
The Legion Lonely - fern12
http://hazlitt.net/longreads/legion-lonely
======
erikpukinskis
I can't prioritize it now, but I predict a team of people who go around doing
"social extraction"... Pulling people out of isolation into loving
communities. Consensually of course.

I just think everyone is inherently beautiful, even those who have gotten
stuck in solitary loops, and lost the ability to connect. I see someone like
that as unrealized value... Like a stunted tree growing in the shade, or in
dry soil. There's plenty of sun and water for everyone. Well, metaphorically.
In social connection, each person you add multiplies those life giving
resources.

~~~
benologist
There's already "people walking" services for getting social time -
[https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/14/los-
angeles-...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/14/los-angeles-
people-walker-chuck-mccarthy)

~~~
drdeadringer
One of my side hobbies is writing short stories. Just for myself, "just" to
keep creativity going.

I'm currently on an AI/Human relations kick. I hadn't considered "people
walking" as something to use, so thanks.

------
santoshalper
Man, this one really hit close to home for me. There was a time a few years
ago when I realized every friend I had in the world was a co-worker. When I
left my job a few years back, I lost almost all of them. We'd try to stay
close, but it never worked very well. Everyone, myself included was just too
busy.

The funny thing is I have a wife and four kids so I am never alone, but
painfully lonely.

~~~
foobarian
It seems like church/organized religion is a useful channel for connecting
people outside work. I'm not a zealot or believer by any means but the times I
tagged along to Catholic services I was impressed the most by the post-service
socializing and general connectedness of the churchgoers.

~~~
darkmighty
I feel there's a really enormous market for this kind of non-religious
gathering. And not centered in any particular activity either: when people
lack religion they usually go for hobbies/sports, but that's an entirely
different affair that doesn't necessarily relieve loneliness (especially if it
is competitive, 1v1 or solo). Not everyone has the necessary skill for a
hobby, the necessary funds, etc.

What we really crave is a place for discussing ethics, morals and general life
guidelines.

Church has many interesting properties that have been abandoned (due to
obsolescence of the content, but not the form!): you can be just a passive
observer in Church. You're with other people, which generally act supportively
in this environment, and you can just be there amongst others without
speaking, only hearing both comforting and hopefully useful ethical
guidelines. You're hearing that you're loved and that everyone should love
eachother -- which is usually true in the first case, and generally accepted
in the latter -- but sometimes a reminder is really due.

Then if you have a problem you don't feel like sharing with anyone else, you
have this guy, the priest, which has essentially a confidentiality agreement
that you can safely tell him whatever. If you have a problem you can ask for
guidance. The priest can usually pull some strings to get other churchgoers to
assist you if necessary too (especially easy but important things like
emotional support).

What we have today as non-religious individuals are for the most part
psychologists, which have many issues:

\-- You don't get the participation feel from joining a large group of people,
and interacting with the ones you are interested in that group;

\-- They tend to view your problems as disorders, when sometimes all you need
is the presence of a group of people for alleviating light emotional distress;

\-- They don't feel too confident giving advice, and they probably shouldn't,
since they may not have experience with your situation (whereas some
churchgoers might);

and very important:

\-- They are expensive, while church is completely free.

In a web jargon, psychologists don't scale very well. Suppose everybody went
to see a psychologist, and each psychologist had 10 patients. Then at least
10% of the population needs to be psychologists. Instead you could get k -- a
lot better than 1 -- _mutual_ confidants by connecting with a k person
subgroup out of a larger meeting. And when you can't find a suitable subgroup,
you have a speaker giving general advice for a very large number of people.

We need non-religious churches.

~~~
eru
Church of England or the Unitarians might be non-religious enough for you?

(I'm not a Christian, so can't say too much.)

