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Age of Infovores's avatar

One important factor you don't mention is jobs. The unhappiness associated with unemployment is probably due in significant part to no longer being around people as often (though the context of who/where/when also matters a lot, so it's a bit complicated). Many people make friends on the job also and it's much harder for a man without a job to get married.

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Christian Allred's avatar

A lot of creative interventions here. I like the idea of more support for fraternal organizations. It seems to me a lot of efforts here have been co-opted by the internet. We try to simulate community with social media, but it's just not the same. Reminds me of this quote from an Art of Manliness interview (https://www.artofmanliness.com/podcast/the-life-were-looking-for-podcast/):

"There’s always this moment where people are like, “Well, we need to connect more.” There’s not enough camaraderie, and so they’ll like, “We’ll do this group chat, or we’ll do Discord,” and this will be the thing and then nothing ever changes. And then… I don’t know.

It’s frustrating ’cause I think lot of people think like, “Oh, this will be it, this is gonna be the thing that fixes it,” and it’s like no, it’s not. It’s not gonna be that."

The community can't just be digital, it needs to be physical, too.

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