Growing up we used to have these kid/youth centres that were run by local Catholic organizations. We used to hang out there after school. Ostensibly the point was that there'd be 30 minutes of catechism doctrine, but we didn't really care about that. To us it was just a the place where everyone would be. I miss that so much. A place where you can just go and meet people your age, without any reason to be that and without having to pay an entrance fee.

Now as a grown up we have community centers, which are run, not by the Church, but by sort of hippie-lefty people. But it's not really the same atmosphere, because you go there, and it's just one demographic of people. It's not quite the same.

There's also pubs and climbing gyms which people often use as low effort places where one can mingle, but again, it's not quite the same. I don't like drinking multiple times a week and I really don't like climbing.

You need to find religion, just don't call it that. Find your dream that's impossible and work towards making it possible. figure out your role in making that possible. and then work on it. as hard as you can. find others along the way.

Ever stream something or go to the cinema ? What does it show you? You’re happy => you drink to celebrate. You’re sad => drink out of sorrow. You want to hang out with friends => you go for drinks. DEFCON for example perpetuates that same behavior.

Sure, one part is loss of community, but the other half is toxic social behavior that is perpetuated by Hollywood. The people that don’t like this but want to belong will perpetuate this cycle for fear of getting ostracized.

Kinda makes sense, all the cost is in the labor and the cleaning, a shot of vodka is like $0.20

Of course, some portion is also high rents. And I have never seen a restaurant or bar outside of Costco with free refills for anything other than tap water though.

This is true for a lot of the places I travel to within the US as well.

It’s not very smart to not have a ritual of community building in one’s life.

1. The chief unit and source of community is the family. The married couple, the family, have been deteriorating for some time. It shouldn't be surprising that the consequences would spread outward. Societies are a manner of extended family organized according to the principle of subsidiary.

2. American culture especially is hyperindividualistic. It conceives of people not as persons, but as individuals, which is to say, atomic units that might enter into various transactions, if it suits them. There is no sense of moral duties I did not consent to. There is no real sense of a common good that is a superior and prior good. If you deny the social nature of human beings, and conceive the social sphere as transactional, a sphere for odious exchanges and extraction and gorging, then why should we be surprised that social life has gone south?

3. A common culture binds people together and give them a common heritage, a language without which you cannot communicate. Culture is far more than that, and I do not mean to belittle or instrumentalize it (some are already instrumentalizing religion, which is not the purpose of religion, even if it has that effect). But with the decay of ethnic culture and its replacement with an empty corporate pop culture (note how much discussion revolves around the latest episode of a show), we are robbed of a common identity. This explains the identity crises in the US. Subcultures, racial ideologies, sexual ideologies, and so on are just attempted substitutes for ethnic identity. Given how unsuitable they are for this purpose, it is also unsurprising that people feel alienated from society, as there really is no real society, just some people coexisting.

4. What we call "religion" is a fancy word for worldview with a superlative highest good that is worshiped and a tradition orienting us in life and our ultimate end according to it. Everyone has a religion, in that sense, because someone takes something to be the ultimate good. It's impossible otherwise, because it is by means of the ultimate good that we understand and order all other goods in relation to it. The religion of the US is liberalism (as in Hobbes, Locke, and Mill, not any particular partisan affiliation; all American parties presuppose liberalism). In this liberal worldview, freedom as absence of constraint is worshiped, hence the preoccupation with "transgression" and "crossing boundaries" and so on. It is an evangelical religion, concerned with bringing the good news of liberal freedom to the world. Of course, as many throughout history have noted, freedom thus understood is a recipe for disaster, and not freedom in any real sense. To be free is to be able to do what is good as determined by your human nature, which is the same as saying the freedom to be what you objectively are, not in opposition to it. Thus, I am not free when I become a drug user, but I am free when I attain self-mastery and self-restraint, much as a man on horseback is more free as horseback rider when his horse is obedient to his rationally informed will. We are free to be what we are when we attain this mastery, in light of objective truth, over ourselves, our appetites, our passions, our intellects, our wills, etc., what we used to call virtue. The opposite, vice, is a recipe for misery and the worst kind of enslavement that can occur. In light of that, and given how indulgent we are, how our economies cater to and feed the worst with pornography, excessive food, buying stuff, and how, generally speaking, we worship consumption and embrace a view of life that consists of consuming (even people, sexually speaking, including in our imaginations and through various media), again, why the surprise that we are miserable? We are incapable of healthy relationships, and functioning as human beings. It takes effort to become human. It's not a given that just falls in your lap.

This view stems from Judeo-Christian beliefs. The very invention of marriage was a separation of community, where men wanted ownership of women and their children.

I also wonder if you're fully aware of how much you've attempted to repackage the original sin in your comment.

It's really not, as marriage is present in pre-Christian belief and in non-Christian traditions.

Does it look exactly like Christian marriage / family? No

But it does share common characteristics. There is a single man, and one or more women who bear his children. The man and woman have particular authorities over their children, and as the children grow there is a system to determine how they inherit their parent's resources, and then perhaps some duties they owe their parents.

We see this in the Roman paterfamilias system, the Confucian filial piety system, the various Indic philosophies, the ancient Egyptian family system, the Babylonian familial system, etc. Together these encompass the basis of the vast majority of civilization.

You're right that in hunter gatherer tribes they may have not even understood how reproduction works, but given that these social systems are not sophisticated enough to run our society, I'm happy to just ignore them. There were hunter gatherer tribes that believed that prince phillip was a god; they're not that sophisticated

In my mid 40s now, I have exactly zero real friends and at this point with my schedule and family I have a hard time even thinking about thinking about looking for some.

Social media also has led to everyone having half formed opinions that they just know is true and any counter belief is evil. Just look at politics, sexuality, etc. Its very much a you're with me or you are against me and all sense of nuance has died. The pace at which what was once deemed wrong is now almost preferred is mind blowing.

What was previously the foundation of society, family, parents making decisions for their kids, wanting to have kids, etc is all different now. People living for likes on social media. Women having to prostitute themselves on OF just to keep up with the Joneses and people celebrating them for it.

With all that said though, anyone blaming the "current state of society / the world" for not wanting kids has no idea what they are missing. Kids are incredible and watching mine navigate these new waters in the honor of my lifetime.

> You know, one of the things that you hear people say sometimes is that America is an idea. And to be clear, America was indeed founded on brilliant ideas, like the rule of law and religious liberty. Things written into the fabric of our Constitution and our nation. But America is not just an idea. It is a group of people with a shared history and a common future. It is, in short, a nation.

And he's right. America does have a culture and social norms that are particular to this nation. Ask any immigrant, like my own parents, and they will tell you stories of adapting to them (if they've assimilated properly).

And yet, many Americans refuse to acknowledge that these exist, and if they do, some work actively against it, to disestablish them, as if that'd be good for a country.

IMO, this is the cause of the great divide in this country. On one side you have people that think that social norms and culture should exist and be protected by the government (to an extent) and on the other you have those that believe the norms are harmful. To the former group, the various 'small' changes proposed by the latter group feel 'gross' because they reduce community cohesion, even if any one particular instance of letting go of a norm isn't going to cause that much trouble.

