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Nothing will meaningfully improve until the rich fear for their lives
When people have more expendable income again they would go out more and organically interact with others.
Unfortunately we have allowed wealth inequality to spiral out of control.
Hit up your local, or even not local libraries! We're chill, accepting and we have more than just books. There's a whole library of things you can borrow: movies, games, puzzles, game systems, metal detectors, power tools etc. I'm in a small town and even we have free events all the time, for all ages. We're also really open to suggestions, so if you don't see something you like, just ask!
I was one of the first generations that had smartphones and social networks and accessible games (1996), and I spent most of my childhood just sitting home playing games. I was thankfully still forced to do sports, so I at least don't look like the negative nerd stereotype, but while I'm glad for it, I don't remember almost anything from them and simply suffered through so I can get back to a PC.
It has fucked up my life pretty considerably, and I've spent the last few years trying to unfuck it and do something else. But learning how to spend time in your late 20s, when literally the only thing you've ever done is sit at a computer is super hard, and everything feels like a boring waste of time, and I keep cycling between giving up and just continuing to ignore the problem, especially when something happens and I'm stressed, or alcohol that allows me to at least somehow function outside at events. Which I've done kind of succesfully, DJing and organizing events for local subculture, but I simply can't do that sober no matter how I try.
And that's after I spent almost a decade of trying hard to change it, including professional help, and my deep hatred for social networks and enshittification keeps me from at least wasting time on FB/IG/Twitter or other timesink sites, and I don't watch movies or tv shows.
I can't imagine what it must be for people used to just watch shows all day, while also being content with using TikTok and IG, and while I started playing at ~4 y.o on Dreamcast, got a phone during elementary school and Facebook during highschool, you now get toddlers playing on tablets or watching YT.
And now, we add AI to the mix, where you don't even have to formulate your sentences properly to be able to message someone, or invest effort into reading more difficult or longer texts, since you can just summ it or get an AI to write it. Generation that grows up with this as something normalized will be fucked up beyond recognition.
What happened in the 1970s? Klinenberg, the sociologist, notes a shift in political priorities: The government dramatically slowed its construction of public spaces. “Places that used to anchor community life, like libraries and school gyms and union halls, have become less accessible or shuttered altogether,” he told me. Putnam points, among other things, to new moral values, such as the embrace of unbridled individualism. But he found that two of the most important factors were by then ubiquitous technologies: the automobile and the television set.
The crux of the issue.
There used to be places for people to congregate.
Now if you're not spending money, there's very few places to go and just coexist with people. Every place you can go is going to squeeze every cent possible out of you.
It's been like this for a while, even in my partying days I'd always pick a house party over a night at the bars.
The other issue though is that now people are so entrenched with using their devices that if you do go to such places, everyone is looking at their devices and possibly wearing headphones the whole time.
It used to be you could go out to a cafe and buy a coffee and spend three hours in deep conversation with a stranger. These days, the strangers are all on their phones and tablets and notebooks.
Who would want to go to
libraries and school gyms and union halls
to have fun? "Hey guys, let's all go hang out at the, uh, school gym! No? How about the union hall?"
Maybe people had lower standards back before technology made having fun alone at home easy.
This highlights the modern lack of community. You'd go there to see friends.
You'd go to the school gym to see friends? I don't even know if I'm being sarcastic. On the one hand, I don't think I'd do that no matter how many friends I had and how nice the gym was because it's such a bizarre thing to do. On the other hand, the past is often bizarre.
Yes, you go to the gym to see people you know and excerise with them. School gyms used to be more publicly available than they are today. Just because you've never had an excercise buddy doesn't mean that the experience is bizzare, it's still a common thing to do today (but gatekept by private gyms)
I don’t even know if I’m being sarcastic
Compare it to some other public space and see how ludicrous it sounds:
You’d go to the bar to see friends? I don’t even know if I’m being sarcastic.
You’d go to the coffee shop to see friends? I don’t even know if I’m being sarcastic.
See? You're used to people doing those things so it sounds normal, but exercising with your friends is just as normal as drinking with your friends.
People do all sorts of things with their friends, but the reasons they do them invariably include "I like spending time with my friends." Hell, I help my friends do home improvement projects because it's just nice to do something productive with my friends. I'm certainly not going to install a new door on a friend's house if they're going to be away at work, so clearly the real reason is that I like spending time with my friends.
I'm almost 40. I barely leave my house and can go a week without going further than my porch. Less than a dozen people have seen my face in the last month. Weekends and holidays are becoming mountains of isolation I have to cross without the distraction of work. I don't have people I can have heart to heart conversations with. All my experiences with professional psychology have been horrid and expensive. I can feel myself becoming socially maladjusted and mentally crazed. Drinking also effects my cholesterol levels so I had to cut that out, so no social outlets via bars, taverns, etc.
The saddest thing is that this is the most prosperous I've ever been in my life and I primarily attribute my minimal contact with other people for that.
Look up furry groups around you. Start at the closest major city and work up. No, you don't have to be a furry to go to one. The reason why I'm suggesting it is because furries are some of the most welcoming and accepting people you'll ever meet (I'm totally not biased tho). Chances are they'll be some of the best friends you've ever had; so long as you're as accepting as them. They also tend to have a wide array of interests, with tech and tech accessories being one of the most common.
Edit: There are furry groups for car enthusiasts, arcades, rock climbing, horror enthusiasts, roller skating, skateparks, six flags and other stuff, all in my area. So, no, you kinda don't need to be a furry because the meetups range from furry specific to more general interests.
I have to say that, in spite of surely well earned the reputation furries have for being nice people, that is one of the weirdest suggestions I've ever heard.
