Ask Lemmy

Exactly. I think this is what we've fundamentally lost in our communities. People helping neighbours.

We're all taught to distrust one another and to be self-sufficient, but that's never how our society evolved in the first place. Cities evolved because cooperation was needed. Division of labour, etc...

I'm lucky that I live in a small city that still mostly has some of that going on. But it's getting more rare every year. Elderly lady that lived across the alley from me had too small a backyard for her usual garden, so I said she was free to use mine because I wasn't needing the space for anything. In return, I got to know my neighbour, and I got veggies come harvest time. She unfortunately passed away two years ago, and the young family that bought the house...haven't even met them yet; they ignore eye contact whenever we're both outside.

Maybe I'm just weird because I grew up in the country. We had a small acreage within a cluster of small acreages. And we all knew each other. The family down the way was a mechanic looking at our vehicles for us. When hay baling needed to be done, we would all pitch in and help. My dad was a construction worker, so he'd go help the neighbours build stuff. It's just how it was for us.