Posted by publicdebates 2 days ago
Ask HN: How can we solve the loneliness epidemic?
Now I build a life focused on that very much. I go to work at wework, talk to people *everywhere*, joined a bunch of run clubs and just prioritize social stuff. If I don't ask people, walk up to them and say hi, nothing's gonna happen. Reach out to people, say hi, do stuff. Loneliness correlates with low agency I think. Say yes to stuff. Ask people to join for coworking, for going to the gym, a run. Whatever. Go out of your way to increase your social circle. That simple.
And get off your fucking screen and go outside, touch some grass. The internet doesn't help.
The 'fixes' has been established for just as long. My nearby 'community centre' was built in 1987. Has this been successful at all? Not in the least bit.
The reality of what is causing this hasnt changed. Without fixing this key problem, the crisis obviously has continued for 30+ years. I'm not nostradamus here. However, from many previous conversations it's crazy how absolutely nobody is ready to talk about the cause. They'd rather just call it a paradox or feign ignorance for why this is happening. Honestly it's rather conspiratorial creating when you think about it.
Out of curiousity I asked what gemini 3 pro thinks.
1. Revival of third places.
As if that hasnt been tried for 30+ years... fail.
2. replacing 'socializing' with "service"
The idea is that cleaning a park will somehow make you less lonely is laughable at best.
3. Bridging the generational gap.
Elderly teach the young skills? while youth teach digital literacy. My community centre literally has this. F mark.
4. Urban design and walkability.
We need to spend trillions of dollars to completely redesign and rebuild cities? lol what.
5. digital hygiene
social media is a sedative? crazy.
I love gemini, but man they are getting it so wrong. All of this will likely just caused the crisis to be worse in my opinion.
To me, has this been done unintentionally through the typical 'road to hell is paved with good intentions' or has this been intentionally done and maintained? The refusal to acknowledge the cause seems to push toward intentional. Guess we just live with the loneliness epidemic.
>We need to spend trillions of dollars to completely redesign and rebuild cities? lol what.
That doesn't mean the point is wrong.
The US bet on the wrong urban planning ideas, and now it is facing the consequences. This is not unique to the US; other places have fallen into the same trap.
As for otherside, could this help the situation? Very much doubt it and reallocating a trillion $ means you have to defund a great deal of other things. Never happening, and likely to make the situation that much worse.
Those trends didn’t stop in the 90s, they accelerated! I lived through it myself. Social media isn’t the sole cause, but it clearly displaces time, lowers the incentive to show up in person, and offers connection without obligation.
Saying “community centers existed in 1987” misses the point... they stopped working when participation stopped being the default and became optional, inconvenient, and socially risky. People feel worn out and get "good enough" at home... so they choose the poor substitute. This also mirrors american food consumption habits.
This doesn’t require a conspiracy. It’s an emergent outcome of optimizing society for efficiency, mobility, and consumption instead of continuity and belonging. Service, third places, walkability, and intergenerational spaces aren’t magic fixes... and loneliness isn’t solved by “hanging out,” it’s solved by repeated, role-based, low-friction interaction where people are needed. We all but know how to fix this problem, there are piles of research behind it.
The real failure isn’t that these ideas were tried, it’s that we stripped away the economic and cultural structures that made them functional at all, then declared them ineffective. Pretending that nothing structural can help just guarantees the problem.
That's a fair point, but as I said, I see social media helping the situation, not worsening.
>Saying “community centers existed in 1987” misses the point... they stopped working when participation stopped being the default and became optional, inconvenient, and socially risky. People feel worn out and get "good enough" at home... so they choose the poor substitute. This also mirrors american food consumption habits.
It doesnt miss the point. The good enough is better than what is available not at home is the point. They are going to the best option. It doesnt mirror american fast food, i dont agree with that analogy.
>This doesn’t require a conspiracy.
That's very fair, i dont want to create the conspiracy theory but... I really dont want to go there but when discussion is so dishonest and refusing to accept the real cause(s) or really just the single root cause. Then it sure does feel this way to me.
>It’s an emergent outcome of optimizing society for efficiency, mobility, and consumption instead of continuity and belonging. Service, third places, walkability, and intergenerational spaces aren’t magic fixes... and loneliness isn’t solved by “hanging out,” it’s solved by repeated, role-based, low-friction interaction where people are needed. We all but know how to fix this problem, there are piles of research behind it.
Been tried extensively without success. At some point surely you try something else or give the reigns to someone else who is willing to have do the "wrong thing"
>The real failure isn’t that these ideas were tried, it’s that we stripped away the economic and cultural structures that made them functional at all, then declared them ineffective. Pretending that nothing structural can help just guarantees the problem.
