A Short Piece Featured in Belonging Again II.2
Do People Still Go Out?
On the claim “people don’t do things anymore,” as of August 2025, and how it might be “a rational outcome” versus suggest some deficiency
It seems to me that people are increasingly claiming that people “don’t do things anymore”: the bars are empty, parks are bare, weekends at the lake prove depressing…People are not out on their porches congregating (assuming there are porches), churches are emptying, and people “just hanging out” at the mall seems old-fashioned. Is this true or “nostalgia bias”? I don’t know, but let’s consider why it might be the case.
Did Covid change habits? After years of staying in, it can be hard to get people going out again. Is going out too expensive? Prices are up, wages down, and people can hardly afford the rent on their apartments, let alone a “date night” that’s double what it was a few years ago. Maybe technology is too entertaining? Incentives to “deal with people” could be down, all while technology trains us out of our social skills. Has political extremism made people more uncomfortable encountering strangers, afraid of what differences might arise?
Hard to say.
If it is true that “people aren’t going out” (perhaps on the road toward what “Owen in the Agon” has called “pod life”), I would wager it’s because people are “being rational” (suggesting “rational” and “best” are not similes). How so? To throw out something…
1. People do not feel like they know “the rules of engagement.”
a. We are in an Age of Pluralism where people don’t share cultural norms or “givens” (see Belonging Again for more). Hence, it feels increasingly difficult to interact with people; there are a lot of unknowns.
c. People hurt one another (and are especially likely to do so where “givens” are gone). And hurts from people are some of the worst hurts of all.
d. In some unknown circumstances, failure to “engage well” can have major social, business, and reputational consequences. Hence, it’s perhaps best to avoid all “circumstances,” especially if people feel financially and socially “fragile” (“the precariat class”).
2. Technology is powerful and works at home.
a. There is basically infinite stuff to do online that is dynamic, fun, interesting, etc.
b. It is relatively and/or notably cheap (a single night out can cost as much as a month of internet bills — so it goes with the phone).
c. It is logistically not burdensome (compared to traveling, scheduling, etc. — we’re also less likely to get “stuck” in circumstances, “no exit”).
d. We can interact with people through technology (for social, sexual, business, etc. ends) often without the same risks (not to say there aren’t risks at all) — we can feel to have more control again over the (failing) “rules of engagement.”
e. When we go out, it can feel like people are mostly just on their phones, so what’s the point? We can do that at home…
3. People are “burned out.”
a. People feel burned out and strapped for time (see “The Burnout Society” by Han, Byung-Chul).
b. People feel low on energy (due to stress, a life that might make good health hard to come by, etc.)
c. People lack “timenergy” — see the work of David McKerracher for more. This also means that people are less likely to “work on themselves” to be interesting and engaging when encountered in real life, making social interaction seem pretty boring, while the internet can feel more alive and dynamic.
4. It is expensive to go out.
a. Inflation has intensified since Covid.
b. People are afraid of losing their jobs to AI so are saving up and/or
c. People are in debt and avoiding unnecessary spending.
d. People find staying home cheaper for food, entertainment, etc.
5. “Nobody is going out” — so why go out?
a. A self-feeding cycle gets going, where if people aren’t going out (or people think this is true), then a reason people go out dwindles.
b. A reason people go out can be to “happen upon” the unexpected, but if that’s not likely, or when it does happen there’s a fight over political differences, misunderstanding, emotional hurt — then “the surprising” is something we want to avoid (or else we might end up in a “map”…).
c. If everyone is online, weneed to go online to meet people. Going out would be anti-social…
Hence, it’s rational “not to go out.”
And as “givens” fail and technology improves, social skills might dwindle, increasingly the likelihood that “going out” doesn’t go well. This is especially likely if people lack “timenergy” (McKerracher), which can also make it so people lack something interesting to share, talk about — making technology seem more worthwhile (especially if, when out, all we see is people on their phones anyway). People might then feel like they wasted their money, time, and energy in a world where money, time, and energy feel harder to come by….
Is all this so? Again, I don’t know: this is merely an outline of what might be going on. I always hesitate to say stuff like “people just aren’t social like they once were” or “people are scared of one another” — those explanations are too simple. I personally always think it’s good to look for “a logic” that might be in operation which is contributing to people acting the way they are — I prefer looking for “a rationality” that is structuring how people live.
If the reason people aren’t being social is rational, then we are arguably dealing with a Nash Equilibria and “rational impasse” which requires “nonrationality” to work through; otherwise, behavior and the system won’t change (for that would be “irrational”). “Nonrationality” is discussed throughout O.G. Rose, and though we won’t go into detail here, it basically means we need people to do that which might seem irrational to them, say going out and meeting people who might hurt them, especially where “the rules of engagement” are not clear, and to do so in a world where they could stay at home and be entertained without spending so much money or having to deal with the same logistical challenges. I mean, isn’t “going out” silly? Maybe, but I don’t see how else we can use the internet as “a social coordination mechanism,” bridging the online and the real life (as Cadell Last discusses), unless we do what might “seem silly.” And, at the end, I’m not sure why AI shouldn’t replace us if we don’t create and use the power of social networks — though that’s another topic for another time (Land waits).
Could “the dead internet theory” with AI help save us from the incentives we’ve created in favor of social coordination between online and offline spaces? Perhaps only if “the social coordination mechanism” somehow counters the incentive structure we’ve described, but that is a possibility we will have to elaborate on in Belonging Again II.2. For now, we have to decide what we’re going to do today…
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