The Blindness of Social Wealth | Hacker News Reader

The Blindness of Social Wealth

nytimes.com

106 pointsmontrose73 comments

There certainly is a crisis that social media and greedy online platforms (greedy for your time and ad dollars) prey upon. And yes the breakdown of social relationships with family, community and neighbors is certainly a big part of this. But consider historical factors in the USA. The breakdown of church - this was the de facto center of many communities for generations up until the post-vietnam era and the culture wars that have ensued. Combine this with the loss of farms - from more than 6 million in 1935 to roughly 2 million in 2012 - farms have gotten bigger. When agriculture dominated the rural economy having closer knit ties with neighbors was not so much a choice but a necessity. Also we are a country that embraced the idea of moving - be it from the city to the suburbs or the American South to the industrial American north. We have not done a very good job replacing those connections and it is breeding an epidemic of loneliness and addiction - not only to digital media but also to opiates. There is not an easy fix of course but folks should certainly consider the intrinsic value of these things before they decide to write off their family or community because of a difference of opinion or worldview. And another factor is that capital is increasingly accumulated at the top percent or 1/10th percent of earners. The folks in the middle and lower class find they have to work more to have a quality life than they did a generation or two ago. We are so busy working and driving to work and running our kids around that we barely have any time for friends and that is truly a shame.

You touch on an important factor: land-use and transportation policy. The lack of "walkability" in the typical suburban neighborhood is certainly not helping. I don't mean the ability to go out and take a walk for the exercise, I mean being in a place where walking is the best way to get to useful places and do things... the grocery, the doctor, the hardware store, and ideally, your job. Dense cities have this, to some degree. Rural areas don't, but they usually have a small town nearby with a main street (if Walmart hasn't decimated it). But in the suburbs you're generally inside a car to get anywhere at all, and how much incidental, accidental contact are you going to have with your neighbors from behind a glass pane at 25 MPH?

I used to live in some of the burbiest burbs imaginable. I lived a bit out of the way but many of my schoolmates were right in the thick of it: tract homes, manicured lawns, the whole bit.

Back then -- I don't know about today -- going to the store may have been a chore that required a car, but visiting your neighbors was easy. You were bound to see some of them as you went out to get the paper or water the lawn. Car traffic was so light that kids would play in the street -- basketball, hockey, frisbee, racing go-karts or RC cars, whatever. All the kids in a neighborhood all seemed to know one another really well.

There's a lot to dislike about suburbs, but by themselves they're not some sort of dark magic socially isolating force.

That was my experience as well. In the suburbs you generally knew your neighbors, at least more so than in the city. I live in a city now, and I run into my neighbors and chat with them, but that's about it.

Also, the suburbs tended to have more kids and generally be safer (not as much traffic). As a result, I spent most of my youth just hanging out with neighborhood kids. And my parents hung out with neighbors.

For me it's not just the walkability of the suburbs that's the problem, but the lack of places to go... other than stores, bars, and restaurants. It's a cultural wasteland. I'd just much rather stay inside, and often do.

Cities are not much better for me, as most of places there are to go and things to do tend to cater towards the lowest common denominator.

>"Cities are not much better for me, as most of places there are to go and things to do tend to cater towards the lowest common denominator."

What do you mean by this? Are there not museums, art galleries, chess clubs and a variety of other venues that are adequate for your high standards?

Most museums and galleries here are pretty awful. There are a handful of good ones, but there's only so often I can go to those.

Chess. I used to be really in to that, but have spent so much of my life playing chess, that I've weaned myself off of it and in to other pursuits.

Theaters tend to have the most trite, lowbrow plays imaginable. Most movie theaters are the same, and for the handful that aren't, they play somebody else's movie selections, not mine. I'd just rather choose my own movies and watch them at home, and save some money.

I just don't like musicals or parades. I sometimes go out dancing at clubs, but almost none of them play music I like, and anyway do cater mostly towards what's really popular.. which around here seems to be house, EDM, and drum and bass.. none of which I like.

