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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   24124 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 18, 2026

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Another problem with today's society is lack of third spaces. And another may be employees working and stressing more than necessary, because of inefficiency and toxicity from employers. If there were more third spaces, blue-collar employees worked for less hours, and there were more blue-collar employees in their 20s, they would be able to party and relax like college students.

Even today, if a high school graduate gets a vocational job that leaves time to hang out with their friends (who may be in college dorms and buildings that allow off-campus guests), their short term experience may be better: they don't need to worry about coursework off hours, and they have more disposable income (unless the college students are taking extra loans).

Although I think it ultimately depends on the person's interests. I know I'm much better at thinking than labor or service. If someone's genuinely passionate about a college field, or despises mindless work, they should get a degree, then maybe enter graduate school. But if someone only wants a social life and stable income, getting a degree they won't use is a waste, there are better ways for them to still enjoy their 20s.

I really didn't care for any third spaces, I would consume things like BJJ but not really put in effort to maintain them, for a long time. Then in my late twenties my wife and I were about to have a kid in a new city and we didn't know anyone. Joining a church kind of fixed everything socially.

How many hobby third spaces are going to help with kids, though. I like my BJJ gym but there's only a small selection with kids and it's mostly young professionals

I wouldn't argue that BJJ gyms count as third places, as they obviously only exist to serve BJJ practicioners. Third places by definition need to also be accessible to average people who don't necessarily share a niche hobby.

Third spaces and food desert are similar. Third spaces don't exist, and healthy food is lacking because people don't want them.

Isn’t the usual heretical HBD realist argument regarding food deserts that the rampant crime that is the staple of ghetto areas is discouraging enterpreneurs from running small shops of any kind? Also, doesn't a food desert by definition include any shop within a walking distance that offers any food, not just healthy food?

@The_Nybbler beating me by five minutes.

Motte and Bailey... "Nobody means literally abolish the police!"

It's a lack of "healthy and affordable foods"

USDA: Mapping Food Deserts in the United States

ERS's Food Desert Locator is based on a definition developed by USDA, Treasury, and HHS. Low-income census tracts with a substantial number or share of residents with low levels of access to retail outlets selling healthy and affordable foods are defined as food deserts. A census tract is a small, relatively permanent subdivision of a county that usually contains between 1,000 and 8,000 people but generally averages around 4,000 people. Census tracts qualify as food deserts if they meet low-income and low-access thresholds:

  • Low-income: a poverty rate of 20 percent or greater, or a median family income at or below 80 percent of the statewide or metropolitan area median family income;
  • Low-access: at least 500 persons and/or at least 33 percent of the population lives more than 1 mile from a supermarket or large grocery store (10 miles, in the case of rural census tracts).

There's more than one argument. Rampant crime discourages shops big and small. But lack of demand discourages certain kind of shops.

Anyway, the food desert definition is

Census tracts qualify as food deserts if they meet low-income and low-access thresholds:

Low-income: a poverty rate of 20 percent or greater, or a median family income at or below 80 percent of the statewide or metropolitan area median family income;
Low-access: at least 500 persons and/or at least 33 percent of the population lives more than 1 mile from a supermarket or large grocery store (10 miles, in the case of rural census tracts).

So small stores/bodegas don't count.

In other words they are both convenient, polite, normie Sündenböcke which take the blame for issues in place of the real, impolite-to-point-out reasons.

Can you please spell out the impolite-to-point-out reasons?

We live under a dictatorship of the dysgenic and the kinds of people who yap about 3rd places on youtube only need a mirror to see what the true problem is. Of course as narcissists, that is unacceptable to them. If they were not narcissists, we would all be 140 IQ super models right now from eugenics.

We would have been bred out as autistic. I'm not even sure that they would have been making a mistake doing it.

I'm not more autistic than Francis Galton. It doesn't matter either way because the gene pool would be totally different. If your objection to eugenics is I wouldn't have been born, that's narcissism as well as some kind of fallacy.

Of course as narcissists, that is unacceptable to them. If they were not narcissists, we would all be 140 IQ super models right now from eugenics.

Someone would. Neither you nor I would exist.

As a non-narcissist, that doesn't bother me at all. According to your reasoning, our present existence is a fluke and has essentially 0 universal existence measure anyway. I would rather that whatever does exist be as good as possible than cling to shitty existence.

For third spaces I think it's primarily lack of incentives for third space creation and maintenance, and the lack of incentives stems from wealth. Food deserts are probably more what I suspect you're darkly hinting at, but I also put wealth in a big part of that, society being wealthy and providing ample welfare.

I get the impression that many in their 30s want third spaces, though like healthy food, they're too lazy to act. They would also be a better alternative for those in their 20s who go to college only for the social experience, and don't use their degree afterwards.

