[HN Gopher] Should more of us be moving to live near friends?
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Should more of us be moving to live near friends?
Author : Geekette
Score : 522 points
Date : 2024-12-26 09:23 UTC (2 days ago)
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| brailsafe wrote:
| Less of us should be discounting the value of investing in new,
| long-term friendships, in the second or third place we live, and
| stop discounting the impact of arbitrarily moving away for
| cheaper or more isolated pastures just because we work remotely.
| There's a threshold past which it's worth considering how much is
| worth it to remain, but for many it seems like a no-brainer
| financial consideration, and they don't really seem to have tried
| to integrate within their neighborhood, perhaps because they knew
| they'd eventually be forced out by the landed gentry. I'd
| personally never move back to my home city, I'm happy in the
| metropolis I moved to, but have put in a hell of a lot time and
| energy into forming a strong social circle and be present in my
| community, and I probably wouldn't throw that away just to own a
| house somewhere in the boonies, but I also wouldn't spend
| millions to get a 2 bedroom condo, so it's an awkward place to be
| in one's thirties.
| williamtrask wrote:
| Yes but investing in new, long-term friendships is a bit of an
| oxymoron. In order to do that, you have to pick one set of
| friends and then stick with them (cuz opportunity cost -- the
| day is only so long). And once you've done so, you then have to
| stop investing in new friends and stick with those old ones.
|
| Cities aren't very conducive to this in part because... people
| in cities tend to be more transient and their relationships
| more transactional. You have so much more choice, and the
| people you know have more choice, and people come and go.
|
| In order to invest in long-term friendships, you need to be in
| a location where both you and the people you're making friends
| with are actually going to stay, and where both sides of the
| relationship are invested in the long-term nature of it.
|
| This is much more likely to happen in a rural area than a city.
| I'd wager that constraining choice creates intimacy far moreso
| than alignment of interests. It's not about how much you like
| each other -- it's about high-enough switching costs to hanging
| out with someone else that keep you together over a very long
| period of time.
|
| In a city, even if you find the most compatible friend ever...
| there's also going to be 50 people almost as compatible (and
| vice versa for the people you're hanging out with).
|
| In a rural area, you might not find someone you're perfectly
| compatible with... but they're far more likely to be the _only_
| person in the area with interests that are that aligned... and
| that creates intimacy... which will only make you more like
| them and them more like you.
| brailsafe wrote:
| > Yes but investing in new, long-term friendships is a bit of
| an oxymoron. In order to do that, you have to pick one set of
| friends and then stick with them (cuz opportunity cost -- the
| day is only so long). And once you've done so, you then have
| to stop investing in new friends and stick with those old
| ones.
|
| I think this is a bit of a false dichotomy that assumes you
| get a static group of people dumped in your lap--in either
| case--that you get to choose or be alone because everyone
| else is guaranteed to choose not you for some reason, and
| also that long-term friends always require the same amount of
| investment. Likewise, you seem to be leaning heavily into not
| having to make a persuasive case for yourself, as if there's
| never a situation in which you'd be compelling.
|
| Although scarcity might favor ease of intimacy, I think it's
| more true that luck, opportunity, and chemistry, give any
| pair of people something to work with regardless of shared
| interest. You can't assume every person you meet is friend
| material, but if you and them are open to it, you can both
| explore further. If 1/5 people seem fun to have coffee or go
| to the gym with, including in a rural area that may not even
| have a gym, it'll take a while to build that up, but you'll
| want a breadth of possible situations to meet people in.
| Hometowns don't necessitate that, you get it for free in
| school or church or wherever, but starting anew you gotta get
| out there.
|
| You're not wrong though, I just think it takes longer. When I
| moved to where I did, a good half of the people I met were
| always looking for a plan B, flaking on trivial plans, not
| interested in one-on-one stuff without an activity going on.
| That was 8 years ago, and they're long gone. In their place
| are multiple groups of friends I've met in wildly different
| contexts, that don't flake enough for me to notice, and I
| consider pretty solid and close. I let the others go, and
| likewise with everyone in my hometown that I still talk to, I
| either can feel great about making a deliberate effort to
| spend unconstrained time with, or they're not in the picture,
| and maybe only 4 are left because everyone else is either a
| shallow acquaintance or were just there out of convenience in
| the first place.
|
| As you grow older, there is certainly an economy of time you
| need to manage, but as you grow closer, you get grandfathered
| into not coming to that one thing or whatever every single
| time. My friend group consequently grows slower than ever,
| but is bigger than ever, and I make a point of being the
| friend I'd like to have--as cheesy as it is; I expect the
| same of them, and if they can do that then there's something
| to work with.
| lukan wrote:
| Yes of course. Intentional communities of like minded people are
| the alternative to atomarisation of strangers living next to
| strangers with fake smiles and talking behind the back as the
| standard social interaction.
|
| Easier said then done, though in most cases, but worth it
| wherever possible.
| 0_____0 wrote:
| Have you spent time around intentional communities? It's
| possible you're taking a looser meaning of the phrase than I
| am, but Intentional Communities have no shortage of toxicity
| and drama, especially since by their nature these communities
| filter for people for whom the 'default world' didn't work.
|
| That's not to say the concept is bad, but it's very very easy
| for even a good group to rapidly devolve, the clearer heads
| quietly move away.
|
| In the discussion of communities, I've come across the idea
| that it's better to organize around a purpose - say a farm
| cooperative or (historically) a religious cause. Sharing
| beliefs (being Like Minded) may not be enough for long term
| cohesion. Can you imagine living with your Blue sky cohort?
| danenania wrote:
| Rather than an "intentional community" which sounds kind of
| overbearing to me, I'd be happy to have some way to filter
| for houses/apartments that are simply in proximity to others
| who are at least open to making friends and want to be
| pleasant, neighborly, etc.
|
| I don't need or particularly want there to be any obligations
| or explicit organization facilitating this. When people are
| friendly and open, it happens naturally. You see someone
| walking the dog and strike up a conversation.
|
| I guess if there was some way to anonymously self-identify as
| sharing this preference and it got enough traction, you could
| flag neighborhoods and even specific blocks with more of
| these people, and then the concentration would perhaps
| increase over time as people who value these things would pay
| a bit more to live in these areas.
| 0_____0 wrote:
| If you live somewhere that's reasonably dense, this is
| possible. I live in a very walkable city that is also
| _socially_ quite dense. Most of my social links are people
| who live a walk or a short bike ride away. During the warm
| months, if you are around town you _will_ see people you
| know, and have the option of conversation.
|
| Put simply, you feel like you live in a community without
| having built a commune or something.
|
| Unfortunately it's kind of hard to tell what cities have
| this "social spatial density." There are denser urban areas
| that feel less communal, and far sparser ones that seem
| moreso, it's related to overall population density but not
| perfectly so.
| lukan wrote:
| "Have you spent time around intentional communities?"
|
| Yes and I know what you are talking about, but I was indeed
| using it more in a loose meaning, like friends moving
| intentionally close together and living in houses next to
| each other and sharing common ressources like a sauna and
| take turns in babysitting. Not necessarily sharing one
| kitchen and bathroom together. But for some this also works,
| for me only with certain people.
|
| "or (historically) a religious cause"
|
| And that is still a thing. Personally my common cause would
| be building open source technology together.
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| Great idea - to make this happen we either need to solve the
| housing affordability crisis in high-density areas, or spread job
| opportunities around to lower-density areas.
|
| My friends are in a diverse set of fields, finding a place with
| jobs for all of them isn't feasible right now.
| wenc wrote:
| Tokyo seems to have done this. It's not cheap by any means, but
| rent seems relatively affordable relative to pay (and very
| cheap compared to expensive cities in North America).
|
| I wonder if part of the reason is that housing is not an
| investment vehicle in Japan (probably due to the Japanese
| preference for newer, more modern builds and the fact that
| housing is a depreciating asset in an earthquake prone region).
|
| In most parts of the world, housing is tied to land, and land
| is very expensive. What makes things worse in North America is
| cultural dislike of verticality --- people want to preserve a
| museum of their low-rise neighborhoods and don't want any tall
| buildings to block the view. That's fine, but the cost is
| unaffordable housing.
| daedrdev wrote:
| I think it's simply illegal to build housing like Tokyo does
| in every US city, and often every project over 3 stories
| needs community input and faces environmental lawsuits over
| things like shadows
| epistasis wrote:
| "Urban" planning in the US is actually the art of urban
| destruction.
|
| For nearly every maximum or minimum that the zoning and
| code sets, flipping the direction would be better. Have
| parking maximums instead of minimums. Have density minimums
| rather than maximums.
|
| Make those who want to have too much parking get exceptions
| and be vetoed by a handful of people showing up on a
| Tuesday afternoon meeting. Let those who want the "luxury"
| of low density living in urban cores be the ones begging
| the neighborhood busybodies and control freaks for the
| chance to under build in prime locations.
| lorax wrote:
| Japan has detailed zoning restrictions, including the
| shadow a building can cast on a neighbor's lot. Maybe there
| are fewer lawsuits because the law is clear so it is easy
| to know if you are following it.
| https://ranjatai.wordpress.com/2022/02/11/sunlight-on-
| japane...
| epistasis wrote:
| There's two big differences:
|
| 1) clarity of law without local community process that
| overrides what the law says you can build,
|
| 2) extra capacity to actual build. Almost 100% of land is
| "built out" according to zoning, meaning that almost no
| land allows building anything more than already exists.
| In fact this downzoning was so intense that many many
| buildings would never be allowed to rebuilt, including
| iconic buildings.
|
| We have literally outlawed cities in the US, due to the
| wishes of people that want suburban automotive lifestyle
| to replace city life.
| daedrdev wrote:
| Yeah I think that is the big difference. In the US it
| doesn't matter what the actual rules are, the lawsuits
| will come regardless and drive up costs massively, and
| many places allow local councils to reject buildings
| without reasoning.
| croissants wrote:
| This is in the category of "things I believe I read from a
| reputable source, but which I can no longer definitively
| attribute", but my understanding is that one contributor to
| Tokyo's lovely and specific density is that its zoning laws
| are pretty relaxed, and on top of that they are not very
| strictly enforced. This is maybe less workable in a society
| with higher variability in people's judgment of what is ok.
| tokioyoyo wrote:
| And the sheer amount of people. It is very fun to have so
| many people who are at least semi-proud of the city they
| live in. Embracing both the chaos and the calmness of 6am
| on weekeneds.
| missedthecue wrote:
| And yet Japan has a loneliness crisis so severe they created
| a government minister position to address it.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Why not remote work? Why should a few cities reap all the
| benefits of these jobs? Spread the wealth!
| wenc wrote:
| I would love to, but I come from a place where intellectual
| pursuits are not valued, so I would lose out on that front if I
| moved back. I'm the type who needs to always be learning. So I
| would always need to be in a big city.
|
| Alain Bertaud, the urbanist, recently said, "the big contribution
| of cities is randomness." And he continues: "You don't know what
| to expect. You don't know who you will meet. And, it's precisely
| because you meet people who are different from you, who have
| different ideas. Sometime even it could be obnoxious people. I
| think obnoxious people -- I mean, what I consider obnoxious --
| are necessary in order to stimulate."
|
| In North America, there is a very strong cultural preference to
| isolate oneself (probably a residual effect of the frontier
| spirit). Hence a strong preference for suburban single family
| homes with backyards ("for the kids and the dog") and which
| results in spread out developments where people rarely have to
| interact. That's fine -- but realize that's a cultural
| preference.
|
| I grew up in a house with no backyard and had an idyllic
| childhood. I knew my neighbors and biked to the playground. I was
| as happy as a clam. To this day, I don't feel any need to own a
| house with a backyard. That is also a cultural preference.
| jacobgkau wrote:
| > In North America, there is a very strong cultural preference
| to isolate oneself
|
| There's also a "very strong cultural preference" to be
| "obnoxious," as you put it. Hence a strong preference to
| isolate oneself.
|
| I'd be fine living and raising a family in a high-rise downtown
| in a country where people behave themselves. Not here in the
| US. The comparison isn't apples-to-apples.
| pnw wrote:
| High density living in a downtown area is inversely
| correlated with having a family across a wide selection of
| different countries though. The highest density countries
| like Korea and Japan have some of the lowest fertility rates.
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34914431/
| jacoblambda wrote:
| > The highest density countries like Korea and Japan have
| some of the lowest fertility rates.
|
| I'm going to doubt that's because of density. That's
| entirely because of toxic aspects of the cultures
| (especially work and education culture) that make it near
| impossible to have and raise a child for the first few
| years of their life.
| astrange wrote:
| Generally speaking, birth rate declines happen because
| people have more things to do than have children. That's
| why all rich countries experience them and noone has been
| able to reverse them. (Japan actually has slightly
| reversed theirs. Korea hasn't because Korean men are
| awful misogynists no women want to associate with.)
|
| There are high density countries with high birth rates
| though; they're either very religious (Israel) or very
| poor (Africa).
| pnw wrote:
| The same effect can be observed in animals and one theory
| is that it's a stress reaction to densely populated
| environments.
|
| https://academic.oup.com/endo/article/162/11/bqab154/6354
| 390
| l33tbro wrote:
| > I would love to, but I come from a place where intellectual
| pursuits are not valued, so I would lose out on that front if I
| moved back.
|
| I used to think along similar lines. But I haven't found moving
| out of the city to be subtractive of my 'intellectual life'. If
| anything, it has been complementary - due to being grounded in
| mainstream experience again that I lost touch with in the city.
|
| That said, I've very consciously kept those former social
| connections alive (I'm an hour away), as I still need semi-
| regular social interaction with people much smarter than me.
| fragmede wrote:
| It depends on how you lived in the city and how much video
| calling you do outside of work. If you're an hour away, it
| doesn't make sense to meet a friend in the city for coffee
| for 30 minutes and then drive home, but if that's not how you
| interacted with people in the city, then living in the
| suburbs or rural areas isn't going to change how you interact
| with them.
| titanomachy wrote:
| > being grounded in mainstream experience again that I lost
| touch with in the city
|
| I just spent a couple weeks visiting a friend in a (fairly
| affluent) rural mountain town, and felt this overwhelmingly.
| Most discussion amongst rural people seems to focus on things
| that directly affect them and that they can in turn affect.
| Community projects, social events, improving their schools,
| local gossip, etc.
|
| In contrast, my city friends spend a lot of time on "bigger"
| subjects: wars, geopolitical and economic trends, our
| predictions on technological development... also, a lot of
| conversation about people's travel plans and that sort of
| thing. Rich city people _always_ seem to be traveling out of
| the city, or planning their next travel.
|
| It's not that the rural people are ignorant of the world,
| rather, I think it's a conscious choice to focus on things in
| their sphere of influence. It was a really nice reminder for
| me. If I ask a city friend "how have you been doing?" I'm
| likely to hear something like "oh, I've just been so stressed
| about this election" or "I've been worrying about AI taking
| my job". A rural friend might say something about digging
| their neighbor's house out after the latest snowstorm, or
| start talking about the new ski trail that their community
| just built.
| bee_rider wrote:
| What sort of area do you live in now? Urban living is a bit
| more mainstream than rural by a fair margin in the US,
| although suburban beats them both.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| I'm not sure I'd draw any general conclusions from your
| experience. It's a rather broad brush.
|
| I grew up in a very intellectual city (Waterloo) with a back
| yard with big wood fences and we just became experts climbing
| them, venturing from yard to yard collecting half a dozen kids.
| We'd bike all over, including to the universities (though
| Laurier campus didn't feel interesting).
|
| I moved to a very blue collar small city and it feels pretty
| much the same. My kids are bringing back a lot of nostalgia for
| me, I've made a lot of friends at the curling club, and I'm
| mentoring a local high school's robotics team (one difference:
| I've learned that young farmers are incredible engineers).
|
| I wouldn't suggest that my experience is normal either, though.
| wenc wrote:
| I get it. I lived part of my life in Southern Ontario and
| knew a bunch of people from Waterloo and surrounding areas --
| absolutely brilliant mechanical minds. (Farmers truly make
| great engineers -- in fact many famous American engineers
| trace their roots to farming communities in Wisconsin or some
| such).
|
| But suppose you were interested in Rousseau or Great Books.
| You wouldn't find too many people willing to connect on that.
| But in a big city you will find both types and more.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| >But suppose you were interested in Rousseau
|
| Ironically enough as a sidenote, Rousseau most definitely
| was not a proponent of urban living, and in fact detested
| the intellectual cosmopolitan more than just about anyone
| else, he went so far as to declare big cities the abyss of
| the human species. I don't personally agree but that is one
| tough philosopher for the aspiring urbanite
| gazook89 wrote:
| I think it's likely folly to think that the big city is only
| place where intellectual pursuit and learning can happen.
|
| I often tell people that living in a rural area is much like
| living in the city, but living next to the city is like
| neither.
| fragmede wrote:
| It's a simple matter of density. It's not about intellect or
| intellectual pursuit at large, rural people are plenty smart.
| It's that intellectual pursuits can be very niche, and you're
| more likely to find someone that shares that very specific
| intellectual pursuit the more people there are, in close
| proximity. If you're located somewhere rural, your closest
| neighbors maybe 30 mins away, and friends often further.
| That's a totally different experience compared to having your
| friends live in the same high rise or be your neighbor 3 mins
| away. Not saying that one is better than the other, but
| they're clearly different.
| wenc wrote:
| This is it. It's proximity.
|
| Let's say you're interested in transformers. In a big city,
| you could go to a meetup, talk to different people working
| on this stuff at a production level (maybe there's even
| some guy who works on it at Google), talk about tips or
| pitfalls that no one ever publishes and potentially have
| the conversation veer off to DuckDB or some obscure topic.
| When you have a gathering of like minds, the conversation
| can go in unpredictable directions and you can potentially
| land in very interesting places.
|
| In a less urban area, this is far less likely to happen
| because there are just fewer people with the same interests
| (unless you're lucky). I grew up with friends who were
| absolutely brilliant (high fluid intelligence) who come
| from farming families. But they just weren't interested in
| what I was interested in. The core of intellectual pursuit
| isn't just smart people, but the confluence of people who
| have the same interests and who are also well positioned.
