We are not simply becoming disconnected. The habitat in which meaningful social connections can happen, the space in which we could cultivate the capacities we urgently need to be, think and act social is disappearing - and in many ways, being systematically destroyed:

• The social distancing necessary to combat the coronavirus pandemic may do lasting damage to basic habits of civility. And it may offer lasting support to attitudes of racism, xenophobia and "othering".
• Other shock events (e.g. floods, financial crisis) and rapid changes (e.g. automation) are worsening the widening gap between people who are driving change and people who are struggling to adapt. Society's newest class division is "winners" vs "losers".
• Socio-economic differences now extend so far across daily life that the simplest encounters with people across age-, wealth- and education-gaps are becoming rare.
• Public gathering places are disappearing - either closing or privatizing.
• Common knowledge is being torn into contested claims to support competing interests. Public "broadcasts" are being replaced by private "newsfeeds" that aim to maximize individual attention to a private world of preferred content.
• Civics (i.e., learning the importance of thinking and valuing at a social level) is disappearing from school curricula.
• Even the time and space we need in our own lives to cultivate individuality and connect in surprising, meaningful ways with other individuals is disappearing.

The social habitat in which we learn to be, think and act social is disappearing and being destroyed. As it disappears, it becomes harder and harder for us to respond to crises any other way than how we do right now.

Everyone, from stay-at-home parents to globe-trotting CEOs, is being, thinking and doing within an increasingly simplified, disconnected awareness of reality as a whole. That, fundamentally, is why our world is full of crises we cannot solve.

How can we rescue and restore our endangered social habitat?