[fleddr]

We're biological creatures evolved to be outside, to interact with the physical world and real people.

It's easily replicable. Go out for some more walks, plan more visits with friends, do some wood craft, gardening or whatever else physical. Your mood will instantly improve, reliably. Because this is your natural state.

At the same time, we also have the built-in tendency to optimize for convenience. That too is perfectly natural. Hence we fully embrace all technology but forget about the cost: drifting ever further away from our very being. We're our own enemy. A common example here on HN would be the excitement regarding working from home. I get it, I love it too. But let's not dismiss that this further tilts things into a flat, isolated, touchless society. You want it, but it's still really bad for you.

Further, as conscious creatures we're not designed to process the information avalanche of the modern age. We process more of it in a day than somebody did in an entire lifetime 2 centuries ago. Likewise we're not designed for the current speed of change.

And finally, we're social creatures but not designed for it at a scale of millions or billions of people. We cannot empathize with the culture, politics and differences of that scale.

[tayo42]

> A common example here on HN would be the excitement regarding working from home. I get it, I love it too. But let's not dismiss that this further tilts things into a flat, isolated, touchless society. You want it, but it's still really bad for you.

work from home and working remote lets me live a way richer life then working in the office allowed for. I have time and energy to dive into hobbies, pick up more hobbies and have the flexibility to travel.

There is so much more to life then spending it in an office, making money for someone else, then commuting for 2 hours, wasting another hour getting ready to do that commute.

[unsui]

I am in the fortunate position where both my wife and myself work from home.

It has been an incredible privilege being able to spend quality time with the person I care for the most without the pressure to optimize what little precious time I have outside of work.

e.g., being able to have lunch together, or just taking a quick break to check in on each other's lives.

Would so much rather have this than sitting in a cubicle or forcibly socializing with people who are acquaintences at best (maybe the introvert in me speaking).

Yes, there are some folks who need the social interaction. There are also those who prefer quality interactions over quantity.

[sizzle]

A million times this! I feel like I unlocked so much productivity and energy levels to work out and be healthy whereas before the soul crushing commute and open office plan made me feel on edge when trying to be in a flow state and had me drained at the end of the day. I can’t imagine going back to the office just to talk to work acquaintances that are busy with kids and their own lives.

[mbork_pl]

I have a fairly small apartment where I live with my wife and two kids (7 & 13). I read/write a lot while commuting by public transport.

Work from home is a nightmare for me, even though I have to commute 10+ km to the office.

I mean, to each his own – I don't have any problem with you loving working remotely. But please do not forget that people are in various situations. (I'm not claiming you do, just wanted to mention another perspective.)

[helij]

I was just thinking and can't remember anyone being bothered by someone wanting to go to the office and work there. I do know people who are offended by people who want to work from home though and they can be pretty aggressive and annoying (not pointing at you here btw.).

The commute I have is aprox. 50 min and I stand on the train and tube the whole way in the morning. No room to read or write. We also have fairly big 3-bed apartment and one of the smaller bedrooms is our home office. It's really amazing and for two adults and a child plenty of space for everyone.

Yes, to each his own. If you prefer to go to an office go ahead. Don't expect others to be there though.

Also, the money I save from commuting goes straight into paying up our mortgage and doing a lunch or two and dinner at our local town restaurants. Great Italian and Turkish food around. Certainly beats Greggs in the City and even some fancier restaurants and pubs.

I find it funny how the push to the office comes with let's support "local businesses" - what they mean by that is actually big chains. Well, now I can actually support local businesses and spend money locally. Earlier I couldn't as, you know, I only came home to sleep.

/rant off

[throwaway1347a]

I think the office/home misses the point when it comes to interaction. It’s more about whether you’re working in the same physical location as your colleagues, and while no one is stopping people heading into the office, if no other colleagues are there you’re not working in the same physical location.

Personally, I live alone, and when I spend a day without in depth conversations with co located people I feel very down. Obviously I can head out in the evening, but during work hours it’s very hard to both do my job, and have conversations with co located people. This is true whether I’m at home, or in an empty office.

Now, rationally, I know it’s not in anyone’s job description to come into the office to look after my personal mental health - and as a manager I push for people being able to work from home where it makes sense, and support those people as best I can. However, I’ve now decided I will likely soon leave my current role and look for a job where I know I will be co located 4-5 days a week, because I know it’s what is best for my mental health. Even if that means a significant career change I’d be happy to do it.

Again, I have no issues with people wanting to work from home, and I’m sure it’s had a great positive impact for those people. For me, it’s had a major negative impact, and it’s now something I’ll be sure is a criteria in future roles.

[JohnFen]

> I spend a day without in depth conversations with co located people I feel very down

I've found that I actually have in depth conversations working remotely, where that almost never happened in the office.

[throwaway2037]

So GP's lived experiences are not real? Your reply reads like "yeah, but for me..." All of the HN discussions about work from office vs home always devolve into the same No True Scotsman arguments. It doesn't matter what anyone says, someone else will inevitably say: "yeah, but for me..." Nothing new is learned. Everyone's mind stays closed to other's peoples lived experiences.

And wait until you have teammates that don't want to pick-up the (video) phone or reply to your chats or emails. Suddenly, you won't be having those "in depth conversations working remotely". Can you empathize with GP's experience?

[JohnFen]

> Don't expect others to be there though.