|
| You might ask, can't you just learn this stuff online and
| talk to people on Reddit? But the reality is that positive
| effects of randomness require real life undirected
| interactions with the right people.
|
| (This is for instance why people are willing to relocate to
| a cold city like Montreal (-30degC/-22degF in the winter)
| to work in Bengio's lab for a couple of years, just so they
| can overhear lunchtime conversations about how to train
| certain models. A lot of this knowledge is caught and not
| taught.)
|
| I've gotten so many ideas from just random conversations
| with well positioned people who happened to be doing
| something important and interesting. It's not just about
| being smart.
| theGnuMe wrote:
| You can do all that online... however in-person
| networking is important.
| philosopher1234 wrote:
| No you can't, because the depth, pace, and honesty of
| conversation doesn't exist online
| davkan wrote:
| This has not been my experience.
|
| Are you just trying to find that level of communication
| in places like this?
| philosopher1234 wrote:
| It is not possible for it to exist in any text based
| forum because it depends on:
|
| * body language, non verbal communication
|
| * the ability to respond instantly
|
| * the ability to interrupt
|
| * the ability do develop relationships over time
|
| Which do not exist altogether anywhere on the internet
| davkan wrote:
| It sounds to me like you're just describing the
| limitations of textual communication, which I agree is
| limited in all the ways you have written in this post
| except the last.
|
| But, it's entirely possible to have thoughtful, deep,
| honest discussions with individuals over a textual medium
| and to develop meaningful relationships in that way. I
| have done so. Often these relationships start in a more
| open public setting and become more meaningful in a
| private space, similarly to real life.
| theGnuMe wrote:
| Or you know, video conference. I have zoom calls with AI
| folks from all the world weekly.
| willturman wrote:
| > In a less urban area, this is far less like. The core
| of intellectual pursuit isn't just smart people, but the
| confluence of people who have the same interests and who
| are also well positioned.
|
| The idea that spontaneous interactions lead to innovation
| is wonderfully captured in Kevin Simler's essay Going
| Critical
|
| https://meltingasphalt.com/interactive/going-critical/
| rgrieselhuber wrote:
| Agreed, the comment reminded me of the secret king in the
| corner meme "they don't know I have intellectual pursuits."
|
| People outside of cities can read good too.
| vel0city wrote:
| It's like the people who think the only tech people are in
| SV.
|
| I've had lots of good tech discussions in several of towns
| that don't crack the top 20 biggest US cities. And I wouldn't
| argue I'm incredibly well travelled.
| ryandrake wrote:
| > I would love to, but I come from a place where intellectual
| pursuits are not valued, so I would lose out on that front if I
| moved back.
|
| This part of choosing where to live is so important and hard to
| articulate. I remember when I moved from small town to small
| town, then finally out to Silicon Valley. The first thing I
| noticed was the billboards by the side of 101. They were about
| programming frameworks, iPhones, hackerspaces, development
| tools and so on... Where I came from, the billboards along the
| highway said things like "Don't Shake Your Baby" and "Jesus
| Hates Sinners" and "Lift Kits For Your Truck". The vibe of the
| Valley and the general interest in intellectual things made me
| think for the first time in my life "I'm among my own people
| now!"
|
| Since then, as we all know, the vibe has changed, and I've
| moved away, but for a very brief special period of time, my
| quality of life was greatly enhanced just by being in this
| nexus of people who's values and interests aligned with my own.
| flawn wrote:
| Hmm, tangentially related, but how would you say SF changed?
| Where would you get this feeling of SF back then nowadays?
| Thought about giving SF a visit in summer as an aspiring
| software engineer & entrepreneur but curious to what you
| think about it.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Hard to say, and it's highly subjective. It just feels like
| Silicon Valley is no longer about building cool things and
| making the world better through technology. It's become
| about exploitation and extraction, instead of building.
| It's about capturing and controlling users rather than
| serving them. It's about "crushing it in the market, bro."
| It's grindset, hustle culture, performative work. It's
| about phony tech chops and faking everything until you make
| it financially or crash and burn. Maybe it's always been
| this way and I just didn't see it when I moved there.
|
| In terms of respect for intellectual pursuits and expertise
| and institutions that respect these things, the place is
| still head and shoulders above most of the USA, but it
| feels like every part of the valley has been utterly
| corrupted by hustle and greed.
|
| I came out here expecting Netscape, Sun Microsystems and
| Silicon Graphics, but lately the place has morphed into
| Theranos, FTX, and innumerable Fintech, AI and crypto
| scams. Not to mention GiantTech capturing and gatekeeping
| everything else that's not a scam.
| JSR_FDED wrote:
| As I was reading your comment I was thinking "this feels
| just like the time of Silicon Graphics and SUN". Glad I
| got to experience that time in the valley, even though I
| started to feel the influx of people who were just there
| for the money, not the passion, starting around
| 2002/2003.
| edm0nd wrote:
| >It's become about exploitation and extraction, instead
| of building.
|
| What if I told you it always has been about that.
| block_dagger wrote:
| As a former SF resident who visits frequently, I still
| think it's a unique and wonderful city. I would move back
| in a heartbeat if the weather were not so foggy and cold
| compared to southern California. Visit! And explore the
| whole bay area. Berkeley especially.
| williamtrask wrote:
| Having lived in both rural and urban settings, I'm not sure the
| isolation you describe would be as correlated as you think.
| People in rural areas still hang out with one another (and
| even... alot) and people in cities still isolate themselves.
|
| To follow that line further, I'd argue that the fact that rural
| living gives you less choice in company increases the degree to
| which you invest in the relationships that happen to be around.
| Consequently, rural living can create a greater sense of
| intimacy and companionship than the bustle of a city where
| there's always a new face around the corner (if you get bored
| of the old faces).
| kennyloginz wrote:
| I'm curious, do you live on a farm, or a suburb?
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| Villages and small towns exist.
| vel0city wrote:
| Yeah but on the census is your area rural or urban?
|
| Lots of people LARP as rural despite living in an urban
| area.
|
| Big difference between a small town a truly rural. My
| friend lives in a rural place; it's a full 30min drive to
| the grocery store on one lane each way highways. There's
| like six restaurants in 80mi.
| jacoblambda wrote:
| You are kind of missing the point. You can have a small
| rural town where the people in the town generally all
| live in/around the town but between that town and the
| next town over might be 1-2 hours.
|
| In that type of small town you still have quick access to
| your necessities and you can walk to your neighbors'
| houses but once you get out of the bounds of your small
| town it might be 30 minutes before you see the next
| building, an hour to the next small town, and 4-6 hours
| to the nearest city or large town.
| vel0city wrote:
| You are kind of missing the point. You can live in a
| small town that might be 1-2 hours separated by the next
| town and still not be "rural". You're still living an
| urban life, not a rural life. It's not like you need your
| town to be >1M people for it to be "urban". There's small
| town urban, there's a big city urban, and there's rural.
|
| Do you actually live in a place statistically considered
| urban or rural? If you have multiple chain restaurants in
| your town, you're almost assuredly not "rural". If you
| can see your neighbor's front door, you're probably not
| rural. If you feel the need to erect a privacy fence so
| your neighbors can't see you, you're probably not rural.
| User23 wrote:
| > If you have multiple chain restaurants in your town,
| you're almost assuredly not "rural".
|
| By this standard, there are no rural communities east of
| the Mississippi. Is that congruent with what you intend
| to say?
| vel0city wrote:
| I've definitely visited places which are rural which are
| East of the Mississippi. I have family who actually live
| in forests and on large farms who don't live anywhere
| near chain restaurants. Places where you can't even see
| the neighbor's fence line from your front porch. But the
| vast majority of places I know and have visited are
| urban. If there's multiple chain hotels, once again
| probably not rural.
|
| Over 80% of the US population lives in an urban area. And
| yet so many think they live "rural" because their town
| isn't NYC or SF.
|
| https://www.pewresearch.org/decoded/2019/11/22/evaluating
| -wh...
|
| 31% of people who live in NCHS defined suburban areas
| think they live in rural areas. They LARP as cowboys
| living in urban areas. I'm surrounded by them.
|
| https://youtu.be/6q_BE5KPp18
| lolinder wrote:
| You're being needlessly pedantic. The top-level comment
| is saying that they could only live in a big city for
| {reasons}--it's very very clear that a small town of 5000
| doesn't count for them. In that context, the commenter
| that started this subthread is clearly using "rural" to
| describe everything that isn't in a big city--places
| where there are hour-sized gaps between small towns count
| as rural when it's used to distinguish from "big city".
|
| Trying to insist on a different dividing line between
| categories is not useful in this context where OP was
| already clear that they believe a small town doesn't work
| for them.
| vel0city wrote:
| > In that context, the commenter that started this
| subthread is clearly using "rural" to describe everything
| that isn't in a big city
|
| That's not the term for rural though. That's small towns
| and villages, not "rural". These are real words with real
| meanings. If I started saying the furry 30lb animal in my
| house that goes "bark" is an elephant it's not the right
| term to use and I'd welcome you calling out my improper
| usage.
|
| Most Americans have never really experienced "rural"
| living.
|
| But I guess you'd prefer for people to just continue to
| ignorantly use improper terms. Better get off the
| computer tonight and fly my elephant around the galaxy.
| Or walk my dog around the block. Words have no meanings
| anymore, it's all pedantic.
| rascul wrote:
| Which definition of "rural" are you referring to?
| vel0city wrote:
| NCHS codes, RUCC codes, census designated places, ZIP
| code designations, take your pick. All of those are
| generally OK by me. Something other than just "small
| towns and villages exist", as both easily get classified
| as urban or suburban.
|
| I've got loads of data backing up my assertion tons
| people think they live in a rural area don't live in a
| statistically classified rural area. People overly misuse
| the term rural and don't really understand a truly rural
| area.
| lolinder wrote:
| > Something other than just "small towns and villages
| exist", as both easily get classified as urban or
| suburban.
|
| Even if you're being pedantic (which, as noted, is
| pointless and silly), small towns aren't necessarily
| urban or suburban. For the census, 2000 housing units or
| a population of 5000 are required to count, and my town
| is the only one that made it onto the census list within
| an hour of me. 20+ small towns, 6 county seats, only 1
| urban area. And that urban area has only 10% of the total
| population of those six counties! In other words: 90% of
| the people within an hour of me live in rural areas _even
| according to the census_.
|
| And, again, as noted, I think it's silly to insist on a
| term of art in colloquial usage. Most people, on hearing
| what I just said, would agree that my town is a rural
| town in the middle of rural counties. But even if we do
| use pedantic definitions, you're objectively wrong.
|
| https://www.census.gov/programs-
| surveys/geography/guidance/g...
| vel0city wrote:
| So instead of all this complaining of me being a pedant
| you could have replied to this question with just a "yes"
| and far fewer ink would have been spilled. Who was really
| being pointless and silly in this exchange?
|
| > Yeah but on the census is your area rural or urban?
|
| > And, again, as noted, I think it's silly to insist on a
| term of art in colloquial usage
|
| I disagree. If you ever call the furry creature in my
| home an elephant I'll correct your usage regardless of if
| you somehow feel it's the proper colloquial usage. Using
| the term incorrectly is using the term incorrectly. If we
| just make up whatever "rural" means to you personally
| then it'll be hard to actually use real statistics to
| understand our populations and cities.
|
| If we're just going to go by vibes for our definition of
| rural, tons of places can be rural. I live a short walk
| from a fishing hole, there's a big wooded area near me,
| loads of big pickups driving around, people in cowboy
| boots and cowboy hats everywhere, I drive past farms
| every day, and I'm constantly next to a large horse
| stable. I guess I'm in a rural area! If I get a few
| friends to agree and use the term I guess it's right.
| What's that? It's a city of a population of 120k and a
| density of >4,000/sq mi and is deep in one of the largest
| US metros? Hmm, doesn't sound very rural, but it's vibing
| right, so must be.
|
| It's absurd 30% of people who live in suburbs think they
| live in a rural area, and it does affect their lives.
| lolinder wrote:
| > So instead of all this complaining of me being a pedant
| you could have replied to this question with just a "yes"
| and far fewer ink would have been spilled.
|
| While we're being pedantic, no ink was spilled on this
| conversation. Let's not invent a definition of ink that
| includes pixels on a screen.
|
| The pedantry is the problem. That you were wrong even in
| your pedantry is entirely unsurprising because people who
| are being pedantic almost invariably are--people who
| actually are experts on a topic generally recognize it to
| be complicated enough that it's not worth trying to be
| perfectly precise in casual speech.
|
| So in my first comment I didn't feel the need to waste
| time address the merits of your claims--that would only
| validate the invalid approach to discourse--but when you
| doubled down (twice!) I decided to humor you and sure
| enough, you were wrong.
|
| > If we just make up whatever "rural" means to you
| personally then it'll be hard to actually use real
| statistics to understand our populations and cities.
|
| Agreed. So let's not invent a definition of rural that
| says that small towns and villages "easily get classified
| as urban or suburban" and then try to use that as a
| hammer to tell people they're wrong about what type of
| environment they live in. :)
|
| Edit: you added a whole paragraph after I replied, but it
| doesn't change anything. The environment you describe
| would not be called a small town or a village by anyone,
| even those who apparently misuse the word "rural" in
| conversation with you.
| vel0city wrote:
| > no ink was spilled
|
| Maybe I print all of these with an inkjet.
|
| > That you were wrong
|
| I'm sorry, where was I wrong? Where did I ever actually
| accuse any particular person of living in one place or
| the other? And in the end _you do_ live in an urban area
| by your acknowledgement. I 've only been asking for
| people to ensure they're really using the right terms.
|
| > Agreed. So let's not invent a definition of rural that
| says that small towns and villages "easily get classified
| as urban or suburban"
|
| Yes, let's not invent one. We'll just encourage the
| improper usage.
|
| > The environment you describe would not be called a
| small town or a village by anyone
|
| A surprising percentage of people living in areas like
| that do. I personally know some.
| aylmao wrote:
| > rural living gives you less choice in company increases the
| degree to which you invest in the relationships that happen
| to be around
|
| I lived in New York at some point, and experienced the
| opposite of this first hand. In my experience, in NYC, it's
| easy to end with a lot of acquaintances but few real close
| friends.
|
| At least in the social circles I moved around, everyone was
| always looking for "the next thing". There was an intense
| sense of impermanence. The next apartment, because the
| current one isn't great. The next job, because one can always
| do better. The next friend, because there's always more
| people to meet.
|
| Especially in a city as romanticised as NYC, where a lot of
| people arrive with the expectation to live their best lives,
| make it big, and/or meet the most interesting people, I think
| people get used to the idea that something better is always
| around the corner.
| wielebny wrote:
| > People in rural areas still hang out with one another (and
| even... alot)
|
| Aren't those like really dangerous?
| danenania wrote:
| I don't think suburbs are the cause of isolation. I'm on the
| tail end of a trip to Argentina and I can tell you that in
| general, people in the suburbs here are out and about, chatting
| with the neighbors, and getting together with family/friends in
| their backyards all the time.
| em-bee wrote:
| i read the parent comment as the desire for isolation being
| the cause of suburbs,
| danenania wrote:
| Either way, the association between suburbia and
| loneliness/isolation isn't a universal thing.
|
| People in Argentina definitely aren't seeking isolation in
| the suburbs. They mainly seem to want more space to host
| gatherings of everyone they know.
| scyzoryk_xyz wrote:
| As an American I can see your points, but then as a European
| you're making some wild leaps of logic there.
|
| Not all urban environments always provide the learning that's
| best for you. Some communities which "don't favor intellectual
| pursuits" end up actually being far more intellectual than the
| most ambitious elite city-dwelling ones.
|
| Most childhoods end up idyllic. All configurations humans put
| themselves into exist.
|
| Though I will say that I am lucky to say that I did come back
| to folks who really do value intellectual pursuits, though it
| did take some time for me to take notice. The urban environment
| though, not so sure about that anymore, lots of noise and
| distraction.
| cactusplant7374 wrote:
| I can appreciate that being a bit of an obnoxious person
| myself.
| lolinder wrote:
| Interestingly, the quote you cite here seems to be specifically
| directed at G.K. Chesterton, who said exactly the opposite--
| that larger societies tend towards reducing the amount of
| variety that you experience, precisely because you can choose
| to associate primarily with people who you relate to [0]. In a
| small community, you could choose to be entirely isolated, but
| if you want company you'll need to associate with the butcher,
| the baker, and the candlestick maker--there's no way to keep
| company only with the particular class of intellectuals that
| you find stimulating.
|
| Speaking as someone who's currently living in a small rural
| town, I concur with Chesterton here: if you really want to
| understand people in all their varieties, the city isn't the
| place to be. In most cities I've spent time in everyone walks
| or (worse) drive past thousands to reach the few who they
| already relate to. If you want variety, if you want to stretch
| your own perspectives, then you want to be in a small town
| where people actually stop and talk to each other _because
| there 's no one else to talk to_.
|
| [0] > It is not fashionable to say much nowadays of the
| advantages of the small community. We are told that we must go
| in for large empires and large ideas. There is one advantage,
| however, in the small state, the city, or the village, which
| only the wilfully blind can overlook. The man who lives in a
| small community lives in a much larger world. He knows much
| more of the fierce varieties and uncompromising divergences of
| men. The reason is obvious. In a large community we can choose
| our companions. In a small community our companions are chosen
| for us. ... the men of the clique live together because they
| have the same kind of soul ... A big society exists in order to
| form cliques. A big society is a society for the promotion of
| narrowness. It is a machinery for the purpose of guarding the
| solitary and sensitive individual from all experience of the
| bitter and bracing human compromises.
|
| https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/470/pg470-images.html
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Yes, this is often overlooked by VHCOL urbanists. I split my
| time between a VHCOL city and a MCOL exurb.
|
| My VHCOL city neighbors / friends all have laptop jobs like
| me. They all vote like me. They all went to competitive
| colleges like me. They had to pass through all the same
| sorting mechanisms in order to afford the VHCOL lifestyle.
|
| My MCOL exurb friends & neighbors include building
| contractors, teachers, professors, cops, cafe owners, etc.