~~~
darkmighty
From what I've read, Church of England is definitely a religious organization.
Unitarianism however seems largely non-religious, but still might not be ideal
due to still being rooted in catholic dogma and morals -- it is still
classified as a "Christian theological movement".

~~~
eru
Word on the street is that half of the Church of England's priests are closet-
agnostics. Or at least it's close enough to true that this is a common quip.

If you want something that's certified to be Christian-free, you might want to
look up the humanist branches of the Freemasons. Or some of the humanist
Quakers.

Or just pick any random hobby like swing dancing for a community around it.

------
avenoir
This is basically me in a couple of decades. 8 months ago I moved out to
Denver and made an uncomfortable realization - I haven't made friends since
high school and I have no idea how to make friends. I tried Meetup and other
random social gatherings without making any meaningful connections and then I
just quit making any effort. I've since slipped into not caring and getting
comfortable being alone most of the time here. The only social interaction I
have is when I visit office once a few months (I work remote) or go back to my
hometown. I used to hate it, now I enjoy it but it makes me wonder what will
come of it when I'm much older. In the back of my mind I'm thinking I should
quit my remote job (which I love) and find something local or move back. Thank
God for the great outdoors and coffee shops in the meantime lol

~~~
Pamar
May I offer a suggestion? Try enrolling in a martial arts course.

You can surely find something that fits your own preferences in terms of
"intensity" and it might get you in touch with people.

~~~
starbuxman
I totally agree with this. I enrolled in martial arts one year after moving to
a new city, and they've become a great circle of friends. The camaraderie you
build with martial arts folks is a special one.

------
Pamar
For anyone interested in (or worried about) this I strongly suggest to read _A
Philosophy of Loneliness_ by Lars Svendsen.

This book analyzes loneliness (and solitude, the more positive counterpart) to
a great detail, and offers some constructive and positive suggestions on how
to transform the former into the latter.

[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31573708-a-philosophy-
of...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31573708-a-philosophy-of-
loneliness)

------
lolc
What I found most interesting was how the essay explores the different
meanings of loneliness. I don't think of myself as a lonely person because
I've been living with people all my life.

It's hard to admit but I don't have anybody I'd consider a close friend.
Saying this might hurt the people I'm close to, and sure it's all a matter of
degree. But still I find myself trapped in the "no emotion" zone I've grown
into. And getting out of this is hard, particularly when I must assume that
the people around me have been similarly socialized.

~~~
Thriptic
Start slow. Pick a friend you want to get to know better, share some light
shared domain related concern or fear with them (work related, hobby related,
etc), and see how it is received. If they are empathetic and supportive then
you can open up more over time as you build trust. If they aren't serious or
brush you off then you haven't really lost much social capital and you can
move on to someone else.

------
nebabyte
I really wish for a news source that published articles on topics such as
these that forewent the overwritten "few paragraphs on a quirky introduction,
obligatory 'case study' anecdote referenced throughout, etc" article recipe
and just stuck with the relevant statistics and a brief commentary for the
author's thoughts on the topic.

I suppose I should've been around for /.'s heyday, it seems like that was its
thing.

~~~
arca_vorago
Yeah, what surprises me is that it seems there are a substantial group of us
that would consume such a product, but no one has really delivered. I think
the market is ripe.

~~~
jackvalentine
Would you be interested in editing this essay down to the article you're
proposing?

~~~
arca_vorago
Not particularly, even though somehow even being asked caused a slight twinge
of guilt in me. To be honest I didn't even read the article till after I made
that comment, as I was mostly replying to the other commenter on a much more
general subject than this particular article. It's a subject I've thought
about quite a bit actually, so seeing the GP comment I replied on that basis.

For example, I think the twitterization of information has been bad in the
sense that it reduces information in it's deepness, I think part of the reason
for the success of twitter is that in the modern age we have more and more
things competing for our attention, and therefor less time to dedicate to
various pursuits. Twitter answered this problem by placing a hard limit on
characters... which reduced time needed to consume, but failed to provide
mechanisms that provided _good_ content, in favor of _short_ content.

The tldr being a better form that fills this niche, perhaps, would be the kind
of thing that would assist those of us who value content quality but still
don't want to spend too much time on something that is of unknown quality.
Medium did something interesting in this regard by giving readers time to read
estimates. They still lack quality indicators, as do most information outlets.
Some of my ideas for solutions would be machine ratings of strength of logic,
or argument-map generation. So I'm coming at the issue in a more abstract way.

All that said, and despite my original no, I will give my version of the tldr.

 _Loneliness is an issue that seems to disproportionately affect men, but it
shouldn 't be confused with social isolation. One can feel isolated and lonely
despite social connectedness. For the most part it boils down to a lack of
trust, and therefore intimacy in conversation and other actions which are
failing to meet emotional needs of men. While most indicators show that a
relationship such as marriage often meets the emotional needs through a
partner, they also show that once in a relationship where emotional needs are
met social isolation increases. Hope is not lost though, there are techniques
that can be used, such as reframing or CBT, to help lonely people get out of
that rut, and much of it will need to be not just singular but cultural. If
you're lonely, just know you aren't the only one, and the situation can
improve, and knowing others often feel the same way despite hiding it (like
you hide yourself) is likely to be a threshold that can help you overcome the
fear needed to make the positive moves needed to progress._

Slightly off-topic, but I wonder how much the chilling-effect of the
surveillance society has increased this loneliness due to lack of trust
(perhaps of the medium and not of the person on the other end).

------
jnsaff2
We have a small group of men, mostly ex colleagues from different IT contracts
that kind of acts as like a support group doing simple things like going to a
driving range or bouldering or beers in London.

Drop me a line if you'd like to join sometime.