See all the debate on whether English should be a national language for a good illustration of this whole phenomenon independent of most of the culture war issues.

This is not to say that America has no ideas, but any group of people pursuing a common goal is not just the idea, it's also their culture. For example, I've worked at several companies competing in the same space, and despite having the same goal (dominate the industry), the cultures are extremely different, to the point where you feel comfortable in one, and uncomfortable in the other. That's how people are, and we should recognize and acknowledge that.

Also, nothing will ever be like the stuff we had when we were kids. Because in all our minds, that is the norm.

You've clearly never lived in an area with high density of a specific religious group. At a certain threshold, yes, there can be more diversity in a single religious congregation than is present in most local environments short of the local public school.

If most of your neighbors are Catholic, then you'll often just show up for the Catholic events regardless of whether you deeply believe it because that's where the community is. That's essentially what OP said about their own experience—listening to the catechism was just the tax to pay for the community event.

And the range of accepted ideas or opinions, political or cultural, was remarkably small. Kids who went to these centers were very alike. That is why it felt so good to them .

It's as diverse as any company or organization championing diversity, because obviously anyone part of one particular movement / entity is not diverse in one axis of their life (institutional allegiance)

In here, they are also as racist as everyone else conservative, but also we are fairly homogenous.

However for non-religious people there is really no third place to meet. Additionally, the truth is that outside of religious communities, people are not having children and thus it creates a further sense of isolation and loneliness. The best one can do is perhaps join meetup groups for hobbies but most of those cost money and may not be welcoming to everyone.

I would also say that this can be a cultural phenomenon, for example in my home country (Iran) people are always meeting and socializing, at 10PM streets are bursting with activities and it's very easy to find people to connect with. In the west, unfortunately it's much harder and society is more focused on the individual rather than the collective so to approach a stranger in the street feels like a risk as they might consider your actions rude, disruptive or invading their personal space.

I don't know about that, I think in the US it's more that parents end up spending more time with other parents than anything, notably because kids are overscheduled, so as a childless person you don't see folks with children as much.

> at 10PM streets are bursting with activities and it's very easy to find people to connect with

I mean yes, if you have children and you have to be back at work at 9am, most folks aren't going to the bar every day (although those types of people do exist!)

In 1940, over 50% met via friends or family. About 36% met at school.

In 2021, about 20% met via friends or family. About 10% met at school. Over 50% met online. So the majority of US couples are now meeting via profit-maximizing corporations. He has a 2019 paper on this (and it has only increased since that paper).

It could be the case that say, only 10% of dating site customers end up in a relationship, and this 10% amounts to 50% of the total couples, and the math would work out.

E.g.: suppose the total population is 1000 people, 500 of which are on a dating site, and the total number of couples is 20, 10 of which were formed via the dating site and 10 of which were formed by other means, and 960 people are out of luck.

If they design the system right, their audience just won't marry or have long term stable relationships

debatable if it got more prevalent because of them, as afaik the statistics indicate both, less short _and_ less long term relationships, so :shrug:

Though to be clear, just because I think the other more stable thing is valuable to folks even with the availability of the sex slot machine, I still don't love businesses trying to push slot machines or any kind really.

(Not a rhetorical question - as a queer person who's never used a dating site or app and who's been in a long-term relationship (now married) for almost 8 years now, I really do have no idea what people do on there.)

Where in the past women settled for a number of reasons, including economic and societal/familial expectations, they no longer do. And because women are much less apt to settle down, men settle down less too. More free women = more free men = less committed relationships. (assuming we are seeing fewer committed relationships - I didn't fact-check that)

Not at all scientific, just a vibe.

Therefore, with increased ability to live independently, expect more risk adverse behavior, which means a larger percentage of the “bottom” of the dating market goes uncoupled forever.

I’ve heard women unironically say “I want him to fuck my life up”. Risk aversion is only a trait in the poor or those with significant trauma, which the dating market reminds us, are dysgenic traits…

It would be different in a saturated market, where they might want to try to keep people on the site, but that's not the case here.

they have plenty of incentive to get you some dates, after that what are they gonna do?

It’s not that surprising when you think of selection effects. Suppose you have a sack full of marbles. Half of the marbles are pink and the other half are random assorted colours. Now reach into the sack and pull out two marbles. If they match then they get married and you set them aside, otherwise return them to the sack.

It’s easy to see that it won’t take very long until hardly any pink marbles remain. After that it’s going to be a total crapshoot to pull out a pair of matching marbles. Maybe some more pink ones get added at a later date but they’ll match and get removed.

The fundamental problem with dating sites cannot be solved by any business model: marriageable people (or otherwise people who can form and maintain a longterm relationship) are removed from the pool of potential dates. What’s left are all those who can’t or won’t form relationships. These “misfits” (for lack of a better term) tend to get concentrated in the pool over time. Perhaps it even gets so bad that marriageable people give up and just avoid dating sites.

Well, it can be solved but not by a dating site (evidence: this was a solved problem in the past). But it'd have to be very radical compared to modern dating. Arguably the branding couldn't be as a dating site, but as a stable community where people don't get removed over time so the concentration of non-pink marbles never rises.

That is something like the old model that church communities would have used. The marriageable ones pair off, but they are still in the community of people talking to each other. New marriageable people entered the community, didn't feel overwhelmed or different and eventually pair with other new entrants. The business model has to be that drawing a pair isn't ever expected to result in marriage and is fun by itself but serious dates might happen. Then the system would be viable.

Marriage rate and divorce rate have plummeted since 1940.

Probably not much to do with electronic media there. A lot more likely that financial and social pressures are squeezing what were previously considered cultural imperatives. ie - church, marriage, home ownership, etc.

Fewer teen marriages, shotgun weddings, ect.

There were always a lot of financial imperatives to wed.

The point is that now the financial imperative is not to wed. ("Girlfriend get serious! Why marry some loser who can't even buy a house?" or "Bro what? Do you know what will happen if you get divorced?")

The financial imperative is not to go to church. Working on Sunday has become the norm as people are regularly expected to be available on the weekends. This is especially true in the startup or tech space. And don't even get me started on how workers in the services sector, who would in any other era be the most likely to attend church, get so few weekends free between their multiple jobs, that church is now an afterthought for them.

The financial imperative is not to purchase a home. ("Bro! You don't have that kind of money! And what if you have to move for your job?")

As if discussions and examples using imaginary characters are somehow 'lowly', and can't be used as a fair commentary of society.

In comparison, Plato's works often feature dialogues where characters, including Socrates, engage in arguments, which present various perspectives on philosophical issues through fictionalized conversations. That style of writing and the use of imaginary characters in argumentative discourse is actually hallmark of Plato's work.

The OP's style of writing (who you responded to) is therefore not out of the ordinary; just because you disagree with his or her "perceptions of the world" doesn't mean you should put it down as unworthy of reply for using "imaginary characters".

