Ask Lemmy

Lets cap the population of cities to 10 000 and make everyone live in a small town.

• Sport and art
• low cost and free places to do sport and art
• linked together by public transit and clean, safe places to walk, run or cycle (or scoot or skate or whatever)
• a shorter working week, so people have time to do the above
• a higher minimum wage, so people can afford the (ideally low, if necessary) costs involved

So, e.g., lots of parks with publicly accessible five-a-side football pitches, ping-pong tables, basketball courts, skateparks whatever - that's your sport. The parks also have bandstands or outdoor theatres, where there's space for that.

Public libraries with rooms people can hire (or use for free) for book clubs, sewing circles, art classes - that's your art.

Good thing about the above is that all these ideas already exist in lots of forms, you just pick whatever works best for your current situation.

Spend less time online, do less digital activities.

I do more IRL, in-person, activities. Any kind of activity most of us somehow forget we used to do well before Internet and digital was a thing can still be done without the Internet and without a computer of any kind.

In-persons is intimidating but it also helps keep away the armies of online trolls and haters that online thrive to hurt other people. Provided one behaves like a decent human being, it's very rare people IRL will hate on anyone for goofing up or for not agreeing with them. It's ok.

I also do as much as I can the analog way, without anything digital. It helps. Be it to write or sketch, or do stuff with my hands. Heck, even me using a paper agenda instead my phone will regularly trigger surprised/interested questions from people that otherwise would probably never have talked with me to begin with ;)

Why u need creative? If u actually wanna fix it all u need is a shared social activity with a regular attendance of everyone. And would u look at that we just reinvented religion and church.

Keep people in adjacent cages on a big rectangle of concrete next to a swamp so they get all the social time they need. Kid Rock plays to keep up morale every Friday night.

Turn off internet access, or throttle it to the minimal usable speed.

As any other problems, it's an issue with political will

• Have minimum delivery fee to force people to visit physical store over "online shopping" and promote farmer marker and city-centre (village-centre) shopping so people interact with each other

• End-up US style suburbanization, these nice house in a quiet area are great to sleep-in but means you're away from every social activity, and when you're too young/too old to drive it turns into house arrest

• Increase subsidises for non profit-club, especially for the one having under 25 and above 65 members If you go playing scrabble, theatre or practice Karate you stop being lonely

• Carpooling parking and lanes to push worker to interact with people living nearby

Easy, stop considering any kind of digital communication as social interaction, it might seem like it but it is not.

We call it social media, social networks, communities, groups but rarely think about the individuals within them, it's I saw on Facebook or according to Reddit. We tend to think about the entire platform as a single entity, we barely notice the names of the users.

Messaging apps. How often do we ask to someone how's going? And to how many people? We might spend the whole day in the group chat of our actual friends and still not know if they are fine or not.

Try and find where my invisible friend went then hang out with them again.

Get rid of smartphones entirely.

Double the minimum wage and standardize a four day work week. People need more free time and resources in order to socialize effectively.

Live with friends.

Go to open mic or karaoke nights. Hype everybody up. Talk to people after their performance.

Start a hobby and find a local group to do your hobby with other people. Sometimes if you’re really into the hobby the group will find you. E.g. you’re at the park doing your hobby and see other people doing your hobby. You talk to them and they know a group of people doing it too.

Assuming your job doesn’t involve much face to face interaction, volunteer somewhere in person and talk to the people you’re working with and the people you’re serving.

Set up a booth at a high foot traffic area with a sign that says, “Free jokes.” Or “Free Magic.” Memorize some decent jokes or magic tricks and do them. Talk to people. Ask if they want you to perform at their house for their friends. Become the token magician friend.

For me, working in human services does the trick. Over the summer I take a vacation to heal body/mind, and swap to spending more time on MMOs, a Mud, and making sure I go “out” somewhere at least once a day. Even just to the library.

Parks full of cats?

Talk to old people. They have time to listen. Delete all social media.

I think the big challenge now is to create a method of online dating that isn't a miserable experience for most of its users, but if I had a creative solution for that, I'd be rich.

Other than that, AI friends. That's the future.

Plenty of good real solutions in the comments here. My creative solution is to add a feature to everyone's phone that automatically will FaceTime them with someone also on their phone in the area. You can't turn it off, you can only add people to your default list. No guarantee they're who you connect to though.

More public transit and more public spaces. Transit that you don’t have to think about taking (because it’s safe, frequent, and cheap or free) takes you to new places or to familiar places more often, and lets you meet more people more often. And going outside and doing shit is just good for you, I’m sorry to report.

Is the epidemic one of loneliness or one of improper socialization, a background fear of people and purposelessness? Sadly, idk how to make people change their minds and hearts besides just talking to them and hoping something sticks.

Abolish digital slavery and publicly code and fund the public commons with no scraping or exploitation whatsoever. Restore the rights of autonomy and self determinism required for a citizen in a democracy and people will return to the culture that existed before google won its privateer piracy charter to digitally enslave everyone in exchange for free email and search results because the US was too backwards to fund the fundamental public commons required for real democracy and was itching for slavery again at the first opportunity of going unnoticed.

Multi dwelling houses: a house with a central living area and apartments of different sizes linking in to it.

The central area has a big kitchen, dining, play area, halls link it to a 1-bed, 2-bed and 3-bed apartments each with a little kitchen as well.

You can be on your own in your apartment or go use the big kitchen, join trivia night, etc

Legitimately stop treating phones like a necessity. Leave them at home more. Treat apps more like accessories and less like doorways.

Opt more for going in person to places to do things. By bike or transit whenever you can. Go to public events at your local parks and venues. Attendance is its own form of support, too. Anything we can do to purposely put ourselves in front of other people who share different perspectives than ourselves is good for us.

I think a lot of people don’t realize that there is a sense of responsibility when it comes to putting ourselves out into the world. If you think you’re capable of helping others, simply being a positive person in a public place, even just to have some fun meeting with friends, is a step in the right direction to building a better world. Nature will eventually setup a situation for you to be called upon. But this never happens from in your house or apartment.

Go to the bar, drink, tip well. At least the bartenders will want to socialize when they can, even if only for their own self interests (tips). Also, other patrons might be in the same boat, and you can commiserate over drinks!

Make friends in meat space. Have activities you do with other people regularly