I visited some relatives who are Jehovah's Witnesses. I was blown away by how rich their social life was. They hung out with people who lived nearby all the time.

I'm sure that kind of lifestyle also exists outside of a religious context, but it was quite striking. I've never seen anything like it. It made me wonder what life used to be like a hundred years ago, and what we've lost, or given up.

I guess church is the prime example of a Third Place, which appear to be in short supply.

In that case, however, you also see the drawbacks. The Witnesses discourage socialization outside of the church and also use shunning as a method of social control: if you disagree with the church on anything, your options are to acquiesce or lose your entire social network, even family members.

I share the desire for more social lifestyles - I think suburbanization is a huge driver of this - but want a secular form which doesn’t have the drawbacks many religions offer.

Yeah, I've been wondering what the special sauce is. Is the religion part necessary to hold the whole thing together? e.g. you could replicate the other aspects, but would it last? It seems like people derive significant meaning from the religious aspect. Though this may also extend to ideology in general (e.g. political groups, or Effective Altruism meetups for example). The "shared mission" seems to be an important part of it.

I was a scout leader in my late teens and early 20s, and that had quite a lot of "sociality" to it, that went beyond "meet up for drinks occasionally".

I don't go to church. My family has worked hard for generations to separate themselves from exploitative churches.

But now, at the end of this process, I am able to see better the cost of this separation. I don't regret it, and I am glad it was done, but it's clear that neither in nor out of a church is the 21st century adult made whole.

Somewhere there has to be a happy medium.

I truly hope this comment has been seen, a few good trusted friends that would honor op’s memory by taking care of good usage of his daughter resources is the safest way to go, by far

My parents set up a trust for my disabled brother and made my uncle the guardian. Unfortunately he was dishonest and greedy and embezzled it. Fortunately he did this before my parents had even passed, so we had time to come up with a backup plan. (The backup plan was me, and I never felt like I could start my own family as long as I was responsible for my brother, so ... that's been limiting.) Anyway...

... I've often felt like it would have been much safer to either make a legal firm administrators of the fund or at least have multiple family members on it, so that they might keep tabs on each other and make it harder to just steal. I've actually spent a lot of time thinking about what went wrong and what might have been different. If that uncle hadn't died I would probably have spent that time fantasizing about ways to kill him, but, as it is ... I just don't get to retire.

I love my brother and have made peace with most of the consequences of what happened to him, because at a certain point you just have to accept the hand you're dealt and keep going. But the bitterness of what the world has done to us is still in me and I don't think it's ever going to leave.

tl;dr - definitely don't leave just one person, even family, with access to a disabled person's money

Yes this is why I said a few, and having a legal firm in the loop is probably a good way to improve chances of things going well.

I’m sorry you had to live through that it’s truly horrible.

(To be clear, I was trying to elaborate on your point and not disagree with it.)

I wish there were better legal resources for the parents of disabled children to do this in the US. Like the original comment pointed out, the legal expenses of setting up a trust are steep, and if you're already fighting an uphill battle with medical costs it can be impractical. Or even totally out of reach.

If the alternative to capitalism is a system that relies on working-class people making charitable donations to other working-class people...

Well, yes? This is how it has always been throughout history?

> And crawling on the planet's face, > some insects called the human race.

What we don't do for ourselves, and for one another, isn't done. (Except in some cases, when it's done by fruiting flora externalizing gamete distribution costs.)

I will admit that I realized, too late to edit my original comment, that government welfare has also been a tremendous boon to members of my community with disabilities. A good social worker is worth their weight in gold. I happily pay taxes in order to keep my neighbors off the streets.

0. Richard O'Brien, The Rocky Horror Picture Show

I'm sure you didn't intend it, but responding to the GP in a cross-examining way ("don't you have friends?", "I would think your top priority") comes across as personally aggressive. That's not how we want people to be treating one another here, especially on the such a painful and intimate topic. Whatever the person who is living such a situation may need, obvious internet criticisms are not it, so comments like this don't help, only hurt.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> comes across as personally aggressive

Oof, this is obvious in retrospect, and I regret it. Unfortunately, there are some very useful rhetorical angles which do not translate to text, and pity is one of them.