently one of the losers.
      - esyir 5y ago
        A less cancerous comparison (but by no means good) might be to approach this from a statistical/distributions point of view. What quantile of the population do I belong to? Still a comparison, but you set the bounds early. If you have to do the damn thing, whether by quirk of personality or impulse, at least make it explicit.
  - krapp 5y ago
    ...until you get Captain Kirk to ride in your rocket.
  - cko 5y ago
    Haha. Low-key means not trying to build a rocket. Just having excess money but living way below your means.
francisofascii 5y ago
America is a big place. Being alive today allows us to be exposed to a multitude of diverse communities. If you select a particular place or community at random, chances are, you won't fit in. But there probably is a group you DO fit into. The situation today is much better than our ancestors, who were born into a tribe, and were probably stuck living within that tribe.
- kayodelycaon 5y ago
  This. I'm the only person in my extended family who has an artistic/creative personality. Fitting in in a small midwestern city was not an option. I find a few friends in college for a while but graduation separated us. Fortunately, the internet made finding a community to belong possible. Since joining the furry fandom, I haven't been wanting for a place to belong.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - Kye 5y ago
    The furry community is most of the reason I'm holding on these days. Support at a few key moments from Suspiciously Wealthy Furries (not really suspicious, just employed in tech) helped get my life sort of on track.
renewiltord 5y ago
I like America. I used to feel like a foreigner but now I have money and it turns out America likes that.
pedalpete 5y ago
I am not in the US, but I'm a white male in Australia, so very similar culturally, and no, I don't feel alienated in the least. So, I'm hoping you are not a white male, as I don't think we can have the tiniest inkling of what it feels like to be a minority. Even travelling in Asia, where we're clearly a minority, I feel like we know on a global scale that even though we may not be the majority of the population, we hold the majority of influence. So, I don't think we will ever know what it's like. I have curly hair, and I remember my young nieces and nephews being terrified of me. They had never seen curly hair before (well, not a huge afro like I've got). That was my tiny sliver of a taste of being different. But I know, that is nothing, and we still have no idea.
- anon9001 5y ago
  >> Honestly does anybody NOT feel alienated in our current society? > So, I'm hoping you are not a white male, as I don't think we can have the tiniest inkling of what it feels like to be a minority. So GP is suggesting that everyone feels isolated, regardless of race or gender. You reply with "hoping you are not a white male" to this observation. We all know that if GP is a white male, his comment borders on white supremacy. He's saying we've lost what makes America great, and it's all because we opened our borders and gave up cultural homogeneity. What a racist xenophobe! Good on you for calling him out! But if GP is a woman of color, the US being a hostile place makes so much sense. And of course she's trying to figure out who the country is really for, because her experience makes it feel like it's not built for her. It's so brave to be asking these tough questions and challenging the system. Also, are you a white male? Why do you even feel that it's ok for you to weigh in on this topic? The way I see it, your "hoping you are not a white male" comment is culturally expected, and you said it anyway, even though we both know it causes acceleration of conflict. Maybe you're a right-wing accelerationist, but I suspect you're not, which makes your comment even worse, because you're reinforcing their narrative unintentionally. I think that is why IAmWorried is actually worried.
  - pedalpete 5y ago
    I TOTALLY missed that, and DEFINITELY am not a right-wing accelerationist. I don't even know what that is tbh, but it doesn't sound good.
echelon 5y ago
> if you're [...] people are shitting on you Only the identity police do. Most of us don't care. I'm not my race, sexuality, or gender. I'm what I aspire to, what I enjoy, what I dream about, and who I associate with. Turn off Twitter, social media, and the pessimistic news. They're toxic vortices that thrive off negativity and create a distorted, untrue picture of the world. America is still strongly individualistic.
mixmastamyk 5y ago
Turn off the TV and anti-social media, take a walk in the sunshine, and voila.
- Kye 5y ago
  Now I'm tired and still in the exact same situation. Everyone I know is still overworked, underpaid, and has no time or energy to socialize. All social activities still require driving on gas that's $3+/gallon on top of everything costing money.
  - Aloha 5y ago
    This is how I felt before I moved to a place with a lower cost of living, yes, I still need to drive everywhere, but at least I'm not miserable all the time. The pace of life slowed down once I got off of the coast.
    - Kye 5y ago
      Moving costs money that's hard to get when you already can't afford life, and further isolates you until you get integrated into the new community. It's a risky proposition. A lot of people who find themselves homeless got there by moving without being prepared for the other end.
      - Aloha 5y ago
