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pmoriarty

1 - You can just focus on your own interests, and you don't have to cater to the needs, wants, or whims of anyone else.

2 - You can do what you want, when you want.

3 - You don't have to worry about pleasing people, or not offending them.

4 - You don't have to attend any boring social functions.

5 - You'll save a ton of money on drinks, restaurants, and travel.

6 - You could learn a lot more, if that's what you choose to do with all your extra free time.

There are downsides too, of course, but this thread is about the upsides.

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If the downsides are depression and misery, all the upsides are irrelevant.

> I calculated that, on average, I was spending 22 hours or more each week on social activities.

This is the premise the article builds upon, and IMO it's already a bit too much. I've done both: go out every night and don't go out for a noticeable enough period. Both are bad, both are draining. Even if going out means stepping outside your comfort zone, you should do it.

> 5 - You'll save a ton of money on drinks, restaurants, and travel.

Not all of these are equivalent in value and not all are that expensive. The expenses are usually negligible compared to other stuff mortgages, leases etc (depending on tastes, but usually holds for tech people).

"If the downsides are depression and misery, all the upsides are irrelevant."

Who said that just because you don't have a social life you must be miserable or depressed?

There are plenty of people who are ok with or even enjoy being alone, and really don't like to socialize much if at all.

> Who said that just because you don't have a social life you must be miserable or depressed?

Well it depends on how one defines social life. But historically a lone human is a dead human. Depression does have an evolutionary advantage in that you are less likely to approach potentially violent strangers. The lowered energy levels make you sleep longer and reduces your visibility. The misery is probably just a motivating force so that you seek out your tribe.

People in solitary confinement go crazy, quite literally. Humans need contact with other humans - that however does not mean wild parties every evening.

Happy loners tend to have few friends/colleagues/family they talk with. That is not nearly the same as no social life at all.

>who said that being alone = depression

As a loner, I will say that.

http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2006-03906-014

Do you not have many close relationships with people or do you just choose not to spend too much time on social activities like the author did?

Both

Same here.

Worked out perfectly for a while but crushed me eventually.

Not a path I want to go through ever again.

Some people might be cut out to be hermits, I am not.

Regularly going out more than once or twice a week sounds absolutely exhausting, and more likely to make me feel depressed and miserable than staying in every night for prolonged periods.

22 hours of social activity a week sounds absolutely insane. I think the last time I was anywhere close to that was in the dorms in college, where "social activity" was as simple as "pop next door for a bit".

> 22 hours of social activity a week

I wonder how "social activity" is defined in this context. For example, I regularly spend my evenings in the local hackerspace. My primary goal is to write some code or configure something on my servers, or just to read some HN or play Minecraft. That's all stuff that I could do at home, but the hackerspace gives the chance of having the occasional chat when someone brings up an interesting topic (and the possibility of an expert sitting next to me when I run into some weird problem).

Do the hours spent at the space count as social interaction, or only those few minutes when I have a chat?

was as simple as "pop next door for a bit"

I wonder if that's half the problem, we make socialising so expensive in terms of organising, travel and scheduling that it becomes a drain. Popping next door doesn't have much cost.

Same. 22 hours of social activity would leave me paralyzed.

On the flip side of things, going into a relationship specifically to try to solve your depression, misery, or loneliness can lead to unhealthy relationships.

> 2 - You can do what you want, when you want.

How does having social life prevents you from doing what you want and when you want?

"How does having social life prevents you from doing what you want and when you want?"

Let's say you want to go to see one movie, but all your friends want to see a different one. Or maybe you don't feel like seeing a movie at all, but your friends are going.

Or there's a party on Friday, but you don't feel like going out. Or maybe you just want to stay home and read a book.

There are countless other situations where you might want to do one thing, but social obligations, situations or friends are pulling you to do something else.

How is that preventing you from doing what you want to do more than not socializing does?

You're simply being forced to choose between two things you want, because you can't do both. That happens even when you're alone -- or at least, I haven't figured out the correct method of writing in my (paper) journal and taking a shower at the same time. Or taking bong hits while swimming. Or napping while playing video games. Or....

This doesn't sound like you're being prevented from doing what you want, when you want -- you just can't do two things you want at the same time. But this isn't unique to socializing.

(It also sounds like failing to take responsibility for your choices so you don't have to deal with being forced to choose between them and can blame Them for forcing the decision.)

