Americans Are Lonely. That Has Political Consequences | FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast

[@serenitysees]

In the 7-8 years I've been listening to the show, this is one of my favorite episodes so far. Thanks so much for talking about loneliness, attachment theory, and different types of relationships. It's nice to be reminded that other people have similar experiences and perspectives.

[@Vidit1xonexandxonly]

Seconded, I'm going to be talking about this one for years

[@j.s.c.4355]

I am convinced that the people who survive the apocalypse will not be those with canned food supplies and bullets; it will be those who know their neighbors and can band together. And that will be true independent of politics, setting, religion, etc.

[@Aikynbreusov]

And how many people know their neighbors????? Even white people don't even know their next door neighbors..... I can understand if they don't know their neighbors because of race...... but white people don't know their own white neighbors is mind boggling

[@suburbanhousewife40]

This was a great and memorable episode. What a delight to have Prof. Waldinger on the show. Good job Galen! Capitalism tries daily to drive people apart: e.g. myth of scarcity, competition and over consumption such as five phones in a household instead of one. Loneliness and depression, and their expressions of self neglect and anger will keep growing. We need to put people before profits.

[@vanadyan1674]

I find it so sad that people can't figure this out, it seems so obvious to me. I have always been a relationship focused person, with relatively little in the way of financial motivation. I am in a committed, loving relationship of almost 30 years. We have a small house, live simply, and are very happy. My brother is a very successful medical professional with several houses and vacation properties, expensive country club memberships, 2 ex wives, and kids that he hardly sees. Whenever I see him all he does is complain. He's miserable. Everyone in my family will tell you if you ask them and they answered honestly that he is super successful, and I am a bit of a disappointment. 🤷‍♂

[@Ivashanko]

That our society overly praises career success and ignores the many other ways a life can be well lived is one of the great evils of our time. People with large, strong friendship circles should be praised more. Ditto those with good families. Ditto those who live ethically.

[@ogathingo8885]

The greatest achievements of a person is , when you are living a content life, what more do you need!? And especially when you know that what you have is enough. May Buddha bless you healthy and joyous meaningful life…. After living more than 40 years a consumerist life and now in my 60’s I am living in village in India. Here I ‘am learning that the more you have, the more you want and people who are rich are not the happiest..

[@Peekul1]

I have been thinking about "who can I call to help me move a couple of beehives." And there really isn't anyone in my life I can ask.

[@SnowBalling]

What a great video. As someone who's been dealing with some work from home isolation, this inspires me.

[@sykoskier18]

Loved the content. This guy's voice sounds like the one teacher from the old MTV Cartoon Daria who sang that Lesbian Seagulls song.

[@masonm600]

It totally is about politics. People are filling the social voids in their lives with all sorts of things, politics most consequential among them.

[@jonathanveach369]

Excellent episode. Great job, Galen and Robert!

[@rwrunning1813]

This. Social isolation. This is what we need to be talking about and I hope it will become a larger focus soon.

[@haughtygarbage5848]

My goodness if you waited a couple weeks and posted this on Valentines Day that would have been absolutely brutal Of course romantic relationships aren't the only kind of close relationship and for many friendships matter as much if not more, platonic love is beautiful and should be celebrated I understand Still tho

[@NY-DC-LA]

@GalenDruke Thanks for having more substantive, subject matter discussions like this. The in depth discussion with guests who have studied the topics is much more engaging than, "is it a good use or bad use of poling." The concept of politics as a spectator sport really resonated.

[@zeitGGeist]

Great episode. This seems insurmountable. This future seems very bleak personally.

[@inorite4553]

I've advocated for national service as I come from the military and being forced to interact with people from all over the world has helped me temper the stereotypes I grew up with and has allowed me to make friends from every walk of life. How do you know a table is full of military people? You'll see a cowboy, a rapper, a jock, a nerd, a lunk, a scrawny guy, a prissy girl, a tomboy, a queer, etc etc all sitting together having a great time!

[@justinedse8435]

This is true. Someone else said it but I think the best thing one can do is travel. Driving the US by car, you'll find friendly people on most all states. Some of the most down to earth I saw was in Nebraska, super nice. I was also stranded in Chicago once at 2am. The train was broken down and we banded together and the native Chicagoans, black,, women, men, all different folks walked with us to show us where the next stop was. Haven't experienced anything like that since.

[@ThePessimist]

"Hell is other people"

[@IndustrialBonecraft]

Everyone is alone. Not just America. That's what the global economic current culture does. Nobody is allowed to connect to anyone if that connection doesn't entail a financial incentive. The monetisation of interaction and the commodification of humanity has destroyed connection.

[@zeitGGeist]

Bingo. Can’t un-crinkle the paper now.

[@angeebb3080]

No this is a western phenomenon. I visit out of the country ALOT and you'd be surprised the social life other cultures share. That's why when foreigners come to this country they complain of feeling lonely and social isolation

[@mattvw9287]

Such a great conversation! I definitely want to hear more.

[@rockfire1669]

Seems to me people aren’t liking this car centric way of life(granted there is more to this, cough work-life balance)

[@matthewdrews]

You guys should have waited to upload this and made it a Valentine's Day episode

[@delaneyondreams]

Thank you both very, very much!

