[HN Gopher] The Social Recession: By the Numbers ___________________________________________________________________ The Social Recession: By the Numbers Author : antonomon Score : 47 points Date : 2022-10-23 19:59 UTC (3 hours ago) (HTM) web link (novum.substack.com) (TXT) w3m dump (novum.substack.com) | seydor wrote: | The US must not be a low-trust society. You should try to live in | an actual low trust society (where people can't trust | institutions and instead revert to their family or clan). The US | is not like that, people seem to trust other people they have | never seen before because they trust things like justice or the | US army or google or apple. | | Other than that, it seems that things are progressing as normal. | Since the times of the Enlightenment, there was this oxymoron of | idealizing individual empowerment, while advocating that humans | are social animals that must act collectively. Which is it? Well | with today's technology and abundance people are drifting | deliberately and decisively towards more individualism. Perhaps | it is about ime to stop describing these things as 'problems' and | realize that they are the new reality. Our politics worldwide is | quite ancient , and not prepared for the next phase of individual | empowerment. The places of the world that are stuck in | collectivist mindsets are awfully deluded like Russia, or rigidly | antiprogressive, like China. | rayiner wrote: | Every single highly individualistic society seems to be in | population decline (more so if you factor out immigrants from | "anti-progressive" Muslim or Catholic countries). Individualism | seems to be a self-limiting feature of society: it's unpleasant | to raise children in highly individualistic societies, which | makes such societies inherently transitory.[1] | | Is societal self-obsolescence how you define "progress?" How | successful can your society really be if your people don't seem | to want to raise kids in it and perpetuate it? If you have to | import people from collectivist societies just to take care of | your elderly? | | [1] The inverse is not true--many collectivist societies are | also facing population walls--but for quite different reasons. | godelski wrote: | But many collective societies are also facing similar issues | of loneliness and isolation. This isn't just a western | problem. We also see this same problem all across Asia: | India, Japan, China, Korea. Some of these countries even had | a rise in isolation before the US. I don't think it is a | individualism vs collectivism issue, though I'm not going to | dismiss it from the equation. I think it is that humans have | just gotten comfortable as our lives have all tremendously | benefited. We have little day to day problems. The problems | we face now are much more abstract and existential than | before, which tend to not be as motivating for adopting risky | behavior. | BlargMcLarg wrote: | Birth rates dropped to below replacement rate in the 70s near | universally among developed countries, far before many of | them became increasingly more individualistic. | | American culture and attitude seeping into most of those | countries kicked into overdrive the 21st century, but | birthrates were already low by then. | CPLX wrote: | The hidden variable here is the newly available innovation | of birth control pills. | seydor wrote: | > in population decline | | So? It's not the most populous groups that dominate, quite | the contrary. The world had half the population just 50 years | ago. | godelski wrote: | Yeah I find the conversations about population decline | quite odd. We've seen the results of population explosion, | and I don't think many agree that the results were great. | But they also weren't that bad. I think people miss the | point that (if you're a fellow Millennial) that when your | parents were born there were less than half the number of | people on the planet than there are today. I don't think | rapid decline will be a good thing (just like rapid | increase wasn't) but I don't think it is an existential | crisis either. | | World population: (1804) 1 billion, (1927: 123yrs) 2 | billion, (1960: 33 yrs) 3 billion, (1974: 14 yrs) 4 | billion, (1987: 13 yrs) 5 billion, (1999: 12 yrs) 6 | billion, (2011: 12yrs) 7 billion, (2023: 12 yrs) 8 billion. | Der_Einzige wrote: | The collectivist societies, like South Korea and Japan, are | experiencing stronger and worse populations declines than | highly individualistic societies. | hotpotamus wrote: | Which societies are even still growing? I thought that even | developing countries were falling off in birthrates. I | assume the world in 2100 will be mostly Amish people and | Israelis at this rate (and the oceans will be a couple | meters higher too). | luckylion wrote: | Are they, if you factor out immigration? As far as I know, | in Europe, the recent-ish immigrants are propping up birth | rates, but they adapt to the average in two or three | generations. | jesuscript wrote: | Here's a wild question: | | Are we not all friends here on HN? Or am I so depraved and | desperate? Have I socially died and don't even know it, friends? | | We're all friends right? Right? What the fuck is going on. | dgfitz wrote: | I don't consider anyone on HN a friend if that means anything. | jesuscript wrote: | Maybe that's the intangible the linked post is not | addressing. What does _friendship_ even mean to the people | they tracked? | | Being able to talk to people who are willing to spend time | talking back is a basis for friendship, at least in my book. | | Friendship doesn't always have to be so serious. | Viliam1234 wrote: | For me, a friend is a person I can discuss _personal_ | topics with. | | On