I am afraid the lack of cohesive communities in the United States has begun to place the individual an alarming state of isolation.

I speak from the perspective of someone who lives in a "middle class" white neighborhood in Oklahoma City where virtually no one speaks to each other, some residents are openly militant with one another and property ownership is #1. From where I stand, on my front porch just outside my front door, I can count maybe five neighbors I feel I could count on should anything go wrong. Five out of perhaps 100 that live on my block.

Nobody talks to one another, some homeowners are so negligent, beligerant and careless their homes have become "monster houses" local children dare each other to approach, children who then run away as fast as possible.

What they fear is real.

My city is a patchwork of ethnic communities. The Mexican, African American and Vietnamese communities are strong. In all three cases there is a collective identity, a sense of being Mexican or black or Asian. For us, in our white bread neighborhood?

Nothing. We feel nothing for each other, care nothing for each other.

It seems to me that the sense of community in our country, especially among white, middle class Americans, has deteriorated to the point where we exist on the edge of violence. When will it manifest itself?

:shrug:

It can't happen here. :bugeye:

Our sense of togetherness has been replaced by a paranoid isolation, our philosophy increasingly reflective of some kind of wild-west, gun-toting, all or nothing insanity. People don't work together, lend a hand to the neighbors, instead they threaten law suits.

Something is wrong. I think this microcosm is a reflection of the overall attitude of influential Americans, and sadly the American majority, which is we are alone, we are afraid and we are willing to arm ourselves to the teeth, perching on the rooftops like snipers to prevent anyone from taking what's ours.

If you ask me, we could learn a thing or two from the rest of the world, or even from our more ethnically colorful neigbors to the north, east, south and west. What am I? How do I identify myself?

I am one person struggling to survive in a mad world where job loss, or for some the tragic news that a loved one has been sent to Iraq dominates our consciousness.

These others may be less financially secure, but I have a feeling they do not have the same local fears that we do. That jerk next door. Who is that jerk?

Blow it up to the grand scale...

Who are those jerks with the turbins sitting on all that oil over yonder? :shrug:

Our House Speaker was criticized for making a trip over there to find out.

Why is that a problem?

"Why is that a problem?"

It's because while Americans were politically coasting, the virus that Eisenhower, Jefferson, Madison, and others warned us about took hold of our political system. Pelosi's independent questioning and traveling is one small part of the awakening of America's compromised tyrrany-immune system. Depending on which side you are on, independent questioning and criticism of what we are told by the powers-that-be through major media is either a healthy thing, or a threat to be smeared and crushed.

Reflecting on your earlier musings in the post, when I have found myself surrounded by jerks, the most effective response I've learned is to make a change of venue. I know places in America (and beyond) where you can surely find more respect and friendship than you describe as common in your locality. But I hope you don't give up on the USA- I've struggled with the impulse, and decided to place my hope in the human spirit, and its power to overcome the forces of greed and tyrrany, given a chance- even if we must take a moral and economic beating in the near future in order to wake up from our self-absorbed, self-entitled slumbers.

I am afraid the lack of cohesive communities in the United States has begun to place the individual an alarming state of isolation.

I speak from the perspective of someone who lives in a "middle class" white neighborhood in Oklahoma City where virtually no one speaks to each other, some residents are openly militant with one another and property ownership is #1. From where I stand, on my front porch just outside my front door, I can count maybe five neighbors I feel I could count on should anything go wrong. Five out of perhaps 100 that live on my block.

Nobody talks to one another, some homeowners are so negligent, beligerant and careless their homes have become "monster houses" local children dare each other to approach, children who then run away as fast as possible.

What they fear is real.

My city is a patchwork of ethnic communities. The Mexican, African American and Vietnamese communities are strong. In all three cases there is a collective identity, a sense of being Mexican or black or Asian. For us, in our white bread neighborhood?

Nothing. We feel nothing for each other, care nothing for each other.

It seems to me that the sense of community in our country, especially among white, middle class Americans, has deteriorated to the point where we exist on the edge of violence. When will it manifest itself?

:shrug:

It can't happen here. :bugeye:

Our sense of togetherness has been replaced by a paranoid isolation, our philosophy increasingly reflective of some kind of wild-west, gun-toting, all or nothing insanity. People don't work together, lend a hand to the neighbors, instead they threaten law suits.

Something is wrong. I think this microcosm is a reflection of the overall attitude of influential Americans, and sadly the American majority, which is we are alone, we are afraid and we are willing to arm ourselves to the teeth, perching on the rooftops like snipers to prevent anyone from taking what's ours.

If you ask me, we could learn a thing or two from the rest of the world, or even from our more ethnically colorful neigbors to the north, east, south and west. What am I? How do I identify myself?

I am one person struggling to survive in a mad world where job loss, or for some the tragic news that a loved one has been sent to Iraq dominates our consciousness.

These others may be less financially secure, but I have a feeling they do not have the same local fears that we do. That jerk next door. Who is that jerk?

Blow it up to the grand scale...

Who are those jerks with the turbins sitting on all that oil over yonder? :shrug:

Our House Speaker was criticized for making a trip over there to find out.

Why is that a problem?

all you have to do is get together with the 5 neighbors that like you and move to china. then you will see how fast the five of you stick together, like going to a barbeque with fido as the main course...eating with 2 skinny sticks (like that is a good idesa) etc...breaking boards wioth you hand oir head

all you have to do is get together with the 5 neighbors that like you and move to china. then you will see how fast the five of you stick together, like going to a barbeque with fido as the main course...eating with 2 skinny sticks (like that is a good idesa) etc...breaking boards wioth you hand oir head

I don't understand.
Was that a joke?
Was it some sort of Nationalistic "love it or leave it" comment?
Was it a dig on Chinese people?
I don't get it.

It seems to me that the sense of community in our country, especially among white, middle class Americans, has deteriorated to the point where we exist on the edge of violence. When will it manifest itself?

Don't know about the US, but in Latvia Latvians are very introvert people,
there are no communities in the American sense, and have never been (as far as I know),
but we don't war among ourselves, we just generally don't care, live in our own worlds.

Any communities that are, are just groups of friends or know-eachothers. Sometimes these groups get quite big (20 people maybe), but nothing geographically based.

Alas the general Latvian mentality is very melancholic and very non-violent, so it of course may work out differently in the US.

Simple answer, move to Portland, Oregon! No wait, don't. We have enough people already.

Seriously, the Gently Passing gentleperson makes a good point. Our very architecture, designed around cars, isolates us. It will all end soon enough when the oil runs out.