I think that form of communication is indicative of poor mental function and inability to communicate. The world would be better off if everyone simply refuses to engage with it and ridiculed it instead of validating it with engagement.

An anecdote is not an argument, and an imaginary one is even worse.

We are living the most affluent lives ever known to mankind, even so-called low income people. We all have more money than we know what to do with, let alone more money than our forefathers.

Rather, I think the drop in marriage (and by extension divorce) has to do with increasing individualism and jade-ism.

The more humanity (namely the west) advances, the more it is drilled in that all men are created equal with unalienable rights to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. People are increasingly more concerned with living their lives the way they want to the exclusion of spouses and children if such things are not what makes them happy.

Combine that with the brutal realities of life, because life is fucking hard at the best of times (no matter how rich you are), and the media constantly sensationalizing on everyones' fears and anger aren't helping matters either.

Also as an aside and anecdata: I'm in my mid-30s now, not married, never married, and never intend to marry because I do not find it appealing at all. I can more than afford to marry, but I am far too busy with other matters more important to me and I frankly find marriage to be nothing short of a human rights violation anyway.

Just curious, but how could marriage be a rights violation?

Marriage is many things, but chief among them is that marriage is an inevitable compromise of each others' liberties and therein lies the violation. Who am I to compromise my would-be wife's unalienable right to liberty? Who is my would-be wife to compromise my unalienable right to liberty? This is absolutely irreconcilable and thus I consider marriage to be a violation of human rights.

If we also were to have children, I/we would also be imposing my/our will upon them. I/we would be violating our childrens' unalienable right to liberty and potentially pursuit of happiness. I cannot accept that.

I am also of the position that if I were to get a divorce for any reason, I must question why I got married in the first place. Marriage is not a thing that can nor should be taken lightly; divorce is an out, but I consider the entire premise of marriage is that it is a permanent thing until death do us part.

As such, if we end up in an unhappy marriage (eg: constant bickering over the kitchen or finances) then this is also a violation of our respective unalienable rights to pursuit of happiness and we both wasted significant amounts of our limited time that each of us have in this world.

Therefore, along with other personal convictions, I find no appeal in marriage and have no intentions of ever pursuing it or finding myself in such an arrangement of my free will.

Right so you invented a notion of marriage which doesn't apply in the society you live in and then invented a problem created by that invented supposition.

This all sounds very normal.

Marriage is clearly very different from and more significant than simple friendship or other mundane relationship arrangement, and everyone's reasoning as to why will vary depending upon their religious and/or cultural upbringing and values.

Personally, as I stated earlier, I consider marriage to be some kind of permanent-ish arrangement (and especially if children become involved). There is an artificial out (divorce), but as far as I'm concerned it isn't something that should be used with wanton abandon. Thus, I place a lot of weight on why I would marry in the first place; if I am going to divorce, I should not have married in the first place.

I am deliberately violating the "Do not let perfect be the enemy of good." rule precisely because I demand a would-be marriage to be perfect given how many human rights I would flagrantly violate. I know I am never going to marry with such prerequisites and I desire that, because otherwise I cannot live with myself.

If you have any worthwhile arguments to the contrary to bring to the table I am quite happy to hear them. My conclusions thus far are the result of many years of deep and thorough deliberation, but I am also aware that it is far from infallible.

Marriage is an economic and logistical framework for the raising of children.

Any society that doesn’t come up with a viable way to raise children ceases to exist almost immediately.

So that’s why.

Are you saying that they can (or should?!) be violated?

Why?

Say it's the 18 century with slavery is common. The slave owners are depriving the slaves of liberty and happiness. But the deprivation of the slaves liberty brings the owners happiness.

If you cannot persuade the owners to stop depriving slaves of liberty, then there two options remain.

One, you respect the owners right to happiness. But at the expense of the slave's liberty.

Two, you use force to stop the owners from violating the slaves rights. But in doing so you violate the owners right to happiness.

What's the answer then here if there no options that do not harm someone's unalienable rights?

To use your example, the slave owner's right to pursuit of happiness ends where the slaves' rights to liberty and pursuit of happiness begin. A would-be slave owner cannot and should not violate another man's (a would-be slave's) right to liberty and pursuit of happiness.

Going back to the subject of marriage, my right to liberty ends where my would-be wife's right to liberty begins and vice versa. Marriage is inevitably a compromise of both our rights to liberty. Thus, I find marriage a violation of human rights.

Except you've chosen to violate the owners right to happiness by attempting to place limitations on the rights that were so called inalienable. What you think the limit should be and what the slave owner thinks the limit should be differ.

Same right, but in this case brought into conflict by disagreement of interpretations.

Second, what happens when the other side refuses to stop because he believes that your interpretation is wrong? What do you do then?

Governments are also tasked with guaranteeing those rights, and those who violate another's rights are deprived of their rights as mandated by laws.

For example, a murderer (violator of another's right to life) is imprisoned (deprived of his right to liberty) and possibly even executed (deprived of his right to life).

Even today. SCOTUS overturning Roe vs Wade and allowing States to prohibit abortions. A difference because of a disagreement on whether or not a human embryo is entitled to be treated as a full human being with all the same rights and responsibilities.

Hence the nuance. You can look at the same document that says these rights, but how they are achieved and what limits there are can differ due to differences in opinion.

What? The only way to avoid mass human rights violations is the extinction of the human race in one generation?

Is that actually true? I read something recently (in an recent article in a major publication about how online dating sucks and people are getting tired of it), that the proportion is much lower. Like people put all this money and effort into dating apps, but must successful relationships still form outside of them.

- in 1940, the top 3 were: met through family, met through friends, met in primary school. In that order, but pretty much equal

- From 1940-1980, two of those three (family, primary school) trended sharply downward, as did "met in church", while these trended upward: met through friends, met in bar or restaurant, met as or through coworkers, met in college. "met through friends" was by far the most common circa 1980

- starting in 1995 "met online" sees a sharp rise, and by 2010 it has overtaken them all.

The only other category that was still on the rise after 2010 was "met in a bar or restaurant". Is that really increasingly common? I have a strange feeling that some of those are just people too embarassed to say they met online...

Anyway, my point is there was (perhaps unsurprisingly) already a big shift going on 1940-1980, namely that the immediate family, church, childhood friends became less dominant in people's lives and friends, work, commercially-facilitated interactions (bars and restaurants) became more central. Did we learn anything from that adjustment? Were people in the 80's and 90's talking ad worrying about this the way we're talking today about the way social interactions are replacing the "old" ones?

(also, the values for "met online" on that graph seem to be small but non-zero in the 1980s! I'd like to hear the stories of some of those couples...)

IIRC Jason Scott's BBS documentary mentions this a bit. There's a couple that shows up a number of times that met on a BBS.

Probably right. I don't really get the stigma, but I've known a few people personally who told the same lie and found later it was online. One in particular had a huge elaborate story about their bar meeting. His wife told me later one day he basically selected her from a website.

So like most questions, probably worth taking self reporting with a giant dose of salt.

