Post: #1

I was just thinking about what makes cities decadent / degenerate. The fact of having a large concentration of people, I don't think that directly has any negative effect (or perhaps it does), but I think there are other factors that come from that.

First of all, when you're far removed from nature, you tend to lose appreciation for the things that you have and how they got to you. For example, when you buy chicken nuggets and fries, it's easy to forget that once upon a time there was a chicken on a farm that had to be slaughtered, and that there were potatoes growing out of the earth, that had to be peeled and sliced.

Also, in cities most of what you see is artificial. Most of the time the only natural thing is the sky and the elements, and even then you can take shelter from them.

Then you have entertainment. Because people tend to be busier in cities, they demand more entertainment in their spare time, to compensate for so much sacrifice of their time. That's why people in cities who work full time tend to spend a lot of money at the weekend.

These are just some thoughts to get the ball rolling. I'll leave it there for now. I think this is a very interesting and overlooked topic.

Post: #2

I don't know about decadency but I know about degeneracy. For the most part it's the rampant and sadly necessary collectivism that causes it.

In the city everyone is responsible for everything to a degree, but when you have .000000001% responsibility for something then it's the same as feeling that you have no responsibility for that thing at all.

Post: #3

The best theory I've heard is the idea of overcrowding causing a 'Behavioural Sink'.

Essentially based on mouse experiments overcrowding causes all sorts of degenerate behaviour and mental health issues (including sexual degeneracy, self-mutilation, aggression and passivity). Some people speculate that it is a natural form of population control which limits breeding.

Post: #4

Large cities certainly seem to bring out the worst in people. When there are so many people competing for so little space (limited road space, everyone desperately trying to increase their income enough to get a slightly larger apartment), it has a tendency to bring out the dickish side of people.

Driving in Beijing traffic is hellish. Watching what people will do to save a few seconds in their daily commute has caused me lose all faith in humanity.

Post: #5

Part of it may be the moral hazard of having abundant services and resources on hand in high concentration.

In the country, help and resources are always further away. You have to take that into account in everything you do, which encourages thinking through consequences, planning ahead, practical judgment, and an interconnectedness or community among the other diffuse residents. You can't just behave irresponsibly because if you screw up not only will help be slow in coming, but your reputation for irresponsibility will get around. You won't get helped as readily in the future, you won't get another job as easily, etc. It's not foolproof, especially nowadays with the erosion of this mindset due to the welfare state (another moral hazard in action) and stores like Walmart (cheap and ubiquitous resources), but the environment still tends to disincentivize decadent behavior. It's the modern version of the mechanism that gave us the Protestant work ethic (northern Europeans having had to work hard and cooperate/trust and plan ahead to survive the harsh winters), and it's also on display throughout (of all things) the "Little House" books.

In the city, you can behave as irresponsibly as you like, because help is always close at hand, there's always another job, and there are so many people that anonymity and a form of the "abundance mentality" remove the consequences of a bad reputation. It feeds into itself, as well - with fewer restraints on behavior due to reduced consequences, the behavior becomes more extreme as new thrills are sought out or invented. So you get both more decadent behavior and more decadent behavior, because it doesn't upset the social environment as easily as in rural areas. There's more social inertia to compensate for the decadence, and the institutional mechanisms tied to the basic maintenance of such a large group of people in such a small area tend to ameliorate some of the broader social consequences (so many people are required to keep the lights on and the water flowing that there are enough responsible people among them to offset the rest - apart from cases like Detroit where the competent have been run off - these things are not wholly dependent on Boozy Bob, the town electrician, or Lazy Sam, the only plumber in the county).

It's K vs. r, in other words. Rural environments are K-selecting, urban ones are r-selecting.

Post: #6

You stand out in a rural area, suburban setting or small town. Bigger urban areas require people to do their thing, to work and this builds stress and, depending upon your economic ability - your pay to play.

Being a single woman or man, homo or straight means you have access to an obscene amount of dick, ass or pussy. So many options and if you can play the field you are set for life.

You're anonymous in the city, not so much in the smaller areas.