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Comment by quechimba | Hacker News Reader

I moved to Colombia, met a girl and found some friends through her, and through their friends I made other friends. Where I'm from, neighbors don't even say hi to each other. Now when I go out people are like "hola vecino, qué más, bien o no?".

In my home country, I could go for days without talking to anyone. One time someone started yelling at my brother for smiling. Kinda sucks to live in a place where no one talks to you and you aren't even allowed to be happy.

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I do think it’s worth having this conversation about what happened to the United States that the default condition now is isolation and it requires “putting in the work” to fight it.

What if our default condition was connection?

I think most people here assume that social isolation is the result of things like social media or smart phones. I think it has much more to do with urban planning. The street used to be a place where children play, people "loitered", and people met new people and made memories. Now it is just a place where we sit in traffic because everything is so spread out that we can't walk anywhere. We don't meet our neighbors because we all leave through the garage, surrounded by 2 tons of metal.

It’s very true that trying dig out of lonelinesses in average American suburbia is playing on hard mode. Everything about the built environment says keep to yourself. People talk about taking a stroll at Target with a coffee purchased at the Target Starbucks as the closest thing to “being in public”

Yeah, in Medellín most houses have 2-3 floors [1] and those who live on the street level often have businesses that they run from their house. They have small gardens outside and there's always people in the park, dogs running around, kids playing, music everywhere. It's very cozy and nice compared to Swedish suburbs [2], where you're forced to stay inside 8 months a year because of the climate.

One time a man in Sweden said hello to a neighbor and the neighbor perceived it as harassment and reported him to the police [3]. It's not illegal though, but generally only weirdos and drunks talk to strangers. Maybe it has something to do with the climate.

1. https://quad.pe/e/5m5r0td9nK.jpg

2. https://quad.pe/e/5EJdfRGdIb.jpg

3. https://www.st.nu/2017-11-15/kvinna-anmaler-man-for-ofredand... (run it through some translation service)

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