Why is that a problem?
you and your neighbors need to plant themselves in front of the TV more often instead of community issues.

Our very architecture, designed around cars, isolates us. It will all end soon enough when the oil runs out.

Cars, television, video games...

I hate to sound like a Pat Robertson (I'd urinate on his grave if the bastard was only dead!!!), but muse on this a moment...

Your average american guy sits home playing video games or watching television.

Let's just look at video games. Not only do they isolate us from everyone else in the room, but meanwhile we are cycling through endless nightmare visions of having to shoot as many enemies as possible before they kill us:

Shoot Shoot Shoot Shoot Shoot GET SHOT Shoot Shoot Shoot GET SHOT AGAIN Shoot Shoot Shoot Shoot DIE start over Shoot Shoot Shoot Shoot...

etc.

Over and over and over and over, instead of talking to our families, instead of being outside having a barbecue with the neighbors.

I have lived in many places in this country, and the trend is the same everywhere I've been. People increasingly stuck inside blasting make-believe enemies with fantasy weapons while their kids are doing whatever, who cares?

And then we wonder why grade-school girls already know how to shake their booty's.

Have you ever tried talking to your family? Personally, I'd rather read a book. Which is a good point, books are also individual activities, and depending on the subject, they can be full of violence. I think the bad influence of TV isn't that it's an individual activity, it's that what it shows is often moronic and distorted.

Have you ever tried talking to your family? Personally, I'd rather read a book. Which is a good point, books are also individual activities, and depending on the subject, they can be full of violence. I think the bad influence of TV isn't that it's an individual activity, it's that what it shows is often moronic and distorted.

It's just one example. Cars are another.

The Amish believe in living without technology not because it is sinful to use a weedeater, but because technologies such as television separate the family unit...

...they are quite correct as far as I can tell.

And I spoke to my father Saturday for 111 minutes. We discussed recent developments in physics and biotechnology, relativity, economics...

and I read plenty of books.

The family unit is overrated. It's one reason we don't feel a part of the community.

In some ways yes.

I would agree that alarmist quacks like bible-bashing armageddonists have an almost fanatical dogma regarding family - and truth be told their families probably cower in fear in the cruel iron grip of their hypocritical patriarchal prison.

But having strong families is beneficial from a biological standpoint, too. A psychological one.

Hasn't every generation said stuff like this?

Hasn't every generation said stuff like this?

Perhaps they are all right and it keeps getting worse?

We are also polarized as a nation: Democrat/Republican.

You either think Bush is a saint or (well I couldn't say it on the internet or I'd have the Secret Service at my house...)

Why is there no middle anymore?

Seems people are cool or they're assholes, they're your friends or they're gunning for you...

I think that's the way a lot of people see themselves, sadly.

I have to agree with you somewhat.
I am an american living in Norway, a small town.
I cannot leave my house and walk a block to the store without greeting several people on the way.
Seems like I know most people here and they know me.
We even have a village idiot (I say that affectionately) he calls me tarzan and whoops like an indian.
My kids walk to school, they have done since 1st grade, it's great.

What I noticed when we went back to the states was the fear.
As soon as we arrived at the airport my boys, like boys, were climbing on railings as we waited for a passport check.
"hey get down from there you could get hurt" says a security guard.
Later waiting for our baggage they touched the conveyor belt as it went around.
"Hey don't touch that you could get hurt" said another security guard.
During the trip visiting friends in suburban Phila PA my sons wanted a visit from our friends nephew who lived 2 block away and was 7 years old.
OK we'll see if his mother can walk him over here.
"What" say we, "he needs to be walked?"
"Well yeah he shouldn't go alone."

It wasn't before that that our friends (she is actually greek) realized how ridiculous that was.
They needed that objective voice to shake them out of thier suburban american mindset.

Why I say I agree somewhat is because I lived in a very mixed neighborhood in philadelphia center before I moved and there we knew and spoke with almost all of our neighbors daily.
Don't know for sure but there seemed to be a big difference between the city and the burbs.
I have to also say somewhat because I haven't lived in the past and therefore cannot say for certain if it was any different.

Definitely a big difference in the city vs the suburbs.

The most sheltered, fearful place to live in America is in the suburbs. You go to work, pick your kids up from daycare, come home, pull in the garage, flip on the tube, eat a microwave dinner and go to bed.

lather, rinse, repeat

And they wonder why so many of us suffer from "depression." Maybe it's because we lack any kind of connection to the people around us, which deprives us of our very purpose for being.

Oklahoma City is an interesting place. I actually quite like it here. Down a few blocks is the black neighborhood, and we'll stop and bullshit with people sometimes. It's a fairly nice area, really. Not rich, but not run down or dangerous or whatever stereotype. A few blocks west is the Asian neighborhood. There's a guy down there that soups up Hondas and when my wife's window broke, he fixed it for us. Didn't even want to charge us money. We gave him 20 bucks.

The communities stay largely to themselves, but you can go into those areas and hang out with the people. Drink a beer with black people or mexican people if you can overcome the silly hangup of whatever difference there is.

In my own neighborhood? I have two very close friends. The rest of the neighbors either politely knod or harbor some kind of hostility because I have large dogs (adopted.)

You're not likely to get broken into if everyone knows you have a bull mastif mix around.

Anyway, it's a bunch of rent houses so the tenants are friendly, but the owners of the places are complete assholes. I even weed my yard and throw the weeds into their yards. That's how much I hate certain people that own property around me.

Do you try and break the barriers yourself GP? Homemade cookies go aloong way to breaking down barriers.
It has to start somewhere

Do you try and break the barriers yourself GP? Homemade cookies go aloong way to breaking down barriers.
It has to start somewhere

Muffins and banana cake (with chopped walnuts) are not bad either.

Well, I've offered to tutor the neighbors' children in mathematics. I'm quite good at it and even have tutoring experience.

:shrug:

Well, I've offered to tutor the neighbors' children in mathematics. I'm quite good at it and even have tutoring experience.

If you do so, I'd strongly, STRONGLY, suggest that you have several eyewitnesses around at all time, AT ALL TIMES!!!!! A local judge and his wife would be good if you can swing it! One accusation of improper "fondling", even if later proven untrue, will ruin your life forever, FOREVER.

Baron Max

^
There you have part of the problem, fear manifest.

The community is still quite strong on Finland, but it is heading towards the direction of pure individualism.

More houses are needed every year. It's not that the population is growing, it is that more and more people live alone. People want to have fun and a career first. And then maybe a family. But only after everything is perfect. You get the typical sequence of job, career, dating, more dating, living together, finding the perfect place, first get a dog to practice, get a baby.