~~~
sjtgraham
I have found great friendships at various contracting gigs. In fact most of my
best friends are ex-colleagues. It's worked out really well to be honest.

------
blablabla123
Read the book "Who to win friends and influence people". This is not only a
sales bible but a book that shows how to actually connect with people. Kind of
lengthy read but I can really recommend it.

~~~
norswap
I read it, and it's full of platitudes. Useful platitudes, to be sure -- if
the book is a revelation to the reader, the reader probably did well to pick
it up.

Nevertheless, this is not the stuff that helps create the kind of deeper -
vulnerable - connections that are stressed in the article.

~~~
blablabla123
>Nevertheless, this is not the stuff that helps create the

>kind of deeper - vulnerable - connections that are stressed

>in the article.

No probably not. That would be really surprising also. I can really imagine
this guy who wrote it, an ancient American business man - he's surely not into
that kind of stuff. Anyways, it's a start ;)

------
aurelianito
We need to begin to discuss the issues that affect men in greater proportion,
like solitude and suicide. I applaud the existence of this article. Thanks for
posting it.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
As a feminist, I think it's important to recognize that patriarchy hurts both
men and women with its pigeonholed stereotypes. There are unfortunately people
who try to hijack this to push their agenda that men's problems are _more
important_ than women's problems, which complicates things. But yes, in
allowing women to be strong and independent, I think we also must allow men to
be weak and to ask for help if they need it.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
I'm baffled what people are finding offensive enough to downvote here. Did you
see the words "feminist" and "patriarchy" and stop reading?

~~~
abstractbeliefs
I haven't voted in this article either way, but my take on why people might be
downvoting you are twofold:

1) You've come into a thread that is specifically looking at men's problems,
and made it about feminism and your own highly female-oriented viewpoints: "As
a feminist", the (justifiable) fear that people make this out as "men's
problems are more important than women's problems", "allowing women to be
strong and independent, I think we also must allow men to be weak and to ask
for help if they need it.".

If people came into a thread about sexism in the work place and explained an
opinion with similar words with flipped gender, they would be criticised.

2) For the worse, the terms you pick out yourself have been coopted by an
unfortunate group who use them to push their own agenda, who go around with
mugs marked "Male Tears", gleeful in the support of a minority of people
abusing the term and the quiet tolerance of many more. They don't represent
feminism or progressive values. But they do use the words most loudly, and
that develops unfortunate connotations.

Overall, your points may be valid, but your expression of them alienates the
people this article is about and addresses.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
Thanks for the response. What I was trying to convey is that I agree with
Aurelianito. There does need to be attention paid to men's issues. I framed it
the way I did because I think this is often portrayed as an anti-feminist
argument, by people on both sides, and I disagree with them; I think it's
important for feminists to care about men's issues, and it's important for
feminists to _say_ that precisely because of the people you mention in #2, to
counterbalance them and demonstrate that they don't speak for all of us.

But some people don't want to see a reasonable counterbalance. They see a word
they don't like and downvote without reading; they actually get angry when
others fail to live down to their stereotypes. Going in the other direction,
I've seen liberal feminists get confused and angry when they meet a
conservative who supports GLBT rights. It makes people uncomfortable when
folks don't stay in their pigeonholes. It's frustrating.

~~~
throwanem
See, though, this is the thing. It's great that you're not being all "lol male
tears", have a cookie, but you're putting a lot more effort into defending
your conception of feminism, and into drawing a distinction between yourself
and "lol male tears" and making sure we all know _you 're_ not like that, than
into addressing the topic at hand. That's what is getting you downvoted, not
some imaginary knee-jerk reaction to a word.