I doubt we can revert to past third spaces, but maybe the evolution of social media will create new in-person experiences. Like how GLP-1 helps people lose weight. Or the asocial people (who used to be pressured into socializing) may die off.

I get the impression that many in their 30s want third spaces

Do the ones with children want them? I get the impression this is some type of bonobo signal for childless bohemian millennials. They need something to fill the void.

Parents of young children very much welcome family friendly third spaces.

Really? They welcome chuck E cheese's?

Playgrounds count as third places as well. In that sense, young parents in fact also very much need them.

It would be nice to have more indoor cheap kid places when the weather is bad. There are bounce and indoor playground places, but they are surprisingly expensive. These are still acceptable library programs, but not all that often.

At the quantity of kids that 30 somethings are having it seems plausible. One kid per parent is manageable, or it can be an evening to get away from the kids. I never want to predict the future lest I get bit in the ass but I take my toddler out. It's not everything it was before he started coming out with me but I just get to hang out with other parents as our kids interact. Or one parent takes a few kids and you trade off.

There's also the ultimate third space of Church where if they at all want to grow will have child management.

I'm an older millennial so I don't get the full experience of the kids these days, but the weekly trivia night I go to has a great ratio of younger adults, so does the church I attend.

As you noted I suspect the people complaining are lazy and also have a propensity to be weirdos who other's don't want to be around.

They want third spaces to exist, but they don't want to start them or put the required effort into them to make them flourish. Most people are just free riders that want the benefits. I run a local board game meetup and trying to get people to do anything more than show up (and even then) is very hard.

anything more than show up

But surely that's exactly the point of third spaces. They aren't supposed to be activities you have to put effort into - the whole point of third spaces is to enable what, for lack of a better term, I'll call socially-acceptable indoor loitering. When the bar and the bowling alley are third spaces, you don't go to the bar to drink, and you don't go to the bowling alley to hone your skill at the game. If you want your board game meetup to fulfill that role, you need to stop worrying about whether the people who show up actually play board games. Otherwise you're just running a hobbyist group. Hobbies are socially valuable too, but they're a different thing.

Sorta, if your goal is to just show up at the bowling alley or bar and not provide anything, the "socially acceptable loitering" I don't think you can complain when the space shuts down because it ran out of business by having too many free loaders. You don't need to be a try-hard at drinking or bowling but you should pay for a lane, buy a few drinks to nurse, and contribute to the community. In my specific case, it's "nominally" a board game hobbyist group but its more of a social space. We do a lot of non-board game things, social events, dinners, etc. But there are people that contribute to the community/space in the form of hosting/planning events, bringing supplies, food, and there are people that just show up, give no effort other than their presence. A community/space cannot survive with a too large majority of the latter.

I'd struggle to think of any hobbyist group that is not some form of third space. The simple law of reality is that in order for something to exist, someone needs to make it exist. And that requires effort. Legislating a third space into existence does nothing. Someone needs to actually go organize the community garden, the local pub, the dance hall. And if they get hit by a bus, and the third space falls apart? Well then someone else needs to step up and do the work.

"Socially acceptable loitering" is simply another word for "socializing", I think, which is the whole purpose of third places.

Its socializing without putting effort into the space. If the point of the third space is just a place that you can show up, and requires nothing from you, no effort, just a lazy bum selfishly taking and providing nothing, then its no wonder all the spaces died. People justifying being a selfish taker socially is a major reason there are no third spaces.

That's totally fair. I misinterpreted "trying to get people to do anything more than show up" as suggesting you were mad at people not actually doing the signposted activity, rather than people refusing to do their fair share of the admin/etc.

A fair assumption, my b for not being more clear.

I want to second this. It's why I chose trivia, but trivia is just an excuse. I don't care if we answer a single question. It's mean to be a super low commitment reason to hang out. Granted it does help that we are one of the best teams in the area... winning is fun. But we do have regulars who almost never answer a single question.

Also if you do want to take it to the next level and create a friend group that does require some effort and sacrifice. But it's worth it, just don't expect everyone to contribute the same amount.

In my conception of effort, the effort required is not the people showing up to trivia, its the organizer. The one who gets the questions every week, contacts restaurants and bars for hosting, markets the event, etc. Regulars are great and you can't have a reliable third space without them, but if that organizer did not organize it, there would be no event. And if enough organizers in the local area don't organize it, there is no local trivia community.

That is a lot of work if you're not compensated.

Are trivia organizers compensated? It's not clear to me if they are or not. It's definitely not a full time gig. But yes its a lot of work, welcome to why third spaces don't exist.

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