| Their voting and education are heterogenous.
| vel0city wrote:
| I agree. You want to be intellectually challenged? Hang out
| with people who aren't exactly like you from time to time.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Not just intellectually but also politically (which I
| dont find to be particularly intellectual). By being
| surrounded by "your own" you live in a filter bubble that
| can only make you more extreme / radical. Basically all
| your friends vote the same as you but some do it more
| loudly and obnoxiously.
|
| You miss the fact that regular people on the other side
| are just normal people with slightly different policy
| preferences. ie - they might agree climate change is
| real, but aren't rich enough to profess it as their #1
| policy concern.
| vel0city wrote:
| I will say, you don't have to leave the city to know all
| kinds of people, but you do have to _choose_ to meet all
| kinds of people. It 's very easy to form a bubble in a city,
| where as with what you say in a small town you pretty much
| have to interact with a lot of the town or go live in a cave
| or something.
| mlinhares wrote:
| Reminder that there was no cultural preference, this was done
| (like in other places) to keep the industrial engine running,
| mainly carmakers. The more roads there are, the more cars
| people will buy and the more they will drive, this, mixed up
| with redlining and other racist policies created the
| environment we live in today.
|
| This was not the only way it could have gone, but it ended up
| being like this due to the government kowtowing to the moneyed
| interests.
| vel0city wrote:
| > Reminder that there was no cultural preference, this was
| done (like in other places) to keep the industrial engine
| running, mainly carmakers.
|
| Sounds like you've barely talked to people living in suburbs.
| A ton of the people I talk to are very pro-SFH, big
| easements, lot restrictions, etc. Go to a city council
| meeting talking about rezoning for higher density. Tell me
| how all those people are on the car manufacturer's payrolls.
|
| These people want this. They keep moving further outwards
| willingly because they want bigger houses on bigger lots with
| fewer of the "others".
|
| It's the same people who argue transit brings the homeless
| and crime to your area, so the way to end homelessness is to
| end public transit. They don't need to be on the auto
| industry payroll or influenced by their propaganda;
| _isolation is the goal_.
| mlinhares wrote:
| They didn't want this, they've been made to want this
| because that's what society expects out of them, due to how
| public transportation in this country sucks everywhere and
| the infrastructure in big cities is a joke. Worse, having
| kids in such places is terrible as childcare is expensive,
| there are few parks or things to do with kids that don't
| require you to pay for it, and the city itself isn't made
| for kids on strollers.
|
| These people are now sicker, sadder, more isolated, and
| with less access to good jobs and education than before.
| Now the jobs are far away, requiring hour-long commutes and
| they can't even buy bread without driving, sometimes for a
| long time.
|
| Whenever I visit Europe its such a wild experience, being
| able to take public transportation to many places, having
| parks all over the place, sometimes parks surrounded by
| restaurants and bars. It feels vibrant, with kids
| everywhere. I'm glad I have a large support group here in
| the US and we've made many friends in the burbs (mainly
| because they also have kids), but this is not the reality
| for a lot of folks.
| vel0city wrote:
| These people can vote against this kind of zoning and can
| vote for transit and densification. But instead they show
| up in droves to city council meetings to fight against it
| as much as they can. They keep choosing to move further
| outwards once public transit expands and "the wrong
| people" start moving in. They complain about the
| neighborhood "losing its character".
|
| You've got your head in the sand if you think these
| people don't exist in large numbers in suburban USA.
|
| A few of the member cities of DART have talked about
| reducing funding to public transit. For a lot of the
| people I know, they say "great!". You act like these
| people don't exist.
| jongjong wrote:
| I had to move back to be closer to my parents in a town which
| doesn't value intellectual pursuits because I couldn't find a
| job in the tech sector in the big city after almost a year.
| This is in spite of having a long list of technical
| accomplishments and an impeccable public track record under my
| belt.
|
| My dad kept reminding me how I shouldn't have pursued coding
| and studied to be a lawyer instead... He alluded to my cousin
| who never went to university and was able to buy a house by
| being a truck driver and then working in the mines. Sigh.
|
| He is right though. I feel like a fool; a caricature of the
| stereotypical book-smart, street-dumb geek, crawling back to
| the small town on my knees just to have the town folk rub dirt
| in my face, feeling proud of themselves for never having taken
| such foolish risks in their lives.
| dqh wrote:
| > This is in spite of having a long list of technical
| accomplishments and an impeccable public track record under
| my belt.
|
| If skills aren't the problem, one possibility is that a rigid
| attitude, lack of humility, or something like that is rubbing
| interviewers the wrong way. Please forgive my unsolicited
| advice and good luck with the search.
| vel0city wrote:
| Or honestly maybe just bad luck. Lots of possibilities for
| just a one-off internet comment.
|
| But yeah no doubt wise to do some self reflection and
| analyze what one could do better when trying again. One
| shouldn't just continue the same strategy without
| reflection when faluire occurs. But also don't be _too_
| hard on yourself, sometimes things just don 't work out.
| bodegajed wrote:
| That is true. I would love to have intellectual friends who
| like the arts, like pottery, writing, and music. I imagine
| those hobbies to be very affordable.
|
| > cultural preference to isolate oneself
|
| In retrospect, we, as a society, developed this notion of
| private property. Consumerism and mass media did this to us.
| But historically, we did not own much. Someone would hunt and
| gather, and the elders would stay and look out for the
| children. Imagine you're retired, old, frail, yet surrounded by
| children who are willing to help you.
| fsckboy wrote:
| consumerism and mass media did not create private property.
| Scribes didn't write about it that anybody read, and the
| first printing press was already private property.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| "Private property"* in the sense you're using it here likely
| already existed by the the time of hunter gatherers. In some
| senses it even exists in many animals. The more common term
| for it is personal property: "this is my house, you can't
| live here; those are my scraps, you can't have them". Many
| animals also have their own nests, that they will defend from
| others; or even their own territory where only they hunt, and
| which they will fight others trying to encroach on.
|
| This is the type of property that is the most natural
| actually, and I can't really see what it has to do with
| isolation. Even an idealized communist society (think Ursula
| LeGuinn, not Stalin) would still have this type of property,
| and consumerism (accumulating doodads you use every day)
| would still be a possible risk.
|
| * in these types of discussions, when discussing the origins
| of such basic concepts, private property is often understood
| to refer to ownership of goods you are not directly using on
| a day-to-day basis. If you live in a house, that's personal
| property. If you own a house someone else lives in, that's
| private property. And this is indeed a much newer idea in
| human society (though still much, much older than media).
| vel0city wrote:
| I grew up in a suburban house with a backyard that opened to
| many acres of swamplands and nature preserves. It was also a
| bicycle ride away to go to a few different parks, the movie and
| video game rental store in the same strip as a corner store
| with all kinds of snacks and ice cream, go visit Space Center
| Houston, go fishing on the lake, and even take a canoe all the
| way to the bay. I had friends in my neighborhood, friends in
| nearby neighborhoods, and friends all over the city by the time
| I was 13.
|
| Now my kids have a backyard. They are also a short walk to a
| city park with multiple playgrounds, a small trail through the
| woods, a fishing pond, and more. They can hop on the bus and go
| to the library or the many other parks. They can hop on grade
| separated bike trails and ride for dozens of miles through
| nature reserves. We take the train to watch hockey games deeper
| into the city pretty often.
|
| Suburb doesn't have to mean isolation. If often does, but it
| doesn't have to.
|
| Meanwhile I know many people who live deeper in the city who
| barely know anyone in the city and rarely interact with people
| outside of Discord.
| CalRobert wrote:
| I'm curious what suburb you're in, that sounds nice.
|
| Grade separated bike trails and train service is something
| most suburbs in the US lack (though they might have
| recreational bike trails that don't go to the centre of
| town).
|
| Visiting Houten in the Netherlands is a reminder that you can
| have a boring suburb that still gives kids freedom.
| vel0city wrote:
| My childhood was in Clear Lake (just outside of Houston,
| Southeast side, near the bay), I live in Richardson today.
|
| And yes I do agree many suburbs aren't like this. They
| should be IMO, if we're going to keep building suburbs.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| I think it's easier to isolate in an urban setting.
| aylmao wrote:
| > Alain Bertaud, the urbanist, recently said, "the big
| contribution of cities is randomness." And he continues: "You
| don't know what to expect. You don't know who you will meet.
| And, it's precisely because you meet people who are different
| from you, who have different ideas. Sometime even it could be
| obnoxious people. I think obnoxious people -- I mean, what I
| consider obnoxious -- are necessary in order to stimulate."
|
| I've experienced the opposite too, having lived in both NYC and
| San Francisco: urban homogeneity, and even monocultures.
|
| Yes, San Francisco is very diverse in the origin of its people,
| but the people who move there tend to fit certain molds,
| regardless of their cultural background. New York might attract
| more varied "types", but the act of moving to NYC still tends
| to select for a certain socio-economic level, a willingness to
| make certain sacrifices, people with certain life-goals and
| expectations, etc.
|
| I surprisingly have found more diverse personalities and ideas
| in smaller places that are less selective (in price,
| profession, ideology, etc) to move to or to live in. Places
| where a software engineer might frequent the same gym as an
| insurance salesperson, an elementary-school teacher and a
| tattoo artist, even if (and perhaps because) they're all from
| there and didn't move in for a job.
| donw wrote:
| This fits with my experience living in SF: people might look
| different, but if you were to be blindfolded and talk to a
| group of them, you would struggle mightily to pick out any
| substantial differences between individuals.
| everly wrote:
| Sounds like you're thinking inside of a fairly small
| bubble. If you picked 10 people, at random, from the 800k
| residents, I assure you that there would be substantial
| differences.
|
| Off the top of my head, you might get SF State students,
| tech bros, Chinatown senior citizens who have never left an
| 8-block radius and don't speak english, Marina moms,
| Mission District multi-gen families. I mean, come on.
|
| Maybe if you were only picking from people working at tech
| cos, but even then my experience does not match yours.
| lolinder wrote:
| The point is that no one in practice selects a random
| sample of the people living near them. Everyone they meet
| is from some self-selected sub-group--the people who live
| close to X park, the people who work at Y place, the
| people who shop at Z store. And the larger the city, the
| more people there are nearby you who are _like_ you, so
| your total variety experienced will be smaller unless you
| 're actively going out of your way to go places that you
| don't normally enjoy.
|
| So while OP may be wrong about a random sample of people
| in SF, they're probably correct about the people that
| they _know_ in SF.
|
| In a small town everyone shops at the same store, visits
| the same parks, works out at the same gym. There's only
| one library and a few restaurants, so there are fewer
| opportunities to self-select into smaller groups.
| everly wrote:
| I just don't agree (aside from the part about small
| towns, I guess, but that's not relevant to SF).
|
| If OP can't find differing personalities in a place like
| SF, it's a skill issue, sorry to say.
| tarsinge wrote:
| Same when I lived in Paris for me, I feel more of that
| randomness in encounters the parent commenter talks about in
| my small rural (albeit touristic) town.
| pyrale wrote:
| You're saying the average person from the XVIth and XXth
| district are the same? The VIIth and the XIIIth?
|
| From what I've seen from these large cities, the only
| reason people _think_ that is that they remain in their
| small subset, which is large enough for them not to notice
| the rest.
|
| If you're so inclined, sure, your small rural town is too
| small to have more than one community, and so there will be
| a little bit of social diversity. But if you live in a
| large city and are willing or need to go out of your in-
| group, the diversity is much larger.
| rors wrote:
| I wonder if the homogeneity has come from gentrification and
| high property prices. NYC might have been a crime-ridden dump
| in the 60s, but it was cheap enough that Andy Warhol could
| afford to rent a massive studio. And a modern day Leonard
| Cohen wouldn't be welcome in the Chelsea Hotel.
|
| Now you have to be a lawyer or work in finance to hope to
| even get a modest sized apartment in NYC.
| throwingrocks wrote:
| Sorry AI, not taking the bait today.
| imrehg wrote:
| Where's that Alain Bertaud quote from? I'd be interested in
| listening/reading more about his stuff.
| veunes wrote:
| I do not know from where the quote is but he wrote a book -
| Order Without Design
| somenameforme wrote:
| Your experience in rural areas differs quite extremely from
| those I have had. In particular living in rural areas basically
| forces one to have hobbies. Even in the most rural areas of
| areas I found people whose interests included astronomy, plenty
| of guys into computing stuff, radio/ham culture, taxonomy, and
| so on endlessly. Incidentally the guy who was huge into
| astronomy, with an educational background in it on top, was
| also a biker who was built like a tank and tatted from (nearly)
| head to toe. Of course there were also plenty of people whose
| hobby was 'drink self into stupor and watch TV' but they were
| not the rule.
|
| It's also way easier to meet people in rural areas because you
| see the same people regularly, and a friendly chat at the local
| convenience mart is pretty normal, as opposed to the instinct
| you get in cities where if somebody is actively seeking you out
| to chat, then he's probably either a weirdo or looking to scam
| you or, equivalently, sell you something. The same instinct
| that makes it difficult for you to approach people to chat.
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| I grew up in a small nowhere village, lived in small and large
| cities, and even Rome. But I think the sweet spot is a small
| city of about 200k. Though I find that it probably depends on
| which stage of life you are at. The older I get the more I'm
| tempted to move to even smaller city. And now, it's even hard
| to go camping, without civilization being within short driving
| distance. People are everywhere. My closet is full of winter
| jackets, that somehow it never gets cold enough for me to wear.
| I think people sometimes shop for a solution to a problem they
| don't have. Or that they fear the problem so much they
| overcompensate.
| lelandbatey wrote:
| I did, yes it is nice, I don't know if it's even possible for
| most folks. The only way to get a house in my case was to buy it
| with family and split it (in our case it was one big old house
| that'd been converted to a duplex nearly a century ago, so while
| it's one building it's well set up for two families to live
| separately).
|
| The benefits they talk about are real, but I don't know how
| realistic this is as a recommendation. I suspect few folks will
| find themselves not only able to buy housing (or a portion of
| housing), but also able to do so with folks whom they trust
| enough to make such a big commitment.
|
| I'm curious what other folks think about such situations and
| recommendations though. Is it a realistic recommendation?
| w10-1 wrote:
| Or, in California, buy a single-family urban home and subdivide
| it under SB-9.
| m0llusk wrote:
| Another popular option in California that does not get
| mentioned in the article are what is called Planned Unit
| Developments or PUDs. These are case by case approved plans to
| develop dense housing on a lot that might otherwise have a
| single building or unit. Three or more townhouses is a common
| alternative but sometimes there are cottage bungalows or a mix.
| kidneystereotyp wrote:
| rich people problems
| bdangubic wrote:
| you expected many poor people here on HN? :)
| riku_iki wrote:
| not rich enough to drop low interest mortgage rate.
| pixelatedindex wrote:
| More like I need to be rich to move to where my friends are - I
| went to college in the Bay Area and I can't afford to live
| there. But honestly it's not hard to keep in touch these days
| if you want to so I'm not the least bit bothered.
|
| As a renter, I'm constantly on the move because I can't afford
| homeownership - the price to rent ratio is firmly between 19
| and 20 at the moment, and that's after moving from the Bay
| Area. Buying is a minimum of a 48% increase here in Seattle,
| that absurd.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > More like I need to be rich to move to where my friends are
|
| Like most folks, we live where we can. Being able to pick a
| spot on a map has never been a possibility.
|
| It's been tighter than that tho. In 2021 we beat loooong odds
| to find any housing and insane odds to score a decent place
| that fit all of us. People with money in the bank were going
| homeless.
| kidneystereotyp wrote:
| what were the long odds please do tell :) eugenics,
| poisoning, dictatorships, genocide, identity theft,
| torture, blackmail while moving or simply wanting to live
| in a specific area? i dont think finding a place in city
| like SF should be considered long odds lol
|
| but i also think people that grew up in houses would two
| cars shouldn't be included in the poor category just
| because they did not go to disney world but that was a very
| hot take in college so what do i know about poverty lool
| pixelatedindex wrote:
| > i dont think finding a place in city like SF should be
| considered long odds lol
|
| To rent or to buy? Because those are vastly different
| things in today's economy. Rent, sure - you can find one.
| Buying? You need 250K+ saved and jobs that lets you pay
| 8K/mo for at least 10 years.
|
| But I do agree that people in areas with high RE who own
| a home and two cars shouldn't be included in the poor
| category. That's easily 1M in assets.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > what were the long odds please do tell
|
| These were the calculable factors for this area, in mid
| 2021.
|
| Each rental listing had ~400 unique applicants per day.
| For total number of rentals, a generous est is ~100 new
| listings per month in the 3 counties we searched. In our
| 4 mo of searching (of a 6mo window) I found 2 good fits
| but 1 was at the extreme end of affordability.
|
| For a decade of complex reasons (inc. extreme poverty,
| responsible spending and unforeseen changes in the rental
| market) I had a ~0 credit rating. That rules out most/all
| software managed rentals - over 95% from what I can
| glean.
|
| The ad for the rental we scored inc a crayon layout on
| lined paper. It was posted for 2 hrs and received >50
| applicants. We scored it by offering 6mos up front plus a
| 2x sec dep. Having that much money on hand followed
| another set of timely and unlikely circumstances.
|
| The long odds, they are whatever all the above maths out
| to.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > eugenics, poisoning, dictatorships, genocide, identity
| theft, torture, blackmail while moving.
|
| No.
|
| > simply wanting to live in a specific area?
|
| Needing to live where existing jobs/clients were, for our
| multi-income household. Moving anywhere else at all would
| have stranded us without reasonable prospects.
| em-bee wrote:
| why does renting force you to move? how does owning a home
| allow you to stay if other considerations may force you to
| sell the house and buy another one?
|
| my mother lives in a rental apartment that my family has been
| in since 150 years ago.
| linguae wrote:
| When I was 12 years old, we had to leave a rental house
| because the landlord sold it. It was very disruptive for us
| since my parents were low-income and didn't have much
| savings. It also took place at a time when market rents
| increased quite a bit. My parents struggled to find
| housing; we moved into an apartment temporarily, and two
| months later we finally found another house to rent that we
| could afford, but it was in a more dangerous neighborhood.