Well, some will. There are plenty of people who want to be back in the office.

> let's support "local businesses" - what they mean by that is actually big chains.

I find that hilarious, too. Supporting a local business is not supporting big chains. They don't really count as "local businesses".

[throwaway2037]

I guess you live in/around London. Thank you to share your experience. The commutes that my London teammates endure sound like soul-sucking hell.

Real question: If you could afford the same setup closer to city center (say, zone 2 or something) but a 15-minute bicycle from the office, would you do it? My point: What London needs is more housing (a sh-t ton of it), then it will become affordable housing. Real estate prices are so out of control in London... forcing most to live far outside the city, and endure a hellish commute.

[helij]

Prices where we are are similar to zone 2 but much better access to green belt and major roads that get you out to the 'countryside'. That's why we decided to buy here and not go for central London.

If we were to live closer to our offices I would probably go in more, yes.

[dakiol]

> I mean, to each his own

That's the problem. Don't take it personally, but if we are in the same team, I don't care at all if you go to the office to work; I'm happy working from home. But, if you want to work from the office it's because you (probably) want to work with people there... so the company forces the rest to come to the office some days per week. So it's not really "to each his own": working from the office is not a personal choice, it's rather a team/company decision.

[unregistereddev]

Yeah ... I have a moderately sized house where I live with my wife. She loves working from home because it frees her to be flexible. She can take meetings without a headset, grab snacks whenever, play music, play with the cats, or - if she's no longer being productive - turn on the TV.

For all the reasons my wife enjoys working from home, I enjoy working from the office. I love her dearly, but I also want to work during my work time. There's only so much I can tune out while remaining productive.

[throwaway2037]

I see this pattern a lot in straight couples. The wife has much lower economic productivity. Why? Please don't read this as a slight against your wife! (A person's economic value is completely separate from their value as a human being.)

My statement comes with a lot of assumptions. I cannot believe that someone who works like that actually makes decent money. Are they working the absolute minimum and paid enough to feel satisfied?

[unregistereddev]

We work in the same industry. While I do make more money, that is primarily due to being older and having a little more experience. She makes decent money.

The lesson here might be that having more fucks to give does not necessarily lead to better performance reviews or more promotions. Or equally likely, my wife is smarter than I am and is able to exceed expectations with far less effort.

[RangerScience]

> public transport.

(Not GP) It's not a "to each his own" - I don't have any problem with you working in an office, in a place where public transit is a functional commute. I'd probably want a return to office if I lived somewhere that had that, but I don't. It's not so much that I'm "choosing" remote, it's that non-remote commutes make office jobs that much worse because of the lack of functional public transit for that commute. And, in other cases, because office locations are shit (office parks).

(I live in LA: We do actually have great public transit... kind of. It just goes to limited places, so those places are packed. Otherwise it's buses, and those don't work as a read/write commute - at least in LA, both b/c busses also have to deal with traffic, and the US's social safety net... issues).

[godelski]

> work from home and working remote lets me live a way richer life then working in the office allowed for. I have time and energy to dive into hobbies, pick up more hobbies and have the flexibility to travel.

Personally I have more time to

>> Go out for some more walks, plan more visits with friends, do some wood craft, gardening or whatever else physical.

Working from home I don't feel compelled to sit and do all work at a set period of time. Oh, it's nice and sunny at 3pm when I'm getting a natural decline in output? I'll go for a walk. Takes an hour, I feel happier, and I come back way more productive. Want a longer lunch with friends? No biggie. (This combined with the commuting aspect you mention, which is actually a high stress period of time for me. My days have far less anxiety working from home. Including the reduced time pressure) I'd argue that I have far more productive work hours between 9 and 6 because of WFH.

I see people making fun of your answer but I think the big difference is how people treat work from home vs work in the office. There's definitely also environmental factors. I'm sure there are others that greatly benefit from a very fixed structure. Probably depends on personality and what you do. I'm a researcher and I'm not sure there's ever really an "off the clock" time for me, so the flexibility is far more enjoyable to me. I'm sure there's people that can disconnect better than me. I'm sure there are even researchers that enjoy the structure.

To each their own and I thought that's what we were supposed to learn from this WFH experiment. People are different, who knew? Honestly I'd prefer jobs have work space available but also allow for flexible schedules and not requiring to always be in the office. Hybrid of "x days in the office" isn't the real solution to me. The solution is "let people figure out what's optimal for themselves and make the environment where they can do that thing." (Some days I do work in my office because I need to be in a different space or need to work with someone else. Flexibility is key)

[ian-g]

I think it's that second piece that's important about wfh. You need to take advantage of it to do more things. I could commute to the suburbs, or I could work from home and leave earlier to hang out with friends.

Or I can go on a road trip and work part of that time doing things in the evening and weekends, taking long lunches, etc...

Working remotely is great if you take advantage of it

[micromacrofoot]

It's important to track your work time and actually do something else instead of commute though. I fall into pattern of working longer if I'm not careful.

[fleddr]

Your response is as predictable as HN can possibly be.

[lotsofpulp]

What is wrong with pointing out a possible error in this claim?

> excitement regarding working from home. I get it, I love it too. But let's not dismiss that this further tilts things into a flat, isolated, touchless society. You want it, but it's still really bad for you.