        Yeah, I prepared for moving for a bunch of years before I moved. A bunch of years, as miserable as I was in Seattle, moving away from my safety net was scary. I'm much happier in Dallas, thats as much weather and how different people are here.
  - mixmastamyk 5y ago
    Sounds like you need to cut back, way back. ;-) https://bemorewithless.com/the-story-of-the-mexican-fisherman/ https://bemorewithless.com/the-story-of-the-mexican-fisherma... Walkable neighborhoods exist as well.
redis_mlc 5y ago
[dead]
UncleOxidant 5y ago
America is an alienating place but I don't think it's for the reasons you mention (they play a factor more recently, but alienation has been an American attribute for quite some time - See Bowling Alone by Putnam written in 2000.). What has driven alienation in America? You could make the case for hyper-individualism and that plays a big part. The way our cities are designed also plays a role - mostly they're designed around the automobile which doesn't afford us opportunities to run into people we might know as we walk around. Cars are privacy bubbles that allow us to be isolated as we travel around. Look at a European city. There are often people just chatting on a corner or in a piazza - interaction happens much more often in those contexts because those cities tend to be set up in such a way to allow it to happen. Finally, I think the American fetishization (for lack of a better word) of work plays a role. We Americans tend to define ourselves by the work we do to a larger degree than people in many other parts of the world. Given the isolation that was already there in American culture, along comes social media and initially it kind of looked like it was going to help be an antidote to that isolation - I think a lot of folks wanted out of the isolation and thought that was going to be a way out. But it ends up often making it even worse - and definitely exacerbates the division between tribal groups. Our alienation causes us to want to identify with these tribal groups for a feeling of belonging and these tribes end up "shitting on" other tribes not aligned with them.
- altantiprocrast 5y ago
  > The way our cities are designed also plays a role - mostly they're designed around the automobile + kids who can't drive suffer
musingsole 5y ago
Only those too oblivious or occupied to notice we're all getting smaller by the day.
WalterBright 5y ago
> does anybody NOT feel alienated in our current society? <raises hand> > does anybody NOT feel alienated in our current society? I do not feel alienated. > Does anybody REALLY feel like they belong in America? I do. > what exactly is this country FOR? It's for people who want their fundamental rights guaranteed so they can do whatever they choose to do, like be a rock star, build rockets to go to Mars, race motorcycles, write poetry, etc. It's not for people who want cradle-to-grave security and want someone else to make all the decisions for them. Nor is it for people who want to run other peoples' lives.
- krapp 5y ago
  >It's for people who want their fundamental rights guaranteed so they can do whatever they choose to do, like be a rock star, build rockets to go to Mars, race motorcycles, write poetry, etc. >It's not for people who want cradle-to-grave security and want someone else to make all the decisions for them. Nor is it for people who want to run other peoples' lives. America is only for people who agree with your politics, gotcha.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    I don't care if you believe in Communism with all your heart. But if you try to turn the US into a Communist Utopia, I doubt you'll find fertile ground.
    - krapp 5y ago
      An odd non-sequitur, as I never mentioned Communism, much less professed a belief in it. I also don't see a lot of people trying to turn the US into a "Communist utopia."
- Aloha 5y ago
  I think we still need to fulfill the promise of the New Deal and the Great Society, the Great Society specifically failed because of programs constructed in haste by men with too little knowledge of the real world in which those programs would need to function. We have a huge and growing poverty problem, one the Democrats and Republicans seem to be ignoring, we have to ratchet down misery level, a failure to do so imperils our democracy in the long run. If people don't have resources all the freedom of choice in the world does little good, because you have too few options to chose from, too few paths to take.
krapp 5y ago
>I mean if you're white people are shitting on you, if you're black people are shitting on you, if you're male people are shitting on you, if you're female people are shitting on you... I mean, that's still better than when America was just white men shitting on everyone else. Or to put it in less snarky terms, this is what happens when all of the demographics in a society have the ability to express themselves and wield social and political power, rather than just one.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
FooBarBizBazz 5y ago
> we imported the whole world and all its cultural hangups with it. This is where I think you're wrong. America is creating and exporting cultural hangups. I mean, immigrants believe in the American Dream, not weird French theory or whatever.
gremloni 5y ago
To be fair that’s probably what equality looks like. We are nowhere near equitable levels of being shit on between blacks and whites or men and women though.
azth 5y ago
That's what the woke policies that aim to divide society get you. The question is, how many people are falling for that narrative? I'd wager most people don't care at all if they're not listening to mainstream and social media.