|
| I recently moved out of an apartment complex in Santa Cruz
| County in California that got sold after being owned by a
| family for about 50 years. Some of the tenants lived there
| for decades. The new owners submitted plans to the local
| government to upzone the 1960s-era apartment complex, which
| will involve residents needing to move during construction.
| Thankfully for me, the sale coincided with a major career
| change (WFH researcher to a professor who teaches in
| person) that required me to move anyway, so I moved.
| However, I feel for long-time residents of my former
| apartment complex going through the uncertainty of the
| future and the difficult housing market in Santa Cruz
| County should they be forced to move.
|
| Renting, by definition, means you don't own your place.
| While there are some people who are able to have stable
| renting situations, there are others who have the bad luck
| of receiving an eviction notice due to a sale. Owning a
| place means not having to worry about a landlord.
| em-bee wrote:
| that's only true in the US though. most other countries
| have better renter protection. my point was that it's not
| just renting that forces you to move. you moved yourself
| because of a job. if you had owned a house you would have
| had to sell it at that point.
| pixelatedindex wrote:
| Well for one, I am in the US. Secondly if you owned a
| house you can rent it out - you don't have to sell it.
| It's a better deal especially in the Bay Area since
| property taxes are capped.
|
| Thirdly, I move to find better deals on rent - many
| places I've lived don't have rent control so moving is
| really the only option to keep costs as low as possible.
| I moved states because of a job, but within the Bay Area
| it's the only way to keep up a desirable savings rate.
|
| Also, try commuting from SF to SJ every day. It's an
| incredible waste of time, particularly if you don't live
| near the Caltrain (and now BART) corridor.
| pixelatedindex wrote:
| > my mother lives in a rental apartment that my family has
| been in since 150 years ago.
|
| Wouldn't it have been better to just buy property in that
| area? 150 years ago was 1874 - that's many an economic
| cycle and the homesteading act was still a thing then.
|
| I find it hard to believe that renting was the best play
| here. Unless (cost of house/cost of annual rent) was always
| 16+, then maybe.
| defrost wrote:
| > the homesteading act
|
| Their mother likely rents in Europe where the US
| homesteading act didn't apply.
| pixelatedindex wrote:
| Ah, I didn't catch that. My apologies for not catching
| that when reading their comments. EU does have far better
| consumer protection for renters.
| em-bee wrote:
| it's close to the center of the city. the only properties
| were large buildings with multiple apartments. so no. it
| would not only not have been better, it would simply not
| have been possible without moving out of the city, if it
| was possible at all.
|
| which i think it wasn't because in the 19th and early
| 20th century all property was owned by aristocratic
| families. and you either had property to begin with or
| you never could get any unless someone with property gave
| some of theirs to you for some reason. then came the
| world wars and by the time buying property became
| possible it probably wasn't affordable by many.
|
| i also seem to remember that rent was very low for a long
| time. though it raised quite a bit in recent decades.
| xhkkffbf wrote:
| Rilly? In my experience, many of the rich people are isolated
| and paralyzed by concerns about status and wealth and family
| connections and ....
|
| It's the poor who are often able to put those issues aside
| because they have so little status and wealth. They have
| nothing to lose.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| A granular housing choice is a privilege not afforded to poor
| people. They live where they can, typically in places heavy
| with compromise.
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| If I moved near where most of my friends live, it would cost
| probably an extra 300K in a housing costs and working much longer
| hours at a job I'd surely hate. I'd rather use the money to visit
| them once in a while and make even more friends where I live.
| paxys wrote:
| Weird that the article frames friends as being constant in life
| and your career/house/neighborhood/kids' schools/community as
| totally flexible when practically speaking it's the other way
| around. It is normal to move away from people you formed bonds
| with in high school and college. If you are lonely the solution
| isn't to uproot your life and go after them, but to form new
| bonds with people who are around you right now. The end result is
| the same - you get to live near friends.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| https://thehill.com/homenews/4858218-moving-rate-lowest-hist...
|
| https://www.axios.com/2024/09/01/americans-moving-less-post-...
|
| https://themortgagepoint.com/2024/08/20/most-americans-stay-...
| ericmcer wrote:
| The article frames this issue with an older person looking back
| on their life and being glad they maintained lifelong
| friendships.
|
| From a practicality standpoint making a new friend can be
| easier but it won't have the same spiritual and emotional
| connection as a lifelong one. If you are 80 a friendship of 60+
| years will be something that invokes real satisfaction and
| lends depth to your life. Being friends with someone from down
| the street for 6 months doesn't really mean anything.
| nemo wrote:
| I'm 50-something, lots of the friends I've made in the last
| one to four years birdwatching are close now. I have old
| friends from 30 years ago but they're mostly a drain. I've
| formed new relationships with folks in my Tai Chi class as
| well. We're very close now, closer than I am with any of my
| old friends.
|
| It might be that for some old friends add extra richness and
| depth to relationships, but that has not been my experience
| at all and I'm glad I've found local friends with common
| interests - I certainly prefer them to people I happened to
| go to school with. I know some folks from my job from long
| ago, and seeing old friends is nice, but still I mostly want
| to talk to the few that I still have some shared interest in
| common now.
| timewizard wrote:
| It's "failure to launch" as a social activity. It seems
| directed at unburdened youth who do not need to struggle to
| survive in any way. If friendships are truly the path to the
| highest levels of wealth then the takeaway should be that
| learning how to make new friends is the highest of human
| endeavors as it not only enriches your lives but the lives of
| those you connect with.
|
| Instead they come away with "get your high school friends to
| pick houses on Zillow together and live an 'enclave.'" Weird
| indeed.
| sanderjd wrote:
| Nailed it.
|
| I was going to say that I think more of us should be figuring
| out how to make connections with the people in the communities
| we live in.
|
| But I do think moving might make sense for lots of people
| (maybe including me), in order to have a better local
| community. Instead of moving to be close to past or current
| friends, I might suggest we should be moving to places where
| people are like-minded about valuing a tight knit community,
| then making friends with those people.
|
| These places seem to be very few and far between, though, and
| it's hard (impossible?) to find them on Zillow.
| em-bee wrote:
| i'd change that to like-minded and valuing a tight knit
| community. just valuing a tight knit community is not enough,
| because if i don't fit in with those people than they won't
| let me join.
|
| personally i am going for friendly and tolerant. likeminded
| people (for me maybe the kind of people that read hackernews)
| are hard to find, and are a reason for me to prefer big
| cities.
| sanderjd wrote:
| Right there with you!
| mym1990 wrote:
| I don't really understand where Zillow even factors into your
| assessment here, but maybe that is part of the problem. If
| people are looking for close knit communities on Zillow, that
| is a massive mistake.
|
| Tight and close knit communities are not just going to let
| you join them. You have to basically commit to fostering
| those relationships for years and years, and generally
| speaking that kind of commitment is not getting more
| prevalent, but less.
| sanderjd wrote:
| "Zillow" was a metaphor for the point that you can't just
| find neighborhoods and communities like this by searching
| online. Which I think is pretty much your point as well!
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| Agreed. However, it seems that in the US especially it becomes
| difficult for people to make new friends after we're in our
| 20s. And probably even harder now than it has been in the past
| given the increasing preference for isolation. Instead of
| moving as a solution, we need to focus on helping people figure
| out how to form longterm friendships at every stage of life.
| mym1990 wrote:
| Making true, lifelong friends is like planting seeds. People
| you meet and stay in touch with for the next 20 years will
| undoubtedly by wonderful friends in time, but people you meet
| today will not be the same as people you have known for 20
| years. Living next to someone I have known for the majority of
| my life(assuming we are still very close) is very different
| than living next to someone I have known for 6 months. I
| understand the idea is that you still _live near friends_ but
| it is just not the same.
| sojournerc wrote:
| I draw a different conclusion from your analogy though. One
| should continue to plant those seeds of friendship wherever
| you are. Friendship is not zero sum.
|
| "The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second
| best time is today."
| veunes wrote:
| Life has taught me that the most unstable thing in life is
| social connections (including friendships)
| bluGill wrote:
| Most people live where they are many jobs. Most people live
| close to their parents. They were able to find a job close and
| so choose that. Generally if you look for a job you can find
| plenty of them in whatever field you are in.
|
| Now jobs are the most common reason to move away. However that
| is still a minority situation, the majority find a place to
| live and then a job there. Even when looking for a new job
| people tend to prefer jobs where they don't have to move.
| the_clarence wrote:
| Depends where you live. In the US people move for jobs a lot,
| we studied that aspect of US life in French schools. In
| France it's common to move to Paris to work once you finish
| school.
| declan_roberts wrote:
| This is great advice if you replace "friends" with "family"
| bdangubic wrote:
| hmmm I don't think I want to be THAT close to my family...
| don't want any pop-ins :)
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I enjoy pop-ins. Someday nobody will pop-in because they'll
| all be dead.
| bdangubic wrote:
| not sure why this is being downvoted... the fact that I'll
| be eternally sad when older members of my family are no
| longer roaming the Earth has no bearing on whether or not I
| enjoy the pop-ins. I think perfect distance from your
| family is one which you can do a day trip (come for lunch,
| leave in the afternoon) but far enough you'd call to make
| sure we are not hiking/biking/snorkeling/...
| doubled112 wrote:
| Not always
|
| With family, the further I get, the happier I am. They are what
| they are, and I can't say I'm that interested in it.
|
| I've replaced that with friends I can actually count on.
| Loughla wrote:
| Found family is just as valid as family.
|
| For those of us from toxic homes, found family is more
| important. The LGBTQ community was decades ahead of us on
| this.
| renewiltord wrote:
| My friends and I live near each other. It's a quick 10 min walk
| to their place and we have keys to each others' places. We've
| slowly lobbied more people to move nearer and life is getting
| better with each additional participant. I'm a firm believer in
| optimizing for our relationships.
|
| That said, we did that because it seemed to us to be the obvious
| right thing, and it seemed that our parents benefited from doing
| this. If the only input I had was some super rich guy saying
| "Don't do what I did, man. Wealth isn't worth it. I wish I had
| friends" I would conclude that it's bogus.
| matwood wrote:
| > We've slowly lobbied more people to move nearer and life is
| getting better with each additional participant.
|
| When I was younger many of my friends and their friends all
| moved into my apt. complex. It was great.
|
| Now that we're older, I'm in the process of fixing up a place
| abroad I hope that many of us can stay at once people start
| retiring and/or scaling back on work. My wife and I are going
| to move soon enough, but we've already let our friends know we
| have space for others. I don't mind building the beachhead :)
| hebocon wrote:
| Epicurus was a strong proponent of living with friends though I
| much prefer my own living space.
|
| A 10-minute walk would be a _perfect_ compromise.
| kyawzazaw wrote:
| Give this to people you know - https://livenearfriends.com/
| julianeon wrote:
| More of us should be prioritizing making friends, probably: if
| you pull it off, you've achieved a similar effect at much lower
| cost. If you're the type of person who's organized and capable
| enough to organize a communal living space with your friends,
| you're logically also able to find friendships in your area, much
| more so than the average person is.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Yes, it is already difficult enough achieve compromises on
| where to live with an economically mobile spouse, much less
| parents/in laws, I can't imagine achieving much success with
| adding friends to the mix.
|
| Prioritize your kids, your spouse, yourself, and let the other
| chips fall where they may.
| magic_smoke_ee wrote:
| It might boost propinquity.
|
| Does anyone here have shared or neighboring vacation homes or
| SHTF homesteads with friends?
| extr wrote:
| I go back and forth on this. I still keep in touch with a bunch
| of high school and college friends. For better or worse those
| guys know "the real me" and the history and relationships are
| impossible to replace. They all still live close together but I
| live far away - I only see them once or twice a year, if that
| (less right now because we're all in the "very young kids"
| stage). I miss them.
|
| On the other hand, when I spend more than a few days straight
| with them, I realize that despite how deep our history goes,
| we've all changed. We don't share as many of the same
| hobbies/interests. My wife doesn't share a strong connection with
| them in the same way I do and doesn't have anything at all in
| common with their wives. I get it. Moving closer to them for the
| sake of my relationships would be a huge sacrifice for her.
|
| What's to be done?
| williamtrask wrote:
| > What's to be done?
|
| Our society would need to re-think its norms around moving away
| in order to move upward, which runs into some pretty big
| philosophical ideas around geography, culture, and values. For
| technologists, this cultural movement is still in a bit of a
| philosophical stage, but it's starting to make its way into
| some early experiments. https://www.plurality.net/ is probably
| the best written work on it so far.
| charlie0 wrote:
| Interesting, but this just a framework. Where are the actual
| implementations? Ie, the communities?
|
| I've been looking for networked states that aren't all in on
| living forever or obsessed with crypto and anarchism.
| extr wrote:
| Not really the case in my situation. We moved to be closer to
| family (both sets of parents had coincidentally had relocated
| to the same area of the country late in life, but before we
| met). The choice between friends vs family complicates my
| situation. Love my family, but it's not the same as having
| peers in a similar stage of life.
| jimbokun wrote:
| Remote work should make this much easier than before.
| wffurr wrote:
| Nothing. Stay with your wife's social circle, stay in touch
| with your old friends, and build community where you are with
| your family. Children are a fantastic icebreaker and way to
| meet people.
| teruakohatu wrote:
| > I only see them once or twice a year, if that (less right now
| because we're all in the "very young kids" stage). I miss them.
|
| How often do you think you would see them if you lived in the
| same city?
|
| If you see them twice a year, for a few days straight, I think
| you are doing really well and I am sure they appreciate the
| effort you make.
|
| Can you cut the difference and go camping once a year or every
| second year for a week or two as a family? So their kids and
| your kids get to know each other, and maybe your wife and
| theirs too.
| kyawzazaw wrote:
| My father see his college and high schools friends in
| teashops almost everyday. They just sit, sometimes eat. All
| come and go. No long term planning. Just phone calls.
| teruakohatu wrote:
| Did you possibly reply to the wrong comment?
|
| If not: I don't think it's a realistic goal, at least in a
| typical Western country, for a person with a young family
| and a full time job to manage to meet up with friends, who
| are not co-workers, almost every day.
| kyawzazaw wrote:
| I intended to reply to you. Nope, my parents don't reside
| in a western country and they all have private businesses
| and we are relatively well-off.
|
| But even those who are not well-off or business owners
| will do this.
| noisy_boy wrote:
| It all depends on the type of circle. Even within the
| same city, given the same depth of relationships,
| distance and the location matter. In a busy asian city,
| being as little as 15kms apart could result in meeting
| much less often. In a US small town with excellent roads,
| little traffic and everyone having cars, the friction is
| much lesser.
|
| Time for friends is sacrificed first when you need to
| prioritize work/wife/children etc.
| dgfitz wrote:
| I don't know if it'll help any, but I maintain a solid handful
| of group chats with friends of mine from years long past.
|
| I don't have a social media pretense at all, and the "intimate"
| nature of a "raw" group chat has helped me, personally, keep in
| touch with people I otherwise wouldn't have.
| throwaway6734 wrote:
| likewise. We have a signal group chat that we've slowly been
| adding new friends to. It's a fantastic way to stay in touch
| pseudocomposer wrote:
| People you meet later in life - even much later, even when you
| have a wife and kids - can absolutely come to know "the real
| you." (I might describe "closeness of relationships over time"
| as "asymptotic, with an upper limit" or at least "with
| diminishing returns," if we want to get really math-y about
| something that is not really measurable.)
|
| But you have to be open to that, and it also requires a lot of
| social skills that are not really otherwise demanded (in fact,
| arguably discouraged) among, particularly, men in
| developer/software engineering roles.
|
| That's not to say that you shouldn't maintain relationships
| with school friends. But, especially if none of them are
| nearby, you owe it to yourself and your family to build a local
| community for yourself that's on that same magnitude of
| closeness. It's a process that takes 5-7 years (again, just
| making up numbers here - this depends on your personality, how
| far along you are learning social skills, and who's in your
| community), but the best time to start is always now.
| gonzo789620 wrote:
| Can you elaborate on the social skills that aren't otherwise
| demanded? I can relate to this a bit, but I feel like I'm
| only starting to scratch the surface
| bruleecakes wrote:
| Not being competitive and one upping everyone, being ok
| with peoples flaws, being honest, being vulnerable, being
| dependable, not being selfish or self centered, being self
| reflective... some of these sound obvious but I'm in my 50s
| have uprooted many times and have always managed to make
| close friends. I do lament the trail of friends I've left
| around the world, but we are all very similar and scattered
| as well.
| bluGill wrote:
| The real problem is most people later in life are full of
| friends and thus don't really need more. They have and used
| those social skills in school (including college), but then
| settled into life and made friends. As one friend moves
| away they will need a different one, but that doesn't
| happen often and so they don't need to make friends. It
| isn't that they are unfriendly, just that they already have
| a social life as full as they want it.
| scyzoryk_xyz wrote:
| Move back, force your wife to only interact with your dudes'
| wives. Shed individuality, kick back beers with the boyz.
| Reminisce only about the good old days. Bond over ritualized
| sports. Start families in sync so kids can be raised together.
| Forge new shared traditions, establish a rules based order of
| discipline and brotherhood. Protect the offspring from
| outsiders. To do this establish dominance over other families.
| Punish disobedience. Never leave the inner trusted circle.
|
| edit: not sure how heavy handed the Mad Max irony must be for
| the /s to register.
|
| edit2: Do not move back. Embrace change. Ask wife to steer all
| social life. Sever all ties with the men who have made all
| those awful career and family choices. Visit only sporadically,
| but offer resentful advice on how they could improve
| themselves. Leave with relief and conviction that you have
| changed into someone else, someone superior. Carefully select
| only the best qualified friends for family, based on
| consultations with wife. Expose children only to the
| appropriate sort of influence.
| Sn0wCoder wrote:
| Hey @scyzoryk_xyz I laughed out loud and could understand the
| tongue in cheek sediment before the edits. When I was younger
| dreamed about becoming rich and buying a whole subdivision
| and moving my family and friends into the compound.
| Obviously, that was before I actually had a wife and
| children. Compromise is the only way relationships work with
| family and friends.
