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Comment by auctiontheory | Hacker News Reader

In poor countries, like India, you have no privacy at all. The overreaction, in rich countries like the US, is to buy privacy the richer you get.

But Americans take it to extremes, buying huge houses that allow them to go days without interacting with another person. In fact, not having to deal with other people is considered a desirable luxury. Sit at home and eat and watch TV and shop. I know people who drive (down their very, very long driveway) just to get to the front gate and mailbox.

The Indian situation is probably closer to our evolutionary roots.

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As a recent college graduate in the US, this is exactly how I feel.

In college, there was very little privacy. I shared a room with a roommate, and that room was one of two in a shared suite, with two other people in the other room and a common bathroom shared by all four people.

I now share a 2br apartment with a roommate. I have a private bedroom, but a shared living room and kitchen.

My apartment happens to be in the shadow of a very rich neighborhood, and the grandest homes here are secluded far off the road, often completely invisible to passersby, hidden behind dense foliage. They signal their existence to you through their formidable and ostentatious gates, but beyond that you have no glimpse of the private estate of the totally unknown and unseen owner. The owner has spent a vast sum of money--enough for most people to retire on, if not doubly or even triply so--just to build a completely private oasis in the heart of the city.

For a lot of people here, that is the end-game: make millions, then spend most of it hiding yourself from the rest of the world.

If you're interested in this phenomenon, you might like Paul Fussell's Class: A Guide Through the American Status System

http://www.phenomenologycenter.org/course/status.htm

Thank you for linking this. This was a very insightful read.

As a child (1960s) in a working class neighbourhood in the Liverpool area (UK), we lived in small terraced houses and lived very close to the neighbours. The children played in the road (hardly any cars) and in a park and on the beach (not the cleanest). During our long summer days (52.5 degrees North) we had the whole day down the beach. Basic safety: we stuck together and avoided strangers, but we spoke to known adults such as bargemen, ferrymen, train drivers, tug crew &c

Now I see children in nurseries behind substantial railings (safeguarding). They are protected from any contact with adults who are not in the immediate family. The family may or may not know the neighbours at all as modern housing seems to be designed to reduce contact - placement of doors &c. Playing on the street is impossible as your street is almost certainly a rat run for commuters.

I think I'm seeing real changes not just remembering my childhood with rose tinted glasses. I certainly see the effects in the 17/8 year olds I teach for one class. They have no idea about how adults live and communicate.

The children played in the road (hardly any cars) and in a park

Now I see children in nurseries behind substantial railings

The family may or may not know the neighbours at all

There's a separate issue which reveals itself in what you say but which wasn't specifically addressed.

A big reason for less community cohesion nowadays is that no longer are large numbers of parents staying at home and interacting in the community while looking after their kids. Instead, the majority are going to work and putting their kids in nurseries instead.

I live in Lincolnshire where many of the villages used to have thriving communities and shops, yet are now commuter villages and everyone has to drive to town to buy things instead.

The reason? There aren't hundreds of (mostly) mothers milling around acting as the glue for the village communities. Instead, they're all out at work and the kids are in the nurseries in town.

This isn't a particularly politically correct point to make, however, since obviously mothers should be free to work if they wish, but the movement of millions of mothers from daily community life into the workforce has had a serious impact on modern British society.

We have gone from women not having the freedom to work to women not having the freedom to not work.

Occasionally I come across a statement that succinctly explains some complex cultural phenomenon as well as or better than an entire book could. This is one of those statements.

Maybe commuting is the problem as much as women working?

You are conflating loneliness (the feeling) with isolation (the physical separation).

They are positively correlated. TFA suggests that physical separation contributes to loneliness.

I read it twice and I don't see any such suggestion in the article. Rather it cites a study that actually suggests the opposite:

> Forty per cent of high-rise dwellers felt lonely, almost twice the number (22 per cent) living in detached homes.

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