America: Land of Loners?

[RSS]

Published by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, The Wilson Quarterly has an interesting piece on friendship -- or the lack thereof -- in the United States. The article begins as follows:

Americans, plugged in and on the move, are confiding in their pets, their computers, and their spouses. What they need is to rediscover the value of friendship.

Science-fiction writers make the best seers. In the late 1950s far-sighted Isaac Asimov imagined a sunny planet called Solaria, on which a scant 20,000 humans dwelt on far-flung estates and visited one another only virtually, by materializing as “trimensional images”—avatars, in other words. “They live completely apart,” a helpful robot explained to a visiting earthling, “and never see one another except under the most extraordinary circumstances.”

We have not, of course, turned into Solarians here on earth, strictly limiting our numbers and shunning our fellow humans in revulsion. Yet it’s hard not to see some Solarian parallels in modern life. Since Asimov wrote The Naked Sun, Americans have been engaged in wholesale flight from one another, decamping for suburbs and Sunbelt, splintering into ever smaller households, and conducting more and more of their relationships online, where avatars flourish.

Click the link to read more: http://www.wilsonquarterly.com/article.cfm?AID=1631

 

[JustinW]

America: Land of Boners?

 

[Thomas]

People are yucky: they have germs and stuff.

 

[RSS]

Originally Posted by JustinW

America: Land of Boners?
And you call yourself an Episcopalian.

 

[JustinW]

Originally Posted by RSS

And you call yourself an Episcopalian.
ok, how about ... America: Land of iPhoners

 

[RSS]

Originally Posted by JustinW

ok, how about ...

America: Land of iPhoners
Justin, with the help of Thomas ... you have ruined what was my opportunity to have a thread without one comment!

 

[JustinW]

Originally Posted by RSS

Justin, with the help of Thomas ... you have ruined what was my opportunity to have a thread without one comment!

What are friends for?


I mean, really .... what are friends for?

 

[RSS]

Originally Posted by JustinW

What are friends for?


I mean, really .... what are friends for?

With iFriends ... who needs friends.

 

[Hombre Secreto]

 

[JesseJB]

This is BS. I go to plenty of parties where all I do is talk about my IPhone and socialize on my IPhone and compare my IPhone to other people's IPhones. I will find out about another gathering, leave the first party early and go to the next place where I will do it all over again until last call.

 

[Harold falcon]

Originally Posted by JustinW

What are friends for?


I mean, really .... what are friends for?

The only thing a real life friend has ever done for me that was of any value was to drive me home after I had too much to drink. Considering I could have got a cab for that and not have had to take **** for the next week about puking in his backseat I do not consider real life friends to have any material benefit over internet friends.

 

[imageWIS]

Originally Posted by JesseJB

This is BS. I go to plenty of parties where all I do is talk about my IPhone and socialize on my IPhone and compare my IPhone to other people's IPhones. I will find out about another gathering, leave the first party early and go to the next place where I will do it all over again until last call.

That sounds awesome... in an SNL skit sort of way.

 

[Thomas]

Originally Posted by RSS

Justin, with the help of Thomas ... you have ruined what was my opportunity to have a thread without one comment!

Plenty of low-hanging fruit on this thread. Normally, it's the more thoughtful and recondite threads that attract the crickets.

Originally Posted by JustinW

What are friends for?


I mean, really .... what are friends for?

To pad your facebook numbers, man!

Originally Posted by harvey_birdman

The only thing a real life friend has ever done for me that was of any value was to drive me home after I had too much to drink. Considering I could have got a cab for that and not have had to take **** for the next week about puking in his backseat I do not consider real life friends to have any material benefit over internet friends.

Hey, I can call you a cab from here!

Harvey - you're a cab.

 

[Thomas]

Originally Posted by RSS

With iFriends ... who needs friends.

I say we replace the term 'friends' with 'outsource media content generators'.

 

[Harold falcon]

Originally Posted by Thomas

Hey, I can call you a cab from here!

Harvey - you're a cab.

Thanks fella, you're the best internet friend ever.