Often they don't realize that this doesn't really always work out. Since the family unit is the end state and no the starting state as it always was in the past it is often not reached due to failure during intermediate stages.

And once you have lived 10 years alone as a bachelor, sometimes dating, sometimes living together you get used to the status you have: you live for yourself. Family units will burden that concept. No more 'fun'.


The States was a bit crazy. They make you fear society there. I can still remember other people telling us to watch our children. It's not like in Europe. Although maybe it was like in Europe. I don't know.

Never saw children play on the street except sometimes in the suburbs. Children played in the playground with a parent standing next to them. 'you have to watch them' was the message.

Here in finland our 4 year old goes out by himself in the afternoon to play in the communal yard, which is open to the public street. He gets a shout from the balcony when he is supposed to come in. He had to wait till he was 4 and a half till he could do this because he couldn't open the heavy doors by himself before that.

I don't pay so much attention to my children in the supermarket. They can semi explore if they want to. We were warned not to do that in the US. I don't know if there was really a reason for this.

Fear is an awful thing. And in conjunction with individualism beyond what is natural it leads to lack of cohesion in society.

Simple answer, move to Portland, Oregon! No wait, don't. We have enough people already.

Seriously, the Gently Passing gentleperson makes a good point. Our very architecture, designed around cars, isolates us. It will all end soon enough when the oil runs out.

You live in Portland?
I am likely going there for part of my honeymoon in July - it my fiancee's favorite city.
I think she would like to move there if we could see a way.
I've never been there, but I love the Pacific Northwest (I want to move to the Point Reyes, CA area (or more North) myself) - I wouldn't be too surprised if we ended up there.
Powell's Books is her favorite store in the world.

I can hardly wait to finally go there this summer and see if it lives up to all her raving.

Maybe we can have lunch.

In Indian culture on the other hand, you are part of a web of relations that you can never break free from!

I agree with the "cars" answer. The days when people grew up in a neighborhood, married a girl from the neighborhood, got a job in the neighborhood, interacted with their neighbors daily...that's all over. Most parts of the nation are built to be very, very accommodating of commuters. Communities and cities are built with the embedded notion that many people will move out of the region in the morning, and back in at night or vice versa.

While there is tremendous economic benefit to promoting the free flow of labor, it doesn't allow for the same build up of local good will that you used to see in the past.

Add to that that we are working longer hours, so even less time to socialize when we are home.

Times change and during the past 50 years they have not only changed

they have altered the fabric of what America is. What was once a nation

controlled by white people is now in flux and different nationalities and

ethnic groups that were once little known are in the forefront of activities.

What was once a place where jobs were secure and readily available has

become a mobile, ever changing crisis that people are worried where they

can get a good job at in this country. Because of many things that have

happened to the American way Americans today have to adjust to an ever

changing landscape of businesses and employers.


What was once a place where everyone basically did the same thing and

stayed in their own communities has become a fast paced, mobile society

moving everywhere to find better work. That is a part of the change that

Americans have to deal with in keeping their families together. Whenever

they move they uproot their entire lives and their families, friends and

schools. To adjust to a new home is very disruptive to the family because

what was once familiar now is all unknown and they must adapt somehow to

their new environs. All this moving doesn't fit well with stability which is the

most important part of a family that has known only stability for their entire

lives. In order to have a good family relatives should be close by but today

relatives are thousands of miles away. Some people can adapt to this but

many others find it difficult. The important thing is that before Americans

valued their families and friends where they lived and today they value their

jobs and status. The family has taken a back seat to business and this isn't

a good way to be.

Gently Passing... whats cool, is you were able to come here... to his community, to discuss your worry about a lack of a community :)

Some of you are hypocrites. I talk about the town I live in where we have a very nice sense of community and then you start making fun of me asking if I live in Mayberry.
what's up with that??

Its true that there is less sense of Community.

It wasn't always so great for privacy with people walking in and out and neighbours knowing everything there is to know about you but I guess the positives outweigh the negatives.

Anyone who commited a crime..even a minor one such as bicycle thief or shoplifting was known throughout the community so the crime rate was much lower.

I still like the relative privacy though I'm afraid.

I am afraid the lack of cohesive communities in the United States has begun to place the individual an alarming state of isolation.One of the things that is happening in this Paradigm Shift to an information-based economy is that we are migrating into virtual communities. We don't invest as much of ourselves in our physical surroundings--including the people--as our ancestors did, because we suddenly have the whole world and the whole human race (at least the rapidly growing portion of it that is connected) to choose from. Yes there's something lost here, but as always there's something gained and we appear to be betting that the gain exceeds the loss.

I'm 64 and you'd expect me to be the one lamenting the loss of a bricks-and-mortar neighborhood and flesh-and-blood friends. Yet my life has never been so rich. I've never been able to find so many people who share my interests, with whom I can have enjoyable intelligent discussions. I had to stop playing go for more than ten years because I couldn't find anyone to play with. In the past week I've had games with people in Brazil, Japan, Germany and Catalonia. It's been years since I met anyone who had more than a passing interest in linguistics; here I'm the moderator of an entire subforum on linguistics and I'm participating in several interesting discussions and learning new things every day. I have never in my life spent as much time (voluntarily) communicating with people as I do today. I have never had as many people I count as friends. I have never felt as connected to the other members of my species!

I suspect we all may start relying more on our dogs--whom we can take with us everywhere--for physical companionship. I always have. The creation of our multi-species community with dogs coincided rather suspiciously with the end of the Mesolithic era and our social evolution away from small intimate packs toward larger and more anonymous societies. Perhaps it's dogs who allow us to separate our need for physical company from our need for intellectual company. Do you have a dog? My wife and I have thirteen of them. I wonder whether dog lovers share your sense of alarm over the dissipation of physical communities.