It's not accepted to derail a women-centered discussion with "but patriarchy
hurts men too!"; why do you expect anything less in derailing a men-centered
discussion with "but feminism is for men too!"? Granted you're not being That
Guy in the usual direction. But you're no less being That Guy for it. Maybe
consider _not_ being That Guy.

------
hamai
The root epidemics is of people only focusing on themselves.

Do voluntary jobs with sick and old people. Replacing your problems with other
people's problems makes you think better.

~~~
emerged
Yeah - I was just thinking "jeez all these people sure like talking about
themselves" while scrolling through this thread. Self focus is a great way to
push people away and a terrible way to be happy.

------
microcolonel
I appreciate the attempt; but I feel like "boys don't cry enough" (sorry, I
know this is oversimplified) is the wrong place to look. The reason why I
think this is the case, is that loneliness has been increasing while it has
become more socially acceptable for boys and men to be open about their
emotions. I have never, in my life as a boy and (hopefully) now a man, been
told unironically that boys and men shouldn't cry, or that I in particular
shouldn't cry. I don't think it would have any effect on my behaviour.

From my perspective it really must be something else.

Anecdotally I am a very lonely person right now. For the last six months or
so, I could be described as about a 32 on the UCLA scale. I am nonetheless a
very emotionally open person. I address emotional problems honestly, it just
seems that I can not address loneliness the same way.

I think the activity that is required to build deep friendships, is to attempt
to build many shallow ones, and see who sticks around. That has had the most
success for me. I think the final bit of motivation for this is the research
on health outcomes (though, granted, it could be a bit biased since unhealthy
people are also more likely to be lonely).

Also regarding “But to paraphrase University of Missouri researchers Barbara
Bank and Suzanne Hansford, men have power, but are not well.”; I don't know
what on earth they are talking about. What power do men have? Surely some men
are powerful, and there are more powerful men than powerful women, but men as
a whole are not powerful in any way I could recognize (in NA).

Regarding “A man should never reveal worries to others.”, I think this is more
a statement of strategic fact than an opinion. Nobody cares about men,
especially not other men; so unless you have good reason to believe you will
be helped rather than exploited, showing vulnerability to others is
strategically suicidal.

As for the “no homo” stuff, it is essential. If you can't tell whether
somebody is trying to befriend you or seduce you , you can not be at ease; you
can't tell if you're just being a good friend, or leading them on. This
connects directly with the later mention of "A lot of men don’t cultivate
emotional intimacy when they are not in partnership with a significant
other.". When you are in a relationship, making friends becomes more
straightforward, since more variables are known to both parties.

Maybe I should go get coffee with Steven, we share a city after all.

------
bronz
i know a thing or two about loneliness. there have been periods of my life
during which, i am now sure, i experienced some of the deepest loneliness that
a person might ever experience outside of being marooned on a small island.

i guess i wont go into detail but i was completely alone for four years.
during that time i developed mental health problems and negative habits that,
at the time, i did not realize were due to loneliness. this was compounded by
super bad stress from other things in my life. i reached profoundly low states
of mental well-being -- looking back i actually am astonished. there is no
doubt in my mind that whatever i encounter later in terms of loneliness, it
will never come close to that.

after four years i met a girl and we lived together for another three years.
the article hits the nail on the head about married couples -- having an so is
the number one solution for loneliness. it turned my whole situation around
and has left me off much better even though the relationship came to a sad
end. if any of you guys are stuck being super lonely, i would recommend
getting a girlfriend no matter the cost. also, i would recommend taking a
complete multivitamin. something in those things makes my depression a lot
better. good luck.

~~~
Aaargh20318
> i guess i wont go into detail but i was completely alone for four years.

As someone who craves solitude, how did you manage this ? I can't even go a
day without seeing another human being, let alone 4 years. How do you get
food, income, housing ?

~~~
tacostakohashi
I'm sure you can get a few tips from this guy:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Thomas_Knight](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Thomas_Knight)

~~~
Aaargh20318
I wish. I live in a small and very densely populated country. There is no
woodland or anything even resembling it here.

------
TheSpiceIsLife
_while close friendships increase your longevity by up to 22 percent_

Any anyone find the reference for this in the linked study.

The PDF[1] is quite long and my CTRL-F Fu is failing me.

