Embracing community helps us live longer, and be happier (2017)
news.harvard.edu
news.harvard.edu
I'm not really sure everyone can chose 'joy'. Some simply don't have the innate temperament required to build strong relationships, and some have it literally beat out of them. Some folks are dealt a bad hand of both nature and nurture, and it makes me wonder the extent to which we 'choose' anything, or if we're all destined to mostly follow the ruts we're born into.
If we ignore Mendelian traits, i.e. rare diseases, ankylosing spondylitis and type 1 diabetes appear to have the largest contribution from genetics. Yet, penetrance is tiny. Genetics hardly explains more than 30-40% of phenotypic variance in those two.
Most traits are largely determined by our nutrient supply, infections, eubiosis / dysbiosis, etc. The first year of life is particularly important.
It doesn't make sense to talk about whether genes or environmental factors have stronger effects in general: they're very very very strongly interacting. It's not phenotype = genes + environment, it's phenotype = stupidly_complicated_function_we've_only_just_begun_to_understand(genes, environment). You can talk about the effects of genetic variation in a particular environment, or of environmental variation given fixed genetics, but "the contribution from [genetics/the environment]" without any further qualification is not a thing that exists.
This trend is even known as genetic determinism. There is a whole generation of senior academics who are fiercely attached to this line of thought.
I've worked in this field for a while and continuously get into arguments with geneticists, part of that is because I simply don't understand the explanations genetics gives (I'm a molecular biologist and computer scientist; the difference is that genenticists treat genotype to phenotype as a black box, while molecular biologists see it as an event system), but another part of it is that most scientists are highly susceptible to the streelight effect, and genetics is something tangible you can easily measure in the lab, while environment is... much more complicated.
More info here if anyone is interested to collab or learn more, please reach out:
https://www.nature.com/immersive/d42859-023-00019-y/index.ht...
https://portal.hubmapconsortium.org/ (not mobile friendly)
When people talk about genetic factors in life outcomes they always point to these very simple Mendelian diseases. They don’t point to more subtle traits that are caused by a wide variety of genes interacting. Just because we don’t fully understand these genetic mechanisms doesn’t mean they’re not there.
And as far as “nurture” goes, genes play a big role in that too. If a parent has a greater predisposition towards impulsivity or violence or substance abuse then that’s going to affect their fitness as a parent. It’s the Anna Karenina principle: everything has to go right if you want the best outcome.
There's a cynical broken person out there for every one of them, they aren't the norm, but some of these people went through terrible shit as children or throughout their lives but they're still happy and grateful for what they did end up having.
Also, some of the happiest people I know come from some of the worst starting environments. This is definitely survivorship bias because these people made it out to become happy but there's some thread between the two around grit and expectations then finding joy in the most basic things.
And yet, he’s one of the most optimistic and successful leaders out there determined to show people that their conditions do not define them.
And vice a versa, plenty of poor people find a way to be at peace with what they have (and even strive to do better w/o being resentful) , have families, etc.
Oh yeah, chasing fads and news cycles is miserable -
> "I don't have kids because it's bad for the environment" or "I never got married, too busy with my career"
There are, uh, extremely not "being driven crazy by topics-of-the-day." Let alone even being joyless choices.
There is a definite floor to this definition of “poor” and a ton of people live below it.
You and I would NOT be happy there, but they were probably as happy as we are on average.
I think people need more exposure to society. Maybe school implementation- social clubs, more sports incoporated, who knows.
People in general should try, even at their jobs, to join in on events. Exposure helps people with being able to balance, as well as find themselves, on what works, and what doesn't work within their bubble.
Bodies, as well as stress can be alleviated when you're surrounded by people. Even when you're in solitude, working in a public coffee shop can help too.
People who are like that, do not have a community and would have to be completely different people to be accepted in a community in a healthy way.
The majority of people can, and should try and embrace good habits. Some structure, sleep, sunshine, exercise, community, etc.
I grew up without real community thanks to a mother ashamed of her heritage in a pretty backwards part of America, so I missed out on a lot of critical interactions. I didn't realize how fundamentally, socially broken I was until my mid-late 20s.
(By “religious folks” I mean “people who have spiritual beliefs aligning with a major religion”)
https://achewood.com/2016/04/15/title.html
On the one hand: sure, it's useful to have some scientific, controlled grounding in the value of building community. On the other hand, any sad and lonely soul on the planet could probably have told us this without commissioning a nearly century-long research project.
E.g., lower socio-economic classes often have a strong sense of community, sometimes by the nature of being more dependent on one another. So wealth class doesn't seem to fit. But maybe you were thinking of some other class.