Nonetheless, see below for my optimistic prediction about the resurgence of physical community once we all start working from home and can live wherever we want.My city is a patchwork of ethnic communities. The Mexican, African American and Vietnamese communities are strong. In all three cases there is a collective identity, a sense of being Mexican or black or Asian. For us, in our white bread neighborhood?As someone else pointed out, those people feel like outsiders among us so they cling to each other. Mexicans have historically assimilated faster than any other immigrant group so look to their American-born children, not the immigrant parents. By the third generation they are more than 75% intermarried and have lost their sense of ethnicity, just like our ancestors from other countries did, albeit more slowly. The "black community," comprised primarily of people who are at least sixth-generation Americans, is an anomaly of failure to assimilate. But I have spoken at length on this topic elsewhere and blame it on the poison of the Civil War, since countries in which slavery ended peacefully by attrition do not have separate "black" and "white" populations. Look to the influx of African immigrants who do not share their history for the solution to the black/white alientation in America.Who are those jerks with the turbans sitting on all that oil over yonder?Indians wear turbans. Arabs wear burnooses. The world is a community too, and it behooves us to know it a little better than we do, for all the same reasons.Hasn't every generation said stuff like this?Yes, and over the centuries it has been true. Remember that we started out as small extended-family clans of hunter-gatherers who had known each other intimately since birth. The Neotlithic Revolution moved us into larger permanent villages, where we still knew everyone but not so intimately. Civilization moved us into cities where we learned to live in harmony and cooperation with total strangers. Nations had us bonding with people we never met but shared a sense of identity with. Today's trans-national civilizations have us forming "communities" with people who are mere abstractions. As we develop into a herd-social species, the Mesolithic hunter-gatherer is still inside us with that pack-social instinct that hasn't had time to evolve in a mere ten thousand years. Occasionally he goes berserk and flaunts his instinctive distrust of people outside the pack, but for the most part he uses his uniquely massive forebrain to exercise his uniquely human ability to override his primitive instincts with reason and learning. Life continues to improve in so many tangible ways as civilization advances, that our inner caveman is content to sacrifice that cloying sense of togetherness with his family. How many of you would actually want to spend your whole lives with ALL of the people who are two branches or less away from you on your family tree... hmm? I couldn't even stand my parents! :)Times change and during the past 50 years they have not only changed. . .Cosmo's post is too long to quote (you really should find a way to change your default to single-spacing, dude!) but one of his key points is that people no longer settle in one place and put down roots. Everyone is forced to change jobs or even careers every few years and move to another city, so they don't have time to develop the relationships that create a community. It takes years to get to know your neighbors well enough to really trust them and care about them, and by then they're gone.

This will change as telecommuting reshapes our jobs. We won't be able to keep "going to work" every day as the price of petroleum skyrockets. And in any case most of us spend our entire workday huddled over a computer and talking on the phone, so we rarely need to be in the same physical location as the people we work for or with. You younger people who have grown up with chat rooms, cellphones and MPRPGs will not stand for the idea of spending two or three hours every day fighting traffic, just so you can spent eight or nine more hours in the company of people you haven't chosen as companions. You will live in places you like, among people you like, and take care of your career obligations virtually.

Life will continue to get better. This problem of lack of community is just your luck to live during a Paradigm Shift. In fifty years it will be resolved.

In Indian culture on the other hand, you are part of a web of relations that you can never break free from!

Ain't that the truth! :D

The Amish believe in living without technology not because it is sinful to use a weedeater, but because technologies such as television separate the family unit...


The Amish let other people do their work like developing medicine, computers and energy...if the whole world would live like Amish, we would not have 6 Billion people and when an asteroid is coming our way, we will get wiped out to start all over again.

I do not think, nature gave us a brain to discover physics and stay stuck on Earth without sowing our seeds out there. The animals do it, the plants do it...and it is our turn....;)

That's an easy fix.

Legalize marijuana and people will become 300% closer.

But you know our controllers will never allow us to get what we want.

The Amish let other people do their work like developing medicine, computers and energy...if the whole world would live like Amish, we would not have 6 Billion people and when an asteroid is coming our way, we will get wiped out to start all over again.

I do not think, nature gave us a brain to discover physics and stay stuck on Earth without sowing our seeds out there. The animals do it, the plants do it...and it is our turn....;)

Right now we have too many people, dwindling resources, and no answers to a lot of the problems created by technology.

Just saying.

...In the past week I've had games with people in Brazil, Japan, Germany and Catalonia....How do you do this? I tried to do same couple of years ago, but only with a grandson, who is quite good at long range thinking /strategies.

PS I do not play GO*, but think it is the best game in the world as:
(1) Very different skill levels can play each other without changing significantly the nature of the game.
(2) Anyone can learn and remember the rules in two minutes they are so simple.
(3) The subtlety and ultimate complexity exceeds anything current computers can even approach.

All three above sharply contrast with chess, another good game, but chess is simple enough for computers to ALWAYS beat all but a very few (if not all now).
-----------------
*Played with fellow graduate student many years ago. I needed an 8 stone handicap at start to have reasonable chance of winning. He was just good enough to be rated at the lowest level in US - not even an amateur in Japan

the trend is towards communalism
institutions within a society should all work towards that goal
it is not a given that the various orgs have the same goal or are even in sync

i lay the blame, for the most part, on the urban planners
i absolve myself of any blame

how things could be-------cyberspace : help forums, open source
bastions of communality is how i define those
that is our potential
too bad our reps fail us at every fucking turn

plain, simple, incompetence

ahh
i see frag touch on this
bummer, but good

;)

Right now we have too many people, dwindling resources, and no answers to a lot of the problems created by technology.


Too many people: Yes, but that itself is not a problem

Dwindling resources: Again, Earth has a lot of resources to keep us going for another 10,000 years until someone develops a replicator. But using those resources without pollution is a problem. The leaders do not understand the issues and hence do nothing.

No answers: There are answers, but people with funds do not want it. For example, a large coal-based power plant can be built capturing 99.999% emissions including CO2 with a small 2% penalty. But as politics have it, no body does it. A large number of people in a computer and communications activity based jobs, can work out of home saving a lot of gas and pollution. In California, the people who live in North go south to work and vice versa...Go back to glass based recycle program rather than plastics which leaches in to foods. etc....

Just saying....:)

... For example, a large coal-based power plant can be built capturing 99.999% emissions including CO2 with a small 2% penalty. ..How? Do you have nay support for this claim? I think, just guessing, that the energy cost alone for pumping it deep into the earth would exceed 2% of the energy produced, it that is what you are thinking of.

If thinking of chemical capture by "scrubbers" - what will those chemical cost, including the ultimate disposal of them without serious water pollution, carbonic acid etc. I think.

i would like to continue bashing
this time, the irrational human. for example.....
he is a member of an interest group, employed in the real estate/developer whatnot. their bottom line is the shareholder. yet; he has the gall to go back home and bemoan the loss of community

conventional wisdom indicates that we have to make compromises. choose b/w the lesser of two evils. i say bullshit.

as kmguru indicated, the economy, along with the various systems of production and consumptions is not something static nor is the current system, the only possible mode. there are probably 1000's of firms just itching to tout their alternative wares and get some funding.

as for the vested, entrenched, interests that perpetuate failed or harmful policies on society, i have a solution.....

