Double the minimum wage and standardize a four day work week. People need more free time and resources in order to socialize effectively.
Couple this with providing safe and comfortable community spaces and every things peachy.
No, the local Starbucks/any place of business does not count.
This is a big one for me. Decoupling social activities from consumerism so people can access human connection without implicit or explicit paywalls.
More public transit and more public spaces. Transit that you don’t have to think about taking (because it’s safe, frequent, and cheap or free) takes you to new places or to familiar places more often, and lets you meet more people more often. And going outside and doing shit is just good for you, I’m sorry to report.
I agree. I think a big part of the issue is that going out to do things is just so expensive these days. There aren’t any “third places” for people anymore.
The neighboring village just built a smallish sk8erpark for the youth. Quite nice finally seeing kids outside again. When walking the dog I feel like I haven’t seen kids doing kids stuff since like forever
Doesn’t work. I live in Hong Kong, which has some of the world’s most efficient public transport systems. People don’t actually talk. They just look at their phones. A train cart can be full of people but no conversation.
Public transit isn’t for socializing, it’s for traveling. Public spaces like parks, libraries, squares, etc that don’t require payment to use are for socializing.
Oh I thought you meant socializing during transit, sorry. I forgot to consider in other places parks are not a maximum 15-minute walk away
This is the best answer !fuckcars
Walkable neighborhoods with affordable places to hang out.
Step 1
- Demolish all housing - everyone is homeless now
Step 2
- Mandate that everyone design their own silly costume - this is all you’re allowed to wear
Step 3
- Legalize and subsidize all the fun drugs - everyone gets a weekly allowance of shrooms, ecstasy, etc
Step 4
- Loneliness is officially replaced with several other problems
Legitimately stop treating phones like a necessity. Leave them at home more. Treat apps more like accessories and less like doorways.
Opt more for going in person to places to do things. By bike or transit whenever you can. Go to public events at your local parks and venues. Attendance is its own form of support, too. Anything we can do to purposely put ourselves in front of other people who share different perspectives than ourselves is good for us.
I think a lot of people don’t realize that there is a sense of responsibility when it comes to putting ourselves out into the world. If you think you’re capable of helping others, simply being a positive person in a public place, even just to have some fun meeting with friends, is a step in the right direction to building a better world. Nature will eventually setup a situation for you to be called upon. But this never happens from in your house or apartment.
For that first point let’s bring back phone booths, but somehow make them work with in the modern world.
For a lot of people in suburbia, the entire concept of indoor “third spaces” is mostly “pay to play” at the end of a drive. A big exception to this is/were shopping malls, but those aren’t always close by. To get to more a functional social fabric, we have to provide more convenient ways of interfacing with our neighbors that don’t always require money to change hands.
Perhaps this is a predictably orange-pill response, but we need to change zoning in a big way. Each suburban development has the street plan and infrastructure to support small businesses and common spaces, walking-distance from everyone’s front door. All it takes is to allow small-scale commercial development in corners of these collections of tract-homes and, just like that, you can have something like a functional village. Beyond that, encouraging more development of community recreation space, both indoor and outdoor, would go a long way to provide a place for people to mingle.
Edit: strip-malls don’t count. They’re often at the very edge of residential areas, and are tied up with way more capital than what I’m talking about. That’s why they’re made up of franchises, require ridiculous amounts of parking, and contribute to “stroads” and all the knock-on effects and hostile architecture that requires.
no more social media
Multi dwelling houses: a house with a central living area and apartments of different sizes linking in to it.
The central area has a big kitchen, dining, play area, halls link it to a 1-bed, 2-bed and 3-bed apartments each with a little kitchen as well.
You can be on your own in your apartment or go use the big kitchen, join trivia night, etc
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This is basically my uni dorm rn. It’s great until people leave their mess everywhere in the shared kitchen. Hence the tiny private kitchen, but we don’t have those ;-;
For starters, Ubi, and then expansive and free public transit for all and accessible for all including disabled people, more free places to just go and exist, no facism and more community. That’s just for the beginning though
Healthcare too.
Need those antidepressants before I even have the energy to touch grass.
Parks full of cats?
Just have a war. Nothing brings people together like necessity and shared trauma.
Don’t worry, that war isn’t far off.
Be comfortable being alone.
We turn the Internet off at the weekends
Please no
Fighting fascism, together.
what if we kissed next to the nazi we just curb stomped? 👉 👈
My shitpost response is that I personally plan to be sluttier.
My serious response is that social media needs to be more social.
I hate Facebook because it’s just an advertising platform, but I don’t know what is going on if I avoid it. I wish there was a way to just share social calendars with all my friends. Like - I want a group tracker that one-click adds stuff that I find interesting. I want to only see stuff certain folks have added to their tracker, and have the ability to share with folks what stuff I’m sharing to share, vs what I’m sharing because I’m actually going to attend something. Make it easy to connect with folks, not advertisers.Then make it. Everyone fucking hates Facebook, the time is now!
Also, I’m totally on board with the slut strategy. From a utilitarian perspective, I’m making the world a better place one orgasm at a time
Sadly, I don’t have that ability, but I would gladly cheer on whoever does have that ability.