I think you started with a misstep. It's not class-specific. In some ways the middle class is most vulnerable due to the isolation of sprawling, car-dependent suburbs. But it's also tied to the inability of many young people to remain rooted in one place for economic, social, and other issues. How many people from your high school still live in the same town? There are other causes, but one's level of wealth isn't necessarily a direct cause.
- race
- religion
- national origin
- age
- sex
- veteran
- disability
- (and others)
>A special advantage, immunity, permission, right, or benefit granted to or enjoyed by an individual, class, or caste.
>So, where does the privilege reside
Considering the OP connected it to a social group (ie community), I don't think class is a misstep, considering 'class' is literally a collection of individuals. I was pointing out that classifying people by income didn't seem to make sense and asking what classification they had in mind. While you're not the OP, maybe you have a different thought. But you haven't clued any of us in as to what that is, just that 'it's not class'. Without any clarification, it comes across like you're just bristling at the idea of class privilege rather than giving it much substantive thought.
But... not always?
I don't know how to classify this group and focusing on how to classify those affected and not affected doesn't feel like the most useful topic. What I'll call "acommunality" is rampant in the US and directly related to the epidemic of loneliness. It affects people of all social classes, perhaps not equally. It has many causes, investigate those instead of trying to pick a predefined class to attach this to.
Of course. I'm not saying a simplified model that groups into socio-economic class is the end-all-be-all of measuring privilege. (My first comment said quite the opposite). This borders on bad-faith interpretation.
You claimed class is a misstep in logic. But classification is how we make sense of the world. Case and point: you just classified into "lonely" and "not lonely". Those are two classifications (ie classes) of social orientation. I get that "class" and 'privilege' are loaded words in todays parlance, but it's really just grouping individuals who are alike in some feature. What you seem to be saying is that the term 'wealth' isn't a useful classification feature, not that classification isn't useful.
So back to my original ask to the OP, I said wealth doesn't seem to be the most useful feature and I was asking them what they thought was the best classification scheme.
"The people who were the most satisfied in their relationships at age 50 were the healthiest at age 80". Can we think of ways that, for example, health problems at ages 45-50 cause (a) dissatisfaction in relationships at age 50 and (b) worse health problems at age 80? Did they control for that? (Is it possible to control for that? Even if they have their full clinical history, is it possible that problems that, at age 50, were subclinical—or "not reported to the doctor"—would have significant effects?)
I think a healthier generation of people- being rooted from education, are much more prone to being a better counterpart. Such as maintaining peace, as well as just having healthy boundaries.
But in longer stretches, I believe that people should be more understanding. Steven Pinker mentions in his books that optimism as well as just awareness that society will continue on- despite a lot of evils, life will continue, and choosing to be positive is a better approach than being pessimistic.
Most probably the people who were already sick at age 50 were in a "less" satisfied relationship, on account of the fact that sickness is never a good conduit for having a happy love life.
So of course that those people most probably went on to have a worse health at age 80 (because they were already sick by age 50) compared to people who had had been healthier (and happier, partly because healthier) at age 50.
Sometimes, there really isn't anyone out there to connect with in a way that's going to be good for you. That's humanity for you.
Surprising claim if true.
Alone is being single and loving it.
(I'm part of the latter group.)
People who prefer solitude normally don't feel lonely
For example:
> Loneliness is the feeling of being alone, regardless of the amount of social contact.
https://www.cdc.gov/aging/publications/features/lonely-older...
1. Putnam's Bowling Alone cites sociological sources
2. Ehrenreich's Dancing in the Streets cited historical sources
3. Liming's Hanging Out cites autobiographical and literary sources.
I also highly recommend the book Six Myths About the Good Life by Joel Kupperman, which has an accessible explanation of some of the philosophy behind the pursuit of “happiness” vs deeper long-term joy. It’s a book I find myself revisiting every few years because it really makes you think.
Edit: Kupperman’s book specifically analyzes the common assumption you mentioned that “the key is to lower your standards.” …”Better Socrates dissatisfied than a pig satisfied” is a common related saying
You can just as well think of happiness as a skill that one can hone and learn to practice in increasingly varied circumstances. Voila, it’s no longer part of some calculus of motivation at all. It’s just its own thing that one may or may not partake in.
And likewise, you can just as well think of creating as a casually chosen option among countless ways to spend time. You do it if you want to do it, when you want to do it, because you may as well do something. Voila, it’s no longer reliant on the state of things around you or you’re mood. It’s just its own thing that one may or may not partake in.
You can play the little thought experiment parlor trick to get you wherever you want to go. If you want to believe that artists only do what they do to escape suffering, that’s fine, but some of us opt for different thought experiments with different conclusions.
In this case, it turns out that if you want to believe it, one can be happy and make stuff with no contradiction at all. Many of us here know that from first hand experience.