HN, the topic is given (the article we comment on), and | it is usually not personal. If it happens to be personal, | it is most likely not the personal topic I would like to | discuss now. | | Also, if any of us died today, most likely no one else on | HN would ever notice. That too is not exactly what I | imagine as "friendship". | conductr wrote: | Me either but I can see how it serves the purpose of a friend | and for some people it could support increased isolation | A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: | There are people on HN, who I completely 100% disagree with and | likely would not want to spend time with in any other setting ( | and likely vice versa ). However, the best part of HN is that | me being friends, or even like minded, is not mandatory for the | purpose of this site ( edit: in fact, to an extent, being able | to present a different or conventionally objectionable, | perspective in a compelling way is more important than same | value framework ). | | In short, only you can answer that question. | jesuscript wrote: | But you find some of these deplorable people engaging | (possibly even fun and interesting), right? Interesting how | varied (imho, high) our standards are for another human | being. | | Fun and interesting is enough for me, we don't need to be | _best_ friends. We can be some semblance of friends. Or is | that asking for too much as well? | | Anyways, I agree with you. The drop in friendships can't be | fucking tracked because everyone has their own idea of what | it means. | OrangeMonkey wrote: | We arn't friends - at best everyone here are strangers | attending a conference where there are 4-5 competing views and | barely concealed contempt. | | That said, you f'ing matter and you deserve to be friends with | people. You can do it too. Just get out, talk to people in the | real world, whatever just do something different from what you | are doing now. | | I'm rooting for you man. | ctoth wrote: | I'd say we are most of us members of 3-4 distinct tribes all | gathering around this oasis, if I had to put words to it. 3-4 | distinct tribes with obvious intermixing. | thakoppno wrote: | I think we're friends in a meaningful sense. My in--real-life | friends live all over the world and we have a group thread. I | don't see that as too different. | | I remember hearing some futurist a decade or so ago say how | indistinguishable real-life and online life will be eventually. | At the time I couldn't believe it but your comment synthesizes | it in a way. | | I would be considerably more lonely, less inspired and | knowledgeable without this community. That's friendship to me. | errantmind wrote: | The more time people spend passively consuming entertainment, the | less time they spend doing everything else, including | socializing. | | Most everyone I know just sits on their phones, computers, or TVs | a good portion of the day. All boredom is banished, all gaps are | filled. The threshold for participation and collaboration is | higher, because why risk boredom when you have guaranteed- | minimum-satisfaction available. | juunpp wrote: | The best part isn't even "sitting on their phones", but walking | on their phones past other humans. | hotpotamus wrote: | Every time I'm stuck behind someone who inexplicably stopped | in the middle of a walkway to answer their phone, I just | imagine to myself that it's a book and think of how | engrossing the plot must be for them to pull it out and read | it at the worst possible time, and at least I'm a little more | amused than annoyed. | juunpp wrote: | Lucky you. I get the equivalent of road rage... but on the | sidewalk. | hotpotamus wrote: | Well, now you know my trick for dealing with it, maybe | you can try it or work on one of your own ;) | godelski wrote: | > Most everyone I know just sits on their phones, computers, or | TVs a good portion of the day. All boredom is banished, | | I see this a lot too, but I disagree with the conclusion. I | think more people are bored today than have been before. But we | need to recognize that engagement does not mean a lack of | boredom but rather addiction. As the article points out, people | are substantially more risk adverse now. | | While that may be good for things like less people doing heavy | drinking and such, our lives are inherently risky. If you talk | to people about why they have a hard time making friends you'll | find that this risk adverse nature often pops up (not the only | cause, but one of many). Same with dating. Any type of | relationship is inherently risky. You WILL get hurt by some of | them too, but that is the price to pay for the high rewards of | successful relationships (which can form online). | | So I am in agreement that there is a "why risk it" aspect of | people, but not about boredom. I believe we are self isolating | because that's what animals do, especially depressed ones. If | our lives are comfortable enough there is little incentive to | take any risks. So it sounds weird, but I think a major part of | the issue is that our lives have become so well off that there | is fewer incentives to push ourselves out of our comfort | zones[0]. But we are human too and able to find challenges for | ourselves and create discomfort when there is none. This is a | double edged sword that is difficult to wield, but I think it | is important that we learn it. It is how we better ourselves: | putting ourselves in uncomfortable positions[1]. | | [0] I do think this also plays a role in the (global) rise in | authoritarianism, but that is too much for this comment. | | [1] Even doing things like learning to code, ride a bike, or | learn an instrument requires putting ourselves in