Then there are bars. I'm just not a bar person. Haven't had much luck in making connections with random people I meet there, and am anyway almost always way too shy to even try. Other than that, I don't want to go somewhere to just sit and pay for overpriced drinks.

I've gone to a bunch of events organized on meetup.com, and way too many of those are poorly attended moneymaking operations trying to get you to pay money for classes or events. Most of the rest I just don't find even remotely interesting. Despite that, I've gone to a bunch of events that seemed kind of remotely interesting, and those have been largely disappointing.

I sometimes go to lectures at the local university, but most of the ones they have are pretty uninteresting too.

Overall, I guess there are options, but most of them just aren't for me, for one reason or another. Also, it takes effort to seek out things to do, and for me the payoff is so low that usually I don't even bother.

I haven't completely given up, and I still force myself to go out anyway, but mostly it's a chore and not worth it. Usually, I'd rather just stay home and read a book, make some music, paint or draw something, surf the web, or maybe go to the library. All solitary pursuits that I usually enjoy much more than the various "event" options in the city.

It sounds like most of this stuff has more to do with you than the place/city/town you're referring to, which is fine, but would seem to indicate the criticism of place is misdirected.

I agree with the other commenter, it really seems like the issue is more with you than with your city.

Any city over a certain size (250K+ or so) really should have something for everyone. You just have to look for it.

You may have depression, seriously.

Don't let the other two replies get you down; city life just isn't the right thing for some people. It can be difficult to find the right niche of activities (I sure haven't), and people who blame you for not liking what they like don't exactly help. Anyway, keep at it, whatever "it" is.

I think part of the problem is the event nature of those things. Currently social people seem to be incredibly event oriented.

For me the places that form friendships are places where people go out of habit. The living room of my student corridor, weekly boyscout meetings and this "club house" at university where people just went to sit on a sofa, drink coffee and talk about mechanical engineering.

It matters lot less then if you're little bit shy. And any given occasion doesn't feel as much like wasted effort even if it's fruitless. But for some reason people are not into stuff like this if you suggest it. While same people might cling to their weekly pointless meetups once it's established.

Thank you. Your post is dense with points that have been troubling me for some years.

These issues aren't limited to the USA, either. I've experienced them in several other countries.

Right -- Fads and technological gadgetry aren't necessarily the root cause, as much as a (maladaptive?) kind of treatment for the symptoms.

Exactly--Sherry Turkle made the interesting point that while it is concerning teens spend so much time on their phones texting, it's because they can't drive yet and go see their friends. Tech is a band-aid for a spatial problem.

There is a growing culture of reaction videos on YT. People watch other people watching and reacting to stuff. That never sat well with me. And I always wondered - are people so alone or insecure that they need to watch other people's "reaction" to feel better? Given the rise of reaction channels on YT, I guess the answer is resounding - Yes.

I often wonder if "Kermit The Frog reacts to 2 Girls 1 Cup" was the sole reason reaction videos became a trend. I guess the answer is resounding - Yes.

People are naturally social and people's reactions can be interesting and fun. I don't watch reaction videos but I know at least that my friends are really funny when reacting to things in person so it's unsurprising that an Internet personality can be also.

Yes, a lot of people are insecure. They need people to agree with them, and feel like them. Validate them. They need to see people the same gender, color, size and shape as them do things.

I don’t know for most viewers, but I assume the bread and butter of these videos is to see reactions of people you don’t get to see otherwise.

For instance a kid watching a Charlie Chaplin movie for the first time, a US veteran play Doki Doki Litterature Club, or an indian gramma watching Baby Driver. It shouldn’t be predictible nor relate to you in particular.

I don't think it's about insecurity. I think it's that YT is usually consumed alone, and having someone with whom to share a reaction enhances the experience. For me, it's about emotional contagion: if others are laughing, you're going to laugh more, too. So, pile on top of this a charismatic personality that attracts people, and its entirely sensible you have commentators/reactors to video game streams or live streams, rather than just the base content which is devoid of social experience.

