[chongli]

The decline of community is a very big deal. I think a lot of it has to do with the way we build our living spaces. Modern North American cities are rife with car-centric suburbs, huge driveways, front doors set back a mile from the sidewalk, long commutes to anywhere (not just work, even to get groceries). We're living in these metal-and-glass boxes and we only see other people as obstacles in the way of what we want, rather than fellow human beings.

It seems to me that we've built this horrible, alienating environment not by deliberate choice but through a larger collective and political process none of us could individually control. We've created rules (building codes and zoning laws) that entrench this dystopia in countless small ways which will take a concerted effort to undo.

[onetimeusename]

There's something about this I think is illuminating. I don't think the social issues fall into partisan politics. It's like we've abstracted away people into something like a corporate entity. Even in large residence buildings in cities, people don't know each other right next to them. That's in contrast with small villages where everyone knows each other for generations. Another example is roads and how road rage forms as a result of dehumanizing people into entities.

So it's like the US is primarily for corporate entities to interact in predefined contractual settings that have abstracted away anything human about them. Even families are kind of like corporate entities interacting with each other. I am not sure how it got to this point but maybe something like pursuit of income at the expense of social ties and over-litigation caused it. I'm not sure.

[realvz]

I have lived in villages and cities in different continents. This abstraction you speak of isn’t limited to the US. Asian and European cities are the same. People don’t tend to socialize a lot with their neighbors in the cities as much as they did and still do in the villages.

Is this capitalism? Is it technology (I’m not talking about computers) induced narcissism? Is it because we reduce ourselves and others to metrics and then use yardsticks to incessantly measure ourselves on a broken scale?

[cush]

All good points. Work from home isn’t helping us any either. People typically meet their partners at work.

[ctoth]

What 1970s office have you been working at where this is true?

[add-sub-mul-div]

It couldn't be more obvious and intuitive that the people you're around for half your waking time would be one of the bigger sources of potential partners, and also just friends/acquaintances where a partner comes from the social networks thusly formed.

[cush]

The one that exists in reality

[platevoltage]

Most of my working life I've worked with grizzled old dudes. I think thats the case for a lot of other men too.

[fennecbutt]

Not everyone is straight either

[platevoltage]

You’re kidding, really?

[giardini]

"Grizzled old dudes" often make good husbands and they have sufficient income and lifestyle to support a family.

[iamacyborg]

> People typically meet their partners at work.

That seems unlikely. Genuinely curious if there’s something I’m missing here.

[notahacker]

This paper suggests meeting people directly or indirectly via work was second to meeting through friends around the turn of the century, though there was a wide spread of how people met so it only amounted to a fifth of couples. Then online took over....

https://web.stanford.edu/~mrosenfe/Rosenfeld_et_al_Disinterm...

[exe34]

it's for attractive people. for the rest of us it's a quick trip to HR.

[BobaFloutist]

You meet people at work, you don't proposition them at work.

[fruitworks]

I don't think your distinction matters at all.

If you're attractive and your advances are well recieved, you will not get reported to HR. Vice versa.

[overfeed]

From the HR training i got from many places, harassment is what gets you in trouble with HR i.e. persisting after your advances have been rejected. Politely shooting your shot is fine, unless the target reports to you.

[woooooo]

You're missing the distinction. I met my wife at work but any and all propositioning happened outside the office, and not at office social events either.

[exe34]

You follow them to the gym, do you?

[BobaFloutist]

Uh, only if invited? I mean do you not ever get lunch with coworkers or invite them to events you're hosting or ask if they want to see a movie or concert with you that you've been into? The important thing is to establish a positive social relationship before indicating any sort of sexual interest, so they know you as "My chill coworker John" rather than "John the guy at the office who's always staring at my tits and asked me out for 'drinks' before we ever had a single conversation." It's not impossible to establish sexual or romantic chemistry before establishing social chemistry, but it's sure harder.

[Daviey]

Ah, I found the cheat code... My now-wife was in HR.

[TrnsltLife]

Dating at work has almost become an incest level taboo.

[ccorcos]

I think cars and urban design are too often used as a scapegoat.

Whether living in an apartment building in a city or a house in the suburbs, I’m frequently surprised how many people never introduce themselves to their neighbors. And that has nothing to do with cars.

People want some external system to construct a social environment for them and often blame everything but themselves when they could easily arrange a neighborhood get together by passing out some flyers…

[chongli]

People want some external system to construct a social environment for them and often blame everything but themselves

I think this dependence on external systems, on governments, is another symptom of the problem. When people belong to a community they don't have that expectation, they are participants. Look to the Amish, for example, and their famous barn-raisings. They don't depend on government relief or insurance policies. Everyone contributes to building a new barn when someone in the community needs one.

[binary132]

Mouse utopia comes to mind

[ctoth]

I've been reading this same exact comment since 2012, and it has not described any city I've lived in since the bad old Tallahassee days.

Come to Denver. We have suburbs that are walkable. Or rather don't, we don't need more people ;-)