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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'

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
      - BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
        >this is the real reason why LGBT was stigmatized for so long I mean, kinda. I think it was stigmatized for so long because, on a farm, extra hands are very useful, so children are very important to have. You also need to make lots of em because a large portion die. Social norms thus evolved to disdain anything that prevented the production of offspring, eg being gay. Notable here is that it’s an effective strategy in a pre-industrial agricultural environment, not in our current environment, and that it causes immense suffering for those unlucky enough to be born non-heterosexual when in place. >religion dying removes third space I mean, yeah? I’m gonna be honest, when you say this, I get the impression you didn’t pay attention to my comment, because this an observation that everyone makes and doesn’t really relate to what I said. People often talk about these processes as though they are the beginning rather than the end. As though we just started making divorce more accessible one day, and that’s why everything is broken. What this ignores that all of these social changes stem from a combination of previous social changes, in this example that would be suffrage, and technological/environmental changes. It may be, that for our particular environment, one wherein physicality has become relatively unimportant, equality and free association between the sexes is a desirable thing. At the same time, there are myriad unpredictable consequences to altering our environment in the first place, but this process is headless and will continue to occur whether we like it or not.

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
    - BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
      >this is the real reason why LGBT was stigmatized for so long I mean, kinda. I think it was stigmatized for so long because, on a farm, extra hands are very useful, so children are very important to have. You also need to make lots of em because a large portion die. Social norms thus evolved to disdain anything that prevented the production of offspring, eg being gay. Notable here is that it’s an effective strategy in a pre-industrial agricultural environment, not in our current environment, and that it causes immense suffering for those unlucky enough to be born non-heterosexual when in place. >religion dying removes third space I mean, yeah? I’m gonna be honest, when you say this, I get the impression you didn’t pay attention to my comment, because this an observation that everyone makes and doesn’t really relate to what I said. People often talk about these processes as though they are the beginning rather than the end. As though we just started making divorce more accessible one day, and that’s why everything is broken. What this ignores that all of these social changes stem from a combination of previous social changes, in this example that would be suffrage, and technological/environmental changes. It may be, that for our particular environment, one wherein physicality has become relatively unimportant, equality and free association between the sexes is a desirable thing. At the same time, there are myriad unpredictable consequences to altering our environment in the first place, but this process is headless and will continue to occur whether we like it or not.