This isn't really new, right? Laugh tracks and live audiences have been used in radio/tv since the 50s for the same purpose.

The point of a laugh track is to make the show itself appear funnier; the laugh track is in the background, invisible. I think what he's describing is different, more like focusing on the laugh track itself and ignoring the show.

Laugh tracks are there to do the laughing for you. That is you can just sit back and not even have to put in the energy to laugh. It does it for you.

I thought they were there to prime a laughing response, because people are more likely to laugh with others than alone.

Don't forget the reaction of the reaction video.

This article makes some decent points but it's a shame that it had to be weakly and opprobriously framed as a kind of 'wealth' struggle. As the article itself says, "the tribes have become weaponized", I guess.

It's interesting and rather revealing that your first reaction to a critique which draws an analogy to material wealth is to defensively frame it as nasty or distasteful.

"It’s that Facebook and other social media companies are feeding this epidemic of loneliness and social isolation."

This is less about Facebook and more about people on the internet.

Yeah, I was socially isolating myself online WAY before facebook!

I see now: /r9k/ posters were internet hipsters, creating reality-distorting bubbles of isolation and despair around themselves before it was cool.

I managed that before r9k debuted... and I'm still socially bankrupt. There is no escape.

Exactly. You can keep going back and it was always happening on the Internet. I was doing this on various forums before 4Chan was a thing. People were doing it nearly a decade before I was born, on BBSes in the late 70s.

It just steadily became more common. Turns out replacing real in person socializing with digital distraction is just not a good idea/

The future was already there. It just wasn't evenly distributed yet.

"I was really struck by this last week, when Mark Zuckerberg came through Washington. Most of the questions he faced at the congressional hearings and most of the analysis in the press were about Facebook’s failure to protect privacy. That’s the sort of thing that may be uppermost on your mind if you are socially wealthy, if, like most successful politicians and analysts, you live within a thick web of connection and feel as if your social schedule is too full."

Or you know, because they were there to discuss privacy and not try to regulate away loneliness, which obviously isn't the role of the government anyway.

If it's not the role of government to solve problems that are tearing apart the fabric of society, then whose role is it? Who is going to do it? Maybe no one. Maybe we're all screwed.

It's the individual's role to take care of their own mental health. No one is forcing anyone to use FB or Instagram. If it makes you feel bad, stop.

Here’s a radical idea: don’t use Facebook if it makes you feel bad!

Quitting Facebook doesn't cure the social bankruptcy, though. The only cures seem to be joining cults and gangs and militaries and other groups with high costs and low standards.

Yeah those are the only cures... Or you know, get off the internet and make some friends in real life.

Easier said than done. The people who know where in meatspace they could expect to regularly meet people who share interests... tend to be the people who don't have loneliness problems.

"Go make some friends" is too vague for somebody who does not already have a bootstrapped social circle.

You develop social capital by fostering relationships with other people. By being responsible, and having positive interactions. You'll develop that capital not just with them, but also with the people around you and them.

If you have a positive relationship with someone, and they think well of you, then their friends and family and colleagues will accept their voucher (assuming they have a positive relationship with those people).

You want to do this starting from zero? I've done it, though not with the intent of developing social capital. I was just tired of being lonely.

Seek out people to do things with. I started attending mass again. I went to Bible studies. I joined a soccer team (I sucked at soccer, still do). I went to movies and dinners with people. When they invited me to an event, I'd say yes unless I really had something else to do (could legit be cleaning the apartment, but usually meant travel or work or obligations to other people).

Be responsible, be honest. When they invite you and you say yes, you show up. Do not be a flake. You will get a reputation as a flake and your social capital will go down the drain.

As you meet more people, foster deeper friendships and connections with those who it makes sense to. Do not force it. Several people I met this way had very similar technical interests to me, we developed a stronger connection over that and I got a new job. Others have similar academic or travel or other interests, and we connected over that. Others, we just have mutual respect for each other and cared about the other's wellbeing.