Not spending 1 hour+ per day commuting allows one to go to city meetings, go to the gym, walk around the neighborhood when the sun is out for those in northern latitudes, etc.

If anything, spending so much time commuting to and from work is what tilted things into a flat, isolated, touchless society.

[oblio]

Your error is that as seen by the sky high and increasing obesity rates, for example, most people are not as motivated (due to personality or just environment), and I'm quite sure work from home will cause obesity to spike in 5-10 years (there's a bit of lag to get the numbers).

At least the commute was forcing a lot of these people to move around.

And before you start with gyms and such, remember that New Year's resolutions prompt a huge amount of people to register at gyms but a crazy number, something like 80-90% drop out by March.

[lotsofpulp]

Commuting is sitting in a car for 90%+ of Americans.

[oblio]

But then you're in an office and you have to move around. Maybe go out to lunch at a cafeteria.

I wore a pedometer for a while. While I was working from the office I was averaging about 8000 steps, while during a full day at home sometimes the average was as low as 800 steps.

[slothtrop]

90% of Americans live in suburbs now? No, many either live close to work or take public transpo.

[3np]

It's not an error just because it does jot hold in individual level for you and many others.

[UncleOxidant]

Agreed. WFH allows me more time for gardening and getting out in nature.

[slothtrop]

If working doesn't give you any meaning, your job sucks. People tend to like validation, participating in society, creating value for others, etc. Work is usually the best vector. Dicking around with art for the sake of leisure provides some meaning, but doesn't deliver what a good job does. If it did, it would be a job.

[bluefirebrand]

> If working doesn't give you any meaning, your job sucks

This is a very typical attitude but it's pretty backwards imo.

If your work provides more meaning than everything else in your life, then your life sucks.

Id rather have a job that is just a paycheck and find meaning in all of the other stuff.

[slothtrop]

They aren't mutually exclusive, but consider that the best predictor of men's happiness is their job. Not their hobbies, not what they consume, not how many vacation days they have, not how many hours they work; their job.

[diordiderot]

Your beef isn't with the office it's with capitalism.

[an_ko]

Beware of the "appeal to nature" fallacy [1]. You are right that exercising and going outside have been experimentally demonstrated to improve mood, but there is no such thing as "your natural state", and even if you arbitrarily pick some definition, there is nothing inherently good about it. Is agriculture "unnatural"?

The "we're not designed for the current speed of change" argument has also been made many times 2 centuries ago, for example with claims that the unnatural speed of train travel drives people insane. [2] Such claims are hilarious in retrospect. In 200 years, what will people think of your comment?

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_nature [2]: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/railway-madness-victor...

[shrimpx]

To say that sitting in front of a screen is just as natural as foraging for mushrooms is nonsense from the perspective of what your body is optimized to do, on an evolutionary timescale.

[fleddr]

The parent comment is pointless intellectualism.

I'm really quite sure that people can grasp that when you put a fish on dry land, it's not made for that. And that similarly, we're not made for social isolation, living indoors, extreme overstimulation of the senses, non-stop negativity, lack of cognitive breaks, etc.

[bluefirebrand]

Conflating working from home with social isolation is a pretty big reach though.

Maybe people actually just have social lives outside of work, and probably that's healthier for them.

[slothtrop]

Anecdotally, it doesn't seem to be the case. For those who have their spouse and children (if they've reached that point), and in a WFH situation it's possible not to encounter a single other person in the day during the week, until running errands.

If you're living alone, then it's trivially possible not to socialize at all for days at a time (and beyond) - you now have to rearrange your life to meet people in your leisure time. You have to join meetups, sports, clubs, after working all day because work is devoid of watercooler talk, of idle chit-chat. And so is your home. The precedence of having made friends in formative years and keeping them helps, but they're busy too - you won't see them every day.

So now you're looking at spending real $ just to meet an adequate threshold of social time every week.

[devenvdev]

I agree that the parent comment kinda misses the point that social isolation is bad for you. But "we're not designed to process the information avalanche of the modern age" does make me squint.

My intuition tells me that cavemen probably had worse quality of life (experience-wise) than modern humans.

Information input risen drastically long time ago, what was it, three thousand years from "here, this is a knife, you cut here" to a full blown education system?

I think our brain elasticity is good enough to handle much much more before it overloads (or whatever are the consequences of "unnatural" amount of information).

[reflexco]

"My intuition tells me that cavemen probably had worse quality of life (experience-wise) than modern humans."

That's a very suggestive judgment. It's likely they felt incredibly more in line with their body, emotions and environment. They were probably experiencing states of "flow" for the majority of their active hours, and frequent genuine happiness and sadness. But then it's impossible to measure things like fulfillment and happiness from bone remnants and fragments of DNA, so we wouldn't know for sure.

[9935c101ab17a66]

> The parent comment is pointless intellectualism.

Someone posts a thoughtful and polite reply, with links to back up their statements, and this is your response? This isn't appropriate at all.

As to your argument in general — well, I'll just include this section from the Wikipedia article 'Criticism of Evolutionary Biology' because I think every one of the criticisms discussed below could be applied to your comments:

> Critics of evolutionary psychology accuse it of promoting genetic determinism, pan-adaptationism (the idea that all behaviors and anatomical features are adaptations), unfalsifiable hypotheses, distal or ultimate explanations of behavior when proximate explanations are superior, and malevolent political or moral ideas.

