United States of Aloneica: Dispatches from the Sociocide Zone

A man with a worried expression sitting on a couch, holding a remote control with his hand on his face, in a room with a thermostat on the wall. The image is part of a satirical newspaper titled "United States of Alonesia Dispatches from the Sociocide Zone."

08:30 PM PST (August 4, 2025) - N.S. EIC

By Not Sure Media’s Department of National Disintegration
(An opinion piece, not journalism. Nobody here is winning a Pulitzer.)

Welcome to Aloneica—formerly the United States of America. Population: 330 million isolated individuals, each binge-watching their own personal apocalypse while side-eyeing their neighbors through a Ring camera. Here, solidarity is suspicious, friendship is inefficient, and the closest thing to community is complaining in the same Amazon review thread.

Sociologist Charles Derber(*) calls this phenomenon sociocide: the gradual, systematic destruction of the social glue that holds a society together. Think genocide, but instead of mass graves, we get Nextdoor threads and passive-aggressive HOA letters.

What Is Sociocide—and Why Is America Leading the League?

Sociocide isn’t just people being rude at Trader Joe’s. It’s the industrial-scale demolition of human connection—across families, workplaces, politics, and what used to be called “civil” society. It happens when:

Neoliberal economics tells you your coworkers are competition, your neighbors are freeloaders, and your grandma should launch a side hustle.
Tech platforms replace eye contact with dopamine loops and clickbait outrage.
Political polarization turns Thanksgiving dinner into a Cold War summit—minus the diplomacy.

Derber argues sociocide isn’t an accident—it’s a feature, not a bug. Loneliness is profitable. Distrust is scalable. Rage is algorithmically optimized. Welcome to late-stage capitalism, where your social life is an extractive industry.

Symptoms of Sociocide: A Totally Scientific Checklist

You might be living in a sociocidal society if:

You know your Uber driver’s star rating but not your neighbor’s name.
You’ve been to more Zoom funerals than birthday parties.
You feel guilty asking a friend for help but fine paying $9.99/month for “empathy-as-a-service.”
You think solidarity sounds like a communist startup.

Bonus symptom: You just nodded in recognition but will still text “LOL” instead of calling your mom.

The Great Unbinding: From Union Halls to Solo Hustles

Once upon a time, solidarity was the lifeblood of American democracy—union halls, civil rights marches, barn raisings, casseroles. Now?

Union membership has nosedived from 35% in the 1950s to under 10% today.
Gig work has turned employment into a game show where everyone loses.
Politics has become a branding exercise. It's no longer “We the People.” It’s “Me the Content Creator.”

Even the word community has been gentrified. “Join our skincare community,” whispers the Instagram ad, while your real-life community dissolves into legal disputes over lawn height and parking violations.

The Sociocide Industrial Complex™

Derber outlines the key players behind sociocide, which conveniently resemble every company and ideology that’s ever sponsored a TED Talk:

Table comparing forces and their roles in sociocide, including Neoliberal Capitalism, Big Tech, Political Elites, and Cultural Narcissism.

Together, these forces form a finely tuned machine that turns humans into branded, anxious micro-celebrities who hate each other just enough to avoid organizing.

Can Sociocide Be Reversed, or Are We Just Doomed in 4K?

Derber, to his credit, doesn’t just offer a diagnosis—he prescribes rebellion. Real, collective rebellion. Not “hashtag activism” or “brand synergy with values,” but actual grassroots movements: labor organizing, racial justice, climate solidarity, and democratic renewal. You know, all the things your algorithm gently nudges you to ignore.

But first, we have to retrain a culture that’s been taught to treat connection like a multi-level marketing scam. Reversing sociocide means:

Rebranding solidarity as badass, not sentimental.
Rebuilding institutions that don’t rely on likes, swipes, or shareholder approval.
Creating media (yes, like Not Sure Media) that skewers isolation and spotlights the absurdity of life in Aloneica.

Final Thought Before You Scroll to Something Less Uncomfortable

America’s sociocide isn’t fate. It’s infrastructure. Built brick by invisible brick—from deregulated markets to dopamine-maxing apps. But what’s built can be unbuilt.

Start small:
Invite someone over.
Join a union.
Unsubscribe from the Rage Machine™.

Solidarity isn’t dead.
It’s just buried under ten layers of content, a stack of delivery boxes, and three libertarian podcasts about “self-reliance.”

Start digging.

*Bonfire: American Sociocide, Broken Relations, and the Quest for Democracy (Universalizing Resistance) Charles Derber