"garcon! roll out the gallows"!

or, an alternate...

"garcon! release the hounds!!!"

make a stand. there really is no optioni if change is what you want. settle for a lesser standard of living if need be. i am confident we can get thru any period of adjustments without too much trauma.

How? Do you have nay support for this claim? I think, just guessing, that the energy cost alone for pumping it deep into the earth would exceed 2% of the energy produced, it that is what you are thinking of.


Sometime ago (1996), I was involved in the design of a 2X360 MW power plant using Wyoming coal and as I remember, we calculated the additional cost of adding ESPs, DEA absorption units, and for the heck of it, dry ice process for CO2 to be at about 2% to add to the unit KWH cost. As a percentage wise, it should not change that much in todays price. ESPs are part of todays cost anyway, so subtract that from the calculation and add cost of construction to store dry ice. We had a better idea to use dry ice to ship them to a local hot house so as to use part of it for plant growth.

/snicker

oh, los angeles has been on the uptick for decades. crime has declined, vitality replacing blight. whatnot
so, what fucking loss? community? in la, we are all fucking niggers. and we like it like that :m:

now, i am not knocking the honest opinion expressed by gently passing nor questioning its validity (cos i have'nt read it), but i believe this should be taken into consideration. lemme open my Sciforums Reference Portfolio. ahh, here it is. while not an exact match, i believe it has some pertinence. this survey could, and has been, reproduced in other major industrial societies....

The Australian Survey of Social Attitudes (AuSSA) is a survey of 4270 Australians, first carried out by the Australian National University's Centre for Social Research in 2003. One of the questions asked by AuSSA in 2003 was whether respondents believed crime had increased, decreased or stayed the same over the past two years.

As can be seen in the chart below, belief that crime had increased either a little or a lot was most common. Comparatively few people perceived crime as having decreased in the two years leading up to the survey. Perception of crime varied across age groups. Fifty-one percent of those aged 65 and over thought that crime had increased a lot between 2001 and 2003, compared with 25 percent of those aged 18 to 34. Younger people were more likely to believe that crime had stayed the same (30% of 18-34 year olds, compared with 13% of those aged 65 and over). The proportion of people who thought crime had decreased a little or a lot was low across all age groups, showing little variation.

These findings are at odds with actual crime trends as the overall pattern in recent years is one of decreasing crime. According to the International Crime Victimisation Survey, crime victimisation rates in Australia declined between 2000 and 2004, from 24 percent to 17 percent. In addition, recorded property crime rates declined from 2001 to 2004 for most major categories of offence (AIC 2006).

Perception of crime trends (http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/cfi/cfi120.pdf)

http://img251.imageshack.us/img251/7083/cfi120oj0.gif

What are the number for decreasing crime? Perceptions are relatively meaningless.

In response to the original post. I think the others have done a good job summing things up. I live in the oldest house of a 50 year old neighborhood. Most of my neighbors are white, retired, and own their own homes. Their children are slightly older than me. Then tend to look after my children when they're out playing and we talk a bit in passing. I think the neighborhood you live in determines much of the interaction you have. When I lived in a rental home with neighbors who did the same it was a different class of people than I live around now. They were still white back then...

You might want to move to another area of town. Not necessarily new suburbia by a quaint place a street or two off the beaten path yet not wholly into the twilight zone.

What are the number for decreasing crime? Perceptions are relatively meaningless.

the insight i got from the posters in this thread is that they are not really off the mark in their observations. traditional communities have indeed declined. however it did not merely vanish into thin air but relocated and took on new forms. frag's post explains this quite succinctly.

i do however tend to view nostalgia as a pathology. the rose tinted glasses effect.

i thought the link gave the stats. i'll check again

How do you do this? I tried to do same couple of years ago, but only with a grandson, who is quite good at long range thinking /strategies.There are a number of go websites. Try KGS or IGS. IMO go is a game that was waiting to be computerized. It's a lot easier to place the stones virtually, and a whole lot easier to pick up the captures, without knocking the others around. And you don't have to find a place to store those giant bowls. With 175 or more moves in a typical game it's much too long for the average player to remember, so computers make it possible to review a game without having to write the moves down--which in any case is incredibly awkward and error-prone.(1) Very different skill levels can play each other without changing significantly the nature of the game.To me the handicap system is the essence of the game. Throw away your queen in a chess game and almost everything you learned about opening strategy is wrong. Go naturally becomes a teaching game. With the rigorously applied handicap system you're always playing against your own record instead of an opponent who may have twenty years more experience, so there's not so much ego involved in winning and losing.(2) Anyone can learn and remember the rules in two minutes they are so simple.Well that doesn't really tell you very much about the game though. It's all in the patterns that develop.(3) The subtlety and ultimate complexity exceeds anything current computers can even approach.In the late 1960s a million dollar prize was established for the first program that could play an entire game. I think all it had to beat was a random-number generator that only played legal moves. I don't know if the prize was still offered when that program was finally written more than twenty years later. Today the software is pretty good in speed games, but in a normal 30-minute-per-side game (which I consider too fast) they only play at about my level.All three above sharply contrast with chess, another good game, but chess is simple enough for computers to ALWAYS beat all but a very few (if not all now).I don't think it's fair to call chess simple. It just has a different kind of complexity and it happens to be one that's better suited for computers. Go games are harder for computers because they have more moves and each move has more possibilities. Yet most of those possibilities are obviously foolish so we, with our holographic thinking, discard them without reading them out.Played with fellow graduate student many years ago. I needed an 8 stone handicap at start to have reasonable chance of winning. He was just good enough to be rated at the lowest level in US - not even an amateur in JapanEight stones is a good game. At my age I specialize in teaching games with beginners, and I've played many games with handicaps as high as 21 stones. As for the rating system, the limit is a practical one. Below about 30-kyu you just don't play consistently enough from one game to the next to make it possible to estimate your rating. I can see how the Japanese, with their traditional sense of class superiority, might sniff at honoring a beginner of such low skill with a rating. In America everybody gets a number, it's just our way. :)

I'm sick of neighbors. They think that they should control what animals you own and all that, then they let their trees overgrow your power lines.

Bastards. So what if I want to own a few goats?

I'm sick of neighbors. They think that they should control what animals you own and all that, then they let their trees overgrow your power lines.We do have to make reasonable accommodations for the type of place we live in. As Nick says, it's not reasonable to have livestock in the city because of the smell. Not to mention, goats eat all plants down to the bare soil, making their owner's lot a barren eyesore that won't hold rainwater.

