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Collectivism is good because you have a tightly integrated communities that take care of each-other. Outsiders often see those parts and think it looks pretty great. But what they are missing are downsides of collectivism. All real-world collectivist groups have strict rules about acceptable behaviors, lifestyles, clothing, etc. Members who deviate from these rules are punished in various ways to pressure them to change: public shaming, expulsion, etc.

And I don't think this is an accident. How would a community where members are expect to directly support each-other work if a member could just do whatever they wanted? Suppose you and I create a commune and a few months in I decide to just drink beer and play video games all day. Are you going to happily keep working and supporting me?

I think the trend of modern people toward individualism is mostly the result of revealed preferences. People, for better or worse, want to make their own choices about their lives.

I've had bad group members in multiple class projects. Bad roommates in college that take food and don't pay their rent. I've seen people break shared resources and lie when called out. I've had dinner guests order more expensive menu items when they know the bill is getting split.

It has influenced my opinions on collectivism substantially.

Voluntary association and options are the cornerstone of any collective endeavor.

Collective with these features can be great. A marriage can be a great example of collective. A forced marriage, less so.

If you have voluntary association, you will have both the "poor" and the "billionnaire". People whom nobody wants to associate with, and it has severe negative consequences for their living conditions. AND people who refuse to associate with others to some degree, but do so well for themselves they are the envy of others.

Voluntary collectivist living exists and is no problem and requires no change at all to our current system.

The whole point of the collectivism being advocated here is to avoid both groups. And, of course, only forced marriages will ever do that.

It's a bit of a trap, though, isn't it? To steer one's one ship, you need a ship. Ship's expensive. So, the general approach is to finance one's self-agency with debt... which makes one beholden to an entity that trades personal concern for your circumstances (for better or worse) to cold-but-concrete, "Can you pay me back?".

I genuinely don't know what the answer is. Maybe it's not even a single solution, but instead an ebb and flow of the collectivist/individualist tide as social, personal, economic, civilizational circumstances demand.

This is all just treating the abstraction as if it is the problem itself. People have houses when those houses are built. Built using debt. Built Amish-style, collectivist style.

To use your metaphor: you first need a ship. AFTER that we can discuss steering.

The problem in Soviet housing (and today in China housing) is that the entire population sabotages society, and builds very bad quality housing, and not nearly enough of it. Collective living can't compensate for that. In fact it doesn't matter what you use to compensate for the sabotage by society, because that just delays the breaking point by a bit, but the sabotage goes further and further until the sum total of all compensations you utilize aren't enough anymore to even keep people alive. That can take decades, but if Stalin couldn't stop the sabotaging going further and further by killing hundreds of millions, exactly what measure are you hoping will stop it? (not implying communal living is exactly the same as communism, but it is one example)

When collective housing means a floor of a tall building for each generation, with mostly independent rooms and perhaps a single collective living room on the ground floor, it is quite comfortable and you have the advantages and none of the costs.

When collective housing means 3 generations living on <50m2 apartments where the warm water supply is mostly a theoretical thing (Soviet, China living), frankly, even having the entire apartment to yourself wouldn't make it particularly comfortable ...

I'm not sure what this comment has to do with my previous one. It sounds like you have a bone to pick. However, I don't disagree with what may be a generous read of your point, which I gather is that right-sizing collectivist aspects to the general human capacity to maintain effective community, vis a vis population size, is the most effective way to house a ton of people without leading to dystopian social alienation on a wide scale (and all the horrors that come with it).

Re: built using debt: I also think there needs to be a social appetite for quashing greed in the process of delivering a vital social need. This is where the Security Council Compadres (including US) all fail.

I think it also reveals that those pressure methods for collectives have weakened over time - and that this can also be a big part of the "EU/US political divide" - a country where everyone is already "collectively well-behaved" will have few issues with the "beer and video games" type people; a country where that's much weaker will have fallen back to "work or starve" as a final collectivism push. If you apply policies from the first country to the second you can get vastly different results.