RobertRoberts 5y ago

Not where I live, rural America. All the insanity is _literally_ in the big cities. There are minorities out here and we all get along just fine. It's political groups and the media that get people whipped up into hatred for each other, not individuals or communities. The times have changed, and the media and agitators (no better term?) that don't want to admit they are part of the problem.

Svperstar 5y ago
>There are minorities out here and we all get along just fine. I wonder if we talked to minorities in rural communities if they would agree with your assessment.
- xvedejas 5y ago
  I think they would, but mostly just because of selection effects. There aren't so many minorities in rural areas, and the ones that end up there probably had better-than-usual reasons to end up in rural parts.
  - MisterBastahrd 5y ago
    I've lived in rural areas and they would say that when you get called "the good colored folk" by the white people in the area that there's a reason for that "good" description and it's not because they believe in racial equality.
- adamrezich 5y ago
  it's difficult to imagine parts of the world being different than the part of the world you live in and/or the depiction of the world portrayed by the media.
- RobertRoberts 5y ago
  That is a great idea. I have found that people that don't like being questioned/challenged have something to hide like a con-man or someone selling fake luxury goods.
  - setpatchaddress 5y ago
    Spoiler alert: I have done this and they disagree with you. Look, everything is contextual -- your rural area may be superior in some respects to the ones I've been to. But you also shouldn't assume that your experience is universal. Edited to add: if you haven't been to a big city in a while, you should take a trip. They're not generally the hellholes you've been led to believe by right-wing news media.
    - RobertRoberts 5y ago
      I've had to drive around riots coming home living in a big city. With life/limb threatened by both police and rioters. Never once came close in rural America, ever.
- tejtm 5y ago
  In my experience rural Americans tend to live in abject terror of just how fine they would feel were they treated as they treat minorities and it is compounded by a deep down understanding they are already the minority, it just has not arrived there yet. I wish I could alleviate their fear. Given the opportunity, people are people, good & bad do not stratify in any meaningful way along the arbitrary lines that get drawn.
- TimedToasts 5y ago
  I am and I would.
  - notriddle 5y ago
    I used to live in rural America. I don't any more. There are reasons for that. Cities usually kill people by ignoring them until they die. Exceptions are so rare that they become the stuff of history books. The big upside of cities is that nobody cares enough about you to actually hate you. If you're running away from something, that can be pretty inviting.
Stronico 5y ago
It can be nice in big cities too, maybe a little harder, but still pretty easy - all you have to do is remove social media and the clickbait/outrage web and life becomes pretty normal.
- Zababa 5y ago
  I'm not sure it does. I see weird people in the subway most days, I see all the time people that look like they spend all their day being outside - doing nothing, there are people making noise at 2 am on a week night, there are people going at crazy speeds on the street, at night or during the day. I feel like lots of people have some kind of weight on their shoulder, and/or one or multiple things bothering them a lot. Sometimes the atmoshpere feels a bit tense and everyone seems a little crazy. I think it's a bit reductive to put all that on social media and the web. People are packed together in cities, sometimes you smell piss while going to and getting back from your job, sometimes people make noise when you want to sleep, it's hard to see nature, it's hard to be alone, it's hard to escape the noise and the light, public transportation can feel suffocating, the air isn't clean, it's very hard to have space to grow some food or practice some hobbies. Most of it is "normal" in that many people live like this. However, I feel like all that I mentionned has a negative impact on my mental health, and on the mental health of the people around me. One that could translate to people being more aggressive, more tense in general.
  - abdabab 5y ago
    > I see weird people in the subway most days, I see all the time people that look like they spend all their day being outside - doing nothing, there are people making noise at 2 am on a week night, there are people going at crazy speeds on the street, at night or during the day. Is it New York?
  - atweiden 5y ago
    > I feel like lots of people have some kind of weight on their shoulder, and/or one or multiple things bothering them a lot. With very few exceptions, there’s nothing healthy or normal about living in chaotic, densely populated urban areas with high crime and endless noise, air and light pollution. In addition, there’s nothing natural about needing to work a bullshit job just to survive. People ought to really start asking what is being afforded exactly when it comes to making city life “affordable”.
dnissley 5y ago
This is a very rosy view of rural America, to which I am a frequent visitor. Just a few dysfunctions off the top of my head: - Reactionary politics were born in rural America, urban America is just catching up these days. - The value system of rural America is dismissive of nerdy/intellectual pursuits, and so it drives out talent that was already enticed by the opportunities present in cities. - More broadly there is a kind of pride in being very separate/distinct from the other parts of America, but it seems pretty shallow to me -- the emphasis seems mostly to be on the material trappings of "ruralness" (being a farmer, having a big truck, wearing camo patterns), and not on the values themselves. - And perhaps rolled up in politics, but I feel the need to call it out because I sense it on display in your comment: An eagerness to play the victim to the rest of America. "It's just those city folks that cause all our problems."
- RobertRoberts 5y ago
  Come live out here for a while, talk with people, understand them. I've lived all over, including LA, east coast, south, Chicago, near the border of Mexico (I worked with illegals there even in sweat shops). Rural America is garden of peace and contentment compared to the urban areas. Your views are admitedly from a visitor... and there is no way you can compare them equally that way. Ignore Foxnews & CNN and get to know rural America before condemning it.
  - MisterBastahrd 5y ago
    No it isn't. People in rural America assume that if you're in rural America then you already believe the exact same things that they do, based largely on skin color. Try living there and going against that grain and see how "peaceful and contented" they are.
    - nitrogen 5y ago
      My experience has been that that's true of the city too, just from the other side.
      - 5y ago
Kye 5y ago
As someone outside a city, I can assure you it's out here too.