|
| Good thing is you have more than enough HN Karma to burn so
| don't worry about the down votes, most people will get 'it'
| and gave you an upvote to offset the ones who did not.
| nobodywillobsrv wrote:
| This is great. I can almost imagine a two timeline movie of
| this. Really hits home.
| pas wrote:
| What do you mean two timelines? The movie is about the
| daywalker, who goes on 2-3 week long business trips every
| few weeks and ...
| underdeserver wrote:
| This should be a copypasta.
| kyawzazaw wrote:
| New friends?
| exitb wrote:
| > "the real me"
|
| I'm not sure the past you is the real you. People change and
| childhood friendships are mostly circumstantial. Would you
| befriend those people if you met them now? If not, than those
| relationships are kept by the power of nostalgia.
| dspillett wrote:
| That varies with people. Some do genuinely feel that they
| have (and in many cases they genuinely have) hidden away part
| of themselves that they used to express in the past and want
| to express again, and in extreme cases this can be quite
| significant parts of their personality. For others all those
| past bits were things they only did to "fit in" and they are
| happy that they are not part of their current life. Most of
| us are somewhere between those two poles.
|
| For myself, I feel I have changed, mostly for the better,
| over the decades but that neither "current me" or the "past
| me(s)" are any more or less _real_.
| james-bcn wrote:
| Do you think the "you" at highschool and college was "the real
| you"? Because that is definitely not the case for me. You grow
| older, you learn, you change views, you mature...
| globular-toast wrote:
| Yeah, this is interesting. I have had several different, non-
| intersecting, groups of friends throughout my life. I think
| they all know a different me. Some know what I would
| currently consider the "real me": basically a geek who is
| into Emacs and science fiction. But other groups variously
| know me as a hippy, a party goer, a womaniser, a gym-going
| "real man" type etc. I think sometimes they are disappointed
| that I'm not those things any more.
| amonith wrote:
| Exactly, this is the "peaked in high school" stereotype and
| it's not good.
| extr wrote:
| Eh, maybe the "real me" wasn't the right choice of words. I
| just know these guys in a way that when I see them I
| inevitably fall into fits of laughter in about 5 minutes. I
| know they aren't going to ask me a bunch of bullshit about my
| job or how my life is going. They're not going to try to out-
| compete each other on hot takes about the political topic of
| the day. They're not going to try to impress me, or expect me
| to impress them. More likely they take the piss out of me. I
| can just relax.
| Simon_O_Rourke wrote:
| > What's to be done?
|
| Write them the occasional birthday card, say hi when you're
| back in town and otherwise just go on with your life.
| bluGill wrote:
| What is wrong with your situation? Make friends where you are.
| If you live close to your wife's family make friends with them.
|
| If there is something wrong with your current situation, then
| perhaps you and your wife need to talk this over. Maybe you
| need to move to get away from whatever is wrong. Are you old
| friends new hobbies/interests things that you could get into,
| and their wives someone your wife could become friends with -
| if so great: move back and renew your former connections as it
| will be easy to break in. If not maybe moving a long way to
| where both of you have no friends is the right answer so you
| can start over. Make sure you choose a place where want to join
| a local culture, not the same things you are trying to get away
| from.
| extr wrote:
| Nothing is wrong. We moved to be closer to family which in
| retrospect was a great decision and one I'm still happy with.
| We don't have much of a social circle here outside of that,
| but we have kids < 2 so it's hard to get out too too much
| anyway.
| Insanity wrote:
| I am in the same boat. I live in a different continent than my
| college friends, and see them about twice a year when I visit
| my home country.
|
| However, we fell into a routine of playing games together once
| a week (every sunday, same time, for about an hour). Which
| helps with feeling close even though I live far apart.
|
| That said, I also made new friends where I live now but I am
| definitely less close to them.
| the_clarence wrote:
| Make new friends
| mihaaly wrote:
| Like us: make friends in the new places too! More friends, more
| fun, richer life! And I am also sure this is not something I
| had to tell, people do this way all the time, you do this way
| too I am 100%.
| lordnacho wrote:
| My childhood friend did this with his buddies. In our 20s they
| bought a big house in the suburbs and each had a room. They lived
| in that for a few years, and then when people started sprouting
| kids, some of them moved into the same building that was run as a
| coop. Eventually a lot of them were living in this coop.
|
| So now when I go back to see him there's all these people there
| that I've known since forever, living in the same building. It's
| oddly comforting. They've struck the just-right balance between
| being too close and too far apart. They see each other regularly
| but there isn't a gathering every day.
| veunes wrote:
| It sounds very interesting. From the perspective of someone who
| finds it hard to make friends, it seems to me that such a
| concept is completely impossible. How diverse human connections
| and experiences are!
| iambateman wrote:
| There is a movement called Cohousing that I don't think gets
| enough attention.
|
| I prefer to call it Tiny Neighborhoods, which is basically what
| the article describes.
|
| If interested, I did a 3,000 word deep dive into the specifics of
| how tiny neighborhoods have worked over the past 50 years...
|
| https://iambateman.com/tiny
| bandwidth-bob wrote:
| Great read! Cohousing sounds like exactly what i've wanted in a
| neighborhood. I wish it were the norm.
| almostvindiesel wrote:
| 100% this. Started out with two families buying houses near each
| other in a family centric LA neighborhood (Eagle Rock). Then it
| expanded to 3 --> 4 --> 5 all within walking distance. We all
| have similar aged children. It's magic. We watch each others
| kids, do frequent backyard/park/sleepover playdates, and help w
| dropoff/pickup. It makes parenting SO MUCH EASIER. I often joke
| that I'm not a real parent bc we have so much help. Living closer
| meant compromising on other decisions (ideal house/commute/etc),
| but proximity to friends has more than outweighed the cons. One
| family was living near the beach and loved it, but decided it was
| more impt to live near us then right on the coast.
|
| We opt in and out as much as we'd like. It's beautiful having
| options, mostly for our kids, who are really thriving by having
| easy access to playmates. So much better than having to "blind
| date" other couples and their kids from daycare/activities/etc.
|
| The hardest part is starting. It doesn't have to be a huge
| commune initiative. Pick one friend who has a similar lifestyle
| and settle down in a neighborhood withing walking distance and
| take it from there. Think most important time to do it is when
| you become a new parent, when your kids and you will want
| companionship but won't have the time (nor energy) to build new
| relationships.
| enahs-sf wrote:
| How are the schools though? Will the kids in your commune go
| through LAUSD together?
| almostvindiesel wrote:
| Good, choose this neighborhood for the public schools and
| "suburbia light" vibe, eg proximity to target but also
| walkable to nice coffee shops / restaurants / local things.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I would bet having that many friends, friends who are married,
| and who want kids, and have sufficient funds/income to afford a
| home in SoCal puts you in a rarefied portion of society.
| almostvindiesel wrote:
| It does, we're in our 40s now, but all priveleged to have
| good careers that enabled us to make this choice.
| gverrilla wrote:
| Smart practices! Will also greatly benefit the children in the
| long run, I'm sure. As a non-north-american it's funny that you
| call it a "commune" :)
| almostvindiesel wrote:
| Ha yeah, extreme, but speaks to how isolated many Americans
| are
| goodpoint wrote:
| Turns out that humans have been right for the last 100.000
| years and it takes a village to raise a kid.
| model-15-DAV wrote:
| This is certainly a reaction to economic strangulation of a huge
| percentage of people in the economy. Of course, if people want to
| be near each other they should, but this phenomenon is a direct
| result of the crumbling conditions for the working class. The
| resurrection of third-spaces is a much better alternative than
| the erosion of first-spaces.
|
| Our civil society organizations have eroded to the point that the
| private market has completely ended the concept of the third
| space. Places where community can be formed are gone;
| commoditized and politicized and so are not places where
| community can develop. Instead of the use of third-spaces we are
| forced to depend on our friends economically like this.
|
| This seems like a good thing, "people are coming together, yay!"
| but being forced to live like this is not going to have good
| outcomes. These people have real issues described in the article,
| they need better child-care, they need closer personal roots,
| they need economic security. But we forcing people to make these
| contracts of great economic dependency, we should be more
| prepared to allow people to live more independently. I see this
| move as kin to the economic migration from the Global South today
| to countries like Sweden, Germany, etc. which has been causing
| great strife internally to those countries.
| neverartful wrote:
| This post is coming to me at an odd time regarding friends. On
| the one hand, I've rekindled some friendships with friends from
| high school and I'm so happy to be reconnected with them. I wish
| I could see them more often and spend time with them. On the
| other hand, I also just recently blocked the calls and emails
| from a long time friend. It wasn't a decision that I made
| lightly. Without getting into too much detail, our fairly
| frequent phone calls had become toxic with us arguing about
| politics and him lecturing me about various things (and perhaps
| me lecturing him too about various things).
|
| I was recently thinking how much I would like to be closer
| (geographically) with my high school friends (despite the changes
| that we've had over the years). But in the case of my friend
| whose phone number I recently blocked, I'm so happy that I don't
| live so close that he could drop by.
| swozey wrote:
| Paywalled but from the comments here it sounds like this is
| moving near your HS friends? Absolutely not. Nothing in common
| with them.
|
| If this is more about living in a more dense area where you have
| friends closeby, absolutely. I live in a very dense area and I
| have friends all over the neighborhood. Some across the street,
| some down the road. We can meet up and see a show or do
| friendsgiving or whatever or just grab a beer.
|
| It's not cheap and I don't live in a big place but I am
| astronomically happier here than I was when I owned a house in
| the suburbs 2016-2019 and had to drive 25 minutes minimum to meet
| up with people.
| parpfish wrote:
| I see a lot of internet commenters (here and Reddit) that act
| like they've outgrown all their friends from
| childhood/highschool and it always rubs me the wrong way. I'm
| sure there are folks with actual trauma they are running from,
| but it generally comes across as incredibly arrogant.
| dlisboa wrote:
| Coming from a Latin American the idea of re-starting your life
| across the country for college and then again for work (multiple
| times sometimes) while away from family and friends is very
| foreign.
|
| A lot of the conversation around modern American youth feeling
| isolated, lacking socialization and not building strong
| relationships seems that stem from this drive.
|
| Another thing that's really weird and related is another
| recurring theme in the American ethos: the cultural shame that
| comes with living "at home" or staying in the same small town for
| your whole life. Somehow they made it so living close to your
| family and friends for your 20s-30s and maybe forever means
| you're a "loser".
| chasd00 wrote:
| Not sure if it's just in America but people love to tear others
| down to lift themselves up by comparison. Once it clicks and
| you understand what is going on it's easy to just ignore them.
| DavidPiper wrote:
| OT, but it's interesting to hear this about America. Just
| yesterday I was in a conversation about how that (i.e. Tall
| Poppy Syndrome, what you're describing) is Australia's
| defining characteristic, and things are much better in
| America. But maybe not.
| monkeycantype wrote:
| Tall poppy syndrome isn't real, Australians don't have a
| problem with people being successful but object to greed
| and lack of humility. Have a look at people who have
| claimed they were harmed by tall poppy attitudes and see
| what you think.
|
| To use examples familiar to Americans, I've never read a
| bad word written on Hugh Jackman, Cate Blanchett, Terrance
| Tao....
| more_corn wrote:
| This isn't restricted to US culture. Every culture on earth
| sees a draw from the small towns and villages to the city.
| Opportunities, culture, better pay, access to education.
| Japanese villages are empty. Spain, Italy the same. I'm in
| Thailand and my guide said exactly the same thing yesterday.
| There's also a draw away from the city as people have kids.
| They want a bit more quiet. Good schools safe environment.
|
| The migration is about the different things one wants during
| the course of one's life.
|
| Perhaps you could rephrase the concept around "if you stay at
| home you might miss out on some of the opportunities your peers
| experienced" if you want to look at both sides you could
| consider the benefits of community family and friends that
| those who stay are able to enjoy.
| aylmao wrote:
| > Every culture on earth sees a draw from the small towns and
| villages to the city.
|
| What you're describing is true, but also different from what
| the original comment is talking about. There is a global
| trend to urbanization, yes. The original comment isn't
| talking about moving from rural to urban; what they say
| applies to moving from one city to another.
|
| Moreover, at an individual scale, moving for better
| opportunities doesn't mean one has to leave family and
| friends. For example, my grandma: she was very poor, and
| moved a few times different cities looking for a better life.
| This meant moving with her whole family, and/or moving where
| other family was. After she married my grandpa, he got job
| opportunities in both Guadalajara and Mexico City. I'm sure
| they could've done better in Mexico City, since it's the
| capital, but they chose Guadalajara due to proximity to
| family. Her mom eventually moved to Guadalajara too.
|
| Another, more recent example from my family: my uncle. He had
| the opportunity to move for a very good job, but didn't take
| it since it was far from family. My brother moved cities for
| college, but specifically to one where he would be close to
| family.
|
| One thing is moving wherever it takes for the sake of going
| to a specific school, working at a specific job, living in a
| specific dream home or dream city. That is very American.
| Another one is still looking for opportunities, but framing
| everything in terms of your family and friends; ie, what's
| the best job, school, home I can find close to my family?
| That's much more Latin American and much less common, in my
| experience, in the USA.
| rauljordan2020 wrote:
| I'm from latin america. The world is a vast, beautiful place
| with stunning, clean cities full of opportunity and
| serendipity. Either I can explore the world and live in these
| places, or go back to my dangerous, dirty city to spend the
| rest of my life there because family lives there. Sometimes it
| isn't worth the tradeoff
| ustad wrote:
| "Though the roads may wind far and wide, And cities gleam
| with promises bright, The heart will always turn to the soil,
| Where the roots of our ancestors lie. No matter how distant
| the dream may be, Home will call, and there we shall be."
|
| - Mariana Ruiz del Valle
| bowsamic wrote:
| It just doesn't though. That is a feeling specific to her
| and a few others. It's not universal at all
| lioeters wrote:
| We need a poet who sings about having a "dangerous, dirty
| city" to call home, and the yearning of the heart is to
| escape to somewhere better and never returning.
| jimbokun wrote:
| Not hard to find. Most modern artists value leaving home
| and tradition in pursuit of the novel and transgressive.
| kridsdale1 wrote:
| Belle from Beauty and the Beast
| alonsonic wrote:
| Family and friends have a bigger impact on ell being than you
| think. A lot of people in "dirty cities" are shown to live a
| happier and more fulfilling life with less when they have a
| strong community they're part of.
| jimbokun wrote:
| The trouble is those clean cities full of opportunity devolve
| into dangerous dirty cities when the high trust bonds of
| community break down.
| imbnwa wrote:
| In the case of America, violent crime is at a 50 year low.
| New York City, for example, was far more dangerous back
| when La Cosa Nostra was calling the shots than it is today.
| seizethecheese wrote:
| 80% of Americans live near where they were born. This isn't the
| root cause of estrangement.
| moneywoes wrote:
| curios any more insight on that stat? it contradicts the
| thesis of the op
|
| edit found this https://themortgagepoint.com/2024/08/20/most-
| americans-stay-...
| hyperliner wrote:
| Two good ones:
|
| "The Typical American Lives Only 18 Miles From Mom" https:/
| /www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/12/24/upshot/24up-f...
|
| "More than half of Americans live within an hour of
| extended family" https://www.pewresearch.org/short-
| reads/2022/05/18/more-than...
| pas wrote:
| Also worth considering that social phenomena is hard to
| measure.
|
| https://asteriskmag.com/issues/08/the-myth-of-the-
| loneliness...
| nox101 wrote:
| I question whether that's relevant to the topic. Being next
| door to your friends and family (the article) and being a 10
| mile drive from friends and family are not the same thing. In
| one you see each and interact with each other daily. In the
| other, probably at most once a month.
|
| I lived 7 miles from a close friend. I liked getting to go to
| his place once a month or so. He lives in a large apartment
| complex. One friend moved into the same building. They see
| each other several times a week and his children go over to
| visit these friends whenever they feel like it. Similarly
| another friend moved a block away and they see each other far
| more regularly.
| bluGill wrote:
| 10 miles allows visiting every weekend, it becomes common
| for the whole extended family to meet for Sunday lunch as I
| see of my siblings. It also means if you need help moving,
| replacing a roof, or something else you can make a phone
| call and get plenty of help on a Saturday. My parents
| choose to live 30 miles from their parents - close enough
| to visit every weekend, but not so close they would poke
| their nose into the kids business every day.
|
| I live 300 miles from where I grew up. Going to "back home"
| to visit is a big deal and so we don't do it often. Not
| only is two days lost in travel (technically it is 5-6
| hours to drive, but it still wastes most of the day); we
| can't go home to our beds and so that means we need to get
| a hotel or sleep on floors - both have downsides. Thus we
| only consider this trip over long weekends. Visiting us is
| a similar effort for my siblings and so I rarely see them
| anymore. (don't get me started on visiting my in-laws who
| are over 1000 miles away - suffice to say we need a full
| week off to consider that)
|
| In short, if you can do so I strongly recommend you live
| close to your friends and family and not move away. However
| there are many reasons why someone cannot do this.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Living "near" might be a meaningless metric depending on the
| definition.
|
| I have noticed that if friends move even an hour outside of
| the city, you are lucky to see them 4x a year.
|
| It's not much different from moving across the country
| (typically).
|
| Additionally, 20% of a friend group moving away (1 in 5
| people) can be enough to breakup what once was a a solid
| friend group.
|
| Yes, there's other things at play.
|
| But I definitely think this is the major driver.
| iamricks wrote:
| I am Cuban and from Miami. The culture here is very similar
| where people will sacrifice everything in order to stay living
| close to family and "home". Here it stems a lot from the
| financial anxiety passed down from our parents and a culture
| where you relied a lot on your entire family. I think it really
| holds a lot of people back.
| dukeyukey wrote:
| If you're Cuban and living in Miami, you are literally not
| near your "home", and probably not near your family? Or
| rather, physically close but still a plane ride and a
| diplomatic cold zone away.
| alonsonic wrote:
| Sounds like you haven't been to Miami before or don't know
| about the city demographics. Cuban population is massive,
| more people speak Spanish in and around miami than English
| these days. So yeah, he's home.
