I can tell you how without science.
Pay people more, work them less.
Pay people more, work them less.
If that’s the case then how do you solve the proximity problem when you have $0 and 0 free time?
Honestly this thread is chock full of: “I’m rich and still lonely!” people who are so far off the mark on rationalizing my suggestion that I feel a need to amend my gp:
“pay people more, work them less, and learn how to have empathy for other people”
Then “interacting” would be a requirement again.
I'll certainly be going back to work, but more because it gives me a sense of purpose and less because I think working is a necessary (or even good) solution to address loneliness. My comment was intended to highlight that there's no silver bullet to this issue.
Modern society has many alluring activities which don't necessitate forming bonds with other humans, the world keeps shifting around even if you stay the same, and it's easy to find yourself dissatisfied with the status quo while also feeling like your lifestyle is an accurate reflection of the way you desire to live.
Five years ago I was in a relationship, shared a house with 5 other people, social media wasn't as stigmatized, and my peers and I were all in our twenties. I had transitioned to fully remote work, but I felt overwhelmed by the amount of personal interactions I was having. Space was more desirable than connectedness.
Fast-forward a bit, I moved out of a group living situation post-covid, broke up with my partner which segmented our friends, many people settled down with children and stopped going out, and Facebook became uncool. These things happened slowly, and I was enamored with my job, so it didn't weigh on me as it was occurring. Then, when the job was finished, I realized I had settled into a lifestyle where I had no external pressure to leave the house, could go weeks without using my voice, didn't have readily available ways of quickly connecting with people, and that I would need to take significant actions to address the situation in ways that I'd never needed to in my life thus far.
Adding a job back into the mix will help in some ways. Management certainly forces me to use my voice. And, of course, it's possible to put myself out there and make friends with twenty-somethings who want to go out all the time, but it feels less natural when there's a larger age gap. It's a lot of work, too, as it's easier to meet friends through friends than forge relationships from scratch. I can change my personality entirely and decide I want to settle down, to try and better guarantee having a close partner, but that's certainly never been something I've seen myself doing. Or I can try to re-envision myself as an extrovert and try to find it implicitly appealing to socialize rather than just something that addresses a need, but that's never been a trait I've seen in myself.
I guess what I'm really trying to say is that I feel my personality and desires have remained consistent throughout my life, but society and culture has shifted around me. If I want to be less lonely then I need to change myself and build an appreciation for activities which result in socialization, or settle for different/worse interactions that are still useful for addressing loneliness, but these decisions weren't necessary in my teens and twenties. People were just around all the time. And yes, I'm sure some of that has to do with people being busy working, but it's a lot more than that, too.
I addressed this elsewhere in this thread, but my comment was addressing the people who do suffer from these issues.
You are lucky you have the privilege you do. You are unencumbered by these basic needs, and so will have to look harder at finding solutions to your problem with loneliness. Maybe therapy? You, again, have the rare combination of both the time and money to be able to try that.
But you are likely in a <1% of the population category, and hey, sometimes things written on the internet are meant for people other than ourselves.
Like the other 99% of everyone.
I do hope you find your tribe again.
What evidence ca you provide?
I feel like all of the articles I read about comparing work across time say people worked less before industrialization; although I think it’s a silly thing to compare and more of a thought experiment.
Either way what relief does your position provide, even if correct, to the many underpaid and overworked people living in your city?
How does your opinion fit into the current uptick in people having to work multiple jobs, and people saying they will be unable to ever retire.
Ultimately, this raises the question of whether all this actually ultimately places us in a better position, e.g., the state of humanity as seen in something like the anime Darling in the Franxx. Interestingly, this is similar to the notion that poorer people that work less desirable jobs for less money are less lonely.
Citation needed.
Aside from despising the “productivity” defense, the 4 day work weeks has shown to increase “productivity“.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-four-day-workwe...
My point being is that people want to be rich and loneliness takes a backseat. The least lonely people I know are all working class and near the poverty level. In contrast, most of the well off people I know are a lot more lonely.
Why indeed? Your bosses must love you defending your own mistreatment. You should put this quote on your CV.
> you can always work less.
Do you honestly think you can tell that to a person struggling financially while working 3 jobs?
> most of the well off people I know are a lot more lonely.
In a society of such aggressive wealth disparity as ours, a result of underpaying and overworking the majority of the population, a lot of wealthy people self isolate, and become lonely, because they had to harm others to get that wealth or are afraid the poors will try to take it from them.
Do those wealthy people somehow deserve my sympathy, or the focus of the efforts of this scientific inquiry, more than the people working multiple jobs yet are unable to ever retire?
Also, orthogonal lines share a common point of intersection.
You think financial pressure has zero bearing on your mental health?
What bearing does your mental health have on your capacity to form and nurture relationships?
If you read the article then you’d know the org has been given 5M euro and so far has come up with:
> strategies such as joining clubs or pursuing hobbies
You’ll need spare cash and spare time for those solutions.
>> strategies such as joining clubs or pursuing hobbies
I could have saved them $5M by loaning them my copy of “Bowling Alone”
> strategies such as joining clubs or pursuing hobbies
I have to go online to find the clubs?
In America, there's consolidation everywhere in search of greater efficiency and profits. From local tennis clubs merging into city-wide organizations managed through an app to monopolies emerging in corporate landscape.
Only the orange site would get angry at someone suggesting they should be paid more and have more free time to pursue their interests.
Perhaps you’re feeling the transition in increased disparity between minimum wage and cost of living that occurred ~30 years ago?
https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/21/politics/minimum-wage-inflati...
> all of human history worked
And you are also correct. They probably had a tough life and for those humans, the reward was survival and more. I can only imagine waking up on a cold morning, no running water, stepping out on the fields, using average manual tools. They probably stuck around in groups.