I do agree that some communities have unreasonable rules about pets. But it's often the result of the minority of pet owners who insist on being nuisances, letting cats run loose to kill birds and dig up flower beds, leaving lonely dogs outside all day barking, etc.

And yeah, people have hangups about animals that have recently come in vogue like miniature pigs, which are no more trouble than dogs. But again, this is largely the fault of irresponsible pig aficionados who have crossbred the adorable little Vietnamese potbellies with full-size farm hogs. A 200-lb hybrid pig can be a perfectly nice pet, but he generates an awful lot of poop, can be just as tough on wildlife as a 200-lb dog, and when he gets older he can get pretty unpredictable and start biting people.

We love dogs and have thirteen of them, which is one reason that we choose to live on five acres out in the forest, rather than in the city. Yes it costs money to live that way, but that's why we carefully selected education and career paths that provide us with the life we want. Life doesn't owe you anything, you have to earn it.

As for power lines, I don't know where you live but I've never heard of a power company that doesn't come out once a year and do its own maintenance. They'll trim those trees or if necessary cut them down, and possibly send the offending homeowner the bill for the service.

Blame home air conditioning, at least in part, for the loss of a sense of local community.

Those of us who were around in the forties, fifties and even sixties remember a time before home air conditioning was popular. People used to sit out on their front porch or front stoop on summer evenings and converse with their next door neighbors or with people walking by in front of their house. The lack of air conditioning coupled with no televisions meant that people spent a lot more time doing other things. They played cards, they went for walks, they sat and talked. The front of the house was the focus of the families outdoor life.

Today families either stay inside their houses or congregated in the back yard where they have barbercues, pools and patios, things that were in rare supply fifty years ago. Most people don't visit with their neighbors. If they have friends they are either people they know from school or work not people who live near them. This means chance meetings are far less likely. Gatherings are not spontaneous but are planned days or weeks in advance and usually revolve around either staying in the house or in the back yard.

because people used to go to church

That's also part of the reason but not as large a part as it used to be.

I go to church very regularly and I have quite a few, 'church friends'. These 'church friends' tend to be people who drive to church as do I and who, after church, go their seperate ways to their own communities and homes. No one on the court where I live goes to my church. I am Lutheran and my neighbors are Ukrainian Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Jewish, unchurched or have religious affiliations unknown to me.

I probably know my neighbors better than most people because I throw a party each summer where we all get together for food, drink and conversation.

My wife and I own a condo on the ocean in Southern Florida and know our neighbors down their much better than we know those up here. That is because we meet many of them each day at the pool, on the beach, while walking, or a social get togethers the condo throws. Since 'the yard' is communal with no back yard in which to hibernate we tend to sit together in groups and talk.

all you have to do is get together with the 5 neighbors that like you and move to china. then you will see how fast the five of you stick together, like going to a barbeque with fido as the main course...eating with 2 skinny sticks (like that is a good idesa) etc...breaking boards wioth you hand oir head
you mean chopsticks?

The lack of air conditioning coupled with no televisions meant that people spent a lot more time doing other things. They played cards, they went for walks, they sat and talked. The front of the house was the focus of the families outdoor life.This certainly illustrates my point as a 21st-century man who was born fifty years too early. I remember the days before air conditioning very clearly. I would rather have been dead, and I am not exaggerating. I also love television, which I watch for about ten hours a week, leaving plenty of time for more "noble" pursuits. I get more from Jon Stewart, Eric Cartman and several other real and virtual TV personalities shows than I ever got from conversations with the people who happened to live in my neighborhood. I had and have virtually nothing in common with them and can find nothing to talk about. I have to watch every word I say around them or they take offense, yet I am expected to endure their blathering about religion, politics, culture and morality with good grace.

I would not give up air conditioning or television--much less the internet where most of my friends are--for the "privilege" of sweating in a 95-degree front yard with a bunch of functionally illiterate, scientifically ignorant, beer-swilling, churchgoing, child-abusing jackasses.you mean chopsticks?John doesn't seem to understand that knives and forks are kitchen utensils. Polite people have been eating with chopsticks since the days when "cultured" Europeans ate with their fingers and tossed their garbage on the floor for the dogs to clean up.

Originally Posted by John99
all you have to do is get together with the 5 neighbors that like you and move to china. then you will see how fast the five of you stick together, like going to a barbeque with fido as the main course...eating with 2 skinny sticks (like that is a good idesa) etc...breaking boards wioth you hand oir head

I thought that was hilarious though... but they don't go around breaking boards every day or insist that you do. At least not most of them. It's nice to be able to stab at your food too, hehe.

I can remember pre-airconditioning and pre-television and it wasn't all that bad. Since we never had either we missed neither. Summer was hot and that was that. In the evening we did things other than sit around watching t.v..

I could almost agree with you until I read the following:


I would not give up air conditioning or television--much less the internet where most of my friends are--for the "privilege" of sweating in a 95-degree front yard with a bunch of functionally illiterate, scientifically ignorant, beer-swilling, churchgoing, child-abusing jackasses.

What an unbelievably judgmental and arrogant paragraph; functionally illiterate, scientifically ignorant, beer swilling, churchgoing, child abusing jackasses. It must be great to be able to look down your literate, scientifically intelligent, wine sipping, non-churchgoing, child nurturing nose at your neighbors.

He's right though. Modern information age allows us to communicate with those we prefer, and not be restricted to the local brain-pool.

IWhat an unbelievably judgmental and arrogant paragraph; functionally illiterate, scientifically ignorant, beer swilling, churchgoing, child abusing jackasses. It must be great to be able to look down your literate, scientifically intelligent, wine sipping, non-churchgoing, child nurturing nose at your neighbors.I don't normally look down my nose at them (well except for the religion crap, I don't really have anything against beer) but I do talk that way among friends to make my point. I have nothing important in common with these people. I consider myself fortunate to have lived to see an era when I can find people I do have something in common with and sit around and chat with them every night, or pursue our shared interests, or in some cases passively listen to them talk on the TV.

I lived in Arizona where the weather was literally intolerable for about half the year. I never forgave my parents for moving us there.

I don't have all that much in common with my neighbors either. That doesn't mean I consider them Morloks to my Eloi just that I consider them to have different interest.

We do have to make reasonable accommodations for the type of place we live in. As Nick says, it's not reasonable to have livestock in the city because of the smell. Not to mention, goats eat all plants down to the bare soil, making their owner's lot a barren eyesore that won't hold rainwater.