| grumpy-de-sre wrote:
| In Anglo cultures kids aren't usually moving away from home
| until they are at least ~18 years old. This is not a factor in
| teenagers feeling isolated. Suburbia and the decline of third
| places probably play a far greater role in this demographic.
|
| It's a common trope on here to lament on how the Anglo cultures
| don't value family ties strongly enough. I'd argue not overly
| valuing family ties has been a big competitive advantage of the
| Anglo cultures for centuries, eg. moving for opportunity
| (improved social mobility), ability to connect with outsiders,
| couple pairing across cultural/geographical boundaries,
| prerequisite to a high trust society, etc.
|
| What really needs to happen is we need to figure out ways of
| facilitating friend formation/maintenance in this brave new
| world of the internet and atheism. We are going to need some
| new social technologies to really combat this.
|
| One interesting recent social technology out of china
| https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/china-personalities...
| pas wrote:
| So, people moving away is not new and not surprising, and
| happens all over the world, it's basically the main driver of
| urbanization. What's new was (rich) people moving "back" (to
| suburbs for the American Dream, and nowadays to have kids).
|
| Though it's better than what used to happen - which was lots
| of kids, and high infant mortality, plus poverty driving kids
| to find jobs in cities, where bad living conditions and
| factory work awaited them. (And in the 20th century company
| towns around mines and factories.)
|
| People growing up, flying out of the family nest, and finding
| friends was a normal part of late teenage years. What's new
| on top of that is more people are trying to do it again in
| their 20s after higher education, and again after settling
| down to have kids, and ...
|
| The good news is that we have the social technology of ...
| affordable safe high density cities, with parks and high-
| rises (plus the obligatory blackjack and hookers too!) ...
| where people can be next to their new and old friends at the
| same time ... oh my!
|
| Also https://asteriskmag.com/issues/08/the-myth-of-the-
| loneliness...
| grumpy-de-sre wrote:
| It's easy to blame the decline of organized religion, but
| it curiously coincides with the same time-frame in which
| the car was invented and modern suburbia sprung up. Having
| to move to allow for a family is definitely a new and
| worrying phenomenon.
|
| My gut feel is that having to maintain close family ties
| and living with parents until adulthood are an adaption to
| poverty, poor social mobility, and low trust society.
| People will rationalize it but given opportunity they'll
| act in the exact same way as the rest of us (just look at
| urbanization in China).
|
| Thanks for the article, wouldn't be surprised in the
| slightest if the loneliness epidemic is a statistical
| artifact of bad data.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| I suspect close family ties and living with parents was
| the default throughout human prehistory. Our Hunter-
| gatherer ancestors were probably not leaving their tribe
| behind and moving away. It's only since the industrial
| revolution that people have been leaving their birth
| family behind en mass.
| grumpy-de-sre wrote:
| I think in any low trust environment where social
| mobility outside the group is poor, sticking together
| based on blood lines probably was the default for sure.
|
| However I think there's plenty of evidence that migration
| and intermingling between tribes occurred frequently. If
| only as social practices to prevent inbreeding. Probably
| a bunch of bride kidnapping sadly but also young males
| leaving to seek opportunity isn't an exclusively modern
| phenomenon.
| Wytwwww wrote:
| > also young males leaving to seek opportunity isn't an
| exclusively modern phenomenon.
|
| True but as far as we can tell it was usually (if not
| entirely exclusively) done through the same social
| networks that existed locally [unless you were leaving to
| murder/rape/rob people]. Unless they really, really had
| to you only moved to another city/location because you
| had a cousin, uncle etc. or someone else there you had
| some ties with. Outside of organizations like the church
| or the army (and even then) a complete outsider was at an
| extreme disadvantage (relative to today).
| bluGill wrote:
| From what I can tell (though this varied by culture!)
| free first born males stayed with the parents. Females
| were often traded to other tribes (both as war spoils and
| more peaceful ways). Free second and later sons often
| discovered the family land couldn't support them and
| their older brothers families and left looking for
| anyplace to live (often resulting in war which in turned
| eased population pressure, though sometimes a city job
| existed though they were worse than farming until the
| industrial revolution). Slaves of course had no control
| of where the children went. The sexism above was real,
| though how is manifested varied from culture to culture
| with some worse than others (sometimes it was the oldest
| female who stayed home).
|
| Genetic diversity requires someone leave their family and
| join a different one. How that happened varied but nearly
| every culture recognized siblings having children
| together resulted in deformed kids and thus developed a
| culture to prevent that. Every culture includes other
| animals.
| pas wrote:
| As far as I understand the recent decline in the numbers
| is that people stopped lying about which church they
| don't go to. Because church-goer numbers are stable.
|
| What happened during the last century is ... complicated.
| For one thing religion was never really that organized in
| the US. (Maybe except in Utah. But that's also relatively
| new.)
|
| I think simply WWII, and the post-WWII economic boom
| (plus the GI bill), plus then the heating up Cold War
| slowly but surely transformed society. For the new
| generations the various Christian belief systems offered
| by churches were simply not a real option.
|
| People got an appetite for different answers whether be
| that science or pseudoscience based. Cults and other
| ideology-based groups filled some of the vacuum. (And of
| course the counterculture eventually and then after
| Vietnam and the race riots came the backlash. The
| Southern Strategy, which platformed evangelicals, but as
| a political group, not as organized religion. Basically
| emptying out the spiritual part, etc. And of course it
| still works.)
| motorest wrote:
| > So, people moving away is not new and not surprising, and
| happens all over the world, it's basically the main driver
| of urbanization. What's new was (rich) people moving "back"
| (to suburbs for the American Dream, and nowadays to have
| kids).
|
| Actually, no. It is a very recent phenomenon, and never
| experienced before at this scale in the history of mankind.
|
| Even at the current scale, this is what the data shows:
|
| > _Nearly six in 10 young adults live within 10 miles of
| where they grew up, and eight in 10 live within 100 miles,
| according to a new study by researchers at the U.S. Census
| Bureau and Harvard University._
|
| https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/07/theres-no-
| pla...
| nox101 wrote:
| >The good news is that we have the social technology of ...
| affordable safe high density cities, with parks and high-
| rises (plus the obligatory blackjack and hookers too!) ...
| where people can be next to their new and old friends at
| the same time ... oh my!
|
| No such cities exist in the USA
| ryanwaggoner wrote:
| And yet somehow tens of millions of us manage to live in
| them.
| the_gastropod wrote:
| Except for Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Minneapolis, Madison,
| San Antonio, Buffalo, Memphis, ...
| diordiderot wrote:
| > Memphis
|
| They said safe my guy
| dsign wrote:
| > What really needs to happen is we need to figure out ways
| of facilitating friend formation/maintenance in this brave
| new world of the internet and atheism. We are going to need
| some new social technologies to really combat this.
|
| I wonder how in your opinion atheism enters in the picture?
| My first guess (of your reference) is that certain religions
| frighten people into remaining in a marriage they would
| otherwise not be in. My second guess is that religion fills a
| social glue role by virtue of getting people together to
| worship or do other community things.
|
| In my own opinion, part of the problem is that we are not
| atheist enough, and we still believe in the god-mandated
| union of a man and a woman, properly enclosed by walls, to
| bring forth children, as the only way worth living. Yes,
| there are pockets of resistance to the idea, but too little
| and too late. By far and large all parents out there are
| pressing their children to marry and have kids, so that there
| are grandchildren to fill those golden years. And there is
| mass media of course, which by far and large does the same.
| But I suspect that, left to their own devices, a lot of young
| people may choose to stick to their childhood friends of
| their same sex or otherwise, and employ one of the myriad
| ways humans can achieve sexual fulfillment. And since I'm on
| the topic, our species had sex for bonding long before it had
| religion, language, and the Internet. It's a pity that after
| the agricultural revolution and the newly found greed for
| land, God declared that technology suitable only for
| establishing property rights and for growing the military
| might of the tribe.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| I think your second guess is what was meant. Doing church
| things is a social occasion, a place to meet people and
| make friends.
| grumpy-de-sre wrote:
| From the perspective of my original comment, more than
| anything church is just a formalized social occasion.
| Repeated social contact, and proximity seems to be
| critical to friendship formation.
|
| Wasn't commenting on family formation etc.
| Wytwwww wrote:
| > their children to marry and have kids, so that there are
| grandchildren to fill those golden years
|
| Which seems to benefit everyone long-term, though (on
| average/societal scale anyway). I mean what alternatives
| are you suggesting?
|
| Communes? State run child breeding and education
| facilities?
|
| If your issue is with monogamy, well that has proven to be
| the most stable system and seemingly facilitated most of
| human progress (at least in the more successful societies).
|
| > a lot of young people may choose to stick
|
| You do have a point, it's certainly not necessarily optimal
| from the individual perspective. Problem is that most
| alternatives might not be sustainable over several
| generations so they just die out.
|
| Probably not exactly what you're thinking about but e.g.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakers
| Dalewyn wrote:
| This is going on a tangent, but I would like to point out
| to you that Atheism is itself a religion: It's a belief in
| no god(s), a belief in refuting god(s).
|
| I'm Japanese, we (Japan) consider ourselves _Non-Religious_
| when we choose to celebrate newborn life at Shinto Shrines,
| weddings at Christian Churches, and funerals and graves at
| Buddhist Temples with no dogmatic attachment to any of them
| as an institution as we go through the motions in life.
|
| There's a healthy enjoyment of Christmas involving cake and
| Kentucky Fried Chicken in there, too.
|
| Thusly, I always find it interesting/amusing that Atheism
| is usually positioned as the anti-religion in the West when
| really it isn't.
| dsign wrote:
| I'm going in a tangent too here :-) . One can say that
| atheism (with lower case) is a lack of religion. And then
| there is the meaning you suggest: Atheism as a belief in
| refuting god. That one is not a proper religion, but more
| like an ideology. Or maybe it is a religion in the sense
| that it can be used as a moral cornerstone.
|
| More than playing with words, not believing in god may be
| one of three things: irrelevant, a disadvantage, or a
| door to a better world. It is irrelevant if you observe
| the rites and traditions of your society anyway, e.g. if
| you celebrate newborn life at Shinto Shrines, and
| weddings and Christian Churches, and Christmas, and if
| your passing through this world does not intend to play
| with those "immutables". It's a disadvantage if you find
| yourself in an ostracized minority or simply disconnected
| from your neighbors. But it may also be a door to a
| better world if you yourself or your neighbor are gay, or
| if you yourself and your neighbor are medical researchers
| trying to understand why people age, or if you yourself
| and your neighbor are fighting for the rights of women in
| some dark corner of the world.
|
| An atheist may write books where gods, angels and demons
| play with humans, and find it amusing and delight others
| with it. Or they may enter a church and find it pretty
| and feel empathy for the pain that move people to worship
| in such places. An atheist may come to terms with their
| irreverent faith on that pain not having to be an eternal
| part of the world, and may try to do something to change
| it.
| ANewFormation wrote:
| I think the parallel many draw is that atheism is taking
| a position of certainty on the question of a God. And
| that certainty is based largely on personal belief as any
| evidence for such a question will inherently be weak.
|
| To me agnosticism would be more the absence of religion,
| because the absence of religion doesn't imply any
| particular opinion on the existence or not of a God. One
| can believe there might be a God without embracing any
| religion.
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| The idea that someone can be without "religion" is very
| odd. The word "religion" is generally worthless as used,
| as for most people, this is merely some vague sense of
| what was called "religion" in their particular
| experience. But a coherent common characteristic, as it
| were, is that it is a worldview with a highest good.
| Everyone has some kind of worldview and some notion of a
| hierarchy of goods, usually something absorbed from their
| environment.
|
| So it is pointless to speak of _whether_ you are
| "religious". It makes more sense to ask _how_ you are
| religious. It is far more interesting to discuss the
| merits of your religion or other religions than to go
| around pretending you don't have one.
| bluGill wrote:
| The first isn't atheism, it is agnostic - no religion and
| not looking for one, but open to it if you can convince
| them your religion is right (which you can't because they
| are not interested in the topic)
| ghaff wrote:
| In practice though, unless you're in the Richard Dawkins
| camp, it's a distinction without really a difference.
| bluGill wrote:
| The Richard Dawkins camp is pretty large (or maybe just
| vocal?) on the internet though and so the difference is
| important.
| ghaff wrote:
| I vote vocal.
| Scea91 wrote:
| Atheism is defined as the absence of belief which is
| essentially what OP said.
|
| The fact that we are open to changing our mind if
| theoretically presented with strong evidence does not
| make us agnostic.
|
| You'd probably also accept that sun is made of cheese if
| presented strong enough evidence but don't call yourself
| agnostic about the topic given your current knowledge.
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| Atheism is the position that God does not exist. An
| atheist is someone who therefore says "I believe that
| there is no God."
|
| It is not a mere lack of belief, as agnostics can be said
| to lack belief in God as well. People who are simply
| ignorant of God also lack a proper belief in God, but
| this is not atheism, only ignorance. They simply have not
| come to terms with the subject and therefore have no
| position on the matter. An atheist does, however
| unsophisticated it may be.
|
| This view that atheism is simply a lack of belief in God
| is common among the intellectually challenged New Atheist
| crowd and would have been ridiculous to the much more
| intellectually substantive atheists of old, like
| Neitzsche (who, btw, while an atheist, found it a
| horrifying thing; the other classic atheists could be
| described as world-weary rather than insipid, parochial,
| middle class triumphant).
| speed_spread wrote:
| Atheism is not a religion but the single belief that
| there is no all-powerful sentient being organising the
| human world, which is a staple of Western religions. The
| corollary being that anybody believing in God is
| delusional and/or manipulative. This usually stems from
| the realization that religious leaders are abusing their
| followers, using cognitive dissonance to force people to
| do things that run counter to their most basic interests
| while serving parasitic power structures.
|
| Unfortunately atheism has the side effect of weakening
| the social constructs that organized religion brings. Not
| being a religion itself, it does not prescribe any
| replacement rituals.
|
| The Japanese stance you describe would better be
| described as agnosticism, the belief that God's existence
| doesn't matter. This allows to mix and match existing
| rituals and beliefs into a coherent whole and puts the
| individual back into the driving position. It's a very
| sane way of handling fragmentation of belief and what I
| believe more people should be doing.
| jhardy54 wrote:
| What you're describing isn't really agnosticism.
| Agnosticism is about not knowing if gods exist, not about
| thinking their existence doesn't matter.
|
| The mix-and-match approach you're describing is seems
| more closely related to religious syncretism.
| speed_spread wrote:
| Once one admits that God's existence is undecidable, s/he
| can either live in fear of both possibilities or live
| free of both possibilities. Having no use for unfounded
| fear, I personally much prefer the latter option. God, if
| it exists, is irrelevant. Any spiritual activity I
| perform is for my own benefit and for the good of those
| around me, never for the consideration of a possible
| being that couldn't be bothered to manifest itself and
| make clear what its moral rules (if it has any) actually
| are.
| jhardy54 wrote:
| Atheism is not a religion - it's simply the absence of
| belief in gods. Religions involve organized systems of
| practices, rituals, and doctrines, none of which apply to
| atheism. Not believing in something doesn't make it a
| belief system, just like not collecting stamps isn't a
| hobby.
| bluGill wrote:
| Atheism has a large component of refute the existence of
| God, make practice of region hard for those who are
| religion and so on.
|
| There is the I don't believe in God and I'm not
| interested in anything more. However there are a lot of
| vocal Atheists who have turned it into a religion with
| practices, rituals and doctrines around proving there is
| no God and thus I elevate that to a religion.
|
| You can choose where you want to be.
| goodpoint wrote:
| > rituals and doctrines around proving there is no God
|
| Please provide evidence to substantiate this claim.
| bluGill wrote:
| Their rituals involve quotes of Noam Chomsky or Richard
| Dawkins anytime region comes up. Noam Chomsky and/or
| Richard Dawkins wrote their doctrines which they accept
| without question.
|
| Maybe that isn't you, but it exists.
| the_af wrote:
| You're describing a fictitious brand of atheism, one that
| I -- surrounded by friends and family who are atheists --
| have never observed.
|
| Atheists simply don't believe in any gods. Lowercase
| "gods", it's not exclusive to the Christian God, which a
| specific god we also don't believe exists.
| nox101 wrote:
| Japanese are massively superstitious (as are most
| peoples). That's not quite the same as religion but it's
| somewhere in the same side of the spectrum.