[jancsika]

> In 200 years, what will people think of your comment?

Probably the same think I currently think of the typical Baptist warning that letting a municipality go wet will lead to an uptick in sinful fornication and fisticuffs. (And dancing!) The reasoning is almost certainly off. But as far as consequences, they're not wrong. :)

I'm more concerned about those who would hand wave problems that come from these specific pieces of social media technology in a growing number of studies of those specific social media services. Referring to train-induced insanity reveals OP's flawed reasoning, but it doesn't address at all what "the Phones" are probably doing to U.S. girls and young women.

[zdragnar]

> Is agriculture "unnatural"?

Many species modify their environment intentionally, and some go so far as to engage in a form of farming / animal husbandry. Various ants farm fungi, some species herd aphids for their "honeydew" secretions, pocket gophers cultivate tree roots, etc.

Humans are physical beings, and it is our nature to experience the world through our physical senses. The psychosomatic relationship between our brain and the rest of our nervous system is also well documented (i.e. effects of exercise, gut health and diet on mood, etc).

The digital world is a semi-shared fantasy. The longer you spend there, the more the neglected parts of you will suffer for it.

[travisjungroth]

I don't think you'd find the claims of train madness hilarious after being on BART.

In general, I find the "someone made a similar claim in the past and they were wrong then so you're wrong now" argument not persuasive.

[fleddr]

In general I'm annoyed by references to history.

Computing, internet, social media, smartphones...each of these jumps are unprecedented.

[pharrington]

The appeal to nature definitely doesn't hold up, but I'm pretty sure that the historical consensus in 200 years will be that early 21st century social media was psychologically predatory.

[kar5pt]

Yeah. Virtually none of the suggestions OP is making are "natural" in any meaningful way. Even going for walks usually implies walking in a park, which is an invention of the past 100 years or so. It's also very Euro-centric. In many other cultures its considered strange to just walk around for no reason.

[slothtrop]

> In many other cultures its considered strange to just walk around for no reason

Name a single one.

Walking being natural, as is meant colloquially, is not contingent on whether the environment has been altered. It's contingent on being out-in-the-world.

[kar5pt]

I was referring to a book I read by a Brit who lived in Africa for 30 years. He wrote about an interaction where he moved to an African village and "went for a walk" through the village. The locals thought he was strange to walk for no reason and assumed he was looking for workers.

[fleddr]

Only on HN can one debate the purpose of legs.

[kar5pt]

1. I was referring to walking as recreation, not walking in general (not sure how people missed this) 2. Body parts don't have a "purpose" unless you believe in a creator-god.

[hoot]

Yeah there's nothing better for mental health than spending 2 hours a day in a car to sit in a dark windowless room for 8 hours with headphones. I went back to remote work this past fall and it has been such a massive boost to my mental health. I spend a ton more time with my family and friends. I take a long lunch every day to spend with my daughter. Never going back to an office.

[WheatMillington]

It sucks that this was your office experience, but your experience is not universal. I commute around 14km taking around 25mins, or considerably less when I take my motorcycle. My office is a large, vibrant building filled with interesting people.

WFH is challenging for me, with two young kids and not enough space. I feel bored and isolated spending so much time alone.

[throwaway2037]

Woah. 14km in 25min is 33.5km/h. What is your mode of transport, beside motocycle? Who commutes that fast anywhere in the world? Then you said "considerably less when I take my motorcycle". Are you traveling on average > 50km/h during your commute? That is incredible in the modern, developed world -- extremely rare.

[dakiol]

Wouldn't it be amazing that each person in the team could decide where to work? I could work from home and you could work from the office. Win-Win.

[cma]

With two young kids a motorcycle commute seems like something to avoid.

[WheatMillington]

The only thing worse than dying is not living.

[ako]

Don’t talk him out of motorcycling please, motorcyclist are one of the best sources of donor organs we have these days…

[spixy]

similar for me, 8km commute (~15 mins), at home I am alone and don't have concentration to work, in the office I am with people and environment makes me to easier to do my job

[PpEY4fu85hkQpn]

Why would someone choose to live an hour car drive away from a place they agreed to be 5 days a week?

[sli]

Usually that's because it's the closest job that will pay their current rent, but won't pay the rent of a place that's closer. Almost nobody "chooses" that.

[jrochkind1]

I'm with you 100% until the last paragraph.

We are definitely social creatures, and living lives of increasingly less social interaction is not going to work out for us personally or as societies.

But I see no reason we can't handle society at a scale of millions or billions of people. It, after all, always is experienced as less than that, even people who live in NYC or Mexico City have regular interactions with a smaller group of 100-200 people at most, even if incidental daily interactions with more people than most of us.

But those incidental daily interactions with a huge number of people -- I am pretty sure are actually positive. To the extent that I'd predict that even in the present society with social interaction limited by the social forces we're talking about -- someone living in manhattan who, on the average can't help but interact incidentally with a huge number of people daily (on average, there are exceptions, going up with wealth!) -- is likely on average to be happier, due to those interactions, than someone in a suburb working remotely who has one to two incidental interactions... a week?

I think those incidental interactions are in fact key to happiness, the more the better, and there is no problem if due to living in some of the densest places on the planet, they are with a huge number of diverse people.