Rewatch wargames and note how insane the kids skills are, and how this acts as something which makes the MC more interesting to the fairer sex. Compare this to today, where busting a command line out in public is more likely to get you arrested by some idiot dogooder thinking you’re hacking the airplane instead of acting as some kind of evidence that you’re intelligent and thus possibly good partner.

Meanwhile go to the third world where life is hard and stereotypical “jocks” or “bullies” are the poor, downtrodden of society. Often these societies love nerds and cerebral people, and physical prowess isn’t valued as much here.

John Hughes is the father of the modern western incel and all related phenomenons.

When an older, morbidly obese person is with a much more attractive and younger foreign person, you can work out most of the details in your head. Is it not more embarrassing to make up some Top Gun-esque story? I don't know.

I met my first wife in person, second on Facebook(8ish years and going). I feel zero shame in the meeting place, more shame for having married the first. So yes, personally, I don't understand the stigma.

this one, about two people having met online, was written in 1879 (not a typo):

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24353

The subjective answer to this question might be at least part of this statistic.

Also you may be underestimating the number of people who pair up as part of nightlife outings. Based on my many many outings in cities around the world in recent years it does seem at a glance that people are still engaged in the practice.

I don't think it may be counted as "we met online", and specifically I never had any meaningful relationships via dating sites/apps.

There are some options, of course, but they're limited and often of poor quality, at least locally. Libraries are trying to adapt to fill this gap, and maker spaces spring up but most don't have funding to be good - or if they do, that funding brings things that ruin the spirit. Once you're looking for a place as an Adult, especially without kids, the number of relevant events and things to do drops quickly too - so these same children aren't going to find better options as they grow older.

I am no fan of religion having grown up in an exceedingly religious environment. But it was always completely obvious to me even as a child that the primary purpose of religion was to form local communities and have others with shared values to rely on.

We seem to be doing it with more than just religion these days, but it’s the canary in the coal mine.

Lack of investment in your community will very rapidly erode any sort of high trust society you once had within a single generation. Once it’s gone, it’s pretty much gone for good.

I believe no one is talking about this aspect of WFH either. It’s taking away maybe the last “socially expected” regular commitment to your local community. Your daily life is not supposed to be lived in complete social comfort with planned interactions with a tiny group of people being your sole source of socialization. At times you should be feeling uncomfortable or obligated in some community or social setting or you are not growing as a human being. I don’t think the office is the best place at all for this, but for many folks I know it was their last social interaction of any sort outside of family.

I’ve been unable to articulate these thoughts very well for decades now - since my late high school days I was already the crazy guy telling friends I was really worried how our hobbies and social interactions were so much less investment on average than our grandparents generation. On average having a bunch of Quake guild buddies is simply not the same as my grandpa who had a bunch of fishing buddies. It’s been on my mind for quite some time, and I think the data is starting to show those concerns were legitimate.

However I also grew up with constant anxiety about sin and hell. It still gets back to me when my insomnia is bad.

So churches and church membership aren't necessarily a net-positive. I too wish there was some sort of community my family could belong to. But I'm not taking my kids to church anytime soon.

Catholicism is, by far, the largest Christian denomination in the US.

Moreover, large areas in the south, midwest, and California favor the "evangelical" and "fundamentalist" varieties of Protestant theology, where Hell (and inculcating mass fear of Hell) is very much the central concern today.

Your immediate local community likely does not have many of either group.

The reason to be afraid isn't "here's someone who's just waiting for you to fail" it's (speaking for myself) "I'm _very_ stubborn and _very_ set in my own ways. Can I do the work of letting God work in me? He's eager to work in me, but He won't without my consent. Can I die to myself to serve the good?"

What about those who never had a chance to hear about God? That is between them and God. But God isn't looking to throw them into Hell - if they go to Hell it is because they decided they'd rather serve "something other than the good" even if they never connected "the good" to God.

Hell is a fantasy that causes more mental illness than any marginal reduction in antisocial behavior.

How many lifetimes were wasted fearing/sacrificing, arguing, killing, and dying over meaningless and unprovable silliness like heaven and hell? How many children scarred by things they read for themselves after years of being told it's--some measure of--the highest truth?

Thankfully beliefs aren't permanent, or I'd still be anxious and miserable. Perhaps you should not permanently choose a god who has caused so much harm for no benefit.

If God, as Ipsum Esse Subsistens (i.e., not the straw man sky fairy), is the Summum Bonum, the Highest Good, and the only thing, in its infinity, that fully realizes Man, makes him whole, fulfills his nature, brings him everlasting peace, joy, and happiness (and all who are old enough can agree that nothing on earth can accomplish this end)...

If sin is willfully choosing inferior or illusory goods over and above the Highest Good, acting against what is objectively good instead of conforming to it, choosing a path away from the Highest Good toward something else...

If Man is created with the capacity to know the truth and the freedom to make choices and thus be responsible for those choices...

...then Hell is, first, his voluntary rejection of Heaven, which is unity with God and what is called the Beatific Vision, and second, justice received for committing the greatest injustice of hating God, which is frankly a kind of self-hatred because it involves hating one's own highest good. In other words, God, having made us free, does not violate the free exercise of choice, as love cannot be forced, but free. And since following one's own way away from the objective truth and the Highest Good necessarily leads to misery, and God permits that to occur even if He may "propose" through life events a change of heart, someone obstinate in his evil will be allowed to go exactly where he is choosing to go, much like a drug user can follow his drug use to his own self-destruction.

And because being forced into Heaven would be hellish for anyone who doesn't want to be there, Hell is actually a kind of mercy. But it is ridiculous to expect Hell to be a wonderful condition, as what satisfies Man is a matter of objective fact, not subjective fancy. In other words, it is not a false ultimatum between loving God or getting it good and hard, as if it were some kind of threat. Human nature points toward Heaven, something we can know to be the case, just as we can know many things that are good for us, and that by refusing them, we harm ourselves.

If thoughts of Hell are paralyzing to you, instead of instilling a healthy kind of vigilance and humility toward God, then you may come from a strange sect that is confused about the topic, suffer from scrupulosity, or have a burden of unaddressed guilt.

It's not a question of what team you're on. That relativizes the truth, making "religion" a matter of some kind of personal and preferred fairy tale. Truth is the only consideration. If these claims are untrue, then they're nonsense and should not be followed. It would be dishonest to do so. While we can tolerate a certain range of sincerely held beliefs that are obviously false, and a certain measure of that is necessary for any society, it is bad faith and a lack of integrity to "believe" instrumentally, for a purported practical result of doing so.

There's no point in favoring one natural human intuition over the other.

Then the number of people througout history who claimed to have taken revelation from God must be evaluated for authenticity of their miracles, one of which can still be verified today as his entire life is preserved through formal chain of transmissions: Muhammad (pbuh). Jesus, we can't even agree on the exact wording of the revelation he received let alone his life.

This makes no sense. There are myriad cognitive biases that prevent or hinder the ability to model reality, that may or may not be advantageous to an animal depending on the environment it is in.