uncomfortable | positions. Specifically because you're never good at something | when you first start. But the challenge is supposed to make us | stronger. | [deleted] | antonomon wrote: | Less friends, relationships on the decline, delayed adulthood, | trust at an all-time low, and many diseases of despair. The | prognosis is not great. | [deleted] | cowpig wrote: | I wonder how much of this can be explained by social media? Feels | like a feeling of impending doom with climate change could also | be a factor. | | Also, I'd really like to see this trend in a broader context. How | much did these kinds of indicators dip during, say, the great | depression? | trgn wrote: | Very little. This has been an ongoing process, it's called | modernity. It's the evaporation of reality due to mass media | and commoditization. It's a reductive process that turns actual | people into widgets, the adaptation of man to machine. Human | relations, since these cannot be quantitied, are transmuted | into transactions that can be measured, quantitied, monetized. | Affection, intimacy, loyalty thus become replqced by countable | things like swipes, nft drops, car infotainment packages, yoga | cruise experiences, ... | | The matrix is real. Not that we are living in a computer (thats | just stupid), but that we are being reduced to particiption in | algorithm, mere conduits of information. | | That malaise, hard to pinpoint but ongoing since 150 years, is | the driver of the social recession | DiggyJohnson wrote: | I genuinely fail to see how social media does not fit | perfectly into the description of mass media commoditization | in modernity. | trgn wrote: | For sure, it fits into it, apologies if I gave the | impression it didn't. | tchock23 wrote: | I wonder how much of the lack of close friends is due to people | moving more frequently. After college most of my close friends | did a stint in various cities making it very difficult to | maintain a relationship with them. I'd be curious to see a graph | of reported close friendships against mobility. | readthenotes1 wrote: | I tried her this but it must be infected with some virus because | an overlay popped up that made it so I couldn't read anything | past the first paragraph! | [deleted] | 1270018080 wrote: | As someone who likes looking at charts, I hate being in the | "middle" of the story on the social recession. In addition to | everything listed in the article, we also have ever increasing | partisanship, declines in education, climate destruction etc. | Instead of everything getting .5% worse every year, it would be | nice to see something dramatically change, good or bad. Some | shift that actually changes things just to get this current | failing society out of the way. | | Is this what life is always like in declining empires? Will it | just get worse every year until we have a few wars and genocides | until there's enough destruction to start rebuilding? | willnonya wrote: | Which empire are you imagining is in decline? | [deleted] | antonomon wrote: | It feels like things are a bit primed for something like that, | in a way. Although it could easily not and just continue | indefinitely if the public is pacified completely. Still, I | think if this drip drip drip of a decline continues, then I | think we might start seeing some weird fascination with war as | an "outlet." A lot of fine de siecle 20th century writers | talked about this same thing with regards to mass industrial | society, as if they wanted WWI. When Wittgenstein was sent to | the front, his response was basically, "I really needed that," | as if it was some kind of cleanse. People are built for | narratives, they derive meaning from them, and a drift cannot | persist indefinitely. Amid the collapse of traditional meta- | narratives that once gave meaning, there are today many | competing ones, none of which are truly for _the now._ It feels | like we need a new way to live otherwise we will exhaust | ourselves. | nonrandomstring wrote: | I'd recommend The Origins of War in Child Abuse by Lloyd | DeMause [1] if you aren't already aware of it. The actual | child abuse part is not apropos the technological aspects, | but there's a deep (one of the most direct and powerfully | written) account of perennial sacrificial cleansing rituals | and the societal death-drive (Thanatos). | antonomon wrote: | Wow, great suggestion. I will check it. | parthianshotgun wrote: | I'd really look into the validity of the book, a cursory | google search reveals that's it's basically a load of | shit. Also the book is narrated by Stefan Molyneux, | which, I wouldn't say is a 'happy accident' when it comes | to Molyneux oeuvre | antonomon wrote: | Lol wtf? Jesus christ, nevermind then. | [deleted] | rafaelero wrote: | I find this subject fascinating. We young people have been | detaching from the old ways of living without really building a | new narrative. I still think it's cringe how some subsections of | society want to revive the traditional life (tm). I mean, there's | a reason we went away from that, so that ends up being very | patronizing and unhelpful. | mistermann wrote: | > We young people have been detaching from the old ways of | living without really building a new narrative. | | George Hotz, are we living in a simulation (6 minutes) | | https://youtu.be/_SpptYg_0Rs | debacle wrote: | Look at the reddit front page and tell me it isn't enabling much | of these behaviors. | mistermann wrote: | I thinks it's fascinating how it evades _significant_ study, | attention, _and curiosity_. | seydor wrote: | Look at russia and see a society that is trying to disable | those behaviors ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-10-23 23:00 UTC)