Comment by tuna-piano | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tuna-piano | Hacker News Reader

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I think you're right, and I haven't seen the answer from our society yet. If you can sit at home and get things delivered (which is easier and addicting), you do miss out on different experiences (some good, some bad). You can imagine a world where many of our storefronts could empty out.

If you work from home, get Amazon deliveries, go to school online, etc... what will you do and what storefronts do you need? Are bars, restaurants and barbers enough?

One of my favorite anecdotes that makes me think... has our whole society evolved incorrectly?

"In 18th-century America, colonial society and Native American society sat side by side. The former was buddingly commercial; the latter was communal and tribal. As time went by, the settlers from Europe noticed something: No Indians were defecting to join colonial society, but many whites were defecting to live in the Native American one."[1]

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/09/opinion/the-great-affluen...

The example is obvious if you actually step outside your door. Anyone can get anything delivered at any time of day or year, so other than going to work, there is no need right now for anyone to leave their house, ever. But funny enough, if you go into any downtown area, any park, any waterfront, any restaurant, they're busy. Abnormally busy, based on the fact that, again, none of them have any need to be there.

Turns out that when you relieve people of the burdens of things they have to do (like grocery shopping, which is oftentimes tedious and boring), they now have more time and energy to do things they want to do. Instead of forced interactions at the grocery store, they'll go to a park and talk to people they actually want to talk to. Instead of spending an entire day going to Costco and shoving their way through the crowds, they visit a boutique store and stop for coffee at a local cafe.

Some of the comments in this thread are quite curious. Bemoaning the death of tedious chores and banal small-talk like these are things the general public actually enjoys doing rather than merely tolerates out of necessity.

Good point! Cities are doing great worldwide, and few seem like they lack people doing stuff.

But of course you don't see the people who are at home or in the suburbs (shudder). Loneliness and solitude seem to be growing as well. Maybe worst in Japan, but the problem also exists worldwide.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/11/asia/japanese-millennials-hiki...

> But funny enough, if you go into any downtown area, any park, any waterfront, any restaurant, they're busy. Abnormally busy, based on the fact that, again, none of them have any need to be there.

I don't think that's true at all, except maybe in the sense that rich urban centers are crowded with inherited-wealthy young adults.

> visit a boutique store

Exactly. See above.

> stop for coffee at a local cafe.

Cafes are crowded because people don't like to be alone, even when they are doing an essentially alone activity (whatever is on the laptop everyone is sitting there with).

>I don't think that's true at all

Funny thing about the truth is that it doesn't matter if you think it's true or not. It's still true. I make a living traveling for work, and I make a hobby of finding out small downtown areas and visiting them, and there's never a shortage in basically any thriving region of people out and about doing things they want to be doing.

You can point to some dying towns and say "look, these guys closed the business so that disproves your point" but forever in the history of forever, towns have been growing and towns have been shrinking. As one place wins, another necessarily loses.

Visit the Lake Michigan beach in Saugatuck MI, walk the riverwalk in Little Rock AR, head down Broad Street in Lake Geneva WI, grab a beer at Reclamation Brewing Company in Butler PA and tell me people don't socialize anymore. Grab some wings at Chase's in Norcross GA and tell me you'd rather talk about the weather with a stranger at Walmart than eat great food and have a real conversation with Chase's mom on the patio in the cool Georgia night air.

Small talk at Whole Foods isn't socializing. You want people to talk to? Go to where you want to be, and there will be people who want to be there too, and guess what, you already have a conversation starter.

>there's never a shortage in basically any thriving region of people out and about doing things

The point the parent was making is that these bustling public areas you're seeing are primarily made up of affluent young people, and are not actually representative of how the majority of society lives.

You have offered no counterpoint to that at all, and yet still chose to start your comment with a rude dismissal.

The counterpoint was the places I mentioned, which you've seemed to miss. I'm not talking about NYC and Austin and Seattle and SF, I'm talking middle America, normal small towns.

What's rude is people saying "Amazon is killing all social interaction" while not stopping to wonder why all of their social interaction is small talk at a Walmart. That's the problem. Again, like I've said over and over and over and over and everyone ignores to nitpick, that's not social interaction. That's small talk. I have no idea why you're treating standing in a checkout lane like it's the Roman Forum.

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