It's kind of funny that someone from a country like the US where the opinions which were mainstream 20 years ago are now hate crimes can say something like:

>I think the trend of modern people toward individualism is mostly the result of revealed preferences. People, for better or worse, want to make their own choices about their lives.

Another way that the nuclearization gets reinforced is that learning to get along with people different from us and be comfortable sharing a space with someone and making compromises is a skill that must be learned and practice.

But when everyone's living arrangement is atomized and when consumer corporations tell us that we should have every personal whim catered to, we fail to develop that very important life skill and it becomes much harder to live with people than it would be otherwise.

I think this fits.

In an effort to eliminate every possible thing that will cause you discomfort, you end up getting rid of the primary thing which can bring you joy.

I have three kids and it’s a common experience I have with people with no kids that they only ask me about the difficult challenges, lack of sleep, etc… I’ve literally only met a handful of people who asked me about the fun and joy of kids.

We saw the extreme of this in the British "heyday" for wealthy families; the parents would barely be involved with the children except almost second-hand. Perpetually raised by nannies until handed off to boarding schools.

I think everyone will admit there are people who seem to get along with everyone, but people don't want to admit it's a skill that can be learned (mainly through self-change, but also through knowing how to influence conversations and let little things slide) because then it's just another thing they COULD do and don't (like going on a diet).

My suspicion is that people who tend to want to live alone feel that way because of some experience with trauma. The baseline seems to be that people desire some measure of company, whether that be intimacy or conversation or just reassurance that they're not The Sole Survivor. When people say that they're happier without some sort of regular interaction, something has disrupted the natural inclination. Depending on circumstances, that may be optimal: if you're surrounded by abusers and people you can't rely on, self-sufficiency is clearly the approach least likely to see you hurt. However, if what I've described is an accurate model, it does mean that the prospect of an even better quality of life lingers in the background, should the happy-alone person find access to treatment for that trauma and a generally healthier and more pro-social environment.

Maybe I'm wrong though, and there are just people who would rather be alone, and that is their max healthful state. Even if this isn't the case, I think it would be wrong to assume access to those healing resources mentioned above is readily available to any given individual; it's probably not helpful to hound someone to get therapy because they say they don't like company. All of this also doesn't mean that there aren't people who feel the need to shack up BECAUSE of trauma.

This is actually exactly right in my opinion.

I went from being a self professed “introvert/ambivert” from the age of 16-35 to “extrovert” by the time I was 39 by recognizing my massive unrealized trauma.

Not completely there but I can manage my CPTSD with my care team and actually love love being around people. The difference is the kind of people I’m around and how i treat myself.

I think the majority of people, myself included, are just walking trauma bags that have no self-awareness of their trauma, triggers and are primarily reacting to the world.

Very few people are self-realized and contextually aware of their environment so they are operating with a very limited and narrow observation-action space compared to what they are capable of.

> The individualism and “nuclearization” of the western family is the root problem.

It's probably not a problem or a root problem, it's just a cultural feature that's experiencing challenges due to changing economic factors and bad regulation. It's ok and normal that the expectation in some countries including the United States is that people are more individualistic and that nuclear families tend to be the norm.

I'd argue that the problem that's evading us here isn't solved by increases in communal living (although boarding houses and single-unit apartments with common spaces could help - but good luck enforcing cleanliness standards since we're a bunch of animals), but instead is solved by building with appropriate levels of density such that regardless of your living arrangement preferences you can still live near enough other people, restaurants, doctors offices, work, etc. and activities that are appropriate for the stage of life you are in.

If you are single you might be renting or living in a small studio apartment. You don't have to hate living alone when you don't have to spend all day cooped up unless you want to drive 15 miles to participate in society. You can walk out your front door.

The married (and obviously wealthy) couple can invite the neighbors over for a BBQ and to hang out by the pool. But you can't do that really in the suburbs.

The four Catholic girls can still live in their long house and probably have an easier time participating in local charity or prayer events since they don't have to drive to go participate in those activities and make them a chore.

Etc.

"You don't have to hate living alone when you don't have to spend all day cooped up unless you want to drive 15 miles to participate in society. You can walk out your front door."

