The Loneliness Economy: How can technology help us belong?

There are always going to be people who believe they don’t really need to depend on others, or want others to depend on them. And capitalism has produced more and more ways we can use money, rather than relationships, to solve our problems. It’s easier and easier to employ a courier, a therapist, a zero-hours contracted task-doer, rather than ask a... See more

I find it fascinating & troubling that humans are getting lonelier as we simultaneously create a world that’s both safer and wealthier.

I feel alienated from people that believe technology can solve loneliness. To me, effective accelerationism is doomerism disguised as optimism. The belief that things won’t change and the belief that if they do change, through technology, it will be for the better are both sides of the same coin. In fact, just as entropy is an arrow of time, I thin... See more

We're living through an epidemic of loneliness (as many have discussed), but the solution being engineered isn't more human connection. It's simulated companionship that's both profitable and... frictionless.

Trying repeatedly to do something so potentially devastating requires being finely attuned to other people, tapped into your own ability for intimacy. And our culture of extreme individualism and extreme alienation, our culture of loneliness, doesn’t exactly make that easy.

So how is it that we have entered into our most digitally connected age ever yet loneliness is at an all-time high?

A few things come to mind:

• The new ways we connect lack depth


• We face information overload from too many people we don't care much about


• We move locations and jobs more often


• Information is decentralized: we go to technology for a

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