I do agree that some communities have unreasonable rules about pets. But it's often the result of the minority of pet owners who insist on being nuisances, letting cats run loose to kill birds and dig up flower beds, leaving lonely dogs outside all day barking, etc.

If you really think that, you're living in the past. These days it's the animal rights creeps getting everything they can.


And yeah, people have hangups about animals that have recently come in vogue like miniature pigs, which are no more trouble than dogs. But again, this is largely the fault of irresponsible pig aficionados who have crossbred the adorable little Vietnamese potbellies with full-size farm hogs. A 200-lb hybrid pig can be a perfectly nice pet, but he generates an awful lot of poop, can be just as tough on wildlife as a 200-lb dog, and when he gets older he can get pretty unpredictable and start biting people.


I really don't think so about that, either. Bans seem to be for the sake of banning something, not because anyone had a real problem. It's usually an excuse, not a reason.


We love dogs and have thirteen of them, which is one reason that we choose to live on five acres out in the forest, rather than in the city. Yes it costs money to live that way, but that's why we carefully selected education and career paths that provide us with the life we want. Life doesn't owe you anything, you have to earn it.


And? I earn it when I have to pay city taxes, city utilities, property taxes, and the whole nine yards. I also earn it when I have to put up with assholes for neighbors.


As for power lines, I don't know where you live but I've never heard of a power company that doesn't come out once a year and do its own maintenance. They'll trim those trees or if necessary cut them down, and possibly send the offending homeowner the bill for the service.

You've heard of one now.

I don't have all that much in common with my neighbors either. That doesn't mean I consider them Morloks to my Eloi just that I consider them to have different interest.Yes and of course I should have phrased my remark in more temperate terms like those. But I remember the experience from my intemperate youth, when I was inclined to think of people who were religious, modestly educated, and quick to use violence as a disciplinary technique, as jackasses. (Nowadays I just call them Religious Redneck Retards.) I guess my point is that if you find your neighbors uninteresting, you dismiss them casually and don't want to spend time with them.

If you really think that, you're living in the past. These days it's the animal rights creeps getting everything they can.ARFs are certainly responsible for municipalities halting their coyote eradication programs. Coyotes are about as smart as camp-followers come and they now understand that they can walk down the middle of the street in L.A. in broad daylight without a care. The up-side (out here in the East anyway) is that our deer problem will be solved for us.

Nonetheless, ordinances against allowing cats to roam free are spreading across the country because a lot of people complain about them.I really don't think so about that, either. Bans seem to be for the sake of banning something, not because anyone had a real problem. It's usually an excuse, not a reason.There are problems but they're exaggerated out of proportion by the media, who get more business when people are frightened. Laws against pit bulls are spreading and it's a stretch to interpret the statistics to indicate they're significantly more of a problem than any other breed, much less mixed breeds that can be very unpredictable.And? I earn it when I have to pay city taxes, city utilities, property taxes, and the whole nine yards. I also earn it when I have to put up with assholes for neighbors.Hey dude, you're talking to a libertarian. Of course we should all pay for the utilities we consume, that is basic economics. But collecting taxes for the purpose of redistributing wealth is bogus economics, as is the nationalization of entire industries that it funds, such as charity, education, health care, energy and transportation. As for your neighbors... Well people should have a right to congregate in communities and make their own rules, but there should be a size limit on those communities so if you don't like it you can fairly conveniently choose to live somewhere else among people you do like. You shouldn't have to leave your job and family to find a place you can enjoy living.You've heard of one now.Where do power companies not maintain their own lines by the basic technique of keeping trees trimmed? West Virginia? This is outrageous. It's one of the things your user fees are supposed to pay for!

My wife and I usually throw a party for the neighbors during the summer. We invite the people who live on our court and a few others who live just off the court. Few of us have much in common. My one neighbor is a musclebound owner of an auto repair shop. He is into ATVs Quads and the like. Another owns three auto dealerships and flies to the Bahamas to gamble. My immediate next door neighbor owns a construction company. Others are young couples with small children. We are all very different but we all manage to get along and even enjoy each other's company. None of them have the formal education my wife and I do. They not only don't have advanced degrees,most of them have not attended college at all. They don't have my vocabulary. They are not as well read as I am or as interested in world politics. The thing is, when we get together we simply enjoy each other for who we are. We sit down and eat and drink and talk about things we are all familiar with. It works out pretty well.

Maybe you should try to get to know your neighbors a bit better. You might be surprised at how much you enjoy their company.

personally i think it is because the us is weak culturally

personally i think it is because the us is weak culturally

What does that mean exactly?

And what country is, for example, "strong" culturally?

And how can one tell the difference over the entire nation? For example, if one part of a nation has a "strong" culture, but part of it is a "weak" culture, what does that mean?

Baron Max

What does that mean exactly?

And what country is, for example, "strong" culturally?

And how can one tell the difference over the entire nation? For example, if one part of a nation has a "strong" culture, but part of it is a "weak" culture, what does that mean?

Baron Max

i would take me to long to explain what i would mean by that as well as wandering into things both esoteric and metaphysical

they are great positives to a loss of community. There is less nosiness, less stigma, less fixed social orders where you are boxed in, more opportunity for advancement, more room to breathe and so much more i couldn't list them all.

they are great positives to a loss of community. There is less nosiness, less stigma, less fixed social orders where you are boxed in, more opportunity for advancement, more room to breathe and so much more i couldn't list them all.

So a nation that has the highest criminal population that's still out free in the society means that that nation has a .....great or a weak culture? I mean, don't criminals have the most freedom of all the people in a society? ...at least until they're caught. So, ......please explain what you mean by that.

Baron Max

I wasn't talking about criminals but when we're talking about a close sense of community, i think of people in thier neighbors business.

I wasn't talking about criminals but when we're talking about a close sense of community, i think of people in thier neighbors business.

But criminals are people, too, ain't they? Ain't criminals a part of our society and cultural identity and all that good shit? Surely when we talk about society and/or culture, criminals must be taken into account or the talk is just idle bullshit idealism ...which means virtually nothing.

Baron Max

i never said i cared for a close sense of community with criminals or noncriminals.

i never said i cared for a close sense of community with criminals or noncriminals.

So ....what did you say exactly? And more to the point, what the fuck did you mean when you said it?

Baron Max

So ....what did you say exactly? And more to the point, what the fuck did you mean when you said it?

Baron Max

Just what i pointed out, that there are positives to a less sense of community. It can be suffocating and invasive.

Just what i pointed out, that there are positives to a less sense of community. It can be suffocating and invasive.

And I agreed ....and the criminals of the society agree with you, too.

