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> This neededness can come in several forms: social, economic, or communitarian. Our children and partners can depend on us for care or income. Our colleagues c

> This neededness can come in several forms: social, economic, or communitarian. Our children and partners can depend on us for care or income. Our colleagues can rely on us to finish a project, or to commiserate about an annoying boss. Our religious congregations and weekend poker parties can count on us to fill a pew or bring the dip. I think that this point is the underlying rationale for writing the article. "Not enough" people are making sacrifices. It isn't that they're less happy, it's that the author doesn't want them to be happy. They'd rather rewrite the definition of happiness If all you're doing is giving, why bother? You could have a wife and kids, or you could do FIRE. If you go the wife and kids route, suddenly all of your money and time are no longer "yours" I think, if some people look at society and institutions and say "I'm giving more than what I'm receiving here", there's nothing wrong with that. Framing it as the individual's problem is dumb and counterproductive. Religion is on the way out, people are getting sick of lying to themselves

BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
Well yeah, of course it’s not an individual problem. Reading your comment, though. it’s very clear that you’re responding the way that you are partially because of how difficult you perceive these interactions to be. That’s not your fault, it’s a consequence of how we have constructed our society. That’s the problem. To put it a different way, while it’s fine to choose not to walk sometimes, it wouldn’t be healthy if you were against the idea of walking because your leg muscles had atrophied from constant sitting.
- matrix87 2y ago
  I don't think the choice between wife->kids->retirement->death and something else is analogous to choosing to walk or not walk. Walking is a natural thing that's intrinsic to our biology, the other thing is a product of culture, policy, time, etc. Other cultures have alternate ways of doing if you're equating that lifestyle pipeline to walking or participating in society, it's not really a valid point
  - BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
    >I don’t think the choice… is analogous It seemed less like a wife-kids-retirement pipeline and more like a general aversion towards any kind of social/communal obligation. The former is unnecessary, I agree, but the article makes the case and I agree that we have a certain innate need for the latter kind of relationship.
    - matrix87 2y ago
      every community wants more engagement, resources, etc not every community is worth the engagement my point isn't that community in general is bad, it's that communities aren't entitled to engagement unless they actually make it worth it for the participants. if the social pressure to join goes out the window and communities have to exist via their own merits, that's not a bad thing. it's a correction
      - BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
        In this case I don’t think it’s a lack of pressure to join, but the introduction of supplementary technologies that poorly simulate aspects of community, but don’t address some evolutionarily derived needs. My concern would be that we’ve developed poor facsimiles of things we crave, but haven’t, and can’t yet, account for all aspects of them. It’s a bit like trying to make a food substitute and missing essential nutrients.
        matrix87 2y ago
        > In this case I don’t think it’s a lack of pressure to join, but the introduction of supplementary technologies that poorly simulate aspects of community There are two big cultural shifts I have in mind here: the "liberalization" of American society (divorce is more common, LGBT acceptance (and in general, the freedom to have a non-hetero life)). hetero relationships come with an "escalator" that ends in having a family, etc. But as long as there's a socially accepted alternative to this lifestyle, it has to justify itself against the alternative. (Imo, this is the real reason why LGBT was stigmatized for so long) also religion dying out, less pressure to buy into religion, that's one big third space that's gone
lapcat 2y ago
> It isn't that they're less happy, it's that the author doesn't want them to be happy. They'd rather rewrite the definition of happiness Where do you get that? Here are some quotes from the article: "activities at home were associated with a “strong reduction” in self-reported happiness." "Afterward, people filled out a questionnaire. How did they feel? Despite the broad assumption that the best commute is a silent one, the people instructed to talk with strangers actually reported feeling significantly more positive than those who’d kept to themselves." These are self reports, not another person's definition.
- matrix87 2y ago
  my point is, the end goal of writing this kind of article isn't increasing the net amount of happiness in the world. the happiness argument is just a bunch of anecdotal evidence that always conveniently supports the premise put differently, if enough people were getting married, having kids, etc, you wouldn't see this kind of article. it's not about making people happier, it's about pressuring people to do shit that's not in their self interest
  - lapcat 2y ago
    > if enough people were getting married, having kids, etc, you wouldn't see this kind of article. it's not about making people happier, it's about pressuring people to do shit that's not in their self interest This is both exceedingly cynical and completely unsupported by the text of the article, which talks about things like public spaces, TV, smartphones, and dinner parties. Where exactly does the article prescribe marriage and kids as the solution?
    - matrix87 2y ago
      > Men and women alike have been delaying family formation; the median age at first marriage for men recently surpassed 30 for the first time in history. Taggart wrote that the men he knew seemed to be forgoing marriage and fatherhood with gusto. Instead of focusing their 30s and 40s on wedding bands and diapers, they were committed to working on their body, their bank account, and their meditation-sharpened minds. Taggart called these men “secular monks” for their combination of old-fashioned austerity and modern solipsism. “Practitioners submit themselves to ever more rigorous, monitored forms of ascetic self-control,” he wrote, “among them, cold showers, intermittent fasting, data-driven health optimization, and meditation boot camps.”

BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago

Well yeah, of course it’s not an individual problem. Reading your comment, though. it’s very clear that you’re responding the way that you are partially because of how difficult you perceive these interactions to be. That’s not your fault, it’s a consequence of how we have constructed our society. That’s the problem. To put it a different way, while it’s fine to choose not to walk sometimes, it wouldn’t be healthy if you were against the idea of walking because your leg muscles had atrophied from constant sitting.

matrix87 2y ago
I don't think the choice between wife->kids->retirement->death and something else is analogous to choosing to walk or not walk. Walking is a natural thing that's intrinsic to our biology, the other thing is a product of culture, policy, time, etc. Other cultures have alternate ways of doing if you're equating that lifestyle pipeline to walking or participating in society, it's not really a valid point
- BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
  >I don’t think the choice… is analogous It seemed less like a wife-kids-retirement pipeline and more like a general aversion towards any kind of social/communal obligation. The former is unnecessary, I agree, but the article makes the case and I agree that we have a certain innate need for the latter kind of relationship.
  - matrix87 2y ago
    every community wants more engagement, resources, etc not every community is worth the engagement my point isn't that community in general is bad, it's that communities aren't entitled to engagement unless they actually make it worth it for the participants. if the social pressure to join goes out the window and communities have to exist via their own merits, that's not a bad thing. it's a correction
    - BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
      In this case I don’t think it’s a lack of pressure to join, but the introduction of supplementary technologies that poorly simulate aspects of community, but don’t address some evolutionarily derived needs. My concern would be that we’ve developed poor facsimiles of things we crave, but haven’t, and can’t yet, account for all aspects of them. It’s a bit like trying to make a food substitute and missing essential nutrients.
      - matrix87 2y ago
        > In this case I don’t think it’s a lack of pressure to join, but the introduction of supplementary technologies that poorly simulate aspects of community There are two big cultural shifts I have in mind here: the "liberalization" of American society (divorce is more common, LGBT acceptance (and in general, the freedom to have a non-hetero life)). hetero relationships come with an "escalator" that ends in having a family, etc. But as long as there's a socially accepted alternative to this lifestyle, it has to justify itself against the alternative. (Imo, this is the real reason why LGBT was stigmatized for so long) also religion dying out, less pressure to buy into religion, that's one big third space that's gone

lapcat 2y ago

> It isn't that they're less happy, it's that the author doesn't want them to be happy. They'd rather rewrite the definition of happiness Where do you get that? Here are some quotes from the article: "activities at home were associated with a “strong reduction” in self-reported happiness." "Afterward, people filled out a questionnaire. How did they feel? Despite the broad assumption that the best commute is a silent one, the people instructed to talk with strangers actually reported feeling significantly more positive than those who’d kept to themselves." These are self reports, not another person's definition.

matrix87 2y ago
my point is, the end goal of writing this kind of article isn't increasing the net amount of happiness in the world. the happiness argument is just a bunch of anecdotal evidence that always conveniently supports the premise put differently, if enough people were getting married, having kids, etc, you wouldn't see this kind of article. it's not about making people happier, it's about pressuring people to do shit that's not in their self interest
- lapcat 2y ago
  > if enough people were getting married, having kids, etc, you wouldn't see this kind of article. it's not about making people happier, it's about pressuring people to do shit that's not in their self interest This is both exceedingly cynical and completely unsupported by the text of the article, which talks about things like public spaces, TV, smartphones, and dinner parties. Where exactly does the article prescribe marriage and kids as the solution?
  - matrix87 2y ago
    > Men and women alike have been delaying family formation; the median age at first marriage for men recently surpassed 30 for the first time in history. Taggart wrote that the men he knew seemed to be forgoing marriage and fatherhood with gusto. Instead of focusing their 30s and 40s on wedding bands and diapers, they were committed to working on their body, their bank account, and their meditation-sharpened minds. Taggart called these men “secular monks” for their combination of old-fashioned austerity and modern solipsism. “Practitioners submit themselves to ever more rigorous, monitored forms of ascetic self-control,” he wrote, “among them, cold showers, intermittent fasting, data-driven health optimization, and meditation boot camps.”