cko 5y ago

I know that was a rhetorical question, but I think low-key rich escapes most of the getting shit on.

lapetitejort 5y ago
Just wait until the richer guy builds a better rocket, then you'll feel shat upon.
- ericd 5y ago
  Comparison is the thief of joy. It’s also not necessary.
  - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
    Absolutely. You can never win with comparison, you can only lose. Am I rich? Arguably, yes. Am I richer than my neighbors? Not sure. But if I were, then we move to, Am I richer than anyone in my city? State? Country? World? When you climb, when you get to the point that you win the comparison game, you realize that you were only comparing yourself to a subset, and there's a bigger pond to play in... in which you're currently one of the losers.
    - esyir 5y ago
      A less cancerous comparison (but by no means good) might be to approach this from a statistical/distributions point of view. What quantile of the population do I belong to? Still a comparison, but you set the bounds early. If you have to do the damn thing, whether by quirk of personality or impulse, at least make it explicit.
- krapp 5y ago
  ...until you get Captain Kirk to ride in your rocket.
- cko 5y ago
  Haha. Low-key means not trying to build a rocket. Just having excess money but living way below your means.

francisofascii 5y ago

America is a big place. Being alive today allows us to be exposed to a multitude of diverse communities. If you select a particular place or community at random, chances are, you won't fit in. But there probably is a group you DO fit into. The situation today is much better than our ancestors, who were born into a tribe, and were probably stuck living within that tribe.

