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I agree. In our modern societies we have more means of communication than ever, yet we’re also more lonely than ever before. Urbanization has also disrupted people’s social lives very much. Raising children is hard when your parents live far away and all your friends are too busy to help, even with state-funded childcare.

Different generations used to live together and help each other. Underpaid nurses and nannies are just a shallow replacement to that.

Then of course there’s the insane pace of change and increasing competition. Only guaranteed sources of income are either very hard to get into, or pay peanuts with bad working conditions. AI might make even some of those disappear, rendering years of education worthless. Life is much more complex than before. There are lots of options, but no obvious answers to which actually make sense. I’m lucky enough to have access to free education and decent social security, but still I feel like my life is way more uncertain than it was for my parents. They just had to get an education and could then work until retirement with same employer, buy a house and just settle down. Without job security pretty much everything else becomes difficult.

>In our modern societies we have more means of communication than ever, yet we’re also more lonely than ever before.

I really wonder if most people are just worthlessly incompetent at forms of communication other than face-to-face interactions.

The narrative is that the covid lockdowns made people more socially isolated, and to some extent I don't disagree, but the narrative goes on to paint an image of "noone to see or talk to, lonely, might die, help" which in this day and age is simply not (or at least shouldn't be) possible.

A video call is literally only a Skype or a Discord away. Talking to someone is literally just a phone call away. Fucking social media swamps you in the presence of others.

I admit that it probably helped that I hate dealing with humans in the flesh anyway, but I felt no lessening in my ability to socialize because my communications and interactions by and large weren't disrupted.

The "we are more disconnected the more connected we become" narrative can go die on a rusty spork.

> I really wonder if most people are just worthlessly incompetent at forms of communication other than face-to-face interactions.

I think a large number of people are worthlessly incompetent at communicating effectively period. Face-to-face is what most humans are good at, so if you are bad at that, you will usually be even worse at other forms

As someone who was homeschooled, loves being fully remote, and has worked as such for several years (and pined for it long before) I don’t think we can yet equate video chats with real conversation.

Conversation isn’t a data transfer. It’s a joint function of two people. Anything other than the real thing is messing with that function in weird ways.

> A video call is literally only a Skype or a Discord away. Talking to someone is literally just a phone call away.

Literally zero of my Discord contacts would ever respond to a video call let alone a voice call let alone an invite to a common voice chat. Nobody uses Skype anymore. I don’t know what age group you’re in, but it sure sounds like the “happy go lucky, internet has only ever been socially profitable for me” 35-50 yo range.

> Fucking social media swamps you in the presence of others.

Fucking social media swamps you in the “impression” you are in the presence of others while leaving you in a tiny little jail cell where you can’t interact with any of the pretty pictures hurrying across the barred window of your cell.

There is definitely a massive breakdown of old social institutions that have not adapted to the modern world. People don't need to be closely knit to their families and local religion in order to survive anymore, and they are simultaneously discovering how awful these institutions habitually are.

To improve families, I imagine we'd have to wait for a significantly large generation to mature whose parents started a family through informed choice rather than social/cultural/religious pressure.

Alternatively, we could regress by taking away people's freedoms (especially women's) and force everyone to be dependent on traditional power structures just like the "good old days."

Personally, I'd rather move forward, but it's not entirely clear what that looks like.

What is the modern replacement for religion? Growing up I felt like I had this huge tight-knit community via the mormon church. I've since left mormonism and don't think I'll ever find a replacement for the community I had in the church.

There won't be an exact replacement because the circumstances that led to the community cannot (or rather, should not) be replicated. For the sake of the survival of the planet/species, I also don't think any institution based around magical thinking should fill the gap.

Keep in mind that high-demand religions require a huge investment of time and money. Devoting even just a fraction of those resources to hobbies, art classes, and/or other local activities tends to yield much better social results. While this might not perfectly fill the gap, neither did the religion, which is why people are leaving it.

> For the sake of the survival of the planet/species, I also don't think any institution based around magical thinking should fill the gap.