I'm a IT guy and not a politician or whatever. My speech isnt changing anything at all. Declaring them ineffective is just a report card from me. Surely you cant fail to fix a problem for decades and think we shouldnt try to do something different to solve the problem.
What's super interesting is that this is NOT history repeating. This is practically the first time this has ever happened.
I know in my jurisdiction, it was largely speaking about 1984-1988 when the crisis started.
I have considered starting my own political party with the goal of fixing it, but I expect absolutely nobody would vote for me and nobody is ready to discuss it.
This is self-defeatist again, if no one tries, nothing changes. It might take a thousand failures to find the one success.
Fair point. But low chance of success, huge pay cut, social consequences, likely to be exposed to the typical political slander of 'oh that far right commie nazi' crap.
IT wouldnt even be the main thing im trying to fix with the party neither. It's unlikely I even fix it if i had the power.
Better stuff to do.
Pretty cyclical. Scale this up to the country and it answers "why is there a loneliness epidemic"
I’ve discussed this for years, especially since Jonathan Haidt's book recently. Sharing my view is utterly pointless because people aren't ready for the debate.
Even with the root cause, nobody agrees we should reverse it. I’m no super genius, many others see this problem, and politicians are exploiting it.
My comment was more about the bizarre situation and how it makes me feel conspiratorial like it's intentionally being done.
no one hitting that target has a shortage of friends
everyone missing that target does
People are uncomfortable to interact and make small talk. They know smileys and lmao, but many have forgotten how to laugh irl.
Another thing that you'll likely find in your area is a chess club.
Maybe you won't love the chess itself, but it's an excuse to hang out with people.
Another one is volunteering work. Elderly, dogs, etc, many communities need help.
In my village I have started a "clean up" program where average citizens take few bags a picker and we clean areas of our village.
Most of people are "this is the job of the garbage collectors, the mayor should do it", so what? It also costs money, and nobody will do as carefully as the people living there.
Even if 95% of my village won't care few will and we make an impact and socialize, etc and more start taking part of it.
I wish if this post could perhaps be made an exception or similar where people can talk about this for longer. Perhaps its just me but I wish for something like this avenue in some more time (perhaps right now I feel a bit closed off for some reason) where I wish to talk but words don't come out so much.
I don't know if I am walking around the bush on what I would wish to talk about here because of it right now. I have been trying to screenshot all the posts I could find which are great here and I just don't know, I just want this HN thread/discussion to stay open forever so that I can talk here a month in or two months in when I feel even more comfortbale
The point I am trying to say is that I was losing hope in HN and every social media because of botting and other issues and just lack of trust and direction and irl interactions are few and between. This feels such a great thread and I appreciate the author (I saw their work on their website which is phenomenal)
In a way, I think atleast this thread will help solve or atleast help me (or that's how I feel) in loneliness epidemic and I am grateful for that but I just want this to stay forever.
One of the issues I have in creating a special place for talks like these is that I see very few people sign in//sign up or talk. HN has lots of users and I got some really insightful answers here.
I think its technically possible and I just want the moderators to do this once. Dang if you are reading this, I genuinely hope that you can keep this thread permanent/long time. Loneliness is a real concern and I just feel that some people are unable to reach out (perhaps me right now) and definitely need some right place and right time and if this could just stay or (stay longer at the very least) I would deeply appreciate it sir
Would Hackernews community allow for something like this or be interested in doing this or say, if I were to create this post (or perhaps the OP) every month, would that go against terms or still be allowed.
I think it can be allowed but still just want to confirm if the community really wants this
I saw an aspect of vulnerability in hackernews I hadn't seen prior which made things feel real atleast to me
But I do think this thread is far too big to keep up with.
My plan was to post a similar but more focused thread in a month, and go from there.
I spent all day yesterday reading and responding to them, and there were still dozens of responses that I'm only seeing this morning, often thoughtful and with new ideas or perspectives.
So my plan was to post a series of more narrow focused questions on the topic, once every so often (maybe once a month). What causes the loneliness epidemic individually? Systemically? What policies might help it? What actionable solutions can many individuals try? Etc.
This is already kind of what I'm doing in Chicago. Every Sunday, I hold a sign with a different survey on a related topic. I'd like to do it more often if time eventually permits. In any case, I'm keeping a log of the results and conclusions on my website.
My main goal in this is to be a slowly evolving plan of actionable, concrete ideas, that's interactive, dynamic, and self-iterating.