4 ms·

Todays threshold for lonely is yesterdays busy. How far back do you have to go in time to get to people actually having time to themselves and walk (15+min) to

Todays threshold for lonely is yesterdays busy. How far back do you have to go in time to get to people actually having time to themselves and walk (15+min) to get most places? Idiosyncratism is increasingly rarer today than it used to be. There are so many pressures to homogenize almost anything you can think of to an intensely neurotic degree. The best thing you can do to separate yourself from the pack is to find solitude and develop that distinctive perspective on your passion that you can wholly claim as your own and (hopefully) not futile.

ch4s3 4y ago
Almost everyone who has ever lived in the past was parting a society where there was one communal view on almost everything. Having your own view is strikingly new.
- somenameforme 4y ago
  You can read texts dating back to 2,400 years ago (and beyond). I strongly recommend them in fact. And suffice to say, no there was no "communal view" on most things, let alone everything. For one interesting example, Socrates chose not to write anything down. Most of everything we know from him came from his student, Plato. The reason is that he felt that words would end up distorted and, unable to defend themselves, may be used to misrepresent the views or values of the speaker. Obviously Plato disagreed. Or another fun one. One of the first acts of the newly formed Athenian Democracy would be to charge Socrates with "corrupting the minds of the youth" and "impiety." And they ultimately decided to kill him over this, on a split [democratic] vote. Needless to say, views varied - to an absolutely extreme degree. To imagine there communal views on almost everything is just such an absolutely bizarre a notion to me. What led you to state/believe this?
  - ch4s3 4y ago
    Citing a few Athenians is basically the exception that proves the rules. Socrates in particular was executed for straying too far from community dogma. And this is one single city star during its golden age of philosophy. The whole history of humanity is a lot bigger that Greece in the 4th century bc.
    - theknocker 4y ago
      [dead]
    - somenameforme 4y ago
      Socrates was unique in his wisdom, yet hardly in his trend for debate. In literally all of human history for which we have even a semblance of reasonable record, there was widespread debate (which not infrequently would escalate to extremes) over essentially any topic imaginable. Even in topics that trend towards "natural" taboos, like religion, there has invariably been extreme debate. Again I don't really understand how you could think people just held "communal" views on "almost everything" in the past. Can you offer literally even a single supporting example?
      - ch4s3 4y ago
        There is morning fact widespread debate for as long as we have a written record. The first several hundred years of writing are basically commercial records, royal edicts, a few prescriptive religious texts, and some poetry. For example for most of human history, your community had a religion and set of etiologies explaining how the whole world worked. To disagree was to cast one’s self out of that community or to be cast out.
- corbulo 4y ago
  That's simply untrue. What today we refer to as misinformation and conspiracy theory was just rumors from the traveling merchant. The most obvious examples of this is in ancient history how few political issues were actually campaigned on compared to today. Today every politician needs a public stance on hundreds of issues. Do you think that applied in ancient Rome or the various city states in Greece? People didn't care as much. There was less exposure to information, less granularity, and less individual empowerment. Often times what separated politicians wasn't even the issues, it was their client base and direct familial connections. Issues were a secondary consideration. Today, it doesn't matter what connections you have if you have the 'wrong' stances, even if trivial in fact (they don't have to actually believe or pursue them in office outside of token gestures) the performative dance politicians have to go through today is strikingly different than any time before. Thats directly because of homogenization of thought and how intensely voters value it.
- BarryPark 4y ago
  [dead]
frontman1988 4y ago
True isolation is also rare these days. Difficult to spend years in your cabin when you have been conditioned to 10 second internet dopamine injections since childhood.
fwip 4y ago
Loneliness and busyness are not antonyms.
- mclightning 4y ago
  yeah, I completely got confused because of this skewed used of the words. I have no clue he/she is saying.
  - corbulo 4y ago
    Loneliness today is frequently a consequence of overstimulation and total withdrawal from our local environments, so even when we stop there's no social infrastructure to find comfort in. Busyness 'yesterday' would be in such a state of stimulation you would have no time to involve yourself in your local environment as you usually do. Basically, we've inverted our social time to be default overstim & withdrawn instead of default understim and present.
mytailorisrich 4y ago
In many places in Europe it is perfectly possible to walk to shops and, say, to public transport. People choose not to but they could they have the time.
dukeyukey 4y ago
> How far back do you have to go in time to get to people actually having time to themselves and walk (15+min) to get most places? I'll say this is my now in London. Like, sure I'll get the tube when it's gonna take me more than an hour to walk somewhere, but basically everything I need day-to-day is within 10-minutes walk.
antman 4y ago
Not far back you could know the tens or hundreds of people within a ten minute walk, and now you know virtually nobody of the thousands of people living in a 15min walk radius. Also what people were doing was around tangible objects intuitively understandable to you, rather than “services” consisting 90% of the economy whose name or function or hiw they relate you will never know.
ksec 4y ago
>Todays threshold for lonely is yesterdays busy. The world, media and HR are run by extroverts.
- corbulo 4y ago
  The extroverts are advised by introverts, however.