kayodelycaon 5y ago
This. I'm the only person in my extended family who has an artistic/creative personality. Fitting in in a small midwestern city was not an option. I find a few friends in college for a while but graduation separated us. Fortunately, the internet made finding a community to belong possible. Since joining the furry fandom, I haven't been wanting for a place to belong.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Kye 5y ago
  The furry community is most of the reason I'm holding on these days. Support at a few key moments from Suspiciously Wealthy Furries (not really suspicious, just employed in tech) helped get my life sort of on track.

renewiltord 5y ago

I like America. I used to feel like a foreigner but now I have money and it turns out America likes that.

pedalpete 5y ago

I am not in the US, but I'm a white male in Australia, so very similar culturally, and no, I don't feel alienated in the least. So, I'm hoping you are not a white male, as I don't think we can have the tiniest inkling of what it feels like to be a minority. Even travelling in Asia, where we're clearly a minority, I feel like we know on a global scale that even though we may not be the majority of the population, we hold the majority of influence. So, I don't think we will ever know what it's like. I have curly hair, and I remember my young nieces and nephews being terrified of me. They had never seen curly hair before (well, not a huge afro like I've got). That was my tiny sliver of a taste of being different. But I know, that is nothing, and we still have no idea.

anon9001 5y ago
>> Honestly does anybody NOT feel alienated in our current society? > So, I'm hoping you are not a white male, as I don't think we can have the tiniest inkling of what it feels like to be a minority. So GP is suggesting that everyone feels isolated, regardless of race or gender. You reply with "hoping you are not a white male" to this observation. We all know that if GP is a white male, his comment borders on white supremacy. He's saying we've lost what makes America great, and it's all because we opened our borders and gave up cultural homogeneity. What a racist xenophobe! Good on you for calling him out! But if GP is a woman of color, the US being a hostile place makes so much sense. And of course she's trying to figure out who the country is really for, because her experience makes it feel like it's not built for her. It's so brave to be asking these tough questions and challenging the system. Also, are you a white male? Why do you even feel that it's ok for you to weigh in on this topic? The way I see it, your "hoping you are not a white male" comment is culturally expected, and you said it anyway, even though we both know it causes acceleration of conflict. Maybe you're a right-wing accelerationist, but I suspect you're not, which makes your comment even worse, because you're reinforcing their narrative unintentionally. I think that is why IAmWorried is actually worried.
- pedalpete 5y ago
  I TOTALLY missed that, and DEFINITELY am not a right-wing accelerationist. I don't even know what that is tbh, but it doesn't sound good.

echelon 5y ago

> if you're [...] people are shitting on you Only the identity police do. Most of us don't care. I'm not my race, sexuality, or gender. I'm what I aspire to, what I enjoy, what I dream about, and who I associate with. Turn off Twitter, social media, and the pessimistic news. They're toxic vortices that thrive off negativity and create a distorted, untrue picture of the world. America is still strongly individualistic.

mixmastamyk 5y ago

Turn off the TV and anti-social media, take a walk in the sunshine, and voila.

Kye 5y ago
Now I'm tired and still in the exact same situation. Everyone I know is still overworked, underpaid, and has no time or energy to socialize. All social activities still require driving on gas that's $3+/gallon on top of everything costing money.
- Aloha 5y ago
  This is how I felt before I moved to a place with a lower cost of living, yes, I still need to drive everywhere, but at least I'm not miserable all the time. The pace of life slowed down once I got off of the coast.
  - Kye 5y ago
    Moving costs money that's hard to get when you already can't afford life, and further isolates you until you get integrated into the new community. It's a risky proposition. A lot of people who find themselves homeless got there by moving without being prepared for the other end.
    - Aloha 5y ago
      Yeah, I prepared for moving for a bunch of years before I moved. A bunch of years, as miserable as I was in Seattle, moving away from my safety net was scary. I'm much happier in Dallas, thats as much weather and how different people are here.
- mixmastamyk 5y ago
  Sounds like you need to cut back, way back. ;-) https://bemorewithless.com/the-story-of-the-mexican-fisherman/ https://bemorewithless.com/the-story-of-the-mexican-fisherma... Walkable neighborhoods exist as well.