Also I think people seriously under-estimate the extent to which humans have lived in "urban" societies for many thousands of years. Granted, the scale of "urban" was smaller than it is now (a city of 20K people was enormous 500 years ago), but we have always been extremely social creatures, always in fact, in general on aggregate, looking to maximize our number of relationships and interactions. (See eg _Dawn of Everything_). (I also think people way over-estimate the universal cultural homogeniety of "ancient" and "pre-historical" civilizations. Things were not as we assume).

[somenameforme]

Your prediction is extremely intuitive, but there's a bit of a surprise here. People in rural areas tend to experience substantially less loneliness than those in cities. I'll link to a random study [1] showing this, but I'm not saying this because of that study. It's a well known result that's been repeatedly and consistently demonstrated.

I think the probable reason is pretty straight forward. When there are "too many" people in an area there's a really good chance any given person you encounter is someone you'll never encounter again, or sporadically at best. So you start seeing other people as something more like NPCs. We obviously understand other people are other people, but given you'll probably never see this person again any sort of encounter is generally going to be exceptionally superficial.

And even if you try to change that, it's probably not going to be reciprocated. If somebody in a small town wanted to kick up a conversation with and get to meaningfully and really know me, I'd happily reciprocate. Go to their house for a beer or even dinner? Sure, why not? If it happened in a large city, I'd expect he's probably a scammer or just not all there. In either case, I'm going to be looking to end the conversation and move along ASAP.

So you get this paradoxical scenario where people surrounded by orders of magnitude more people end up lonelier than those with far fewer faces about.

[1] - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30609155/

[tomtheelder]

I would propose a different hypothesis: that populations in urban areas might be more itinerant and much more likely to be removed from family structures.

[flangola7]

I wonder why rural people have less empathetic world and political attitudes then. That is also paradoxical.

[tomtheelder]

I think that one is pretty straightforward: homogeneity. I grew up in a much more rural area than I live in now, and you just don't get your perspectives and views challenged very much (unless you happen to be outside the norm, in which case your life can be extremely difficult).

[somenameforme]

I don't think most really realize how neglected rural communities are. It can take something like a miracle to get the government to fund paving a road off the beaten path. Now put yourself in their shoes, and imagine how it feels when you see a government sending hundreds of billions of dollars to countries half way around the world.

This is why things like 'America first' resonate so strongly with rural communities. It's not some jingoistic message, let alone some sort of a secret dog whistle for some sort of a race nationalism thing. It's just people seeing tremendously large amounts of money and interest being spent on things like countries halfway around the world, with little to nothing to show for it all domestically.

[oblio]

The thing is, depending on what kind of rural community type we're talking about, there's no amount of money available in this world that could save them.

Even if you could theoretically build all that infrastructure, the maintenance burden would just crush you 20 years down the line, it would crush your kids and your grand kids.

The real tragedy is that cities are unaffordable.

[somenameforme]

With all due respect, you have to appreciate that nobody everybody thinks as you do. People in rural areas don't want to be "saved", and the vast majority have no interest in moving, let alone to a city - especially in current times, regardless of cost. Surprisingly there was a very recent poll on this exact issue [1].

As for maintenance, I'll elaborate on that story. People on the road of this town had been petitioning the government for years to get their road paved. Each time it'd rain, the road (made of mostly compacted dirt) would get into pretty rough shape. There'd been several accidents precisely because of this, particularly with kids, and it was also pretty rough on people's vehicles. People, as in people - not the government, would patch it up, but that'd take time, and it was non-trivial.

The government clearly had no interest in paving the road, so eventually the people raised the funds themselves over a rather lengthy period of time, and then paved the road themselves. As for maintenance, spot repairing potholes is a whole lot easier than dealing with part of a road getting washed out by rain. It wasn't cheap. And so things like this really make you wonder why you're paying taxes. And then you see headlines of a government and president seemingly gloating about sending hundreds of billions of dollars to countries half way around the world. It just doesn't inspire positive feelings, and makes the government seem desperately out of touch.

[1] - https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2021/12/16/america...

[int_19h]

It's not really less empathetic, it's just more parochial (i.e. empathy tends to be reserved for the in-group).

Conversely, I find that urban politics often produce the kind of "empathy" where people say things in the abstract that are in line with empathy, but it doesn't translate to actual person-to-person interactions - i.e. it's more of a play act.

The "monkeysphere" concept comes to mind, and it does make me wonder sometimes if true empathy can even be scaled to large and diverse populations in principle.

[throwaway2037]

I felt the same in NYC. It was a weird combination of aggressive and impersonal. I frequently felt lonely.

[idiotsecant]

Parent post is right, we are inherantly tribal creature capable of really empathizing and aligning ourselves with maybe 7-10 people. We can find a tribal identity with maybe 30 people. We can productively coordinate with groups of as many as 50-75 people. Any more than that, and we simply can't hold those relationships in our monkey brains and default to 'stranger bad'.

Fortunately, at some point we gained an abstraction layer on top of our monkey brains, capable of empathizing with abstract characteristics such as nation, race, religion, etc. These abstractions are socketed right into our monkey layer and are a hack that can simulate the 50-75 people type relationship for billions of people. Unfortunately that layer needs to be trained, and it's even more unfortunately very easy and quite profitable to train in the wrong ways.

[jrochkind1]

I suppose we can all keep posting "I'm right", "No, I'm right"!

