This is such a common attitude in the US, but it's also a very US attitude. I mean, when I lived in Italy, there were just always other people around. High mountains, small towns, walk in the countryside... you're quite likely to see someone anywhere you go. So you just deal with it.
These things are personal preferences, so difficult to reason about, but I feel that a lot of people in the US would be happier if they didn't have this hangup about "other people", while participating in a society that is entirely and completely dependent on other people.
I'm happier walking around in downtown Hong Kong, a place with much greater density of humanity than anywhere in the United States, than I am here in the US. I think you are denying the existence of fundamentally irrational US citizens who make things suck for everything else in a way citizens of some other countries simply don't.
Well, if there aren't real concrete consequences for doing demonstrably obviously illegal things, then it seems to me it will only get worse here going forward. So I honestly do not blame anyone whatsoever for wanting to run away to either the middle of nowhere or to live among likeminded sorts. I did so myself after getting physically attacked by pandemic deniers who lived down the street from me.
But this was a pre-existing condition - the last half decade really unleashed and enabled the full scope of our national insanity with the pandemic and 2020 election the coup de grace IMO.
This is such a common attitude in the US, but it's also a very US attitude. I mean, when I lived in Italy, there were just always other people around. High mountains, small towns, walk in the countryside... you're quite likely to see someone anywhere you go. So you just deal with it.
These things are personal preferences, so difficult to reason about, but I feel that a lot of people in the US would be happier if they didn't have this hangup about "other people", while participating in a society that is entirely and completely dependent on other people.