Substitute furries for any other sexual endeavor.
Look up BDSM groups around you. No, you don’t have to be a dom/sub to go to one.
Look up gender transition groups around you. No, you don’t have to be trans to go to one.
YES, YOU FUCKING DO!
There are furry groups for car enthusiasts, arcades, rock climbing, horror enthusiasts, roller skating, skateparks, six flags and other stuff, all in my area. So, no, you kinda don't need to be a furry because the meetups range from furry specific to more general interests.
I'll be the first to say it's not an inherently sexual thing, but I agree it's a weird suggestion.
Going to any interest group meeting when you aren't actually interested in the topic is kind of weird.
Only like, 4~5 of the meetups out of like, 28 of the furry ones in my area are actually furry-specific. Most are general activities like rock climbing, going to an arcade, going roller skating, etc.
They're just run by furries, but I'd be willing to bet there are people in those groups who aren't.
Edit: I do agree that it sounds weird at first glance; however I'd highly suggest trying it anyway.
Play team videogames.
Doesn't matter if you suck, pick any and get a mic. Dont play to win, play to be helpful to your team.
There's gonna be some toxicity, but there's a very good chance that even with minimal communication back your brain is going to recognize that you are working with other humans to accomplish a goal.
Brains are dumb, trick it into thinking you're out hunting a mastodon with tribe while you're just chilling on the couch and it'll calm down.
Plus videogames are pretty fun. And the kids on there could use good role models, just be a decent human.
I understand why you're making this suggestion and appreciate the sentiment. Unfortunately I don't register online interactions as full social interactions like some other people. It's why I found social media platforms based on real world identities obtuse and vapid. I really need a place I can goto that doesn't cost money, people know who I am, those people are happy I'm around, I'm happy they're around, and I'm comfortable there. Unfortunately what I described is "a place I belong to" and I'm not going to get that in America.
You still might be able to.
DnD is basically free and always desperate for players and have game meetups in all types of places
If you're less nerdy and more active then you're right at the cusp of 40+ rec leagues. Aka "beer league" sports.
Hell, I have a buddy that joined a bowling team despite not knowing how to bowl and immediately went to a tourney in Vegas.
But you just said this:
the most prosperous I’ve ever been in my life
Right before:
place I can goto that doesn’t cost money
So I'm a little confused why you can't spare any money to fufil a basic human need that you're saying is unfulfilled and causing you issues.
Best of luck though, and I do legitimately wish I could have been more helpful
It's not about a lack of funds per se. I find spending money undermines any legitimacy for an activity, "best things in life are free". Might be the same reason I don't like amusement parks. This might be a psychological hold over from years living in poverty.
Find a hiking group or partner then. It's free, you'll get a little exercise, and it doesn't have to be much of a commitment.
ANY amount of money undermines ANY legitimacy of ANY activity? That is just absurd, even aside from being an absolute statement.
Get the fuck out of here lol, just say you don’t want to try and would rather the solution simply fall into your lap for free so we can avoid wasting time responding to you
Money doesn’t make an activity good but it also doesn’t make the activity inherently bad or not worth it. There are an insane amount of things that have some cost associated, they’re all illegitimate options for an activity?
The sentiment is absurd and we live in an absurd world. Conformity is not mortality, just because something is foundational to civilization doesn't make it benign. This isn't a philosophy or a statement of fact just my personal feelings. I find money to be crass and dirty. Money seems to be caustic to the human experience and humanity existed hundreds of thousands of years before we invited it (thus not intrinsic to our nature). It's an invention that instead of serving humanity has instead enthralled countless of our ape like brains.
If you're able to purchase a good or acquire a service that makes you happy without these thoughts invading your decision then I'm jealous. That's an ability I lost a long time ago.
My dude. Things cost money. That's a basic fact of life. A rec league needs to rent space to play in. You need gear to play. If those facts taint the activity for you I'm not sure how you can even handle the horrific crassness of paying for a place to live. You should probably live in a hovel the woods. One that you didn't pay for.
You enjoy paying rent? I pay a mortgage, that's not an entertaining activity.
Over the past few months, I’ve spoken with psychologists, political scientists, sociologists, and technologists about America’s anti-social streak. Although the particulars of these conversations differed, a theme emerged: The individual preference for solitude, scaled up across society and exercised repeatedly over time, is rewiring America’s civic and psychic identity. And the consequences are far-reaching—for our happiness, our communities, our politics, and even our understanding of reality.
I've become more and more isolated as I've gotten older. I'm in my early 40s now and I sometimes go several days in a row without interacting face-to-face with anyone other than my wife. I text with my brother pretty much every day, but he lives 1,000 miles away.
I have plenty of opportunities to be around more people, but I rarely want to. That's not to say that I wouldn't like to interact with people more, it's that I don't want to interact with just anyone. I want to spend time with people I want to spend time with, there just aren't very many of those people around me, and if my only options are: spend time with people I don't enjoy spending time with or be by myself, I'll choose to be by myself. If there were a third option, to spend time with people I like spending time with, I would take it because that would be my preferred option.
Only way to find those people is to get out and interact though
As an introvert, I welcome these changes if they lead to a more introvert-friendly society.
Some level of socializing is important though; you end up with a not-very-functional society without it
Yup, my sister is a teacher and she is increasingly worried about the lack of social skills of younger generations, and she teaches teenagers.
It's sad but I've been seeing this happen starting 10-12 years ago.
The writing's been on the wall for decades now. The internet accelerated things, but this really and truly started with the rise of the automobile and the white flight to the suburbs, and the commercialization of public life was the death by a thousand cuts that lead to this moment.