Loneliness as a gateway drug

What do Luh Twizzy and friendless millennials have to do with Q anon? 

Todays signal (well, op ed) makes explicit the implicit social and political implications of loneliness- lonely, disconnected people are vulnerable to being taken in by charismatic cult-like and populist leaders, and extremist groups of all flavours who prey on the antelope who has been severed from the herd. 

What other unintended group consequences do you foresee downstream of the disconnected disenfranchised lonely individual’s pain?
How can we make people feel included when we are (increasingly- and demandingly so!) “untact” and disconnected (remote work everyone) - or to at least offer productive alternatives to the siren song of lowest common denominator digital voices that offer increasingly personalised and tempting offers to lost and lonely souls? 

Read more:

• The weaponisation of loneliness : https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/08/hillary-clinton-essay-loneliness-epidemic/674921/

• Loneliness as a strategy (weird to choose efficiency over resilience) : https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/10/south-korea-cuts-human-interaction-in-push-to-build-untact-society

• Evils of alone : 

Evil and Loneliness: Why You Should Do Philosophy with Friends