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| I would question this thesis.
|
| First, "religion" is not an especially good word in
| practice, as what people call "religion" is highly
| varied, enough so that the set of assertions that hold
| for all of them is exceedingly small and increasingly
| banal such that it ultimately becomes synonymous with
| worldview. The vague feeling of what religion is in most
| people's minds is highly informed by caricature and
| parochial experience that is then overgeneralized.
|
| But in the specific case of Catholicism, superstition is,
| in fact, recognized as sinful precisely because it is
| irrational (and thus opposed to human nature and the
| human good) and often rooted in a desire to control what
| is not in scope for human control or ought not be within
| the scope of the desire to control. Think "spells" that
| are meant to control others or palm reading meant to tell
| you your future or rituals that are supposed to alter
| your luck like throwing salt over your shoulder or
| believing that black cats bring bad luck. All these are
| regarded as irrational in the sense that they have no
| rational justification, no causal efficacy, or trade in
| bogus notions, but also conspicuously evil when they
| entail the desire to objectify and manipulate other
| people. (These, in turn, are said to predispose their
| practitioners to malicious influence, as ill will and
| irrationality are weaknesses that predispose a person to
| that.) Faith, properly understood, is not the nonsense
| the popular culture or Hallmark movies tell us it is
| (i.e., wishful thinking), only either a rationally
| justified trust or reason supplemented by some kind of
| divine act. The divinity of Jesus is an article of faith,
| but the existence of God is not, as it can be know by
| unaided reason. In any case, the point here is that
| genuine faith is not a matter of superstition, even if in
| practice superstitious people often live out a
| superficial ersatz of faith.
|
| Now, if there is anything that is magic-adjacent in terms
| of intent and the desire for control, it is the Baconian
| view of science, not something like Catholicism. Modern
| science grows out of the Catholic tradition as a
| sustained enterprise in the sense that Catholicism takes
| the nature of man to be essentially "rational animal",
| and because God (vis--a-vis the Second Person of the
| Trinity) is seen as essentially Rationality as such
| (Logos) and the world the fundamentally and fully
| intelligible creation ex nihilo of God. Baconian science,
| however, places less emphasis on knowing and greater
| emphasis on power.
| the_af wrote:
| > _but I would like to point out to you that Atheism is
| itself a religion: It 's a belief in no god(s), a belief
| in refuting god(s)._
|
| This definition of atheism is non-standard, and dilutes
| the meaning of "religion".
|
| Let it be noted that almost all atheists will disagree
| with you that it is a religion. Not all of them, of
| course, because atheism isn't an organized movement with
| a doctrine which states what is and isn't "true" atheism.
|
| It's not a religion, though, by any reasonable definition
| of the term.
| jimbokun wrote:
| The Japanese traditions and customs and social systems
| you describe are really the part of "religion" atheism
| lacks. There has been no successful attempt to recreate
| the social bonds and community of religion in an
| atheistic context.
| afpx wrote:
| I think the point is that secularism doesn't give you
| 'instant friends' like religion does. Secularism doesn't
| have shared culture or common experience to bind people.
|
| For example, there's a 0.5 mile street in the town I grew
| up in that has 13 churches. This was an area settled by
| people from around the world, and the churches enabled them
| to have an immediate extended family when they showed up.
| wholinator2 wrote:
| No one said that the religious belief itself is the
| important factor, and your first guess of it enforcing
| terrible marriage is insultingly reductive. Your second
| guess only comes close. It's literally the church, the
| meeting place where you see the same people every week.
| Kids meet other kids, adults meet adults. If you think that
| every person in the building actually believes what the
| pastor says then i think you have not been to most American
| churches. The shared belief is a part of it but can be
| easily faked if necessary. The entirety of social life from
| the church is the proximity. The vast majority of friends
| made from that proximity do not spend even half their time
| together speaking about the church or the belief,
| especially the children.
|
| Sure, the church has problems, as does religion. All that's
| being said is that church is the last great, high trust,
| free, "third space" in America. The fact that it houses a
| religion is related but not central to that fact.
| JustExAWS wrote:
| When I go back home to South GA, I see first hand the
| majority of people in my own extended family believe
| everything the Bible says literally as well as people who
| I went to private Christian school with.
| jimbokun wrote:
| People who marry and live in the same home with their
| biological children are by far the happiest and most
| successful by all kinds of measures.
| motorest wrote:
| > It's a common trope on here to lament on how the Anglo
| cultures don't value family ties strongly enough. I'd argue
| not overly valuing family ties has been a big competitive
| advantage of the Anglo cultures for centuries, eg. moving for
| opportunity (improved social mobility), ability to connect
| with outsiders, couple pairing across cultural/geographical
| boundaries, prerequisite to a high trust society, etc.
|
| That line of reasoning is just plain sad. It boils down to
| "everyone might be miserable, but someone else is getting
| rich so it's good."
|
| What makes it specially sad is how anglo culture's economic
| advantage spawns from the outcome of WW2, not this misplaced
| sense of sacrifice.
| afpx wrote:
| Well, that's a very self-defeatist attitude. I can see how
| it can make someone sad.
| whatshisface wrote:
| Why are you calling that Anglo-Saxon culture? You're
| clearly talking about the US, not the UK or France...
| You're not even talking about the whole US, or the
| majority, just the culture in the larger cities. Even
| within the US it isn't the people that were born here who
| traveled the farthest and learned a new language for an
| opportunity. This conversation is very surreal.
| themacguffinman wrote:
| "anglo cultures" already had quite a lead before WW2, hard
| to miss that the previous superpower was the British
| Empire. The outcome of WW2 elevated America, there's no
| relationship there to broader anglo culture.
|
| Quite a stretch to jump to "everyone might be miserable".
| Immigration from Latin American and other non-anglo
| countries is on a scale where it shapes American and
| British domestic politics, difficult to conclude that those
| immigrants are searching for the misery of anglo cultures
| that they can't find at home.
| motorest wrote:
| > "anglo cultures" already had quite a lead before WW2,
| hard to miss that the previous superpower was the British
| Empire.
|
| I think you're trying too hard to muddy the waters by
| creating a definition for "anglo" that does not match
| reality or any use of the term.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Americans
|
| Even within "European Americans", nearly half has an
| ethnic origin that is classified as German, not English.
|
| Another important aspect is immigration and
| naturalization. The bulk of high-skilled R&D specialists
| who turned the US into the technological powerhouse that
| it is aren't exactly Mayflower descendants. It's
| immigrants and first- and second-generation. So it's very
| hard to argue about "Anglo" thins with the extreme
| reliance on immigration and descendent of immigrants to
| play the roles that made all this progress possible.
| toasterlovin wrote:
| A few points:
|
| - German and other NW European cultures share the family
| atomization characteristic of Anglo-Americans
|
| - Anglo as a term stems from England. England is named
| for the Angles, a Scandinavian/Germanic tribe that
| invaded Britain a long time ago. The term Anglo-American
| reflects the seminal English influence on American
| culture.
|
| - The English and their descendant culture, America,
| basically invented the modern economic world and it
| predates WWII by a long time.
|
| The idea that WWII is why America is on top is
| a-historical.
| karaterobot wrote:
| The word "anglo" is so fraught that I think it's probably
| less useful to try to argue about what it means than it
| would be to just leave it alone.
|
| I'm actually here to point out that the U.S. had the
| world's largest GDP as early as 1890, or as late as 1913,
| depending on your source of data and how it's estimated.
| So, WWII isn't the origin of that. We can now argue about
| whether GDP is a good indicator, but before doing that
| I'd ask for a better one (with historical data) to be
| suggested.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angus_Maddison_statistics_o
| f_t...
| wbl wrote:
| Someone else? My brother the US median income is miles
| ahead of everywhere else.
| d0liver wrote:
| Income alone is not a good measure.
| stackghost wrote:
| >It boils down to "everyone might be miserable, but someone
| else is getting rich so it's good."
|
| Aren't Scandinavian people statistically the happiest?
| That's not anglo culture.
| grumpy-de-sre wrote:
| Admittedly Anglo culture took a lot of influence from the
| scandinavians (due to Viking conquest etc). I think some
| of the cultural tenants we are talking about probably did
| come originally from Scandinavia.
| bobmcnamara wrote:
| > In Anglo cultures kids aren't usually moving away from home
| until they are at least ~18 years old. This is not a factor
| in teenagers feeling isolated.
|
| I grew up in a Midwestern shithole.
|
| My older friends leaving, and knowing I was was going to
| leave too, didn't help.
| nox101 wrote:
| what is your definition of "high trust society". I don't
| consider the USA a high trust society having lived in Japan
| and Singapore. In Japan and Singapore, I trust that others
| won't steal my stuff. I trust that I won't be mugged. I trust
| that my packages won't be stolen. I trust that my car will
| not be broken into.
|
| In the USA and Europe I trust none of that. I've had cars
| broken into 5 times, bikes stolen 5 times, car stolen once.
| Reports of people stealing packages. I know I can't trust
| people at a coffee shop not to steal my laptop while I go to
| the restroom. Friend have had wallets stolen stopping to take
| a picture. etc.....
|
| This means I trust no one in the USA or Europe. So to me, the
| USA an Europe are low trust societies.
| bluGill wrote:
| The USA is a large place. I've had bikes stolen (last case
| 40 years ago - the bikes were left outside unlocked for 5
| years and only once were any stolen), but that is all from
| your list. In every place I've lived some of my neighbors
| never locked their doors when they left. I have always
| known people who just leave their keys in their car when
| they leave it. I lock my front door, but the garage doesn't
| have a lock and there are some expensive things in there.
|
| Which is to say I find the US is a high trust society where
| I live. I know there are other places where things are much
| worse.
| phil21 wrote:
| The US is slowly (rapidly?) devolving into a low-trust
| society. What used to be pockets of low-trust are spreading
| rapidly by my estimation.
|
| It's been sad to watch it slowly get worse every year.
|
| It goes for all things, not just petty/street crime though.
| Everything from business owners not prioritizing doing good
| work and building local reputation, employees slacking off
| as much as possible, investors demanding extreme profits at
| the expense of everyone else, corporations shipping out
| entire towns worth of industry to foreign countries, on
| down to actual crime itself.
|
| It certainly wasn't all roses in the past - but it's a
| marked change from even my youth. Civic engagement is easy
| for anyone to see, and that would also be such a symptom.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| The U.S. is an extremely litigious society. Even when
| Lincoln was a young professional, he had the frontier job
| of... attorney. So there's something to that which bares
| examining when discussing how trust gets built and
| reinforced in American culture. (Probably something about
| settler culture and property rights and the only way to
| resolve disagreements about it via the law.)
|
| One wonders how much of the high trust was a product of
| the immense prosperity unlocked by industrialization,
| some ameliorating reforms during the Progressive Era that
| mitigated the excesses of the Gilded Era, the New Deal,
| and postwar victory.
| coding123 wrote:
| Have you also noticed all the recalls on pretty much
| everything we eat? Huge sign that people are not working.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| People not working? WTF? It's the direct result of
| deregulation/self-regulation of the food chain. When the
| inspectors work for the food processing company, they
| don't have an incentive to find problems.
|
| You'd think companies would value not killing their
| customers and market forces would take care of the
| problem, but, empirically, that's not how it has turned
| out. Customers are too far from the source; the
| incentives for fucking off are too high, and too
| frequently the food processors get away with it. Big-L
| Libertarianism is not compatible with safe food and
| medication.
| JustExAWS wrote:
| America has always been a low trust society when it came
| to "others". Jim Crow was the law when my still living
| parents were growing up.
|
| They literally didn't trust people to drink from the same
| water fountain
| grumpy-de-sre wrote:
| Just have a look at https://ourworldindata.org/trust. The
| Anglo countries are all well above the global average (but
| admittedly East Asia and the Scandinavians have us beat).
| I'm super impressed by how high trust China is tbh.
| Apparently, since the recent increase in surveillance (and
| ability to police petty crime), a lot of folks don't even
| bother locking up bikes etc.
|
| FWIW the only Anglo country left in the EU is Ireland.
| vlunkr wrote:
| Might teenagers feel less isolated if they had family around
| though? I grew up with tons of cousins my age and that was
| always a part of my social life. Doesn't matter that I wasn't
| 18
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| > In Anglo cultures kids aren't usually moving away from home
| until they are at least ~18 years old. This is not a factor
| in teenagers feeling isolated.
|
| But it's more than a single generation thing. If you live for
| 18 years in a family that has only recently put down roots in
| a new place, you won't have family around, unlikely to have
| as many family friends around, etc. Community will likely be
| sparse and colder.
|
| You essentially get a generational social debt put onto kids,
| over and over. It appears that cohesion is lost, pro-social
| behaviour decreases, focus on less social activity increases,
| and so on.
| diordiderot wrote:
| In the American South community is as easy as picking a
| church and going to your kids public school sporting
| events.
|
| Are there problems, of course, like all societies. But it's
| easy and it works.
| genghisjahn wrote:
| Same thing works in Philadelphia.
| DragonStrength wrote:
| From an American's perspective, given how much Latin American
| migrant inflow we have, it'd be easy for us to say the same
| about Latin American cultures and not imagining how we could
| leave everything behind. Perhaps people's choices don't always
| reflect their desires and instead reflect the economic
| realities around them. "Getting out" is viewed as success where
| I was from because "staying behind" meant a worse life for
| those who didn't come from wealth.
|
| Reminds me of all these older Americans talking about how
| "people don't want kids these days" when polling shows younger
| folks want just as many kids as their own parents but can't
| afford them.
| pjerem wrote:
| 100% of Latin Americans you see are migrants because, well,
| you are in the US. You are only seeing exceptions.
|
| The immense majority of Latin American don't live in the US
| neither migrate there.
| DragonStrength wrote:
| You could say the same about the US-born, so I think you
| missed my point since you're trying to draw distinctions
| between the US-born and Latin American-born based on, well,
| I'm not sure what honestly. Your response is a bit odd, but
| kind of proves my point about pathologizing the ills of
| America and romanticizing other cultures, even those which
| are decidedly "Western" as well.
| Wytwwww wrote:
| Statistically the number of Latin American migrants that
| move to the US yearly is tiny compared to the internal
| migration and especially to the number of people in Latin
| America who didn't go anywhere, though. The fact the it's
| not 100% who don't move doesn't really disprove anything.
| DragonStrength wrote:
| It seems you haven't read the context here where
| Americans are being framed as lacking community values
| because some small percentage migrate internally for
| better economic opportunities. The people here who see
| Americans who have moved to big cities form smaller
| places are seeing the exception, not the rule, as was
| pointed out elsewhere with statistics.
|
| You're proving my point exactly: those characterizations,
| especially in the context of Latin American culture as a
| foil, reveal their own biases. Both are based on
| anecdotes and vibes, not reality. To me, it's all
| narcissism of minor differences. I find the need to paint
| whole cultures with such a broad brush weird, especially
| based on my experience with people from around the world:
| most people aren't so different.
| Wytwwww wrote:
| > Both are based on anecdotes and vibes, not reality. To
| me, it's all narcissism of minor differences
|
| I think most are thinking about a higher proportion of
| adults living at the same household as their parents in
| some countries when they say that. However in recent year
| the proportion in the US got a lot closer to Latin
| American countries. Then again it probably significantly
| varies by race, ethnic background etc. which doesn't
| invalidate the anecdotal evidence people might have.
|
| > cultures with such a broad brush weird, especially
|
| US is very heterogeneous but it works reasonably well in
| many other places besides a handful of outliers.
| DragonStrength wrote:
| You're coming across as disagreeing with me, but it's
| unclear about what. Your response to the out-of-context
| bit at the bottom seems to agree with my central
| statement about the negative framing of American values
| in the OP, so I'm very confused what your point is.
| CalRobert wrote:
| Presumably at least _some_ are descendants from when a big
| chunk of the US was part of Mexico, so I would imagine the
| number is less than 100% (but probably close to it, the
| region wasn't very populated)
| jncfhnb wrote:
| I'd guess possibly a majority would migrate there if given
| the opportunity to do so safely, legally and without
| abandoning immediate family though
| bluepizza wrote:
| We tend to be pushed towards immigration because of a lack of
| safety, of growth opportunities, and no hope that things will
| get any better.
|
| With that in mind, if Latin America had safety, I suspect at
| least half of the immigrants wouldn't leave, especially the
| ones who are able to hold a middle class job.
|
| Most of us would live in a lower standard of life if it
| allowed to stay close to friends and family. But not being
| able to walk down the street bears a heavy weight on our
| anxieties.
| DragonStrength wrote:
| And the impoverished areas of America are also where gun
| crime and drug overdoses are the most common. Oh, and don't
| forget losing healthcare and education services as the area
| continues to decline. These things go together just like in
| Latin America.
|
| Moving in response to this reality is not an American
| values problems. I find the instinct to blame Americans for
| their discontent while framing others in the same situation
| as victims quite odd.
| lazide wrote:
| More $$$ is a strong motivator.
|
| Latin American tends to be unsafe (physically), but the
| money probably plays a bigger motivating factor.
| Remittances and 'doing it for the family back home' are
| common themes.
| bluGill wrote:
| The children of that immigrants are growing up and seem
| to have less concern about the cousins back in the old
| country - their home is the US as are all their friends.
| The people back in the old country are interesting but
| not really relevant.
| the_af wrote:
| > _Latin American tends to be unsafe (physically)_
|
| Depending on which country and which city, Latin American
| cities are not more dangerous than risky US cities. Many
| of our cities are reasonably safe. There are burglaries,
| muggings and robbery like in most big cities all over the
| world -- no more, and no less.
|
| There are some "trouble" hot spots that are particularly
| dangerous, of course. The same can be said of the US.
| lazide wrote:
| Risky US cities are pretty risky though. Which is why I
| said that.
| the_af wrote:
| Let me rephrase then: average Latin American cities in
| many countries are comparable to average US cities.
|
| There are trouble hotspots (and countries) just as there
| are trouble hotspots in the US.
|
| It's not true that Latin America as a whole is "unsafe".
| It's not Ciudad Juarez everywhere. I live in Buenos Aires
| and there's crime comparable to any big city (with better
| and worse periods, of course).
| motorest wrote:
| > From an American's perspective, given how much Latin
| American migrant inflow we have, it'd be easy for us to say
| the same about Latin American cultures and not imagining how
| we could leave everything behind.
|
| If you'd wish to make that claim then you'd be awfully wrong.
|
| To start off, you'd be basing your personal opinion on what
| would most charitably be described as survivorship bias. I
| mean, try to think about it. The observable sample you're
| trying to generalize is a tiny subset of a whole population
| which is the output of a social process subjected to a long
| sequence of socioeconomical filters.
|
| It would make as much sense as to claim that the average
| American is excellent at American football by using NFL teams
| as your sample of the US population.
| DragonStrength wrote:
| That the claim would be wrong is my whole point. Equally
| wrong to the original claims being made about the US
| population and their values.
| lazide wrote:
| The socio-economic landscape in the US means where it is
| cheaper/easier to setup families and have kids is rarely
| correlated with economic opportunity. And in the US, people can
| move easily.
|
| So kids usually have a a choice - either stay where they grew
| up, and live with reduced economic opportunities (actually very
| common, but those folks aren't usually posting all over the
| Internet about it).
|
| Or move to where the economic opportunity is good, but then be
| isolated from prior friends and family. Those people talk a lot
| more, and tend to stick out. That is also more expensive, so
| those folks tend to have more economic backing and/or stronger
| 'resumes' which correlates to more education, getting more
| opportunity, etc.
|
| If folks from the second group have issues and need to retreat
| to a more comfortable economic situation, they'll also return
| to where they tended to grow up, usually.
|
| One of those two groups is more often to be called 'losers'.
| Which one do you think it is?
|
| Oh, did I say the US? This is actually many countries, minus
| ease of moving around.
| goodpoint wrote:
| > cheaper/easier to setup families and have kids is rarely
| correlated with economic opportunity
|
| That's the problem. Due to car culture and zoning policies
| etc.
