Millions of Men Are Missing from the Job Market • Hacker News Board

Re: Millions of Men Are Missing from the Job Market

#261

Post by splintercell » Tue, Oct 18, 2016, 3:10 PM UTC

SolaceQuantum wrote: post #113

reverend_gonzo wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jesus, there is so much entitlement in this post I don't even know where to start. No, you don't NEED an Apple iPhone, and a TV with Netflix, and Amazon, and a Gant sweater. There are thousands of families that are surviving just fine without any of that. We have survived for centuries without external entertainment, and suddenly, you NEED this so you don't get bored? Why not have a conversation with your wife. Sit d…

I will note that those things have value,especially dependent on where you are and what context you exist in socially. There are conversations about tv shows, actors, whatever new show is on Netflix that you will be isolated from without access. There are friends and family with apple products that don't work well with a cheaper phone, such as the messaging system on iPhone. It becomes an obstacle to social activitie…

> There are friends and family with apple products that don't work well with a cheaper phone, such as the messaging system on iPhone.

Sorry can't sympathize with the iMessages problem. I can afford an iPhone quite easily as Android phones, but I choose to not. Find me on a cross platform communication app anytime.

Re: Millions of Men Are Missing from the Job Market

#262

Post by logicallee » Tue, Oct 18, 2016, 3:30 PM UTC

jokoon wrote: post #260

logicallee wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi Jokoon - as mentioned I don't believe the thoughts I quoted, they are written by people worse than Nazis so don't take this too seriously. If we did take them seriously for a minute (even though they're obviously wrong) then perhaps they might respond like this to your points : - If companies need me so much, they would be contacting me. If they don't, they can do without. Those are incentives too. Firstly, this i…

I'm confused, why are you copy-pasting nazis? This reply is very weird.

If you were a fat person who said you couldn't lose weight, I would tell you what losing weight consists of, then I would say that was all said by Nazi's and I don't agree with it.

That way I wouldn't have to argue with you about genetics and intuitive eating and how the body knows what it needs, and all the wrong things fat people believe.

I don't want to argue with you about all the wrong things long-term unemployed people on state benefits believe. . So I've given you all the information I have and there's nothing left to discuss.

You don't seem to have questions or followups, so thanks for the discussions and reading what I wrote.

Re: Millions of Men Are Missing from the Job Market

#263

Post by fizzbatter » Tue, Oct 18, 2016, 3:42 PM UTC

jokoon wrote: post #192

fizzbatter wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I know I'm ranting but to me, society looks like a giant treading mill. Happiness and the slow, intelligent life have been forgotten in favor of a society of endless work and jobs. Contributing to the labor force has become a religion. The simple idea of idleness and staying at home to paint or draw seems to drive people crazy. It should not. I mean, to a degree i can understand what you mean. We are seeking happin…

> Why should you get to do what you like, when others so clearly cant? Because I'm free to do so, because work is consented, not forced. > Seems very very foreign to me. The most basic things are becoming cheaper and cheaper, so I don't think there are good enough reasons to run on that treadmill to deliver pizzas or wait tables. Those are bonus, yet we warrant that those things are necessary in society, instead of g…

> Because I'm free to do so, because work is consented, not forced.

I mean, you're not really addressing the argument with that part. I'm not forcing you to do so, but do you really think you are entitled to live off welfare of others? Because that is the implication of that statement.

If you want to not work, not pay taxes, and live in the woods, by all means. But if you expect society to support you, with no contribution, then you're just abusing the system. Sure, you may "be free to do so", but that doesn't make it correct. And if everyone abused the system like that, it wouldn't work.

Re: Millions of Men Are Missing from the Job Market

#264

Post by ericd » Tue, Oct 18, 2016, 4:17 PM UTC

SolaceQuantum wrote: post #259

ericd wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone who has given up those things has dealt with those pressures. They're certainly not insurmountable, and the payoff is not being in debt with a bunch of stuff that has no value once it leaves the store.

I actually don't know if that is true. I am from a very different background (Chinese) and I don't really suffer the need to buy fashionable new clothes or get the newest phone. As long as I interact with and love my friends and family it is okay. However, in an American university I feel often left out or ignored because I cannot be as passionate about actors, movies, or similar media as I don't watch films or telev…

Fair, but there are cheap ways to watch TV, and in college, you typically don't have to pay for any of that yourself. Sorry, I shouldn't have lumped those all together, the expensive consumption habits are more what I was talking about.

