The end of politics: Cities, social networks and loneliness in the 21st century

What is funny is Northern Italians accuse Southern Italians with being lazy, complacent, nothing much going on there.

Now I would love to see the Northern Italian's reaction to this. We have something similar in the States where the Northeast (Where I am born and raised) and particularity in New England view the rest of the country as backward lazy people with no real work ethic. I really had to fight this mindset when working in the Mid-West, South and California.

EDIT data on Italy divided- http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/italy---divided-country.asp...

I'll take "optimal currency zones" for $0.01, Alex.

It is anything but clear that the Eurozone thing will work out even yet. You get to keep your debt, but we control the central currency. It might be worth reviewing how it is that the United States had and dismantled a Bank of the United States. Twice. Our present Fed isn't quite the same thing.

To be (somewhat) fair, there apparently was considerable "corruption" in Greece. That seems more of a public choice problem than racism. And, of course, if public debt eats the economy, it's no wonder about "not much going on there."

Especially given that France has the second-largest economy in Europe. If the author intends to say, "Everyone but Germany is lazy, because they're just not German enough, and I'm totally devoted to ignoring how the Euro has bent Europe's trade balance in favor of Germany and nobody else," they should come out and say it.

So glad you called that out, I was about to do the same thing. The authors had extremely narrow and simplistic views, especially considering that they carry such lofty tiles as Philosopher and Writer. And at the end of the day, its their narrow views that keep them from seeing the things that will keep their [boring and soul-less] vision of the future from coming to be: I'm thinking of the fact that when people are left to network while the government shrinks they tend to organize criminally. Power vacuums get filled unless you are way more creative than these guys.

But back to parent's flag: Its really easy to see where the right-wing politics from in Sweden and other scandinavian countries by reading this, even though I presume that those guys would consider themselves socially liberal. Its completely infested with unfounded cultural superiority rhetoric.

> Such a simplistic and borderline racist analysis of the economical situation of these countries.

People really need to be called out for crying racism when the things that are being discussed are cultural. Regional cultures are different. That does not have to have anything to do with race.

I think the author is referring to increasingly distributed networks as opposed to the more centralized legacy networks. So electric networks vs. Paper based networks.

That goes for every amount of wealth. Poor people probably relied on their extended networks since the beginning of time. (From that perspective, urban social individualism and reduced social dependence are a lifestyle enabled by modern abundance.)

I think he framed it that way to gain relevance. It is a common gesture to indirectly refer to a previous time without any historical substance. Especially in politics and social science.

If we assume it's a rhetorical gesture, "the influence of networks increased" is just "i think networks are important". Saying the latter is legit, I guess.

Same for wealth concentration. Compared with 1700, we live in an egalitarian garden eden. ..however, "the increasing gap between rich and poor" is a useful gesture to say "I think considering the gap between rich and poor is important". - Which again, seems legit to me.