I believe people have in fact been routinely living in groups of far more than 30 people for tens of thousands of years (in some but not all places/times over that span, sure), it's a misconception to think this is new or unusual for humans.

We have not only done fine with it, we have thrived with it.

(Also having relationships over distance too, for a long long time).

[lm28469]

> I believe people have in fact been routinely living in groups of far more than 30 people for tens of thousands of years

Ok but could they follow 500 influencers, watch people die everyday, get the ever up to date flow of new disease, earthquakes, terrorists attack fed 24/7, compare themselves to the best of the best, see the worst of the worst, &c. ?

For people who lived/grew up before the 90s/2000s it is very obvious that things changed in a massive way extremely quickly, a lot due to internet but eve more due to pocket computers.

I think you're massively underestimating the scale of the issue. People don't thrive on social medias interactions, they're addicted to them, depending on the survey/study you look at it's anywhere from 4 to 9 hours per day on average.

[ameister14]

>watch people die everyday

Maybe not every day, but death was a lot closer to people for everything up to the last hundred years or so.

Look at child and maternal death rates.

[oblio]

Even so, you're talking about 1 tragic event every 6 months at most, on average (except for wartime).

Not a slew of garbage about 10000 tragic events happening each day.

[throwaway2037]

"People don't thrive on social medias interactions, they're addicted to them." This is a choice phrase. Well said.

[ye-olde-sysrq]

Have we thrived, though? If we're talking about monkey brains and evolution, we need to keep in mind that all of the stuff we're talking about is even only a tiny fraction of the time that humans have been anatomically modern (300000 to 100000 years ago depending on exactly how modern you mean, with the 100k years ago mark being where an autopsy wouldn't be able to tell the difference unless it were specifically trying to date the corpse based on things like carbon13 or noting the dental care etc).

So all things considered, I don't think we can really say that we've proved out that the stuff we've been up to since the dawn of agriculture (10k years ago) is going to stand the test of time. Maybe let's at least see where global warming goes over the next 100-200 years before we start throwing around words like "thrive".

[idiotsecant]

I think if you re-read my post we're saying the same thing.

[forgottheoldone]

I agree that it doesn't come by itself, it takes will and dedication and work... I don't think we can take for granted that everything will go by itself. I'm quite pessimistic as to the actual outcomes, to be honest -- but not because I think it's impossible, but I think we're in the process of kinda failing at it. We're certainly not excelling.

> As man advances in civilisation, and small tribes are united into larger communities, the simplest reason would tell each individual that he ought to extend his social instincts and sympathies to all the members of the same nation, though personally unknown to him. This point being once reached, there is only an artificial barrier to prevent his sympathies extending to the men of all nations and races. If, indeed, such men are separated from him by great differences in appearance or habits, experience unfortunately shews us how long it is, before we look at them as our fellow-creatures. [...] This virtue, one of the noblest with which man is endowed, seems to arise incidentally from our sympathies becoming more tender and more widely diffused, until they are extended to all sentient beings. As soon as this virtue is honoured and practised by some few men, it spreads through instruction and example to the young, and eventually becomes incorporated in public opinion.

-- Charles Darwin, "The Descent of Man" (1871)

[kitsunesoba]

> A common example here on HN would be the excitement regarding working from home. I get it, I love it too. But let's not dismiss that this further tilts things into a flat, isolated, touchless society. You want it, but it's still really bad for you.

Speaking for myself, yes I want to work from home, but I don't want a "flat, isolated, touchless society". In fact, regular face to face interactions with others is something I'd like more of, but I'd prefer that the majority of that be outside the workplace.

Don't get me wrong, everywhere I've worked I've loved most of my coworkers and got along with them well enough, but the workplace being a context that can't be opted out of by virtue of being one's livelihood can make it restrictive in ways that I'm not sure is healthy when serving as the place for the bulk of socialization.

Unfortunately building social groups outside of work is difficult and gets increasingly so with age.

[Wowfunhappy]

> In fact, regular face to face interactions with others is something I'd like more of, but I'd prefer that the majority of that be outside the workplace.

If you're working 8+ hours a day, I think the raw numbers make it difficult to get substantial face-to-face interaction time outside of work, with people you don't live with. You'd need to be militant about planning an outing every evening.

I know someone who wakes up every morning at 4 am (so for her it's mornings rather than evenings) for either her breakfast club, running group, morning dance party (this is a thing, called Daybreaker), dodge ball league, etc.

Maybe you're like her. I'm not. If I don't meet people at work, I'm alone most days.

[kitsunesoba]

This is true, and I think it highlights a major structural flaw in our society. Our lives really shouldn't be as dominated by our jobs as they are, particularly with how productivity has skyrocketed in the past several decades.

[flappyeagle]

Do you choose to work less than full time?

[kitsunesoba]

Not currently. I could probably afford to in the short term but it would entail abandoning any notion of long term savings.

[bluefirebrand]

It's worth pointing out that this is not a real choice in any meaningful way, because of the pressures of reality.

If you could work less but earn the same amount then it actually becomes a real choice to work less.

But if you work less and there are financial tradeoffs involved, the hardship caused by those tradeoffs essentially means you are forced to choose to continue working the same amount. Not a real choice.

Very few people earn enough money to actually choose to work less.