For some people, walking out their front door to be with nature might be their preference.

"The married (and obviously wealthy) couple can invite the neighbors over for a BBQ and to hang out by the pool. But you can't do that really in the suburbs."

I'm baffled by this statement. I don't have a pool and I'm not wealthy, but we still invite neighbors over for a cookout. This seems more normal in the suburbs that rurally or even in the city (although some places have block parties).

> For some people, walking out their front door to be with nature might be their preference.

I... agree? But then I would also completely discredit any complaints about living alone especially as they are related to the OP. It's like when people complain about things being 30 miles away and gas being expensive. You make those trade-offs.

> I'm baffled by this statement. I don't have a pool and I'm not wealthy, but we still invite neighbors over for a cookout. This seems more normal in the suburbs that rurally or even in the city (although some places have block parties).

I was responding to the specific persona mentioned in the OP (wealthy, with a pool) and my experience of that persona in my own personal life which tends to be a lot of buying stuff and not really using it because it's a hassle to go to that person's house because you have to drive, pack up the kids, etc. and people refuse to (rightly so) walk in the suburban areas where those homes exist. Spontaneous gatherings, again in my own experience, are much more of a challenge.

>Spontaneous gatherings, again in my own experience, are much more of a challenge.

Interesting, My experience is the exact opposite. Suburban life is what enables people to gather. Having the space to BBQ, room for kids to play, hang out in the garden, ect.

Maybe it is simply a matter of space, interest, and attitude.

Same confusion with respect to walking or driving in suburbia. Seems far more pleasant and comfortable. Easier to pack up kids and gear for a quick drive than pack it all on municipal transport.

You have space to do all of those things in the city too. I have a pellet smoker and a big garden. There's also a large park nearby with a playground and things like that. A pool is an option too but I don't think we'd use it.

I do think you have a point about space/interest/attitude and I find that (and I bet we could actually prove this with survey data if it exists) people tend to not want to have their neighbors over in suburbia. People sometimes walk their dogs and say hi (when I was in the suburbs) but it wasn't an actual interaction. Usually people just wanted to get back to their house as fast as possible and not have a conversation. Or maybe I'm just a scary looking person. Though we've had lots of neighbors over at our current house and have all of their phone numbers. That was hard to do in the suburbs too.

> Easier to pack up kids and gear for a quick drive than pack it all on municipal transport.

Idk. I have gear and I just walk out to my detached garage and throw it in the car too. I guess maybe it was easier when the garage was attached to the house? But then you have to suffer the bad house design so that's not great. I'm not sure why you would think living in the city would require putting things in municipal transport. Think less about NYC and more about walkable neighborhoods.

It sounds like we just have pretty different experiences, both in the city and suburb. Maybe are differences are embedded in the definitions.

When I think of urban, I think of apartment complexes and townhouses near mass transit. When I think of suburban, I think of detached single family homes with wide tree lined streets.

When I lived in the city I didn't know my neighbors. People basically left their apartments in a rush to go somewhere else. I had very limited personal space. BBQing meant spending time on a small cold concrete slab serval stories from my unit, or hauling BBQ Supplies to some central park.

When I moved to a suburban area, I was greeted by flyers for pot-luck block-parties. My Neighbors are friendly and we have dinner and go for walks. One gives me fresh produce, and another gives me fresh eggs. I can walk/bike quiet streets, and am still within 1/4 mile of a strip with groceries, and a couple restaurants. It is suburban AND walkable. I have a quarter acre lot for the price of at 1200 sqft apartment and a 200 sqft yard.

My hypothesis is that because costs are lower further from the urban center, home-ownership is higher, people are more invested in their neighborhood, and more interested in cultivating positive relationships with those in it.

I think people often have a vastly different opinion of the suburbs if they don't live there or they live in an "age-inappropriate" one which will often occur if you're living at home, for example. You may be the only 25-30 year old in a neighborhood that consists entirely of people ... your parent's age. That's going to have obvious issues unless you go out of your way to be friendly and outgoing to people who likely have vastly different schedules than you do.