See? That should make you just as happy as a hog in the cool mud on a hot Texas day. And yet you don't seem so happy ....why?

Baron Max

And I agreed ....and the criminals of the society agree with you, too.

See? That should make you just as happy as a hog in the cool mud on a hot Texas day. And yet you don't seem so happy ....why?

Baron Max

what makes you think criminals can't get away with stuff in a close community? Usually the community will either ostracize them, stigmatize them or protect them. Not always good, see? Men who abuse thier spouses and cheat on their wives or steal or take advantage are all still part of a larger network, within a closer network people can still turn a blind eye or even help them to cover it up for the sake of "community" and thier reputation. As a matter of fact, it can be even harder to get justice or clean out the dirt because no one wants to upset their alliances or be blackballed if they speak up.

what makes you think criminals can't get away with stuff in a close community? Usually the community will either ostracize them, stigmatize them or protect them. Not always good, see? Men who abuse thier spouses and cheat on their wives or steal or take advantage are all still part of a larger network, within a closer network people can still turn a blind eye or even help them to cover it up for the sake of "community" and thier reputation. As a matter of fact, it can be even harder to get justice or clean out the dirt because no one wants to upset their alliances or be blackballed if they speak up.

I don't get it, peta, I've agreed with you several times now, but you act as if I'm disagreeing. Why?

Criminals should be taken into account whenever one discusses "society" or "culture" or any of that kind of thing. In the first comment you made, I was only pointing that out to you. In your second comment, you seemed defensive about it, yet you agreed. Now you're agreeing again, and even pointing things that other mights have missed. Thank you.

Now ..... I AGREE WITH YOU!

Baron Max

ARFs are certainly responsible for municipalities halting their coyote eradication programs. Coyotes are about as smart as camp-followers come and they now understand that they can walk down the middle of the street in L.A. in broad daylight without a care. The up-side (out here in the East anyway) is that our deer problem will be solved for us.

I like coyotes.

Nonetheless, ordinances against allowing cats to roam free are spreading across the country because a lot of people complain about them.

This is not a good thing. Why should the whiny decide these things for us? Also, cats control rodents.

There are problems but they're exaggerated out of proportion by the media, who get more business when people are frightened. Laws against pit bulls are spreading and it's a stretch to interpret the statistics to indicate they're significantly more of a problem than any other breed, much less mixed breeds that can be very unpredictable.Hey dude, you're talking to a libertarian.

I'm sick of this and I've seen that cities do horrible things about pitbulls, like the way that Toledo and Denver had mass executions of pitbulls. This makes them worse than Vick. It's the cold calculation on top of the decision to follow a bogus agenda to the bitter end. It has nothing to do with human safety and a lot to do with creating a threat against humanity that can be exploited.

Of course we should all pay for the utilities we consume, that is basic economics. But collecting taxes for the purpose of redistributing wealth is bogus economics, as is the nationalization of entire industries that it funds, such as charity, education, health care, energy and transportation.


It's even worse when all that I get for this is loss and being pushed around.

As for your neighbors... Well people should have a right to congregate in communities and make their own rules, but there should be a size limit on those communities so if you don't like it you can fairly conveniently choose to live somewhere else among people you do like. You shouldn't have to leave your job and family to find a place you can enjoy living.Where do power companies not maintain their own lines by the basic technique of keeping trees trimmed? West Virginia? This is outrageous. It's one of the things your user fees are supposed to pay for!

I make a policy of never saying what state I live in. Sometimes I say the state of misery. It's just a power company that really doesn't give a damn. They let all sorts of tangles happen then trim the trees way back.

While I don't disagree that people are more isolated now, I think it is a function of modern society and not a function of a change in human behavior. 100 years ago people had horses and buggies, not interstate highways and jet airplanes. This lack of quick transportation meant that many people never traveled more than a few miles from their homes in their lifetime. As a result of this, obviously people usually lived down the road from their extended family, not across the country. People worked in their backyards growing crops, not driving 50 miles one way to work each day in their Lexus.

Even though the "old days" may have been more family friendly, there is a trade-off with modern society. Would you rather ride in a horse and buggy, farm all day and have your parents, grandparents and cousins all down the road? Or would you rather have your $500,000 home in a gated community, drive a Lexus, work in an air-conditioned office building, and fly to Fiji for vacations, all the while having to rely on phone calls from across the country to talk to Uncle Bill?

Even though the "old days" may have been more family friendly, there is a trade-off with modern society.

Of course there's a trade-off for modern culture, but this thread is about the loss of community in American culture, not whether the old days are better or worse.

Has there been a loss in the sense of community or not? And is that a good thing or a bad thing? See? that's what this thread is all about.

Baron Max

Yes there has been, but I am not sure that anything can be done about it. That was my point.

People are going to do what is in the best interest for themselves and their immediate family. Today this means leaving your hometown and moving to a more economically friendly city. Obviously this has resulted in a lot of extended families being disconnected. Further, when one does move, one often finds that a lot of one's neighbors are also transplants and have little in common. Of course this isn't always the case, there are still some middle America areas that have close-knit families that go back generations, but such areas are becoming exceedingly rare. I would say a majority of 20-30 somethings do not live in the same city as their parents. This trend has been occurring for a couple of generations now, and has become more pronounced in each successive one.

Then you have the fact that the average family now has two children (and this average is declining), whereas 100 years ago many families had 10+ children. Even if the young married couple did decide to leave their hometown, they often had a lot of children to take care of which gave the parents and children plenty of company and responsibility and kept them free of emotional isolation. Having lots of children also meant divorce was not an option except under extreme cases. Today it is a coin-flip whether a couple will be divorced--children be damned. People a couple of generations ago didn't divorce simply because they had a mid-life crisis and met a cute secretary at work. There were very few divorces which stated "irreconcilable differences."

My opinion is that the old "frontier" mentality of our ancestors sort of hardened them to a degree where they didn't give-up at the first sign of trouble. Today most people are spoiled and become impatient and bored with their spouse, family, home--their life. People today are just weak, quite frankly. I don't think any fundamental change in human nature has occurred, I just think technology and economic excess has effected modern populations whereas our ancestors didn't have such "obstacles" or "complexities" to deal with.

What else can be said? Wealth and leisure have always, throughout history, resulted in people becoming disconnected from family. It has also resulted in the populous having fewer children. We can debate the intricacies of psychology and sociology that may explain exactly why, but it wont change the fact that it does. One day a major war or tragedy will occur and if civilization survives there will be another baby boom. Until then, expect the native population to decline and expect families to be more disconnected.