[dorchadas]

I think this is somewhat dependent on where you live. I've noticed that since I've moved to Ireland it's easier to get face-to-face interaction outside the workplace. Granted, it all involves the pubs, which is another issue, but it's much more doable because people go there just to have a pint and chat. I can go down to the one closest to me and just start chatting with any of the old people there, and they're usually happy to do so. Couldn't do that in America, sadly (except in my hometown one where I already knew the people).

[soiler]

It's the same for me. I want to work from home, at least most days, but then it's quite difficult to actually get out and see people. Past jobs have provided the bulk of my social interaction, unfortunately. Now it's kind of lose-lose, because commuting by car 4+ days/wk is horseshit and intolerable. But my friend group has shrunk significantly and I keep coming up empty-handed when I try to create regular hangouts that I actually enjoy.

[seaners]

Why didn't Noah link to the best work being done on this right now? There's a huge, collaborative Google Doc https://jonathanhaidt.substack.com/p/social-media-mental-ill...

[molsongolden]

I don't understand why so much of the "social media is harmful" discussion focuses on social isolation and teen judgment. These are obviously important but none of the linked resources discuss the shift in expectations for life outcomes that is caused by social media and internet usage.

The cliche saying is that happiness = reality - expectations.

The spread of the internet has broken users free of their local bubbles and exposed them to an entire world of possibilities. Everyone is now able to compare their life to the global maximum instead of their local maximum. It's much easier now to be successful (along any axis) and miserable because there will always be people who are more successful. All of this has been moved into the internet user's scope of daily existence.

Any links to research or writing in this area will be appreciated. Also, I am not a specialist but would be open to assisting with research in this area.

[slothtrop]

It's not clear to me if these expectations alluded to are new, or harsher, because of social media.

[JPKab]

Noah is the man, BUT he has a really nasty habit of talking about subjects without referring to some canonical sources of his ideas that pre-date his own takes by a ton.

Haidt was WAY ahead of him on the smartphones causing depression by YEARS.

Additionally, with geopolitics, he encapsulates a lot of work by Peter Zeihan without ever referring to him directly.

[seaners]

Yeah, as I was reading it I was like, "This is basically a low-res version of what Jon Haidt has been writing about for years..."

[shrimpx]

To push back a bit against our being naturally social, ancestral primates were solitary foragers with no natural tendency toward socializing. And even later when we became social hunter gatherers, I venture to imagine it was common to lose your group and become alone, due to the small number of people and dangers abound. Insisting that we’re naturally social is probably more far fetched than admitting it’s fairly normal to become alone.

[slothtrop]

Notwithstanding I'm skeptical of your claim, being "naturally social" is the entire reason language has evolved. A (very) distant ancestor's nature has no claim on your nature.

[shrimpx]

I agree we’re social, I just don’t entirely agree it’s unnatural to be solitary.

That ancestor probably has some tiny amount of bearing, though possibly negligible.

Language doesn’t prove the absence of natural solitude. It just shows we’ve been “pretty social” for a while.

[oblio]

> Language doesn’t prove the absence of natural solitude. It just shows we’ve been “pretty social” for a while.

For modern humans it does.

You can't dedicate a huge percentage of your brain to speech and communication in general, and allocate a sizeable percentage of your total energy usage (!) to them, and still be meant to be a solitary species.

[slothtrop]

Talking about absolute states. Our being social beings doesn't preclude also experiencing solitude or having more or less tendency towards introversion. A solitary nature in this case has a meaning that we also ascribe to certain animals wholesale, because it describes a biologically driven behavior that can't be said of humans.

[crthpl]

Or perhaps the other way around: we are social because we have language.

[slothtrop]

You think language would spontaneously evolve without a disposition to socialize a-priori? That doesn't make any sense.

[shrimpx]

Presumably we needed to “notice” an orange in a tree before we could point to it. Before you could communicate with signs, you could probably realize something equivalent to “that’s food”, despite not having language yet.

[cafard]

If go out for walks in my neighborhood, I interact with plenty of real people. I am on a first-name basis with persons living five blocks away, and know the names of dogs belonging to families I haven't met. Working from home for a year and some months increased the number of walks considerably.

If I go out for walks from work, admittedly I see a greater variety of people. But my interactions with them are limited.

[superultra]

Everyone reading this needs to go read the book the Dawn of Everything. That book - long as it is - synthesizes a lot of preexisting research to argue, among many things, that the thing that makes humans humans is our wild and wacky adaptability.

This idea that there is some kind of pre-idyllic Eden state of nature and man is a myth propagated by wildly unsubstantiated guesses that involved very little or no science or data.

I’m not saying your main point, that getting outside does us some good and that we’re social creatures, is wrong. It’s just that it’s one facet of our long history as evolved animals.

We’re literally built for change. It’s that very adaptability that has allowed us to survive and change.

[tomtheelder]

We are uniquely adaptable, but our ability to adapt does not necessarily imply that there are not ideal states. Not only that, there are clearly limits to our adaptability. We can be pushed to the point that we begin to break.

An awful lot of research exists to suggest that exposure to the outdoors has positive effects on mood and well being, and a veritable ocean to suggest that loneliness is toxic to both mental and physical health. It's not a simple appeal to nature- there is empirical data backing the claims that the original commenter made.