You don’t always have to do whatever your friends want to. Having social life does not mean spending 100% of time satisfying your friend’s desires, most people have social life because it’s what they want, and in periods when they don’t want it - they can stay home and do what they want, while if you don’t have a social life at all - you can’t do that, because most probably you don’t have friends to begin with.

> there's a party on Friday, but you don't feel like going out. Or maybe you just want to stay home and read a book.

"Tonight's an at-home night for me. You guys have fun."

This is why it's beneficial to have multiple circles of friends.

Maintaining a social life requires effort -- which means sometimes making sacrifices.

That's the whole point: these sacrifices are downsides to having a social life, and by not having one you don't have to make these sacrifices, so that's an upside to not having a social life.

> How does having social life prevents you from doing what you want and when you want?

Going to weddings for people I don’t know and office parties where I don’t work come to mind.

Even going to weddings of people I do know is sheer torture to me. I hate weddings.

I also feel like a fish out of water at parties, and very rarely enjoy them. Usually they're just depressing and leave me wondering why I'm spending time with these people.

Same. 'Going out' is just stressful and/or depressing.

Honestly, if you are wondering "why I'm spending time with these people", you should find a different group of people.

People you are excited to share with, see and spend time with.

Good groups of people are hard to find, but make a big difference.

I’ve thought the same but view it as a weakness

If "what you want" isn't a social activity, or "when you want" conflicts with when your friends are available, then having a social life gets in the way of other things you'd like to do.

Because the time is limited, and because two actors in a relationship have opposite desires, goals, obligations, etc. (where to eat, what movie to see, what party to attend.

7. You never pass your genes on to another generation. That's the tradeoff of not having kids, you fail at life.

Huh? I am all in favor of people having kids and know it is necessary for society... But are you saying you can't pass on other stuff to the next generation? An example of this is teachers, i.e. a teacher who had no kids but who did nothing but did a great job of teaching kids, teaching and inspriring, but didn't socialize with anyone (except with parents during conferences or to the extent necessary with other teachers & administrators)... would you say they "failed at life"?

Yes, that's failing at life, which is generally defined as biological propagation. It's success in memetics, but not genetics.

Life is the characteristic that distinguishes organisms from inorganic substances and dead objects. (WP)

Anyone who made it through the childhood and has no plan to die soon succeeded at life. You probably mistaking it with reproduction, which is often required as ability, not as demand.

It is also pretty rough to label fertile ones as losers.

i tend to read "life" as the experiential aspect of existing, and pursuing my desires.

"failure" and "success" are notions relative to goal achievement, and biology doesn't have goals - it's a mechanistic process.

>>"failure" and "success" are notions relative to goal achievement, and biology doesn't have goals - it's a mechanistic process.

Of course biology has goals. Every living organism's goal is to propagate its genes to the next generation. For details on this, read The Selfish Gene.

I haven't read The Selfish Gene, but from what I've heard it tells the exact opposite: That every gene's goal is to propagate, for which task it merely employs the living organism.

Talking about "goals" and "desires" can sometimes be a usefully simplified way to think about biology, but it's not really accurate. A bacterium doesn't "want" to reproduce anymore than a rock "wants" to roll downhill. Only quite complex animals can be truly said to have goals.

Humans are not exactly rare around these parts, and we have many modes of transmission other than genetic. You may fail at biological propagation, but we've got more freedom than the amoebas to define success. :)

I'd say if you've defeated your genetic programming, its a win.

Decreasing the number of people on this planet by lowering birth rate greatly increases the chances of survival of humanity as a whole.

Sounds like a greater success...

Realize that the people who don’t care are going to be the only ones left - what makes you less deserving of kids?

Your fallacy is assuming that the desire for kids is passed on to children. If that were so, people without the desire to have kids would have died out thousands of years ago. Reality disagrees with that conclusion.

I think GP's point is more along the lines that people who care less about grand things like society and the planet tend to also reproduce more.

... and consume less, because their baseline for consumption is typically shared multi-generational living and relative poverty in a developing country.

Not necessarily. This works for developed countries too. As an illustration, see e.g. the premise of the movie "Idiocracy".

The theory of evolution implies that the desire for kids must be passed on to children. The modern environment just means that genes that formerly led to positive results in the environment we evolved in, in the modern environment accidentally make people vulnerable to antinatalism. If the modern environment persists, those genes will die out.

The idea that offspring is the only thing you can give to the world is patently false.

You must be a very strong advocate for human cloning. Imagine how much you could win by if there were millions of your progeny.

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