Erik Butler has a fantastic book on this overall subject called "The Devil and His Advocates" that you might be interested in.

We're doing great in terms of societal bonds.

In the religious community I grew up in, the idea that the purpose of the church was "community" was loudly vilified. There was an active purism regarding sincerity of belief and the centricity faith should have in one's life.

Of course, one can see how cult-like devotion and suppression of dissent are conducive to social cohesion, but as a young adult, I only wanted to get away from an environment that stymied my mind and spirit, and that feeling writ large has shuttered churches, I think.

I just don't think that is true for or to many, likely most, religious people. Community is an aspect but at its core it's a religion. You can't be a part of the community without believing, or at least pretending to believe, in the religion.

In the past (of course it depended on the exact time and place) occasionally going to church even if many treated it mostly as a formality was the default for most people. Even if you didn't, chances are that you couldn't ignore it entirely because you still had some links to the community surrounding it through family members, various organizations, events etc.

Just like ordinary organisms, it undergoes mutations and evolution - its characteristics are seldomly 'designed'.

Without community to keep it alive, it will die out. So religions that include practices to tie communities together are at an evolutionary advantage.

"Religion" in this case is not just about religion either, but also nations. The U.S. has our gods, such as Washington & Hamilton, and places of worship such as the "temples" in D.C., but we've also censored leaders like Jackson & Lee, and torn down slave-owning statues.

We're living through a deconstruction of history and rebuilding an inverted digital world. I don't think it's been productive. It actually almost feels like an end to history to me.

It is a problem, but… religion isn’t true. How do you square that with any sort of culture that values reality?

If you don't believe in it, you should just do all the actions and move on as normal. This is the 'liturgical' approach to religion and doesn't require belief.

I myself have confessed many times to my priest a lack of belief, but by virtue of the fact I'm there, I'm clearly still practicing. I mean, as a very analytical person, sometimes I feel very skeptical, and sometimes I feel as if God obviously exists. But either way, it doesn't matter because the answer is unknowable by observation, so it's a choice to believe or not. But even if my choice feels strained, being liturgical[1] about it still provides the same benefits.

[1] By liturgical, I mean, doing the actions, like kneeling, standing, bowing, etc. This builds community independent of any belief.

These views are replete with many untestable and non-falsifiable axiomatic assumptions, which must be accepted on "faith."

That word means "accepting the validity of those axioms _despite_ their lack of congruence with reality."

Regardless, I personally find all of that to be vastly preferable to whatever the fuck is happening to us in the absence of Christianity.

Protestants in Europe are also very different from the US btw - they are more moderate than Catholics, not less. I grew up Protestant and have always had doubts, which turned into being pretty sure that it's all bogus from age 20 or so. Having something to believe in is probably nice, but it doesn't work for me.

You examine all cultures and find that, despite their claims, none truly value reality. Then you choose to believe, or have experiences that lead you to believe, one that explicitly says that there is more to life than what you can see.

Empiricism doesn't help you with the questions of "who are my people?" or "what matters?" You can make a legitimate case for some of religion's claims being empirically unsound, it doesn't take away from the fact that religion is very effective at giving a lot of people meaning and community, orthogonal to those specific claims.

Nietzsche's aphorism about God being dead was correct, as was his prediction about the future. Religion wouldn't immediately die out but it would take increasingly pathological forms, it's arguably why religion has taken such a political turn as the capital 'f' Faith portion is just gone.

At least for Judaism that not true at all. There are enormous numbers of Jews who do not believe, and yet consider themselves Jewish and go to occasional services, and find meaning in them even while not believing.

There are even pulpit Rabbis who do not believe and yet faithfully follow all the practices and teach.

There aren't, which is exactly why they're exceptional. After the experiences of the 20th century Jews have retained an acute awareness of threats to their very survival as a group which is why they tend to adhere to practice despite secularization. It's also likely why secular Jewish women are the only secular group with a high birth rate.

There's no historical analog to this in pretty much any other modern society, which is why you don't see secular Swedes drag themselves out of bed to go to mass on Sundays.

... And the 19th, and the 18th, and the 17th, and the 16th, and...

The Jewish condition was obviously affected by the Shoah, but the fundamental elements of otherness from the communities it lived in (since the exodus), with all the very real threats that they inevitably attract, have always been there.

(Sadly any further elaboration on this point cannot be made in a public forum today.)

Personal commitments, even if idealistic are good, trying to talk yourself into facts about reality that you don't even believe is never good. And most religions of course make those demands. It's basically like being in the late Soviet Union. Everything is great, everyone is equal, you leave the house and there's a doctor selling cigarettes and vodka on the streets to survive. And basically when in your mind you see that double-think it's already over in a way.

It might be time to start judging which faith-based organizing principles produce the best outcomes.

In fact, how often is your own brain lying to you for one reason or another?

So what does that leave? Philosophy, ethics and cultural mythology? Why do we need to keep religion around for any of that, any more than we need alchemy when we now have chemistry?

It would not surprise me that on the whole our society is worse off for lack of a widespread secular tradition of discussing these concepts with your community.

edit: substitute "secular setting" for "secular state", definitely not arguing for the integration of church and state.

It's harder to call someone a "libtard" or a "troglodyte" if you have to sit next to them in a pew for the rest of your life.

Certainly you can instill reverence in people - give people a challenge that involves using a cross as a hammer to complete and they’ll recoil instinctively, but I think that’s just software tapping into something more akin to firmware.

I think it's a combination of the environment you grew up in, the behavior of the people you grew up with, the values you were raised with, and the education you received, and some of it is also purely self-driven. And so toddlers and little kids are like amoral sponges, since they're still developing their senses of justice, morality, and empathy.

That's what the intellectual cafes of 18th/19th century were. In a more bastardized way, that's what pubs can be today.

This said, school and "politics" have always been the main locations for such arguments - "politics", after all, was effectively built as an alternative to religious establishments to discuss matters without pesky clerics around.

I notice I usually walk away from conversations with fellow believers about the nature of God, the Bible etc feeling closer to and more trusting of them even compared to if I talk with them about e.g. trolley problems or what their take on moral realism is, especially if I later confirm they in fact walk the walk by living in a way which agrees with those principles. There's just something about the religious framing that gives it that extra kick.

The actual question of whether God is real is irrelevant. I just assume they're playing ball the same way I am, and that's often enough to kickstart the friendship.

Assuming you're utilitarian, you're working off of the untestable belief that making people happier has some property called 'goodness', and that there is some inherent value to it. But that doesn't even matter because happiness is a qualia that cannot be tested anyway.

So, while I agree that faith in God is not a prerequisite for morality, faith in something certainly is. And once you've allowed faith into your worldview, stating with certainty that God doesn't exist becomes inconsistent.

And theists have no empirical basis for their morality either, because faith by definition is belief in the absence of such evidence. People just believe what they believe. I prefer to be fed rather than starve, I prefer peace to suffering, I prefer liberty to slavery. I'm a social being capable of empathy and extending my beliefs about myself to include my expectations for others. I prefer others be fed, rather than starve. I prefer others have peace rather than suffer. I prefer others have liberty rather than slavery. I believe human life has value because I value my own life, and therefore value the lives of others.