[slothtrop]

All animals adapt (or try to). In the first place, it doesn't necessarily work (things go extinct), and if it does, it may require evolutionary changes which take a (really) long time. If you think of examples of short-term adaptability, they don't substantially change the animal (e.g. reward circuits); usually it involves strategies and/or symbiosis. For simpler beings like bacteria maybe it's faster.

Some conditions are sure to be either entirely negative, or at least lead to deleterious effects for a very long indeterminate length of time. For instance, chronic calorie restriction (or overconsumption), or having no exposure to bright light or sunlight. Survival is one thing and quality of life is another. Some animals may have evolved to be solitary; how many of those were previously social beings, in the evolutionary chain? That may suggest how likely and viable a strategy that is. Language has evolved as a human power because we are so social - it seems infants learn from direct exposure but don't pick up language well from videos. I don't think emotional needs can be satisfied with cheap substitutes, and as entertainment technology develops, you see the offerings trying to more closely mimic real human interaction (VR, AI, etc). If we surpass the uncanny valley it will be because the synthetic experiences will be indistinguishable, which makes them redundant. It would mean that the way to "adapt" to isolated virtual living is to deceive ourselves with false reality (also see Brave New World and all the consequences entailed as to agency, liberty, the human experience). It becomes a support system for living in isolation - as opposed to devising a support system for living well.

[justrightnow657]

I mean you can call it what it is. An overstressed society generates more economic output than the opposite. It's definitely not healthy, but it has never been about our health. Ever since Frederick Taylor and the factory optimization movement started. It has never stopped. It probably never will. You can't left the cat out of the bag in a world full of identical bags and expect it to finds it's way back to the same bag.

[Fr0styMatt88]

The social thing is really interesting to me; we’re inherently social creatures but why don’t we want to be social? As in, why does social anxiety seem so rampant?

Even in non-tech circles I notice it; people get anxious about talking on the phone, people don’t speak to their neighbours. We were taught ‘stranger danger’ as kids. People are nervous about asking others for directions. On the bus nobody wants to talk to anybody else.

It seems so counterintuitive. In my experience it pre-dates the smartphone age too. If people didn’t find socialising inherently unpleasant, would they have flocked to avoid it en-masse?

[psychomugs]

I don't disagree at all, but your arguments (and, frankly, all of HN, [and, even more frankly, all of the internet which we seem to love to hate]) would really benefit from sources, quotes, etc. Citations are signposts, acknowledgements, and backups that elevate truisms to arguments [1].

[1] https://www.academia.edu/download/32976112/citations_importa...

[ravagat]

> we also have the built-in tendency to optimize for convenience.

Amen, one thing I've noticed just talking and shooting the shit, a lot of people seem to forget their agency. Convenience has not helped at all with that.

> Likewise we're not designed for the current speed of change.

+1. Some folks are really overwhelmed because of this and have basically retreated/hibernated on aspects of their lives. Worrying especially for those without anyone.

Great comment

[skeaker]

I wonder how/when we'll fix this. Arbitrary needs built into us because it was advantageous a bajillion years ago that only serve to make us unhappy now seem like the kind of thing that we could do without. My money's on brain chips as a bandaid fix, followed eventually by genetic modification patching out that whole issue.

[super_flanker]

Agreed on most of the part, except work from home/office argument. Working from home allows me to spend lot more time with people who I want to spend time with. I have more time for Gardening, DIY things, working out, etc.

[Aperocky]

> But let's not dismiss that this further tilts things into a flat, isolated, touchless society.

Does it though? I lived in trees that I can just take a stride in for lunch break. There are no trees next to the office.

[zeroonetwothree]

I don’t know how to get friends :(. I’m stuck with only virtual relationships.

[JPKab]

If you're being serious, as a human being I want you to know I have compassion towards your situation. Even though I'll never meet you, I don't like seeing your message and thinking about the suffering that loneliness causes.

Easiest way to make friends quick:

Activities activities activities. In-person hobbies are awesome for meeting people. I met a big chunk of my friends by doing a highly social activity that attracts cool, laid back intellectuals: Brazillian Jiu Jitsu. Not your speed? Think of any kind of outdoor hobby that requires multiple people. Ultimate Frisbee/Frisbee golf, for example. Think Frisbee sucks? So do I! But meeting up outside and sucking at throwing a Frisbee is still fun, because of the people there, and your outside in fresh air and sun! Drone racing is another nerdy, fun, social hobby as well. Chess in the park, etc etc.

[fleddr]

Go do volunteer work, it's where you meet people that like to see you coming. Then build from there.

[molsongolden]

Virtual relationships with NPCs or digital relationships with other humans?

[dorchadas]

Just wanted to say I couldn't agree with you more. So many people have just lost connections to nature and other people, and then wonder why they constantly feel like shit and depressed. We're going down a bad path, and American capitalism and technology "full steam ahead societal consequences be damned" attitudes are only going to make things much, much worse.

[Existenceblinks]

I'm about 900km+ far from almost ALL of my friends. It's just 1 hour by flying, of course +3 hours for the whole end-to-end transport ceremony. Plus hotel cost if it's more than 1 day. If it's only 1 day it's also not worth the round-trip ticket price.

[justajot]

Thank you. And I completely agree.

[JohnFen]

> this further tilts things into a flat, isolated, touchless society. You want it, but it's still really bad for you.

Working from home does not mean you can't still get out and socialize. It even makes that easier to do.