redis_mlc 5y ago

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UncleOxidant 5y ago

America is an alienating place but I don't think it's for the reasons you mention (they play a factor more recently, but alienation has been an American attribute for quite some time - See Bowling Alone by Putnam written in 2000.). What has driven alienation in America? You could make the case for hyper-individualism and that plays a big part. The way our cities are designed also plays a role - mostly they're designed around the automobile which doesn't afford us opportunities to run into people we might know as we walk around. Cars are privacy bubbles that allow us to be isolated as we travel around. Look at a European city. There are often people just chatting on a corner or in a piazza - interaction happens much more often in those contexts because those cities tend to be set up in such a way to allow it to happen. Finally, I think the American fetishization (for lack of a better word) of work plays a role. We Americans tend to define ourselves by the work we do to a larger degree than people in many other parts of the world. Given the isolation that was already there in American culture, along comes social media and initially it kind of looked like it was going to help be an antidote to that isolation - I think a lot of folks wanted out of the isolation and thought that was going to be a way out. But it ends up often making it even worse - and definitely exacerbates the division between tribal groups. Our alienation causes us to want to identify with these tribal groups for a feeling of belonging and these tribes end up "shitting on" other tribes not aligned with them.

altantiprocrast 5y ago
> The way our cities are designed also plays a role - mostly they're designed around the automobile + kids who can't drive suffer

musingsole 5y ago

Only those too oblivious or occupied to notice we're all getting smaller by the day.

WalterBright 5y ago

> does anybody NOT feel alienated in our current society? <raises hand> > does anybody NOT feel alienated in our current society? I do not feel alienated. > Does anybody REALLY feel like they belong in America? I do. > what exactly is this country FOR? It's for people who want their fundamental rights guaranteed so they can do whatever they choose to do, like be a rock star, build rockets to go to Mars, race motorcycles, write poetry, etc. It's not for people who want cradle-to-grave security and want someone else to make all the decisions for them. Nor is it for people who want to run other peoples' lives.

krapp 5y ago
>It's for people who want their fundamental rights guaranteed so they can do whatever they choose to do, like be a rock star, build rockets to go to Mars, race motorcycles, write poetry, etc. >It's not for people who want cradle-to-grave security and want someone else to make all the decisions for them. Nor is it for people who want to run other peoples' lives. America is only for people who agree with your politics, gotcha.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  I don't care if you believe in Communism with all your heart. But if you try to turn the US into a Communist Utopia, I doubt you'll find fertile ground.
  - krapp 5y ago
    An odd non-sequitur, as I never mentioned Communism, much less professed a belief in it. I also don't see a lot of people trying to turn the US into a "Communist utopia."
Aloha 5y ago
I think we still need to fulfill the promise of the New Deal and the Great Society, the Great Society specifically failed because of programs constructed in haste by men with too little knowledge of the real world in which those programs would need to function. We have a huge and growing poverty problem, one the Democrats and Republicans seem to be ignoring, we have to ratchet down misery level, a failure to do so imperils our democracy in the long run. If people don't have resources all the freedom of choice in the world does little good, because you have too few options to chose from, too few paths to take.

krapp 5y ago

>I mean if you're white people are shitting on you, if you're black people are shitting on you, if you're male people are shitting on you, if you're female people are shitting on you... I mean, that's still better than when America was just white men shitting on everyone else. Or to put it in less snarky terms, this is what happens when all of the demographics in a society have the ability to express themselves and wield social and political power, rather than just one.

deleted 5y ago

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FooBarBizBazz 5y ago

> we imported the whole world and all its cultural hangups with it. This is where I think you're wrong. America is creating and exporting cultural hangups. I mean, immigrants believe in the American Dream, not weird French theory or whatever.

gremloni 5y ago

To be fair that’s probably what equality looks like. We are nowhere near equitable levels of being shit on between blacks and whites or men and women though.

azth 5y ago

That's what the woke policies that aim to divide society get you. The question is, how many people are falling for that narrative? I'd wager most people don't care at all if they're not listening to mainstream and social media.