1\. [http://www.flinders.edu.au/sabs/fcas-
files/Documents/StudyOf...](http://www.flinders.edu.au/sabs/fcas-
files/Documents/StudyOfAgeing%5B1%5D.pdf)

~~~
detaro
It cites
[http://jech.bmj.com/content/59/7/574](http://jech.bmj.com/content/59/7/574)

Quoting the abstract: _Main results: After controlling for a range of
demographic, health, and lifestyle variables, greater networks with friends
were protective against mortality in the 10 year follow up period. The hazard
ratio for participants in the highest tertile of friends networks compared
with participants in the lowest group was 0.78 (95%CI 0.65 to 0.92)_

I assume that 0.78 is where the 100-78 = 22 % number comes from? (Although it
doesn't really match the phrasing "increases your longevity by up to", it
seems to be the closest?)

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
Thank you!

------
whipoodle
Yeah, it's sad. But I just find relations with people exhausting and
disappointing. Romantic relationships and careers use you up, not build you
up. They are about what other people can get from you and rarely the reverse.
I think I prefer animals.

~~~
fastball
I thought I was a sociopath but I think you've got me beat.

~~~
whipoodle
As a writer I enjoy very much says, you're not a sociopath, just a garden-
variety narcissist.

------
Pamar
Another related submission that includes also pointers to support groups:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15002351](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15002351)

------
Aaargh20318
It’s good that this issue is being addressed, but I wish there was an equal
amount of attention for people like me with the opposite problem: too much
social interaction and no way to escape it.

~~~
jackvalentine
Is this... a thing?

Surely you can escape it by just not going?

~~~
Aaargh20318
I have to go to work to have an income, I have to go to a supermarket to get
food. You can’t even order stuff online without getting a mailman at the door.

I would be fine if I could limiti it to a couple of hours of human contact a
month, but society forces me to have social interactions all day every day.
It’s making me seriously depressed and super anxious.

~~~
p1mrx
I don't think social interaction is making you anxious; instead your anxiety
causes you to construct a model of reality where social interactions are bad.

You need to imagine your life from a third-person perspective, and realize
that the way you feel resides entirely within your own brain, and is mutable.

When you look at the world, you're seeing a stream of photons. Photons
transport light, not emotion.

~~~
Aaargh20318
> I don't think social interaction is making you anxious; instead your anxiety
> causes you to construct a model of reality where social interactions are
> bad.

Imagine having a live grenade in your pocket. The grenade is just powerful
enough to seriously hurt you but not kill you. It's also unstable and will
randomly go off once or twice a year (and will be replaced with a new one when
it does). Now imagine if you were required to carry this grenade around every
time you have to interact with humans.

This is similar to what social interaction feels like to me. I am autistic and
have trouble with nonverbal communication and reading between the lines. Any
and all social interactions can lead to this 'grenade' exploding in my face.
It can be something relatively harmless as being embarrassed or people getting
angry with me to the point where I almost got into legal trouble for following
instructions that were 'obviously' not supposed to be followed literally.

Next to that, it's also super exhausting because none of it comes natural to
me. If you want to walk to the other side of the room, you just will it and
your legs move. Imagine if you couldn't do that and had to consciously tense
and release each muscle in your legs to walk. Social interaction is like that
to me. Everything is a conscious action, from trying to fake eye contact (and
for how long), to posture, to choosing my words, to watching the other
person's face/body and trying to figure out what that is saying.

And last but not least, none of it is rewarding to me. When a 'normal' person
has social interactions, this is supposedly pleasurable for them, which
motivates them to seek it out and take risks while doing so. None of that
works for me.

I don't think it's strange that something that is exhausting, randomly hurtful
and not in any way rewarding causes me anxiety. Having to do that 8 hours a
day, just to be able to afford food and a roof over my head makes it even
worse.

~~~
p1mrx
Clearly you have a solid understanding of the English language. Have you ever
tried expressing your thoughts (provided that you can avoid being offensive)
to someone in person? Like if the mailman is trying to make conversation, say
"Sorry, I'm terrible at social stuff." If you follow directions too literally,
say "Sorry, I'm a bit autistic." If you're really embarrassed, say "That was
so embarrassing."

Talking about your inner experience gives you something to talk about, and
leaves the other person with a better understanding of the situation.