Take charge. Initiate and plan events. Doesn't have to be all of them, but some of them. Don't drop a hint, "Wouldn't it be fun to go to the beer festival this weekend?". Send out the invitation, do the planning. Set the times. People show or the don't. Start doing this, they'll start showing. And when they don't, let it flow over you. Don't take it as a personal rejection (even if you may not it to be that). Enjoy the day, and meet people at the event.

Over time this becomes more natural if it feels weird at the start. And don't think about it from a social capital perspective. Just focus on the doing things with other people, especially things you enjoy, aspect.

And once you have the initial circle, especially if you take ownership of it by leading the call to gather and do things together, it'll expand. People will bring in people from their other social circles. Some will stick around, some won't. Merge your various circles. I have colleagues and friends, I invite both to movies and things. This moves people from the "associate" or "acquaintance" categories to the "friend" category when we hit it off. Sometimes they bring people and those are the ones I connect with.

This is some of the best advice I've read wrt repairing one's social circle. Most advice begins and ends at "Go to church" or if you get lucky "Find a sport or club" which is of profoundly limited value if you're not a member of the dominant religion and/or don't know the area well.

I had to go through a similar process starting from nearly zero, and it was not easy. I did it by running D&D, as everyone around wants to play a game, but nobody wants to go through the effort of running one. All of the above advice applies.

Thank you for this post. Good advice.

"The community"? Government is just one highly formal portion of the larger community.

"If it's not the role of government to solve problems that are tearing apart the fabric of society, then whose role is it?"

Society, and the individuals who make up society, which is a great deal more than "government".

Solving social isolation by having the men-with-guns order you to do things seems likely to lead to more social isolation rather than less.

The individual.

The US is a country that tries to have a limited government. In that view, not all problems are the government's to solve.

Why isn't it the role of the government to prevent loneliness if it's a serious issue? How is it any different from preventing disease?

Because it's deeply within the realm of personal responsibility. Look at the failure that is the war on drugs. You can't legislate behavior.

The war on drugs was never about legislating behavior. It was about criminalizing "undesirables" (blacks, hippies, etc.).

Regardless of the reason they did it, the end result was the same: failure to regulate behavior.

One can argue that the end result for the reason they did it is a resounding success. So their strategy was not focused in regulating behavior.

The war on drugs has been a resounding success at it's principle functions (none of which have anything to do with controlling drug use behavior). It helps maintain a permanent underclass which applies a downward pressure on wages via prison slave labor, allows the ruling class to more effectively criminalize dissent and propagandize against subversive groups, and provides an excuse to continue to militarize the police force.

The total US federal prison population working at jobs unrelated to prison maintenance numbers in the 10s of thousands, producing a value of $1Ms. A drop in the bucket, nationally. As an 'underclass' they are almost invisible. Don't know about the 'criminalize dissent' part but hey there's always the internet.

"In America today you would say that the clans have polarized, the villages have been decimated and the tribes have become weaponized."

This is an interesting statement, but doesn't really have any facts backing it.

I agree that the article is oddly bifurcated. It starts with numerous statistics listed out in a laundry-list fashion. Then it proceeds into unfounded speculation with no statistical backing. The traditional and more effective argumentative approach is to make a Claim, then provide Evidence to support it, and Reasoning to tie them together logically. Here, the author starts with heaps of evidence, then moves into unrelated claims/reasoning. Lack luster writing, which I have come to expect from David Brooks, a writer who is so out of touch with the currents of mainstream America that he is forced to be some strawman Republican writing on a left-leaning NYC newspaper who few from either side agree with.

Time to replace him with a more skillful and adept opinion columnist.

In modern Western culture we've killed God and I think we're learning what the consequences of that mean.

Source connecting the two? I think most here would argue the the decline in magical thinking (at least as it influences policy and society on the whole) is a good thing

The original statement is ridiculous but the decline in magical thinking does lead people to stop going to church which has no obvious replacement.