ch4s3 4y ago

Almost everyone who has ever lived in the past was parting a society where there was one communal view on almost everything. Having your own view is strikingly new.

somenameforme 4y ago
You can read texts dating back to 2,400 years ago (and beyond). I strongly recommend them in fact. And suffice to say, no there was no "communal view" on most things, let alone everything. For one interesting example, Socrates chose not to write anything down. Most of everything we know from him came from his student, Plato. The reason is that he felt that words would end up distorted and, unable to defend themselves, may be used to misrepresent the views or values of the speaker. Obviously Plato disagreed. Or another fun one. One of the first acts of the newly formed Athenian Democracy would be to charge Socrates with "corrupting the minds of the youth" and "impiety." And they ultimately decided to kill him over this, on a split [democratic] vote. Needless to say, views varied - to an absolutely extreme degree. To imagine there communal views on almost everything is just such an absolutely bizarre a notion to me. What led you to state/believe this?
- ch4s3 4y ago
  Citing a few Athenians is basically the exception that proves the rules. Socrates in particular was executed for straying too far from community dogma. And this is one single city star during its golden age of philosophy. The whole history of humanity is a lot bigger that Greece in the 4th century bc.
  - theknocker 4y ago
    [dead]
  - somenameforme 4y ago
    Socrates was unique in his wisdom, yet hardly in his trend for debate. In literally all of human history for which we have even a semblance of reasonable record, there was widespread debate (which not infrequently would escalate to extremes) over essentially any topic imaginable. Even in topics that trend towards "natural" taboos, like religion, there has invariably been extreme debate. Again I don't really understand how you could think people just held "communal" views on "almost everything" in the past. Can you offer literally even a single supporting example?
    - ch4s3 4y ago
      There is morning fact widespread debate for as long as we have a written record. The first several hundred years of writing are basically commercial records, royal edicts, a few prescriptive religious texts, and some poetry. For example for most of human history, your community had a religion and set of etiologies explaining how the whole world worked. To disagree was to cast one’s self out of that community or to be cast out.
corbulo 4y ago
That's simply untrue. What today we refer to as misinformation and conspiracy theory was just rumors from the traveling merchant. The most obvious examples of this is in ancient history how few political issues were actually campaigned on compared to today. Today every politician needs a public stance on hundreds of issues. Do you think that applied in ancient Rome or the various city states in Greece? People didn't care as much. There was less exposure to information, less granularity, and less individual empowerment. Often times what separated politicians wasn't even the issues, it was their client base and direct familial connections. Issues were a secondary consideration. Today, it doesn't matter what connections you have if you have the 'wrong' stances, even if trivial in fact (they don't have to actually believe or pursue them in office outside of token gestures) the performative dance politicians have to go through today is strikingly different than any time before. Thats directly because of homogenization of thought and how intensely voters value it.
BarryPark 4y ago
[dead]

frontman1988 4y ago

True isolation is also rare these days. Difficult to spend years in your cabin when you have been conditioned to 10 second internet dopamine injections since childhood.

fwip 4y ago

Loneliness and busyness are not antonyms.

mclightning 4y ago
yeah, I completely got confused because of this skewed used of the words. I have no clue he/she is saying.
- corbulo 4y ago
  Loneliness today is frequently a consequence of overstimulation and total withdrawal from our local environments, so even when we stop there's no social infrastructure to find comfort in. Busyness 'yesterday' would be in such a state of stimulation you would have no time to involve yourself in your local environment as you usually do. Basically, we've inverted our social time to be default overstim & withdrawn instead of default understim and present.

mytailorisrich 4y ago

In many places in Europe it is perfectly possible to walk to shops and, say, to public transport. People choose not to but they could they have the time.

dukeyukey 4y ago

> How far back do you have to go in time to get to people actually having time to themselves and walk (15+min) to get most places? I'll say this is my now in London. Like, sure I'll get the tube when it's gonna take me more than an hour to walk somewhere, but basically everything I need day-to-day is within 10-minutes walk.

antman 4y ago

Not far back you could know the tens or hundreds of people within a ten minute walk, and now you know virtually nobody of the thousands of people living in a 15min walk radius. Also what people were doing was around tangible objects intuitively understandable to you, rather than “services” consisting 90% of the economy whose name or function or hiw they relate you will never know.

ksec 4y ago

>Todays threshold for lonely is yesterdays busy. The world, media and HR are run by extroverts.

corbulo 4y ago
The extroverts are advised by introverts, however.