I know this won’t be a popular point, but I think we have nearly all of human history as evidence that “magical believing” societies survive more effectively than not. At any time literally any tribe could have chosen to believe in nothing. It’s almost impossible to think that no tribe tried it. Heck. It’s the default state until you make up a deity!

And yet… the overwhelming majority of societies were based on “magical” thinking.

Inversely, it’s possible there could be a hard scientific truth that we discover and kills us all (“information hazard” by Nick Bostrom is a good survey… think nuclear bombs etc)

It’s a really interesting mental experiment. Is truth best defined by repeatable experimentation (Manhattan project) or by human thriving (including magical thinking).

Aside: Reinforcement Learning theory hardcore leans (implicitly) on the latter.

>I know this won’t be a popular point, but I think we have nearly all of human history as evidence that “magical believing” societies survive more effectively than not.

I disagree. "more effectively than not" is an implicit comparison between "magical believing" societies and "non magical believing" (in other words, scientific) societies. Given the latter allows modern medicine, surgery, sanitation, mass food production and countless other advances, it seems obvious that science affords a much greater degree of survival than does belief in magic. One only needs to look at the increase in the average human lifespan and reduction in infant mortality rates over time to see that.

Science has given many things, and as a professional research scientist, I help it continue to do so. I by no means think science should go away.

However, it also created the ability for humanity to destroy itself: the nuclear bomb, climate change, and plenty of other existential threats.

Also there are plenty of non-tech tribes which display tremendous lifespans. To my knowledge, the common threads among centenarians is not usually tech or globalisation driven. Often they’re religious and they’re very often closely knit with their local communities.

The jury is still out on whether science is net positive. We’re only a few hundreds if years in (12,000 if you want to start with the dawn of technology…being the plow).

It’s made lives better and worse while simultaneously significantly decreasing the amount and depth to which humans believe they have a purpose, a pursuit I feel science has made little to no progress on.

But my stronger point is that magical thinking was naturally selected (as in natural selection) to be almost universally advantageous for the first 99% of human existence. I’m not sure our 1% experiment with a scientific society is as of yet conclusively better. We’ve almost made humans extinct. We might still. I don’t know of a magical belief (karma, etc.) that has put humanity in such a grave threat as the Cold War or climate change, for example.

>However, it also created the ability for humanity to destroy itself: the nuclear bomb, climate change, and plenty of other existential threats

Would it be better to not have any knowledge at all and be at the mercy of nature?

Acquiring power always comes together with the possibility of misuse. Maybe those who never got as far as we got would prefer to eventually get wiped out by nature (and it's gonna happen either way, what with the heat death and all that). I'd still prefer to have lived to know the electron than the alternative

You are assuming that magical thinking is the optimal survival strategy as opposed to a lesser-evil byproduct of advanced cognition in a particular environment. This is like assuming that because all humans have appendices, having an appendix is necessarily a better survival strategy. It's not. It may have once served a purpose, but now the best it can do is kill you.

Nukes could wipe out the human race, but so could an asteroid. Coincidentally I'd be much less worried about having nukes if there was a lot less magical thinking in the world.

I don’t think magical thinking is optimal. But I do think strictly non-magical thinking is suboptimal. Despite being a scientist as a profession, I can’t ignore the empirical data across a million years that virtually all civilisations independently have magical thinking.

Your analogy of the appendix is a good one. Some things which were useful no longer are.

I feel religion in particular doesn’t fall into this category as it has known uses. Collective action in particular is something the exclusively scientific worldview seems to repel in practice.

I also think that we don’t yet fully see this because todays secular humanists have a tremendous amount of moral momentum inherited from 10 thousand years of non scientific society. But things are changing.

> I know this won’t be a popular point, but I think we have nearly all of human history as evidence that “magical believing” societies survive more effectively than not.

Not true. Majority of progress human civilisation made happened in last 100-200 yrs. in the industrial revolution and Information Age. None of them were based upon “magical” concepts but only science, hard work and facts. Infact it has been the most pragmatic time in human history.