| lazide wrote:
| It's likely always been that way. Cities are crowded and
| more expensive, but have more jobs and opportunities. Rural
| areas are boring, but cheaper.
| brightball wrote:
| Agree with this 100%. It's so much easier to have kids if your
| parents live nearby to help too.
|
| Root cause is moving for work IMO.
| wholinator2 wrote:
| Yes and since a majority of college goers now see it as a job
| mill (that's what it is for most) the move for college is
| also just a preemptive move for work
| bluGill wrote:
| Most people go to college not very far from where they grew
| up. That is in the same state or only one state away. Then
| they move back home afterwards. (or they fall in love with
| someone, and move near that person's family thus getting a
| new family)
| whateveracct wrote:
| America is huge. A big reason a lot of people move is work and
| money. I grew up in the Midwest and moved to the West Coast
| because the job prospects and money were way better. Not to
| mention the WC state I'm in is much nicer than the Midwest one
| I grew up in.
| dukeyukey wrote:
| The ironic thing is that Latin Americans are largely descended
| from people who left one continent and set up a new life
| literally a continent away. Like, your ancestors were the kind
| of people to sail thousands of miles to create a new life.
| wholinator2 wrote:
| I mean, can't we say that about basically everyone except the
| people in the African plains/the fertile crescent? The whole
| species is descended at some point from people who moved away
| from where they were born
| bluGill wrote:
| Right, and then we put down roots. People move. some of the
| people who stetted their have moved on again, but a core
| remains with roots. Maybe those people will all move away,
| but I doubt it - humans still live in Africa.
| dukeyukey wrote:
| More that they described it as "very foreign" when it
| literally is not. The people who didn't live in Spain and
| Portugal!
| cultofmetatron wrote:
| first time I went to latin america, I fell in love with the
| innate closeness everyone seems to have. ya'll so friendly I
| keep finding excuses to down to colombia.
| odyssey7 wrote:
| Remote work could have solved this. The higher-ups had other
| thoughts.
|
| There's a parallel to sending your kids off to war. Get them
| away from their sense of stability, to a place where it's too
| expensive to live, for years at a time, to fight for the United
| States' GDP.
|
| It's not just the young adults who are affected. In some cases
| their family members grieve the separation. And yet it seems
| like the only way to get ahead for many.
| nradov wrote:
| Remote work couldn't have solved anything. It's a great
| option for some people but it can only ever be possible for a
| tiny fraction of jobs where everything is done online. So
| basically nothing in agriculture, mining, construction,
| manufacturing, healthcare, retail, military, transportation,
| utilities, tourism, hospitality, primary education, sports,
| etc. Even in the tech industry a lot of employees will always
| have to at least occasionally work at a certain physical
| office in order to access specialized or security controlled
| hardware.
| odyssey7 wrote:
| Perhaps it's just my bubble, but I mainly see this happen
| with people who do knowledge work which could definitely be
| 100% completed online.
|
| Even if this is just a "tiny fraction" of workers, allowing
| them the liberty to easily pursue their career while also
| maintaining close relations with their family would be
| good, not merely something to write off as negligible.
| Every human life matters.
| Loughla wrote:
| >or staying in the same small town for your whole life.
|
| I'm living this now. We moved back to have kids near friends
| and family after college. The judgment I get from people for
| being a towny is ASTOUNDING. I have to justify the reason for
| being here and talk about how I've lived in other places for a
| few years for people to take me seriously. It's ridiculous.
|
| Why shouldn't I bring my experience back to fix the problems in
| this area? What's the problem with that?
| throwaway6734 wrote:
| >Another thing that's really weird and related is another
| recurring theme in the American ethos: the cultural shame that
| comes with living "at home" or staying in the same small town
| for your whole life. Somehow they made it so living close to
| your family and friends for your 20s-30s and maybe forever
| means you're a "loser".
|
| The older I get, the more I regret moving away from my family
| and friends in New Jersey. I'm only 3 hours away so still see
| them about once a month, but I'm very envious of my friends
| that stayed in our home town and get to see each other every
| weekend and their children get to spend daily time with their
| grandparents.
|
| Whenever we consider moving back though, housing prices are
| always one of the biggest deterrents.
| ItCouldBeWorse wrote:
| Alot of those values make more sense, if you stop to view them
| as some side effect for individual happiness and more as
| cooperate digestive tract juices.
| JustExAWS wrote:
| Exactly how was I going to find a job that was computer science
| related in small town south GA in the mid 1990s?
| derefr wrote:
| When Americans are motivated to move out of the small town they
| were born in, it's often because that "small town" is a dying
| and depopulated hollow shell full of awful, racist, jobless,
| drug-addicted idiots who are mostly only surviving off of some
| kind of long-term disability insurance.
|
| Often, with these kinds of places, they aren't a place your
| family has lived for generations, and nor are they a place you
| have the opportunity to form any good connections in; rather,
| they're somewhere your parents had to move to when they lost
| their jobs/went bankrupt/etc, and so could no longer afford to
| live anywhere with higher land values.
|
| Everyone living in these places _encourages_ anyone who has any
| potential at all, to get out as soon as they can.
| emchammer wrote:
| Nobody likes to be told that they are racist. Once you
| realize that land value and low airfares are just ways of
| changing the scenery on different time scales, you can start
| working the deeper problems.
| rayiner wrote:
| [delayed]
| mihaaly wrote:
| What we do is making new friends wherever we move. Most of the
| time keeping the best ones (not all equal, not all relatives
| are equal either), keeping touch, visiting each other, making
| things to do together. Because it is good for us, does not feel
| an effort at all.
|
| Now we have friends from foreign places that are not so foreign
| anymore! Friends from all around the world. : )
|
| I consider ourselves lucky.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| Wish I could, but the high cost of living in my home town of
| Santa Cruz drove me and all my friends away. Then when I went
| back, home was no longer home.
| pshc wrote:
| https://archive.is/4hczD
| subarctic wrote:
| Absolutely you should live somewhere where you have friends
| nearby. Or better yet live somewhere you can make friends who are
| nearby. Big cities are the best when you're young and single
| because there's just so many more opportunities to meet new
| people that you can make friends with or date. I think the
| article talks about being with your childhood friends, and maybe
| that's good for some people but people who make good friends when
| their 10 won't necessarily be a good fit for each other when
| they're 25 and that's ok.
| anong1 wrote:
| All my friends are dead. stfu.
| kyawzazaw wrote:
| https://livenearfriends.com/
|
| Relevant website
| germandiago wrote:
| 21st century, where we discuss moving with friends and loneliness
| and do not mention family relatives...
| nntwozz wrote:
| "Understand that friends come and go, but for the precious few
| you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and
| lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need the people
| you knew when you were young."
|
| -- Baz Luhrmann from Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTJ7AzBIJoI
|
| I haven't found the above advice to be true, I'm 40 now.
|
| I moved off grid after living in a city for 20 years.
|
| I don't have a lot of friends but I'm happy, my nearest neighbor
| is 5km away.
|
| I enjoy the dark nights, the silence and the solitude.
|
| I think friends are a really arbitrary thing to plan your life
| around.
|
| Friends can also be a burden, more isn't just better; shoutout to
| social media.
|
| "If you are lonely when you're alone, you are in bad company."
|
| -- Jean-Paul Sartre
|
| Words to live by.
| acidburnNSA wrote:
| Do you live completely alone, or do you have family or
| roommates?
| nntwozz wrote:
| I live with my dog, my family is 1 hour away.
| yowayb wrote:
| I've been to a handful of trailer parks with wonderful
| communities, and a lot of the people are not poor, just saving
| money, and stumbling upon community!
|
| I'm also a nomad and have found that, with a little extra effort
| on my part (it helps that I'm extroverted and skilled with
| productivity apps), I can easily see many friends all over the
| world.
|
| Also there was a study that found the reason some old folks lived
| super long in Italian towns is because of community.
| more_corn wrote:
| Maybe make friends where you are? There's a formula. Find people
| who share interests, spend time with them. meet their friends,
| expand your interests, be open. Be friendly, help, ask for help.
| fuzztester wrote:
| Christopher Alexander:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Alexander
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Pattern_Language
| droobles wrote:
| My friends and I joke about moving back to our home town to be
| together, possibly on the same block, mostly because of how cheap
| it would be. Truth is I have a lot of childhood and frankly
| recent trauma there and would never want to move back. Thankfully
| over time we've all seemed to be coincidentally landing in the
| same metro area over the years so we see each other a lot and
| it's been a great way to bounce back from COVID.
| fsckboy wrote:
| our society(s) have conducted two (three?) experiments at once,
| and it's not easy to separate the confounding factors. We spend
| less time with our relatives. We have drastically smaller
| families/fewer relatives. We move great distances and go out of
| touch with not only our families, but also our former friends.
|
| We also more drastically sort ourselves than before by some
| notions of class like "what you majored in" at "what tier of
| institution" and "stayed in academia" or "went into industry"
| etc.
|
| moving to live near friends is probably helpful but not a
| panacea; nor are we going to do it so...
| jemmyw wrote:
| No, because they bugger off somewhere else shortly after for new
| opportunities or changed life circumstances[1][2] Probably better
| to make friends where you live.
|
| [1] Said by someone with some bitterness about this. [2] Who is
| also guilty of doing the same.
| ryukoposting wrote:
| I think it's worth emphasizing that "living near friends" doesn't
| require "living in a big city." By moving from Chicago to
| Milwaukee, I _grew_ my friend group, found _more_ social
| opportunities, and those social opportunities are less of an
| economic burden. Still a city, but considerably smaller. Big
| cities can offer great things, but only if you can afford to live
| in certain neighborhoods. Smaller cities offer many of the same
| opportunities but with lower financial barrier to entry, and less
| physical distance between you and the most lively areas.
|
| Alternavely, you have to be willing to spend a lot of time in
| those neighborhoods, then go back to your home for the night.
| But, of course, the atrocious public transit system in most
| American cities means this is a pipe dream for me.
| flocciput wrote:
| Of course the LiveNearFriends website is only for people in the
| fucking Bay Area and lists houses that are millions of dollars.
|
| I would love to live near friends. I've been trying to find a
| place cheap enough and close enough to an area with plentiful
| jobs. But my friends are not all software engineers, and most are
| far from making that kind of money (or being able to work from
| home anywhere in the country). It's so fucking hard. And such a
| slap in the face to see a site that should make it easier,
| actually only intended to help people for whom that goal is
| already in reach.
| tina_pen wrote:
| Oh! It's so nice to read something you've thought about your
| whole life. I have an uncle, now in his late 60s. He and his
| friends have been living in the same society since kindergarten.
| They meet almost every day, go on trips, and party at the drop of
| a hat, always there when they need each other. I've been jealous
| of that for such a long time. My friends and I, in the pursuit of
| money, fame, and who knows what, are now spread across
| continents. We probably speak once or twice a day. Recent
| friendships haven't stood the test of time.
| shirajg wrote:
| Yes. Friends make life way better!
| Ozzie_osman wrote:
| My wife and I moved with our kids back to the country we grew up
| in in large part because of this. For us it wasn't just being
| closer to extended family, though that was a part of it. We just
| realized Western culture (we lived in Silicon Valley, which was
| probably the extreme of that) was very individualistic (or
| nuclear-family-focused), and people's lives aren't as intertwined
| as in other parts of the world. As an introvert, that was
| actually fine for some time, but once we had kids, we felt like
| it just wasn't a healthy way for our family to live and we were
| missing something pretty meaningful.
| hackable_sand wrote:
| Fiefdoms. Got it.
| bitzun wrote:
| I live very close to a couple dozen of my favourite people. I'd
| like to move out of the shithole state I live in, and began
| seriously planning it until I realised that it would never be
| worth trading the proximity.
| stuckkeys wrote:
| Absolutely. It really has a positive effect on your mood. When
| you have someone close to you, you always hang out and it makes
| it worth everything. Share struggles, share ideas, feedback. It
| is really a great feeling.
| nine_k wrote:
| My friends are all over the map.
|
| And I don't just mean Austin, Chicago, or San Diego, which are
| all pretty far away from NYC where I live. I mean places like
| London, Munich, Zurich, Tampere (Finland), or Tel Aviv. While I
| enjoyed it when my plane was landing in many of these places, I
| also enjoyed it when it was taking me back home. (Maybe except
| London, but, to my mind, London is harsher than NYC if you want
| to actually afford living there.)
|
| So the closest I can live to my friends is online. Show up for a
| chat, talk, cheer up, support each other, and the bonds of
| friendship will remain, despite geography. Live next block and
| forget to say hello week after week, because the days are busy,
| and the bond will fray.
| veunes wrote:
| At moments like these, you must realize how lucky we are to
| live in the internet age, where you can stay closely connected
| with friends all over the world
| veunes wrote:
| It was very hard for me to make friends. Even now, I only have
| two. When I didn't have a family of my own, I was heavily
| dependent on my friends. Such "friendships" often didn't end well
| for me. That's why, at some point, I started striving to ensure
| that my mental health didn't depend on my "social connections"
| (I'm not sure, maybe I misunderstood something in the article).
| crtified wrote:
| I can relate. There's something about the human group dynamic
| that, by default, isn't kind to certain types of personality.
|
| Internet-only friendships and acquaintances and groups can be
| deceiving too. They can be great and full of wonderful people,
| but the reality is usually that even if you spend 20 years in a
| particular internet community, you could leave tomorrow and few
| (if any) people would be talking about you for longer than a
| week.
| atlgator wrote:
| I wish I had.
| bnlxbnlx wrote:
| I'm living with my partner and her brother and family and another
| family who are friends of ours in a house (which has three
| apartments). We moved there to live together (and continued to
| work remotely or found work elsewhere). Six adults, six children.
| It's an absolute treat. I can't imagine going back to a nuclear
| family setup. Living in a larger web with more support from all
| sides (both for adults and children) is just amazing.
|
| And of course it's often not possible or easy to do this.
| JackMorgan wrote:
| Do you ever get on each other's nerves? Are the apartments
| separated enough that there's noise issues?
| bnlxbnlx wrote:
| Totally. A conflict engagement rather than conflict avoidance
| culture is definitely helpful, so that resentment doesn't
| build up, and information can flow more easily.
|
| And yes, apartments are kind of separate enough to not hear
| each other too much. But then also everyone has young kids
| anyway, so we are all used to a certain baseline noise level
| anyway
| whitehexagon wrote:
| Having contracted around Europe for 20 years, my friends are
| scattered. There are many of those places I'd be happy to settle
| down in, but my upcoming move is based primarily on the changing
| climate. The area I am living in now is already changing, and the
| climate change models dont bode well for this area. Anyway, the
| contractor lifestyle has taught me there are new friends waiting
| to be found wherever I live, even if my next new friend is the
| 200 year old oak tree next to a stream deep in the forest.
| ricardobayes wrote:
| Difficult to foresee which way will it tip, on short-term it
| will be hotter for sure but if (big IF) medium-term the AMOC
| slows down or stops, it will be much colder.
| LightBug1 wrote:
| This feels weird af to me ... there's a place for highschool
| friends and I cherish and miss some of them. But there's also a
| place for striving forward into a world and meeting and learning
| with new people.
|
| Personally, family and the closest of close (family) friends are
| the constant. Beyond that, it feels like retreat into mundanity
| ... like Facebook.
| greenie_beans wrote:
| we moved across the country where we don't know anybody. i do not
| recommend this. having friends nearby is such an important aspect
| of mental health and overall joy in life.
| harimau777 wrote:
| I'm currently in the process of moving away from friends. It's
| definitely not something I want to do, but I don't have much of a
| choice due to the lack of tech jobs in the area, the increasingly
| oppressive culture & laws of a deep red state, and the lack of
| amenities.
|
| I suspect that the focus should be on making it easier for people
| to choose to live near friends. Not sure how that would work
| though.
| silexia wrote:
| We can't move anywhere because we can't afford to. When 500,000
| H1-B visas are brought into the USA to do entry level accounting
| and programming jobs, we have far less negotiating leverage to
| work remotely or make higher pay. Supply and demand. Your
| employer wants to increase the labor supply to reduce your price
| (your salary) and options like working where you wish.
| hyperific wrote:
| Should writers stop using the question format in titles when the
| answer to the question is immediately apparent?
| yapyap wrote:
| just based off the title: yeah sure, or make new friends?
| JustExAWS wrote:
| It doesn't matter when I lived near friends and family.
|
| At our ages 40-60, we all have our own immediate families,
| obligations (kids, grandkids and/or aging parents), we still have
| to make an effort to get together and we probably wouldn't get
| together any more than we do now.
|
| I am 50 married with adult (step)kids and my wife and I are empty
| nesters. We recently moved from where I lived after graduating
| from college in 1996 and my wife has lived all of her adult life.
|
| My core group of 5 friends I've put together from jobs I've had
| when living there are all married some with adult kids and others
| with kids still at home. It took a lot of planning and juggling
| calendars just for us to get together even once per quarter when
| I lived there.
|
| They all still live there and we have a group chat. But it is
| still less than once per quarter that we can all get together.
| It's a short cheap flight for me to fly in to hang out with them.
|
| There are two other couples that my wife and I are friends with
| and we all live in different cities now. Similar scenario, they
| both have family obligations - parents, adult kids, grandkids,
| etc which make it hard for all six of us to get together. But we
| usually have planned a trip together at least once a year and we
| end up in each others city for something at least once a year -
| Atlanta, Orlando and Los Angeles.
|
| My third group of "friends" are my seven cousins I grew up with
| (I'm an only child). They are all female and also have aging
| parents (who are less healthy than mine), children, grand
| children, etc.
|
| They all live in my former hometown and I'm also in a group chat
| with them. They say they often only see each other when I come to
| town and get us all together.
|
| It's the same with my college crew - we all went to college in
| our hone town and they either still live there or have family
| there. We can barely get together for alumni college events
| elAhmo wrote:
| This is such a great text!
|
| In my home city, many houses around are my family and childhood
| friends, and I wish I could replicate that with my other friends
| too. If I ever become a billionaire and can buy a small village
| and make everyone move there, it would be a dream coming true!
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