by notepad0x90 | 2026-01-15 19:02:05+00:00
from what I've looked into, on an individual level, the main thing I need to do is learn how to be a good company for others. Be for other strangers what I would want them to be for me. But it's easier said then done.

From a practical perspective, there is the whole "3rd place" issue. How can I open a business that caters to the public, who will just sit there and loiter on their phones and laptops all day and be profitable. Starbucks sort of did it in the 90s, but they're not tolerating that anymore.

Forget businesses, can you walk to a park, a beach, a hiking trail on a whim and run into people? Can you hold events, watch parties,etc.. on public places easily like that? It's not easy at all these days.

I blame cars. I despise the idea that electric cars are the replacement to cars, without considering changing transportation so that it is more efficient with trams, trains,etc... The side-effect of that is you run into strangers on public transport. This doesn't just affect the loneliness epidemic, it is in my opinion a direct cause of cardiovascular diseases and diabetes, and of course obesity. You can't even be homeless and sleep on the streets these days. Even the park benches are built to be hostile to anyone that wants to chill there for too long.

Society was restructured between 1950s-1980s so that it is suburbanized. It's all about the family unit, single family homes, freeways and roads built to facilitate single family homes (after WW2, starting families was all the rage, plus white-flight didn't help). Shopping centers built to cater to consumers driving from their suburban homes. Malls you can walk in, after you drove some time to park there. Even when you buy food items at grocery stores, pay attention to serving sizes, it is improving a little, but you'll see at minimum a serving size of two typically.

Society was deliberately engineered so that you have more reasons to spend more as a consumer. Families spend more per-capita. suburbs mean more houses purchased, entire generations renting with their bank as a landlord via mortgages, home repair, home insurance, car insurance, car repairs, gas stations for cars where you can get the most unhealthy things out there in the most frequented and convenient places. Make kids, make wives, make ex-wives, get sick the whole lot of you for hospitals, health insurances,etc..

It wasn't planned by some central committees or secret cabal, but it was planned nonetheless by economists and policy makers.

If everyone just got married and had kids, they won't be lonely would they? you don't need to hang out at park with strangers, you'll feel less of a member of your local neighborhood who look and think like you, and start thinking more as one people.

All the interpersonal interactions and opportunities to build relationships with people are commercialized and controlled.

For one reason or another, people are just not getting married in their early 20's anymore, or having that many kids later on like before. Even when you get married, your interaction is by design with other married people, who are busy commuting in their cars to and fro work, kids school,kids sports, plays,etc... imagine taking your kids on busses and trains every day to these places which are fairly near-by, by necessity. you'll be spending time with them instead of operating machinery. They'll be meeting stranger kids from other schools, seeing random strangers all the time, you'll be talking to randos as you walk to the train, wait on the bus,etc.. but this can't be monetized.

Blame the economists and policy makers if you want to blame someone.

If you want solutions, let's talk explicitly about the policy changes that need to happen.

Too much traffic? tear down the freeways instead of building more lanes.

It costs $10B to build a simple metro line? pass better laws to regulate bidding and costs, investigate fraud and waste.

But to dig even deeper into the root of the matter, look at what is celebrated and prized in society. Most of its ills come from there. For most Americans, it is inconceivable to be able to just go out of your house without any plans or destination in mind and just start walking and see where you end up, and who you run into. That's a crucial and tragic ability that's been lost. We really have more urgent things to address to be fair, but ultimately, this can only be solved one small step at a time, but also big sweeping changes are needed. The first step is to define and accept what the problem is, and where the blame and cause lie.