We would soon land on Mars within this century, exponentially increasing the chances of survival of human specie in the very long run. Plans already underway for moon as well. All of this would be made possible by people who believe in pure facts and science and not in magical things. I think the “magical believing” phase occurred due to 1) extreme fear of adverse events(floods/volcanoes) or the things unknown to humans (how does it rain? We don’t know. Let’s create a rain god and keep them happy so it doesn’t run erratically. Try that now with Climate change on our head, rain or cold wave patterns won’t change even if 7bn people worship a rain god today). But now that humans know a lot of these answers, the era of scientific truths begun and will continue forever. Would be interesting to see where religion goes in next 50 yrs.

Humans have tried "we believe in nothing", throughout history, and yet ... I see no Cathedrals, no beautiful songs, no art, no science, no entire civilizations built to the honor of ... nothing.

>which is why people are leaving it.

Attendance at TLM is increasing, not decreasing.

>I see no Cathedrals, no beautiful songs, no art, no science, no entire civilizations built to the honor of ... nothing.

Not believing in God isn't equivalent to a belief in nothing. Of course, plenty of songs, art and literally all of science have been created outside of the religious sphere. It seems regressive to the point of being archaic to dismiss the validity of all human effort not explicitly done in "honor" of the divine.

You want a Cathedral built in honor of "nothing?" Have the Hubble Space Telescope. As far as I'm concerned no gargoyle or arch wrought from stone or stained glass or Biblical prose can even compare to the transcendent - and wholly material - beauty of the Hubble Deep Field photo.

I think it’s interesting to observe that science is a fork of religion both in historical record and in substance, but with the “belief in something” removed. At its base is the same problem: nobody lives long enough to know what’s going on, so we write it down in a literary cannon of truth. Science’s entrance requirement is based on the scientific method (repeatable experimentation). Religions tend to have differing entrance requirements. Perhaps the most common (and useful to this convo) is the opposite of science: things I saw that break the pattern (miracles, disasters, etc….divine interventions) and which cannot be repeated.

If we do live in a simulation this is the only kind of evidence that could point to it… external signs that break the rules of the game. But by definition science cannot discover this kind of information.

Also religions have a knack for solving collective action problems through locally irrational beliefs (like karma). Science has trouble allowing these into a cannon. In the case of karma this is because it’s unscientific. It’s not enough to believe that karma would be good for society scientifically and thus we should believe in it. This doesn’t solve the prisoners dilemma. It’s only by (everyone) literally believing in karma that it can have its effect.

It’s things like this that science structurally struggles to contribute to society. Proving things outside the system (we’re in a simulation), consciousness, collective action, etc.

Not: It’s also worth noting that many of the greatest scientists and artists were religious. Hard to know where to give credit there.

Nit: A photo from Hubble isn’t beautiful because of the telescope, it’s beautiful because of what nature made it to be. Hubble is merely a reflection.

Interestingly, a religious person would agree with you! Nature's/God's beauty captured by the telescope's camera lens surpasses any known man made art.

>You want a Cathedral built in honor of "nothing?" Have the Hubble Space Telescope.

Extremely bizarre to think that the Hubble Space Telescope is a Cathedral built in honor of nothing. Nothing? Peaking into the Heavens is ... nothing? Okay.

He was arguing against someone who clearly thinks reality is nothing without divinity

For that person, it really is nothing

Why do civilizations need to be built to the honor of something? I see plenty of art and architecture created independent of any mythical deity. I can't remember the last time I listened to a popular or well-renowed song that was religious-themed. Humans create and appreciate art all the time without it.

> Attendance at TLM is increasing, not decreasing.

Unclear what you mean by "TLM" but church attendance at least in the US is decreasing. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2019/10/17/in-u-s-decli...

>Why do civilizations need to be built to the honor of something?

Which civilization has been built in honor of nothing?

>Unclear what you mean by "TLM" but church attendance at least in the US is decreasing.

TLM = Traditional Latin Mass.[1]

[1] https://www.crisismagazine.com/opinion/the-growth-of-the-lat...

