[152334H]

From my perspective, the issue is quite simple: progress optimizes everything other than the cost of human labor. Socialization, as defined today, inherently requires human labor, and thus falls under the Baumol effect.

The 'loneliness epidemic' is merely the result of weakening demand, owing to a slew of low-cost alternatives. Thus, we end up with two options,

1. automate the social experience

2. accept that the comparative cost of socialization will grow higher forever

For some reason, the vast majority of humans in the 21st century are interested in morally rejecting (1), thus ensuring (2) as an outcome.

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Note: this is not to say I reject the notion that individuals can be helped. I think most comments in this thread are quite healthy, even as they narrowly focus on the individual case.

But it is rather impractical to adopt a positivist "how you can help" framing to address the epidemic at large. While certainly instrumentally useful, it is necessarily unlikely for the same traditional solutions to loneliness to spontaneously 'gain influence' against what has thus far been a gradual decline in their effectiveness and buying power.

[rramadass]

Well said; and i think you are right.

How did you come to develop this sort of perspective? What did you read/study that led you to this pov?

[152334H]

It's branched from how I think about TFR. To merge,

- the common sentiment of "child raising is too expensive"

- the reality that wealth has drastically gone up

I think: okay, it must feel expensive for some reason. Probably because the work involved, despite not changing too much in an absolute sense, is relatively much pricier compared to all modern cheap sources of happiness.

Then, this notion of the cost-of-fun is easily transferred to general socialization & the loneliness problem.