Hypothesis: few people actually *want* a full-blown community past about 25. They just think they do. It’s a lot of time and work to be involved in “community” in the sense of shared beyond-family communal daily life (meals etc) and weekly parties, seeing friends everyday etc.
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Most people are introverts and just want a trusted emergency contact or two within driving distance, and the occasional lunch with friends you see once every few weeks at most. At most a weekly tennis or running buddy. Anything more is for extroverts stuck in college-headspace.
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A typical paycheck workplace gives you vastly more, like 10x more, but you don’t need it. Half the people in an office typically have no interest in happy hour etc
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I do know people who hang out with friends beyond family for hours everyday (not counting work), but it’s surprisingly rare and in older people is often a sign of unhealthy codependency etc.
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Trying to pre-compensate for inevitable post-covid extrovert feeding frenzy
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Kids do seem to enforce minimum-viable-communality constraints, but I don’t see most parents doing any more kid-catalyzed social/community stuff than they have to. 🤔
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Replying to @vgr
I don't know that this hypothesis holds up as well when said people have school-age children.
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I suspect after age 22 people next want community only at like 66, Ie heading into retirement. I see retirees being almost as social as kids.
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What about churches? They’re pretty popular. However I think community needs a reason beyond itself to be sustainable.
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No they’re not! Across the developed world religious participation has plummeted once it was no longer seen as obligatory.
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And the older they get the harder reconciliation is. College students fight and make up easily. Adults develop hard-set divorce-grade antipathies.
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