> Which civilization has been built in honor of nothing?

It turns out, civilizations are built to serve the purpose of human existence, not to venerate mythical deities. You must be confusing them with churches, temples, synagogues, etc.

> https://www.crisismagazine.com/opinion/the-growth-of-the-lat...

Relevant quote: "TLM-attending Catholics still make up a very small minority in the Church ... only 4% of parishes offer even one TLM on a regular (although not necessarily weekly) basis"

Not to mention, that is explicitly tagged as an opinion piece from a pro-Catholic publication.

What are you talking about. There us massive production of songs and art going on now. Both professional and amateur. And science going on strong too.

Hobbies and art classes can't ever fill the void that religion left. We have no real solution to this problem

I somewhat agree, but I am optimistic that society will change in other ways to fill this gap. It need not be any single activity or institution.

.

I don't help the poor as a hobby or because I was told to. I help the poor because I have compassion and empathy. Animals also demonstrate these same pro-social behaviors, and I'm pretty sure none of them are Jewish or Hindu.

I think the big question here is “why do you and I have compassion and empathy when many (many!) in human history have not?”

Related: do animals act pro-socially because of rational scientific rigour or because they blindly inherit behaviours from their peers/ancestors?

Empathy is a survival strategy that benefits society as a whole whereas sociopathy is a survival strategy that benefits the individual. Humans are complex and diverse enough to display both sets of behaviors within the population.

I thought it should be fairly obvious that social instincts are "blindly inherited," I can't imagine why you think that any institution, scientific or religious, would need to manufacture them.

It is not religion that makes it tight. Coming from Christian country, plenty of non tight churches around.

It is intentional setup of mormonism and its power structure. Tight structure means more power for leaders and makes it harder to leave if you see something wrong.

yeah it seems meaningful community is hard to come by these days, at least in usa. i think economic inequality is the cause of most ills. everyone is so busy chasing scraps of money for themselves, and debt-ridden college grads often have no clear path for a career that pays their current bills, let alone ensures retirement. no affordable quiet space to sleep or think, no time or money for community centers. just a race to the bottom while staring at tik tok 24/7

> i think economic inequality is the cause of most ills.

"Poverty is both a cause of mental health problems and a consequence." If you have even a little bit of money, there is a large mental burden that is relieved. You can breathe easier, you can relax, you can take care of yourself just a little bit more. It’s a huge cognitive load that is suddenly lightened.

There’s also another problem I rarely see addressed, namely that American social norms, work practices, and consumer behavior also lead to crazy-making. We don’t have the social safety net the majority of nations do, and this contributes to the mental health feedback loop.

In my own small community, we have hundreds of untreated mentally ill people living in the streets, some of whom are randomly violent. This is not good for them and it is not good for the rest of us who are lucky enough to have places to live. There needs to be treatment programs for them to go to be helped, when in many cases they refuse help of any kind.

> more general solutions to the more general problems....individualism being pushed too far.

Individualism itself is the child of rationalism. It is rationalism as in "rational choice theory".

Rationalism is a double-edged sword. Think you can undefinedly enjoy its benefits without facing its darker side (mental health, earth’s health…)? think again.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_choice_theory

> Among other things, people want to feel like someone needs them.

A simple suggestion but this is where playing a team sport can be really helpful, so here you might find groups of people with less mental health issues.

> we got rid of the leadership hierarchies we hated

When I look around, I see plenty of leadership hierarchies that are worthy of hate.

for being the first comment on this post, that got deep real fast...

Sorry if it’s a bit much. I’m finishing a PhD sortof on the topic and I’m really passionate about it.

Seems like we need a united cause.

Surviving heat death seems like one whose target can improve quality of life as a byproduct.

That’s a good start but IMO humanity already has the cause of avoiding death and that’s never been enough.

We may need a new good to run towards, not just an evil to run away from.

Happy families and high quality romantic relationships?

We have lots of gadgets, but the simple things like being able to find someone to marry and have a family with are becoming much harder, and much more frequently ends in financial ruin.

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