What do I need to have faith in, here, other than nature and mortality?

I don't disagree that theists lack empirical basis for morality, both because I don't think anyone does and because I don't believe there is an empirical basis for God.

But it doesn't sound like you have a morality*. It sounds like you have preferences. One doesn't decide one's preferences, and even if they did, they would need a morality to do so rightly. This suggests that your being a good person is strictly luck of the draw. If my friend Bob the sadist says he loves it when people starve, would you be in the right to tell him he's wrong? On what grounds?

*Don't take this the wrong way- I don't mean to insult you, and I fully expect you do have morality. I'm only criticizing the argument here.

You first. You don't believe there is an empirical basis for God yet you believe morality absolutely presupposes faith in the supernatural. Presumably, you also consider yourself to have morality. On what supernaturally-derived basis would you (presumably) believe Bob is wrong? and given that the supernatural cannot be objectively proven, how does that faith differ from a preference, on your part?

Faith also beats preference here in that, given the premise that it is good to reduce suffering and increase happiness, I arrive at the same conclusions about morally correct actions regardless of the time and place that my mind happens to exist in. I can align my actions to the right choice even if I was raised to prefer something else. A slave owner prefers that slavery exists; a utilitarian slave owner can see that that is wrong and free their slaves.

An activist god, in the old testament sense, would be rather visible.

I was just pointing out that you said several things as if they were proven facts, and they are not. That's all.

The religious do that all the time, but only atheists ever seem to get called out for it. Why the double standard, I wonder?

What does this even mean?

> How do you square that with any sort of culture that values reality?

Is reality true? Like all these agents in the comment section below who claim to know the unknowable, are they true?

That model of reality you are describing, thinking that it is reality itself, is that true?

In the US, it's been a slow process over 35 years, since 1991.[1] England and Wales are much further along - believers are below 50%. But Islam is on the way up in the UK, at 6%.

The high-intensity religions, the ones that require religious activity once a day or more, seem to be thriving.

[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/09/13/how-u-s-reli...

That is an atheist point of view. I grew up in religious environment too and people really believed in god. Some were hypocrites and some values stand in a real life way (commitment to not lie makes for the worst business), but the basic believe that god exist was really real. And when you play the part just for social reasons, then I think you are just a hypocrite. Which would be good reason for people to leave - so that they dont have to pretend.

I don’t get this part. The only time I had a job in my local community was high school. Most of the adults (which was 95+% of the employees) commuted 20-60 minutes to get to it, though, so even that wasn’t my local community. You’d never run into your coworkers at the park or the store because they went to totally different parks and stores. Same’s held for my career as an adult. Coworkers are rarely people you’ll see anywhere other than work unless you go way out of your way to make it happen.

> The mad rush to as quickly abolish religious practices in mainstream U.S. culture without any form of societal replacement is puzzling to me.

People need to acknowledge how much the downside of this kind of closeness was conformism, enforced by shunning (or worse) the noncompliant. A lot of religious communities have coped incredibly badly with the sexual revolution of the 20th century; if the only foray of your church into politics is against abortion or LGBT freedom, it's not really surprising that young people and women are going to run in the opposite direction as soon as they get a chance - often facilitated by the Internet. While simultaneously responding to actual abuse with coverups and complicity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_sexual_abuse_c...

What is novel about the sexual revolution is that it dismissed any needs for norms. Over the past two decades we've seen non-religious attempts to reinstate those norms (consent, kink, safe words, etc). However, what's unpalatable to religious people is not the sex per se, but the lack of norms.

And we need norms to function as a community with a common culture. Throwing those out does not actually help.

You mention the sexual abuse by the Catholic church, but that was caused by the sexual revolution. At the time, the psychological community encouraged moving pedophiles around. The church was -- at the time -- attempting to modernize, and part of the modernization was listening to 'science', including psychologists. Psychologists at the time insisted these things could be cured and criminalization would not help.

The church is not the only organization to have been affected by this, but it is one of the few prominent examples of institutions being held accountable for it. The same ideology caused the German foster care scandals [1] [2].

[1] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/07/26/the-german-exp...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmut_Kentler

[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/oversight-failures-allow-sexual...

[2] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/has-media-ignored-sex-abuse-in-...

[3] https://www2.ed.gov/rschstat/research/pubs/misconductreview/...

IMO, at least for Catholics, it is the Church's insistence that condoms and birth control are sinful that led to the mass defections from belief in the legitimacy of Church teaching. Yes, even more so than anti-homosexual rhetoric or the sex abuse coverups.

It's an attitude of "these delusional celibate people care too much about abstract deductive logic, not empirical observations."

There is a rush from many to just leave it.

I read the article, it has one major fatal flaw - people don't WANT those old communities, especially religious communities he describes.

People are seeking community, and finding it, elsewhere.

My guess is that "place" have become a way too expensive good, that people just can't afford to share for free.

If you don't have a hobby/interest with a local group, you can try picking new ones until you find one that clicks too. It does take some effort initially though. The shared interest is critical to removing barriers to making those relationships for me.

My thought was to start a "philosopher's club", for Platonic friendships. Right now it's just me and one neighbor meeting every 2 weeks for coffee, but I think an ideal size might be around 3-4 "regulars" plus 2-5 sporadic attendees. Big enough to get boisterous but small enough to carpool.

The way to make this happen is get out there and volunteer your big dollar software engineer time to make it happen. Use all of the knowledge about how to get things done that you get from reading HN, join a team, and start building.

My volunteering experience has been amazing, but there were some negative experiences where it was clear we should have required more buy-in or up front investment.

What's nearly extinct is neutral third spaces with zero agenda.

Perhaps this was always true, but it seems for a brief time places like shopping malls were not as concerned as much somehow with having purely immediately profitable people inside and that’s why they were able to be that third place.

Hopefully in time a new generation of voters will want to fund more third places with taxes, because that seems to be the way to get long lasting third places that really do serve their purpose without an agenda.

I also used to eat there quite often but I almost never go now because I don't like waiting 10 or 15 minutes for a sullen, indifferent person to hand me a bag of food that might or might not contain what I ordered and like you said the prices are crazy.

When I was a teenager there was a specific square where one would go after school (or during if you skipped class that day). As far as I know my nieces don't have such a tradition.

Less clear example: in my country of origin those living in apartments used to have monthly meetings to discuss any issues they had about the building. People used to complain going to those, but at least you'd get an overview of who is who. I believe these meetings are gone, replaced by email. No one complains about them anymore but, at the same time, no one knows who their apartment neighbors are.

The apartments I've lived in the past several years had get together events from time to time. I also met a lot of neighbors going to the gym or hanging out around the pool or playing billiards in the clubhouse.

None of this seems radically rare from my experiences in Houston and DFW.