Whereas if you're a young family living in a suburb full of young families, you're likely going to "fit in" easier, and even if you don't go out of your way to meet people you'll continue to run into them because external factors are similar (bus arrives at the same time, school activities are similar, kids escaped and are riding the dog into the sunset, etc).

Suburbs naturally tend toward this age-based stratification because of how easy and similar they are, and just from building schedules. Almost all the new homes in developments around here are "children" homes, clearly visible from the playsets in the backyards. Those houses will now be "in sync" for decades from that.

Cities often are more mixed (though I would argue that suburbs should be, too), and even if they're not you can quickly escape to "your people."

I don't know. The suburbs I've been in seem to be pretty age diverse.

The suburbs I've lived in have been both age-diverse and culturally diverse, but they tend to not be income or "status" diverse. You don't have a lot of poor artists in your neighborhood, for example.

The main problem is the design, not the people.

The design makes it much, much more difficult to have spontaneous interactions with those in your neighborhood because you aren't walking around in your neighborhood because there's nothing to look at and aimless walking isn't very popular and so you just drive a car to the grocery store where you maintain anonymity and you can't even get to know the workers there because they're transient (many good/bad reasons for this).

Additionally there is a cultural stigma around what amounts to being too friendly with your neighbors and that general pervades the suburban landscape. Obviously not everyone is like that, nor are all suburban neighborhoods the same, but as someone who has family members like this and has grown up around it and now lives in a walkable neighborhood it's striking how clear and obvious it is to me.

I live in Columbus. My brother says "can't do it there are too many people on the streets and sidewalks". That's the lived experience for many Americans who reside in the suburbs and it is specifically chosen to live that way to avoid other people and instead stay inside most of the time. That's why the houses are so large and why there are pools and things. The point is to not go outside of your house or engage in a risky exchange with your neighbor.

> “…homes for a married couple with no kids that have a gym, a pool, a garden…”

And our personal lives are similarly rife isolating differences. Consumer culture makes us into people who like movies and buy projector screens, and sports and exercise so we buy fancy bicycles, and sometimes we are busy so we buy Peloton and we like travel so we buy RVs or touring motorcycles and we like music so we get a guitar and we like hacking so we have a home server and IOT devices.

What living space we do have is filled with the clutter of our free-time consumer/internet passions. I don’t expect these multitudes of distractions make us good housemates (not unlike our mobile phones making us poor dinner dates).

The people who I’ve enjoyed sharing space with shared my interests, but that is impossible selection to make from general public. You have to be in a community, and then select from there. I’m not a college student anymore.

"It assumes that every family wants two parents and the children in the house together as the optimal arrangement"

In the opposite direction, even this is not easily achievable today. Lots of single parent households. The US has the highest rate. It seems difficult to maintain relationships when the primary one that's supposed to be the longest lasting (outside of blood relatives) is failing at such a high rate.

Working (and living) with someone is hard work though movies and stories rarely reveal this.

Society has mutually agreed that if two people don't want to put in the work, they can split. Society has yet to really get to the next step of "living with kids is hard work, so you can just abandon the kids".

This is not to say that real reasons for divorce don't exist, but there are those who use it as the "easy way out". It's interesting that everyone's ex is the absolute devil, even if they happen to be currently married to someone else's ex.

>Society has mutually agreed that if two people don't want to put in the work, they can split. Society has yet to really get to the next step of "living with kids is hard work, so you can just abandon the kids".

Society has decided that kids are a fashion accessory and the primary driver of population growth will be immigration - it's cheaper too no need to things like schools.

> The happiest people I see are the ones who live communally.

I think we should be very careful here. Are you sure this isn't just grass-is-greener syndrome? By which I mean to ask: How have you chosen to live? Are you happy with that? And if not, are you making moves to get into a situation in which your beliefs about happiness (communal living) line up with your actions?

The crazy thing is how hard it is to not live this way.

> The individualism and “nuclearization” of the western family is the root problem.

But this is what Capitalism negotiated with them. They said, work hard and you can have the American Dream. Now, Capitalists have become greedy. They wish to renege.