Re: Millions of Men Are Missing from the Job Market

#265

Post by Grishnakh » Tue, Oct 18, 2016, 4:28 PM UTC

fizzbatter wrote: post #64

jokoon wrote: post #27

I'm not even american, I'm french, 31, I have skills in programming (C++, php, python, and some math), did not obtain my degree, and I have never worked more than a month during all my life. I currently have the disability status, and I will soon train to be an army reservist. I regularly see a psychiatrist for therapy and took anti depressant for 4 years. The inactivity and the feeling of exclusion is soul-killing (…

> I know I'm ranting but to me, society looks like a giant treading mill. Happiness and the slow, intelligent life have been forgotten in favor of a society of endless work and jobs. Contributing to the labor force has become a religion. The simple idea of idleness and staying at home to paint or draw seems to drive people crazy. It should not. I mean, to a degree i can understand what you mean. We are seeking happin…

The problem is that more and more low-level jobs are going to be automated away in the coming years, and that's going to leave a lot of people without jobs available that pay sufficiently to allow them to survive. Truck drivers, burger flippers, fruit pickers, various clerical workers, and many more will be out of a job because those jobs can be done better and cheaper by robots; at best, they'll have one worker overseeing the robots and making sure they work right, and coordinating between them. The computer you wrote this comment on was mostly built with robotic labor: no one populates modern circuit boards by hand.

So yes, work is less and less necessary, regardless of your religious beliefs to the contrary. No, not all work is going to go away; we'll still need engineers for a long time (unless they invent human-level AIs to do the engineering work for us). But not everyone is capable of being an engineer or doctor or other worker requiring significant education; most people just aren't capable of those jobs.

The other big factor is: how much work? Why do we need to work 40 hours a week or more? With more work being done by automation, and our productivity at the highest point in history, when can we finally take more time off and do enjoyable things instead of putting in "face time" at a workplace because of the quaint notion of hourly pay? Why are we not all benefitting from automated labor making our lives easier and more luxurious?

Re: Millions of Men Are Missing from the Job Market

#266

Post by Grishnakh » Tue, Oct 18, 2016, 4:34 PM UTC

andrepd wrote: post #48

muse900 wrote: post #32

What I'll write might sound stupid to some but well... There needs to be a re-configuration of the global economy and its system. People like me late 20's and younger might be feeling that they have no future. At least I do. I am working full-time and thats fine. That only pays my day to day expenses, coming the end of the month am always out of money waiting for the next paycheck. Me buying my own house? That sounds…

>Unfortunately prices went up, on houses etc and nowadays you got Tech involved in anything you do. You have to have a smartphone, and your wife wants the smartphone with the bitten apple no matter if it will cost half a months salary. Your kids want an Ipad or some sort of tablet. Your household needs a TV with netflix, amazon and whatever so you don't get bored. Add all those small things around and the era where e…

>I don't understand, what do you mean by this? Does anyone force you to buy a bitten off apple brand phone? You can get excellent smartphones that last for 3 years for less than 200$

You're not going to get a newer iPhone for anywhere near that figure.

And if you're questioning why someone needs a new iPhone, then you're obviously not married.

>Does anyone force you to buy a gant sweater?

Here again, you prove that you're not married.

>Your kids "want" an ipad? Buy them a cheaper tablet, or better yet, don't buy them a tablet at all.

Yet again, you're definitely not married.

>But a raspberry pi and a couple of snes controllers and download some old games. Problem solved.

This one clinches it: you are definitely not married.

>but if you are aware of that, what's forcing you yourself to buy into it?

If you ever get married, you'll find out.

Re: Millions of Men Are Missing from the Job Market

#267

Post by Grishnakh » Tue, Oct 18, 2016, 4:35 PM UTC

bittercynic wrote: post #86

andrepd wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Unfortunately prices went up, on houses etc and nowadays you got Tech involved in anything you do. You have to have a smartphone, and your wife wants the smartphone with the bitten apple no matter if it will cost half a months salary. Your kids want an Ipad or some sort of tablet. Your household needs a TV with netflix, amazon and whatever so you don't get bored. Add all those small things around and the era where e…

It seems pretty easy to me to ignore fancy brands and find the things I need at a good price. If I have a favorite brand, it is Kirkland ;) I do have some sympathy for people who feel they need a Mercedes car and a North Face jacket, and consistently put themselves in financial peril to get those things. It seems like many are sincerely unable to say no to extravagant spending. Though I don't understand it, I try not…

>I do have some sympathy for people who feel they need a Mercedes car and a North Face jacket, and consistently put themselves in financial peril to get those things. It seems like many are sincerely unable to say no to extravagant spending. Though I don't understand it, I try not to judge.

The explanation is simple: they're probably married.