I'm not actually sure if these are good ideas (I'm probably a bit autistic
myself), but given that avoiding contact leaves you with no reputation
whatsoever, having a reputation as a weird person isn't really any worse.

~~~
Aaargh20318
When I was younger I would go to the supermarket, get what I needed and pay
without saying a word. I knew _some_ kind of interaction was expected, but I
couldn't make it up on the spot. By now, I have developed what can best be
described as a large set of scripts in my head. I can go to the supermarket,
the cheese shop, the butcher, etc. I can place my order, make smalltalk and
appear as any normal person. The problems start when things go off-script,
it's like mentally tripping over a loose tile. Worse even are situations that
are new/unfamiliar.

Explaining it has never really helped, people simply fail to understand. 99%
of the time, I'm indistinguishable from a normal person. The problem with that
is that people don't really see me as any different, and thus place the same
expectations on me as they would on any other person. Even knowing that I'm
autistic doesn't change this one bit. I've lost friends over misunderstandings
where I failed to pick up 'obvious' subtext and they just refused to believe
that I didn't see it.

The worst part is where people get angry out of the blue and I have no idea
why or what I did wrong.

~~~
p1mrx
Hm, well I've been going to the same supermarket for 10 years, without saying
much more than "pretty good... thanks."

Recently I started adding "how are you?" which made things a bit more
interesting. But I'm pretty good at improvising jokes and scientific
observations, so that helps keep some words flowing. If you want to have a
longer conversation, then finding places to insert questions can be useful.

------
j7ake
What about getting a dog?

------
mcguire
" _Perhaps you want to say that men just like it that way. Perhaps you want to
say, like Geoffrey Grief, writing in Buddy System: Understanding Male
Friendships, “Men are more comfortable with shoulder-to-shoulder friendships
while women prefer face-to-face friendships, which are more emotionally
expressive.” Shoulder-to-shoulder meaning: engaging in a shared activity, like
playing a game of pick-up basketball, as opposed to confiding face-to-face and
being emotionally vulnerable. This may be true for some men, who, like some
women, need less intimacy than others. But when asked, men say we wish we had
more intimacy in our friendships with other men._ "

Oh, the irony.

~~~
throwanem
What irony?

~~~
mcguire
We just wrapped up another round of the "women in technology" discussions,
where one of the primary arguments was, "they would prefer not to work here."

~~~
throwanem
So the argument here is what? That increasing the proportion of women in
specific technical fields will have some beneficial effect on the ability of
men to become emotionally intimate in their friendships with one another? That
doesn't seem to me to follow, but I suspect I must be misgathering your point
here in any case, not least because you've approached it in the vaguest of
terms. Will you make plain what you're trying to say, so that it's possible to
sustain a discussion around it instead of ending up talking past one another
as I feel we're at risk of doing right now?

~~~
mcguire
Irony: "a state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to
what one expects and is often amusing as a result."

The parallel construction strikes me as amusing.

~~~
throwanem
The parallel to which you refer is far from obvious. Is it meaningful enough
to share, or are you here just to say that you have a private joke? I mean, I
have no idea what you're trying to put across here, and to whatever extent
anyone beyond the two of us continues to look at this thread on a Sunday, I
confide I cannot be alone in this difficulty. If you have something
substantive to say, it would be awesome if you went ahead and said it.

~~~
xjwm
The point I inferred from the comment was that "it is OK for the article to
state that biological differences in men and women lead to certain pre-
dispositions in how friendships are formed, but it was not OK to suggest that
biological differences might influence suitability/pre-disposition for certain
kinds of work." I'm not backing that claim or taking a stance on it, but that
is what I understood the source of the irony to be.

------
dickler
Loneliness is a problem AI will fix. 100s of personalities that can be virtual
and in humanoid robot form.

~~~
gaius
But why is loneliness a problem? Because evolution; being apart from the tribe
was not a good survival strategy so we have developed an intuitive "feel bad
when cut off" mechanism. Same with fear of ostracism; being cast out from the
tribe was a death sentence. You can to a very limited extent "hack" it - why
people carry around photos of loved ones in their wallets and look at them to
trigger the recognition response - but a chatbot that could operate at that
level would be indistinguishable from a sentient being in its own right, in
which case why not make real friends with it?

~~~
matz1
Because with bot you can just shut them down when they don't behave like you
expected or when you dont need them.

~~~
gaius
_Because with bot you can just shut them down when they don 't behave like you
expected or when you dont need them._

I don't think that knowing you can do this and successfully fooling your
internal anti-loneliness mechanisms are compatible. You simply won't get the
full range of emotional stimuli.

