Every time I read an article about people trying to solve the 'loneliness epidemic' I can't help but wonder if we're not trying to solve the wrong problem.<p>Maybe the solution should not be sought in trying to increase social connections but in eliminating our need for social contact. This dependence on other humans has always felt like a flaw to me.<p>Note that I'm not saying that human contact is bad, just that our pathological dependency on it is.
This is the kind of detached from humanity viewpoint that I come to hacker news for. Keep it up.
I mean, the first part of their comment got my hopes up:<p>> Every time I read an article about people trying to solve the 'loneliness epidemic' I can't help but wonder if we're not trying to solve the wrong problem.<p>But then I realized we differed on what the root problem/solution were.<p><i>What economic/social forces are making it so that the elderly get their emotional needs met through gig workers instead of their own families?</i><p>Another point the article doesn't mention is the emotional toll this likely has on the workers. Having once worked a role where I regularly helped the elderly and got to know the same individuals over some years, it was a constant churn of disappointment when they'd inevitably die.
><i>Every time I read an article about people trying to solve the 'loneliness epidemic...</i><p>you're reading the title wrong, they aren't "trying to solve the loneliness epidemic," they are trying to sell yogurt at a profit. In so doing, their sales force is ameliorating some of the loneliness their clients feel as a side effect. You could say that they are monetizing loneliness if that's the reason people are buying their products, for the visits and not for the yogurt.
Yes, how do we optimize social interaction out of our lives, maybe we can all live in VR with simulated girlfriends and never have to interact with another human again.
Then, like, what's the point of even being a human instead of a robot?
Nothing wrong with being a robot.
You would be free to decide, instead of having it being biologically required that you socialize.
To learn, to create, to grow? None of these things necessarily involve other humans.
Absolutely wrong, of course. At the risk of engaging with apparent rage bait: social interaction is one type of human yearning. So are learning, creating, and growing. Each of them requires other humans. Learning requires studying the knowledge created by other humans. Creating requires materials and methods created by other humans. Growing requires learning, so by extension, other humans.
But why if no-one is around to see it, admire it, comment on it, use it?
<a href="https://fablesofaesop.com/the-fox-who-lost-his-tail.html" rel="nofollow">https://fablesofaesop.com/the-fox-who-lost-his-tail.html</a>
The framing of human sociality as a flaw to be eliminated invites the dangerous notion that we can—or should—simply re-engineer ourselves. However, the ambitious project of "rewiring" human nature to eliminate our spontaneous connections and dependencies is not a path to liberation, but the ultimate goal of totalitarianism and oppressive social engineering.<p>Hannah Arendt explicitly notes that the true aim of totalitarian ideologies is not merely to change political structures, but to achieve "the transformation of human nature itself". When regimes seek total domination over a population, human spontaneity and the unpredictable nature of our social relationships become the greatest obstacles.<p>To achieve total control, these systems attempt to fabricate a new kind of human species. Arendt observes that concentration camps functioned literally as "laboratories" to test these changes in human nature. The objective was to eliminate human spontaneity and transform the human personality into a mere "thing," reducing individuals to a predictable "bundle of reactions". Arendt compares the success of this psychological rewiring to Pavlov’s dog, noting that conditioning a creature to abandon its natural, spontaneous instincts creates a "perverted animal".<p>James C. Scott traces a similar impulse in "high-modernist" ideology, which champions the "mastery of nature (including human nature)" through the rational, scientific design of social order. This kind of extreme social engineering requires stripping people of their distinctive personalities, histories, and organic community ties, treating them instead as abstract, interchangeable "generic subjects".<p>When human beings are placed in environments designed to severely restrict their organic social interactions and enforce rigid functional control, they suffer. Such environments foster a kind of "institutional neurosis" characterized by apathy, withdrawal, and a loss of initiative.<p>Paulo Freire similarly observes that the drive to completely control people—to "in-animate" them and transform them from living beings into inanimate "things"—is the essence of oppression. He argues that attempting to turn men and women into "automatons" directly negates our fundamental "ontological vocation to be more fully human".<p>If we were to successfully "rewire" ourselves to no longer need others, we would be executing the very project that authoritarian regimes have historically attempted through terror and indoctrination.<p>Our "flawed" social dependency and spontaneous need for one another are exactly what guarantee our freedom. To engineer that vulnerability out of the human psyche would not solve the problem of loneliness; it would simply reduce us to isolated, predictable mechanisms, destroying our humanity in the process.
What’s there to live for otherwise? Can you flesh this idea out more?
There are plenty of things to live for, but that’s not even the point. There is a difference between choosing to be social and having to be social because you will get depressed if you aren’t.<p>I think this need for social interaction is harmful. We did see this in action during the COVID pandemic. So many people who weren’t able to abide by a short lockdown. Lives were lost due to our pathological need for social interaction.<p>Imagine how many communicable deceases we could eliminate by simply having a 3 month lockdown every other year.
So is food. If we switch to IV feeding you can also avoid many harms food and drink brings. We can do a soylent green as a stopgap.
You don't go far enough, every flu season should be lockdown and social distancing protocol should be followed on pain of death.
You live for others? As in remove those others and you lose whole purpose of life? I am not trying to be rude, seems like retirement homes house plenty of such people but it doesn't make sense for younger folks... although this is hardly a choice, is it. But - I believe one can work on this and move themselves quite a bit if wanted.<p>My 2 cents - mountains and nature and activities in them are always beautiful, as in it doesn't get boring or mundane, not for anybody I know. Working out on oneself, experiencing various adventures, backpacking around the world, sports, adrenaline/risky activities that make you feel alive, seeing cultures and history and food... those are done for oneself and they are absolutely 100% fulfilling that no career could ever deliver.<p>Saying above as one such person, and also father of 2 amazing kids (and a pretty decent wife to complement) whom I love more than anything. But I don't live for them despite doing various hard sacrifices for them, I live for me and do those things for me, to be happy, content, recharged, better father and husband and when looking back at my life being fine with various choices made.
It would be up to you. These people who are lonely otherwise have lives.
Techbros are thinking: "Don't eliminate their need! They need a subscription AI app!"
Not everybody is wired in same way. Some have 'pathological' need, some see it as beneficial but optional item. Same folks definitely don't enjoy loud parties or bars full of strangers yelling on each other, and find a bit of lonely time healing/recharging.<p>I am one such person, and there are others. I consider it a personality strength, although of course it comes with side effects. Minority but not tiny.
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> The thinking child is not antisocial (he is, in fact, the only type of child fit for social relationships). When he develops his first values and conscious convictions, particularly as he approaches adolescence, he feels an intense desire to share them with a friend who would understand him; if frustrated, he feels an acute sense of loneliness. (Loneliness is specifically the experience of this type of child—or adult; it is the experience of those who have something to offer. The emotion that drives conformists to "belong," is not loneliness, but fear—the fear of intellectual independence and responsibility. The thinking child seeks equals; the conformist seeks protectors.)<p><a href="https://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/loneliness.html" rel="nofollow">https://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/loneliness.html</a>