30 minutes with a stranger

I'm increasingly convinced that social isolation is the single great social ill of our time. I am not one for "respecting others' opinions" at all, make no mistakes, if someone believes something incorrect - or worse - then they need to be corrected. But so much of the hate simmering away like a pot about to boil over is the result of loneliness. The evidence on this is startingly clear.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S235215462...

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027795362...

https://www.psychiatrist.com/news/hate-lies-and-loneliness-f...

> loneliness is a perceptual phenomenon that represents a paradoxical component; it is not mitigated through proximity to others

It might be better described as alienation. Then we can fit it into Hannah Arendt's theory of fascism being caused by alienation.

In the modern world, that alienation is accelerated by social media and cost of living for those without assets, who pay the cost of inflation without benefiting from asset price inflation.

Everything is more hostile, more sectarian, and you also can't even afford anything, and also you are a bad person because you are a creepy 45 year old white man with a small dick, and you better stop looking at me like that.

Is it any surprise?