[@godzgoliath]

Great episode

[@demeter7958]

I have been really hurt by my closest friend who I had to cut out of my life because of her emotional abuse. I also had to leave my friend group because they took her side. I have a few other friends but they are busy with their own stuff and don’t have much time to talk.

[@joannawarrens5117]

Another great podcast!

[@iamthinking2252_]

He has this calming aura, but I thought he would be 30’s and not greying hair. He sounds younger than he is, and he just sounds like he’s doing well

[@Optim40]

Take away social media and it'll go away. Before all that people used to hang out with each other ALL THE TIME ! The government should just ban it. All that thing does is ruin people anyway. I got rid of it in 2018 after having it for 10 years. Complete waste of my life. It's like when AA's say how long they've been sober for. I've been sober 6 years now, loll.

[@wthomas5697]

To be honest, I prefer to be alone.

[@lucasjames7524]

You're not *alone* on that, haha. I think that isolation and loneliness is a massive problem, but I also think that there's a big difference between being alone and being lonely. I also enjoy time spent alone, and I often rather to be alone than to be with other people. It just kinda works for me better.

[@jackv1952]

Thank you for this episode.

[@jaredpr704]

Great video! I’ve definitely seen the effects of this on the online left as well.

[@zacharyz4747]

more of this please

[@ashtonjgraves]

Really interesting episode

[@TedApelt]

What Bernie Sanders was talking about when he said "Talk to people who disagree with you.".

[@johnshanahan3892]

Your best yet ... and that is saying something.

[@ArtOfSoulburn]

Great episode. Whether political or not, it's a great use of polling :) I too have been concerned with work from home, while it has many advantages, it seems to also be isolating people even more, which will have immense societal consequences, most of which I fear will be quite negative. Thanks for getting the podcast made Galen and thanks Robert for such a fantastic talk.

[@korayven9255]

No offense but if people view work as their primary method of social interaction then I'm sorry to say they probably didn't have many meaningful social relationships to begin with. There are places where substantive social interactions that connect individuals with one another to form lasting bonds occur. Your workplace is *not* one of them. Doesn't mean it can't happen, but that is not and was never its purpose. That people somehow expect it to be is likely _contributing_ to the loneliness.

[@GeistInTheMachine]

Too many sadsacks in a society makes it weak.

[@lildeek12GFL]

Everything is Politics

[@ElementalSamurai]

this was great!

[@josueramirez7247]

This podcast’s title definitely caught my eye. Social isolation seems like such a far-reaching issue and I wonder how it relates to different cultures.

[@dizzolve]

What do expect when politicians don't care about the peeps. -Only corps.... or those pay the most. Sad what USA has become

[@saphironkindris]

This guy has a very trustworthy face.

[@tripillthreat]

This seems to be predicated on the notion that if I am around more people, I will like more people. I suppose that’s technically true - even if I like only 1% of the people I meet, that would be a net increase in the number of people I enjoy interacting with. But I can’t help suspecting that that other 99% is going to make my overall experience negative.

[@airgin3000]

That professor is not a "zen master" he is just a really really really weird gay guy. I have been around ZEN MASTER >>> one actually

[@powerswish]

Introvert. Gatherings are exhausting.

[@nomadpurple6154]

I'm so much happier without having to meet others...these last few years have been wonderful.

[@macmcleod1188]

I found learning the Dale Carnegie conversational stock helped me with my interesting. It didn't fix things but it gave me a standard way to approach social interaction that reduced my energy output.

[@nekochats854]

It's pretty obvious introverts were given no consideration in this conversation.

[@Ivashanko]

Introverts also need social connection though! Recent psychological discourse has increasingly trended away from labelling people introverts or extroverts. The truth is, everyone who is neurotypical (and the vast majority of the neuroatypical) needs time alone, and everyone needs time with others. The number of people we need to be happy differs. Some only need two or three close, healthy connections. Others need dozens and dozens. But everyone who is neurotypical (and, again, the vast majority of people who are neuroatypical) need some to be as happy and fulfilled in life as they can be.

[@k14pc]

idk i find the causal connection implausible. loneliness has been going up for basically the entire 20th century, yet life expectancy has been going up. should at least give us pause. also i wonder if it's simply a proxy for stress, and stress is the actual causal factor

[@Ivashanko]

Obesity is way up too, yet life expectancy has increased. Improvements in other areas of our lives have kept our life expectancy from bottoming out, but after removing confounding factors, we find that loneliness causes very real harm and reduces the life expectancy of the chronically alone. This isn't particularly controversial, and has not been in some time.

[@Aikynbreusov]

The Americans are done with our USA.... people have given up on the American Dream..... people don't see a better future...

[@zhaoluyue1995]

If person to person social connections were supposed to reduce extremism, why does suburban area have more extreme right wing politics?

[@lukeedwards7677]

Probably because the suburban lifestyle is no more socially connected than urban lifestyles?

[@eschiedler]

Boy, lack of cause and effect in this podcast. People's striving for happiness is what drives isolation. No small irony a "Zen Priest" wouldn't understand this.

[@MayorMcC666]

bad use of polling

[@MrSomervillen]

Really great episode