Atheists and agnostics don't get together every week to talk about God not existing.

There are meetup groups and such now but usually there is some common interest, activity, etc. which is a higher barrier to entry than "I'll come and say we mostly believe in the same thing that neither of us can prove."

A church community does have the unique characteristic that anyone can participate regardless of age, personality, or talent.

Only recently have some churches begun to welcome different sexual orientations. 20 years ago it was basically unheard of and it is still limited in scope.

Many churches still have little to no female clergy. Some have dress codes, some don't. And what you have to choose from depends on where you live: They all might be pretty conservative.

Your barrier of entry is set too low. It isn't that we say we mostly believe in the same thing: It is that you must act like you believe it and not be any of these sorts of people. If you don't fit in the mold, you can't be yourself here. This makes it a bit difficult to form bonds with others if you aren't in their mold.

I don't think there's a decline in magical thinking. There's a decline in conventional religion, but I think a lot of people have swapped God for the universe, or fate, or karma or what have you. San Francisco isn't religious, but I don't think it's a stretch to say it's without a lot of spiritual people.

People left the church because it was stuck in a obsolete understanding of the world and did not offer people satisfactory answers to their questions.

Past a certain point, if a religion wants to survive, it must renew itself, otherwise it risks becoming irrelevant.

I bet there would be more people in church if the pastor said: hey, forget about the Bible, forget about the angry, prideful and violent "man in the sky" of the old testament. Forget about the old laws. Forget about the Pope.

Instead, go within. You don't even have to pray or bow down to anybody. Just be silent and still your mind. Jesus told us that the "kingdom of heaven" is within us, so that's what we going to explore today. And if you don't believe in Jesus, then that's cool, too. Let's go beyond beliefs and dogma and simply connect with ourselves and be present in the moment.

There are a few churches like this out there today. Sadly the idea of "going to church" is so foreign or looked-down-upon these days that few people actually try it out. And eventually the churches die.

At least some of this exists in UU churches.

This is like going to a chess club and suggesting they get rid of all the rules about chess, all of the history of the game, all of the books advising people how to play it, and that annoying ranking thing, and giving them the board and pieces. Then you tell them to make up their own game and sit back and watch the social connections form.

It generally doesn't work, because you can be present in the moment playing golf or sleeping in much more easily. if you try and make a chess club essentially without chess, why bother?

If chess clubs are dying around the country because people lost interest in chess, that doesn't mean they aren't looking for something else to play.

When Jesus spoke about churches (ekklesia), he wasn't referring to a building, an organization or leadership structure or rules. He did not speak about "sunday school", singing songs, or any or that.

He was talking about a spontaneous gathering of people who felt "called out of the world to follow him and serve God". It's not like he told his disciples to go ahead and start this "Christian" religion and build the buildings that people would go to every Sunday like clock work.

We are the product of culture and memories. A lot of people have a negative association with religion for a lot of different reasons, but that doesn't mean these people are not spiritual and would not appreciate meeting other like-minded individuals in a non-judgmental environment.

I think it's deeper than that. Lots of religious people don't go to church. Many who go, do it just because of habit or some personal principle of "I'm church going Christian".

Churches are not drawing people in, not even their prime focus group. Despite indoctrinating kids from the crib.

The few mega churches that actually work, are obvious scams. Jordan Peterson doesn't go to church because he doesn't feel like the preacher actually believes in jesus.

There is something deeply fucked up within Christianity that makes it difficult to sell. I can't put my finger to it.

> Weak social connections have health effects similar to smoking 15 cigarettes a day

Uh huh

So when the youtube comments say that the video gave them cancer, they aren't exaggerating!

Wrote an article about addressing this just days ago... https://medium.com/@marikhazan/should-tech-have-nutrition-fa...

I wonder if there are any lessons to be learned from other times and places.

"Cry, the Beloved Country" seems to spring to mind ...

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