3 ms·

My neighbors and I have regularly scheduled pizza nights with the pizza oven we all built together. It is a regular occurrence on the neighbor text thread for

My neighbors and I have regularly scheduled pizza nights with the pizza oven we all built together. It is a regular occurrence on the neighbor text thread for someone to say they are getting a settlers of Catan or ticket to ride game going. I played euchre with my neighbors last week (though admittedly it isn’t regularly scheduled). My son plays chess with his grandfather and cousins weekly via the internet and my parents have a weekly pinochle game the same way. I’m a member of a disc golf league that plays weekly and there is a bowling league three nights a week near me. Some friends have a weekly d&d game. I’m having trouble thinking how any of this is different than it used to be other than some of it is available to people who are far away from each other via the internet.

ethanbond 3y ago
Sure here’s how: most people (in the US at least) don’t have what you just described. What region do you live in, out of curiosity?
- kasey_junk 3y ago
  Chicago. And you can just start doing this. The disc golf league didn’t exist until some friends and I built it. The pizza oven came into existence when my neighbor said “hey, want to build a pizza oven?” And I said yes.
  - andyjohnson0 3y ago
    You're very fortunate. I live in the the UK and my impression is that it is rare to fine that kind of community in an urban area.
    - tptacek 3y ago
      No, it's not. It's easier to find that kind of community in an urban area, not harder. People want to form communities. The more people, the more potential energy for community formation.
  - ethanbond 3y ago
    Of course you can just start doing this, but there are a lot of real, difficult problems in the world that'd be solved if people "just start solving them." It's good to feed into people's agency but it's bad to rely upon it. People in the past weren't more socially connected because they had more ironclad determination to be more socially connected. The reality is that there are lot of external factors that mediate the formation and maintenance of communities like the one you have built: physical proximity, the built environment and what activities it supports, availability of less "fruitful"/social pastimes, etc. People are struggling with this now because these external factors have changed dramatically over the last few decades. A few exceptions here and there (and there are plenty!) does not actually stand up against a well-documented epidemic of loneliness. There is simply no evidence for the implicit claim that this trend is due to people being born with less determination to be socially connected. There is plenty of evidence that we have built our cities (and especially suburbs) to be socially atomizing, our culture has shifted toward extreme individualism (which, unsurprisingly, atomizes), our media is now hyper-personalized which atomizes our perception of the entire world, we have significantly degraded important social institutions (nothing has filled the vacuum of religion), we increasingly prevent our children from going outside and building their own social networks, we change jobs with increasing frequency, we physically move locations with increasing frequency, so on and so forth.
    - kasey_junk 3y ago
      I’m curious on the studies that show loneliness has increased. How was that tracked? I’m certainly not arguing that people were more determined to be social in the past and that lonely people should just bootstrap up a community, but people met their neighbors in the past the same way you meet them now, when someone moves in you introduce yourself and invite them over for an activity. If someone wants to go to church there is certainly nothing stopping them, I’m not religious but my brother is a pastor in a very well attended church. Sports seem to be more popular than ever! And Americans are moving less than ever not more. https://www.rubyhome.com/blog/moving-stats/#:~:text=Current%20mobility%20rates%20are%20half,despite%20the%20national%20population%20growth https://www.rubyhome.com/blog/moving-stats/#:~:text=Current%....
rayiner 3y ago
It’s well established that these interactions are much less common. The question is why.
- tptacek 3y ago
  Is it? It's contradicting our lived experience, so at this point I feel comfortable challenging this received truth.
  - pen2l 3y ago
    To be fair, you're a multi-millionaire with the luxury to afford things and freedom to schedule things without stretching thin too much. The typical person in the urban land (at least in my social circle) has trouble finding affordable childcare, which means they just can't go out at that very first step. I'm not sure how to put this respectfully but I think you guys involved in this conversation here are all just extremely out of touch with real problems people have on a day-to-day basis.
    - tptacek 3y ago
      No, to all of this.

ethanbond 3y ago

Sure here’s how: most people (in the US at least) don’t have what you just described. What region do you live in, out of curiosity?

kasey_junk 3y ago
Chicago. And you can just start doing this. The disc golf league didn’t exist until some friends and I built it. The pizza oven came into existence when my neighbor said “hey, want to build a pizza oven?” And I said yes.
- andyjohnson0 3y ago
  You're very fortunate. I live in the the UK and my impression is that it is rare to fine that kind of community in an urban area.
  - tptacek 3y ago
    No, it's not. It's easier to find that kind of community in an urban area, not harder. People want to form communities. The more people, the more potential energy for community formation.
- ethanbond 3y ago
  Of course you can just start doing this, but there are a lot of real, difficult problems in the world that'd be solved if people "just start solving them." It's good to feed into people's agency but it's bad to rely upon it. People in the past weren't more socially connected because they had more ironclad determination to be more socially connected. The reality is that there are lot of external factors that mediate the formation and maintenance of communities like the one you have built: physical proximity, the built environment and what activities it supports, availability of less "fruitful"/social pastimes, etc. People are struggling with this now because these external factors have changed dramatically over the last few decades. A few exceptions here and there (and there are plenty!) does not actually stand up against a well-documented epidemic of loneliness. There is simply no evidence for the implicit claim that this trend is due to people being born with less determination to be socially connected. There is plenty of evidence that we have built our cities (and especially suburbs) to be socially atomizing, our culture has shifted toward extreme individualism (which, unsurprisingly, atomizes), our media is now hyper-personalized which atomizes our perception of the entire world, we have significantly degraded important social institutions (nothing has filled the vacuum of religion), we increasingly prevent our children from going outside and building their own social networks, we change jobs with increasing frequency, we physically move locations with increasing frequency, so on and so forth.
  - kasey_junk 3y ago
    I’m curious on the studies that show loneliness has increased. How was that tracked? I’m certainly not arguing that people were more determined to be social in the past and that lonely people should just bootstrap up a community, but people met their neighbors in the past the same way you meet them now, when someone moves in you introduce yourself and invite them over for an activity. If someone wants to go to church there is certainly nothing stopping them, I’m not religious but my brother is a pastor in a very well attended church. Sports seem to be more popular than ever! And Americans are moving less than ever not more. https://www.rubyhome.com/blog/moving-stats/#:~:text=Current%20mobility%20rates%20are%20half,despite%20the%20national%20population%20growth https://www.rubyhome.com/blog/moving-stats/#:~:text=Current%....

rayiner 3y ago

It’s well established that these interactions are much less common. The question is why.

tptacek 3y ago
Is it? It's contradicting our lived experience, so at this point I feel comfortable challenging this received truth.
- pen2l 3y ago
  To be fair, you're a multi-millionaire with the luxury to afford things and freedom to schedule things without stretching thin too much. The typical person in the urban land (at least in my social circle) has trouble finding affordable childcare, which means they just can't go out at that very first step. I'm not sure how to put this respectfully but I think you guys involved in this conversation here are all just extremely out of touch with real problems people have on a day-to-day basis.
  - tptacek 3y ago
    No, to all of this.