Average amount of time spent working has trended downwards for nearly every income group for every decade except at best the last decade where it's been stabilizing around ~33 to 36 hours a week or 1700 - 1800 hours a year. I'm not specifying a country because I don't have to, the only country that has actually trended upwards in working hours is China.

After years trying to see people weekly and failing miserably, this is best hack I have found. Caveat emptor, takes discipline and patience from everyone but it's great to see loved ones daily, fully engaged in a project.

It helps that I can afford to have hobby businesses.

In general, people seem to do a lot less unstructured leisure activity and social interaction. Quantitative goals are imposed by social expectations, gamified ad-funded software, or economic anxiety.

Be sure to like and subscribe.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6763725-capitalist-reali...

You didn’t learn after althussar, or deleuze, and now you make the same mistakes. Don’t be surprised if it comes out later that he was a child diddler, much as it has for the previously well respected Foucault.

I shit you not my wife and I wanted to visit a park the other day and realized the parks dept now has paid parking stalls. The PARK. An outdoor space, supposedly paid for by my tax dollars, that because of it's distance from me is not feasible to walk to (and because the streets here are fucking terrifying) now charges me to park my vehicle there, so I can get some nature. Just un-fucking-believably apple pie in the window sill, burgers and fries, fireworks on the fourth American.

I am so goddamn tired of every interaction I can have requiring money. I just want somewhere to go that's nice to be that doesn't demand my fucking credit card.

Libraries meet this need in many ways. But because of the dwindling number of alternatives, reductions in funding, and increases in the number of struggling community members, they're being asked to perform many more community-support functions (social services, education, technical support, shelter, bathrooms, clinics, after-primary-school socializing) for many more people than they used to. This is causing some struggles, which I hope libraries and their supporters rise to rather than writing off another critical type of third place.

From your rant we know you'll pick free open spots compared to paid open spots but what if the choice is between paid open spots and no spots at all? Or worse, paid open spots or shady looking cars parked all day selling drugs?

It seems like the more effective change is more parks but imagine the pushback if someone tried suggesting that! You're angry that you already pay taxes and now you have to pay again to have a special spot right at the park you can park your car in. Imagine the backlash if someone had the audacity to suggest raising your taxes for new parks. "I already pay for parks! I won't even use 95% of them! Why should I have to pay just because I'm a homeowner!"

I can hear my dads voice saying some of these things and it reminds me of his complaints about funding schools with property taxes and I see how people like him pivot this into "the socialists just trying to punish the straight white men".

It all makes me sad.

I wouldn't know, there weren't any free spots, open or otherwise, for consideration.

> Or worse, paid open spots or shady looking cars parked all day selling drugs?

I'm not sure what constitutes a shady car in your mind. I'm pretty sure no one in my neighborhood sells drugs. I know that cuz I have to leave my neighborhood to buy the drugs I want. All things being equal I'd much prefer to just buy them in stores but for some insane reason we're still carrying on the war on drugs despite it being linked, in ink and in recordings, directly to the Nixon administration wanting to prevent black people and hippies from voting, so we make do the best we can.

> It seems like the more effective change is more parks

I mean, we have plenty of parks. Some days they're pretty damn busy but most days they're not. I'm blessed to be a remote worker so I can also just go there (or you know, used to be able to!) and work for a bit too.

> but imagine the pushback if someone tried suggesting that! You're angry that you already pay taxes and now you have to pay again to have a special spot right at the park you can park your car in. Imagine the backlash if someone had the audacity to suggest raising your taxes for new parks.

I actually pay pretty high taxes for my area. The trade-off is our snow collection is extremely good and the roads are well kept, as are the parks for that matter (now marred with stupid ass parking meters but alas).

I'm not opposed in the slightest to paying taxes. I participate in my local government, and I'm planning to bring this up at the next meeting because frankly I think it's bullshit that we're being asked to pay to park there when we're already funding that department. If they need more money or are running at a shortfall, that problem should be addressed with our community like everything else is, with a tax bump if required. I'm frankly infuriated that this was done not just from the principles of it but also because somehow it was done in a way that completely went under the radar of the city council I participate in. This was a huge change and should've been discussed.

> "I already pay for parks! I won't even use 95% of them! Why should I have to pay just because I'm a homeowner!"

Yes my position would be very unreasonable if it was even remotely this. Thankfully it's not.

FWIW I also am fine with paying for our schools too.

My only contribution was that I've seen folks make these kind of choices in good faith even though it isn't directly a thing they want because it's the best of the tools in their toolboxes.

We should have much higher density, high quality housing with plenty of public, walkable green spaces. They calling it "15-Minute Cities" now, but I always called it Tokyo.

In fact... hear me out. It might be that, those that own the paid private parking lots in high traffic areas exacerbate the parking issues in contested areas, creating pressure on free parking areas; then they lobby to put parking meters in those free areas because "the city needs all the money it can get" (ehh, it shouldn't, it doesn't), and voilá, no more free parking anywhere.

Just a thought.

Well... yes, that is precisely what's needed to wean America off its unhealthy dependence on cars.

Come over here to Europe, visit our cities where you can actually walk on a sidewalk, where you can live without a car just fine because everything you need can be reached safely on foot, by bike or with public transport.

HIGHLY disagree. If you want people off cars, you need to give them an alternative. Granted, I love cars. I would have cars whether I needed one or not, but I know I'm absolutely 100% in the minority on that issue, and like, when I say I would have cars either way, I mean fun cars. I wouldn't keep and maintain vehicles to just get around in my daily life if I didn't have to. I'd very much prefer to have just the vehicles I actually enjoy, and probably one truck and trailer to get around to tracks.

Most people don't like cars and don't like driving which is why most people drive like shit. It's a chore, a required to-do item on the way to doing something they actually want to do.

And to provide that infrastructure, you need space. Space that is reserved for parking cars at the moment. Just compare how much you pay per m² for the parking spot in your average city center vs the average rent mer m² that someone has to pay just for a basic shack.

Never going to happen, outside of few dense city centers. Once an area is platted for detached single family homes and big box stores on stroads, the physical layout is incompatible with non car life, and hence you have to literally destroy everything and start over with narrow streets and smaller plots of land.

The expense of this is not going to win you any votes, especially as results will not be evident for at least 20 years while infrastructure is completely rebuilt and legal disputes are hashed out, hence it will not happen until nature forces it.

Not really. Repave the roads to make them slimmer, use the space gained to provide elevated sidewalks and bike lanes so people can see it with their own eyes that they can now participate in traffic without sharing infrastructure with cars. And whenever a reasonable sized lot goes up for sale, buy it up and convert it to a small store.

And you can’t just repave roads, there are utilities and sewer that needs to be moved, and that’s the small problem. The big problem is facing the outcry of very active voters for reducing their road space and making their commutes even a minute longer.

And if all the homes around this repaved area are detached homes with garages in 0.1+ acre lots, you will never have the density of customers to support businesses.

It kind of has to start at a city center and slowly, very slowly spread outward. But as soon as you hit the higher end suburbs with bigger plats, that’s where any of that high density hope stops, because the political will simply isn’t going to be there. Look at any US city and you will see the “trendy” or “hipster” or whatever areas with a few restaurants and whatever in a small walkable area are all in areas with postage stamp houses in tiny lots.

You don't have to redo sewers etc when you just change the surface by removing stroad space and adding bike lane space.

Also you can own a car and still bike to places.

For many that’s now the unattainable dream: a community with values that sit still long enough to even aim at upholding them, a robust partnership early enough in life to start a family the biological way, children who can look forward to the same.

On the surface there is a culture war around this, and it’s true that the old model had serious problems with admitting other lifestyles. That needed fixing, but not by obliterating the model that works for most people with overwhelming precedent.

The real culprit as always is the “monetization” of everything, a baton that has now firmly been passed from finance people to Silicon Valley people.

The #1 post on Y-Combinator’s news site is in some sense the central locus in the observable universe for this.

We've doubled down on marketplaces to mediate interactions because they are rational systems. Rational systems like marketplaces, elections, and bureaucracies are the sine qua non of liberalism, which both ends of the political spectrum advocate for in their own ways. The right typically advocates more for marketplaces and corporations (i.e. market-based bureaucracies) and the left typically advocates for more government managemeant (election based bureaucracies).

Rational systems are in constrast to local cultures based on tradition, biology, and shared history. Its why there is so much homogenization in farming, music, clothing, architecture, etc.

The upside is that rational systems allow for scale, propserity, and individual liberty on an unprecedented level. On the downside, rational systems are fundamentally dehumanizing.

We mediate everything through marketplaces because we've don't have any place for non-rational organizing principles (locality, biology, shared history, etc)

Its a tragedy of the commons style problem.

The viability has to come from a group effort - as soon as there is a single entity running the show the economic incentives will warp or collapse the 3rd place into something different.

I'd add, the belief that projects should be financially self-sufficient and the fiscal individualistic belief that I shouldn't pay for things I don't personally benefit from.

There is a sense of fairness, that makes sense in isolation, yet have these downstream effects when applied to public goods like third spaces. "Kids are always on their phones," and "Youth programs and parks should be financially self-sufficient" are downstream contradictions of the primary belief.

1. among infinite ways to analyze it

Tragedy of the commons is when there's no big entity with rules, and everyone does their own thing.

You'll often see these people everywhere in your community, and they may approach you very quickly to get you involved in their organizations. They are in constant need of new volunteers to burn out on their pet projects. They also constantly promote themselves and are always telling you about what they are doing with other organizations both to recruit you and to make sure everyone knows how "indispensable" they are.

These people are poisonous to community organizations because they will not abide any consensus-driven process that doesn't lead to agreement with them.

Perhaps better than everyone sitting in their homes getting amazon deliveries every few hours.

but this isn't what people mean when they say public community spaces. We need interconnectedness across income, ideology, generation, education, etc, for stable democracy.

Basically it's too expensive to make spaces available for below market rate due to the direct cost of rents (a middle or upper-middle class person could drop $1000/month on a passion project, but not so easily $5k/month) and there's a very high opportunity cost to forgoing revenue/profit, because you can find buyers willing to buy you out for 3-25x incremental profit. That opportunity cost makes it tempting for any community space to instead chase profit. But it also makes non-residential property more expensive because you're bidding against companies that are able to convert incremental $1000/mo profit to $50k-100k in realized value, even if you aren't intending to do that.

Rents themselves are very competitive not just from low supply but also because technology has made the rental market very "efficient"/liquid - it's easy to market a property and accurately price it, so sweetheart deals/underpriced leases are difficult to find. Plus rental properties themselves have been very well financialized as well - increases in incremental revenue/profit of commercial real estate can be recognized as many-times-more increases in equity by lenders, which can be accessed by loaning against the equity. So sweetheart deals are more costly to lessors than before.

I they were trying to convey sense you describe, of intense economic pressure to make a certain income to pay for a certain living or working space, or alternatively be kicked out because there are ten people in line waiting to take your space.

Perhaps a healthy culture cannot survive this degree of “efficiency”.

It didn't need to be this. Richer kids might have been into swimming and water polo. I got into volleyball later and ad hoc sand courts were all over the place. Most of the parks near me also had tennis courts and I played tennis quite a bit. Even the more counter culture kids who weren't into team sports often did some combo of skating, surfing, and snowboarding and bonded over that.

Some of this is obviously mediated by where you happen to live. Southern California has a lot of open spaces, beaches and mountains, and the weather is pretty temperate all year. As much as Hacker News laments suburbs, the sprawl also means there are a lot of parks because there is so much space.

I've gravitated more toward individual athletic pursuits in middle age, so I'm not really involved in sporting communities any more. Seemingly, though, all this cheap, free to the consumer infrastructure in the form of concrete courts with nets still must exist, no? Nobody ever expected parks to turn a profit. They were just a thing cities and counties were expected to provide out of tax revenue and they're a minuscule portion of that compared to expenditure on schooling and law enforcement at the municipal level. There can't be any economically good reason to put them on the chopping block.

> Adorno was born a German Jew at the end of the nineteenth century; he saw Hitler come to power via popular vote; and, in 1941, he was forced to flee Germany for the United States. Once there, however, he observed conditions of isolation and aloofness that made him worry: post-war American culture looked, to his eye, too much like pre-war Germany. The post-war “baby boom” had resulted in the growth of the American suburbs, sprawling sections of land developed for first-place functionality (private residence) and located within commuting distance to second-place nuclei (cities, office buildings, places of work). Adorno watched Americans shuttle back and forth in their cars between work and home, and he critiqued what he saw as ever-deepening habits consistent with conditions of social alienation. “He who stands aloof runs the risk of believing himself better than others and misusing his critique of society as an ideology for his private interest,” Adorno argues in his 1951 work Minima Moralia. In other words, Adorno says, isolation begets feelings of superiority, but not solely because the isolated individual lacks opportunities for comparison; rather, isolation begets superiority because the isolated individual has no audience but himself, no one to receive (and, perhaps, critique) his image of himself, to test whether or not it is even accurate.

--Sheila Liming, "Hanging Out" (2023)

There are many different definitions of 'left' and 'right'. One perspective that can be useful is to think in terms of 'collective' and 'individualistic'. On this axis, neoliberalism is firmly to the right (not in the centre as is often portrayed). Communities are collective by definition and neoliberalism is inherently anti-community.

When I was younger I was always confused by the incessant political drive to 'privatise' everything despite the obvious bad outcomes. On the whole, the cost of services didn't go down, they didn't improve, and they didn't become more efficient. The opposite would happen, despite the promises to the contrary.

My eureka moment was when I realised that it really was simply about ideology. The essential aim was not to improve anything. It was to ensure all activity was turned into a 'market transaction' so as to provide those with capital more opportunities to invest. From that point of view, the push for privatisation makes perfect sense.

We have been fooled into selling our communities for profit (as if that's the only way to improve our lot).

Yes, corporations and governments aren't great parents. But then neither are parents, if they allow corporations and government free reign over developing minds.