Re: Millions of Men Are Missing from the Job Market

#268

Post by Grishnakh » Tue, Oct 18, 2016, 4:58 PM UTC

rubidium wrote: post #128

sailfast wrote: post #29

Not pointed out in the article, but perhaps in the study(?) - the United States has been engaged in an active war for the past 15 years that likely contributes to an increased number of those taking painkillers for injuries or having some sort of psychological disorder. In my mind I liken it to shellshock and after-effects felt in societies post WWI / WWII. I don't have specifics on the number of wounded / in treatme…

I was curious about this too. Age 25-54 men in US: 52.3 million. Currently 11.4% are out of workforce, compared to 8.5% in 2000. 2013 statistics: "As of last September, more than 1.6 million military members who’d been deployed in what’s classified as the global war on terror – in Iraq and Afghanistan, primarily – had transitioned to veteran status, VA records show. Of those, about 1 million were from active-duty ser…

>My hunch is the loss of valuing community and family in US culture. With no reason/motivation to work, no one depending on them, men just drop out.

I think there's a lot to this. Notice also that the divorce rate is high, and worse, the rate of people staying single is rising a lot too: many people just aren't bothering to get married any more. I'm back in the dating pool, and I'm finding a LOT of urban women these days who are in their 30s and even 40s and never got married, and after trying to date some of them it's my opinion that for most of them, they're college-educated and their professions and girlfriends have kept them busy all this time (plus lots of foreign travel it seems), and they just don't feel like they need a relationship, and I'm guessing when they get horny they just go to a neighborhood bar and pick up someone. Anyway, after dating some of them it seems to me they're all stuck holding out for Mr. Perfect, and want someone who looks and dresses like a GQ model, can run a marathon, drives a BMW, and lives right across the street from them downtown. It's so bad that many of these women are finally realizing they want to experience motherhood and are getting IVF to do it, without bothering to have a husband first. I met one woman on Tinder who was a little over 40, and told me in the very first phone conversation how she had already tried one round of IVF! WTF?

Notice also that women are going to college much more than men now (60% vs 40%), and women with any brains at all are going to college and moving into the cities. Men who aren't college educated don't do the same, so now we're having parts of the country with severe imbalances between single men and women. There's a ridiculous number of single women in NYC, for instance.

Re: Millions of Men Are Missing from the Job Market

#269

Post by Grishnakh » Tue, Oct 18, 2016, 5:15 PM UTC

moosey wrote: post #184

contingencies wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you misread my comments. I am just saying that when a fairly large percentage of the population is considered 'mentally ill' then they're probably not ill at all, they're just having a perfectly reasonable response to a completely screwed up society. I mean objectively the binary view of "sick" and "healthy" is wrong for starters. Also objectively, many societies don't have these issues or at least don't have…

> the whole antidepressant epidemic in the US (and other places, like Denmark, the self-reported happiest country on earth) is a symptom of a fundamental breakdown in the community aspects of society and a pervasive, deep-seated sense of mental rudderlessness infecting the more vulnerable parts of the population That causes damage. Turning your ankle or pulling a muscle might be more obvious, because it's purely phys…

Your analogy about the poisoned well is good, but I think what you're missing is that, I believe, the OP's point is that merely treating people with mental disorders is not the right solution. In your well example, if you have a poisoned well making everyone sick, the solution is NOT to treat everyone for poisoning, and continue drinking the water! Instead, you find a new well, or figure out how to un-poison the well (obviously, in the meantime you treat the people currently poisoned, but first and foremost you don't keep drinking poisoned water). Similarly here, the solution is not to keep going with our current broken society, but to fix the society so that people aren't being made mentally ill by it.

Re: Millions of Men Are Missing from the Job Market

#270

Post by neurotrace » Tue, Oct 18, 2016, 8:23 PM UTC

EliRivers wrote: post #224

neurotrace wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No offense but that seems like a rather narrow mindset. Following that logic, why don't you just toss your trash on the street? Or steal every time you get a chance? Or be a jerk to everyone you meet? Some people have the "luxury" of lazing about at home but that kind of lifestyle is not sustainable for society at large. Expecting someone else to carry your weight just because you don't want to is rather childish.

There's nothing remotely narrow about it as a mindset. That doesn't even make any sense. I didn't present a mindset. I think you didn't consider what you meant by that; it's just a stock phrase people say when other people think differently. The OP said he wanted to do something that wouldn't work if everyone did it. But he's not everyone. If he did it, it would work, and he said that's what he wanted to do. He wants…

Definition of mindset: "the established set of attitudes held by someone."

So you're saying that this:

"So why don't you? I get that if everyone did that, it wouldn't work, but you aren't everyone. You're just you."

doesn't tell me anything about your mindset? You're telling me that it's okay to stay at home and be lazy because, why not, it's just you right? It could work if OP is willing to be a mooch on society, yes, but that's not the kind of thinking anyone should be condoning.

To take it to an extreme, you could say "if you're the kind of person who doesn't want to go to prison, then there's your motivation for not murdering people, but OP does want to murder people, so why not do it?" The logic is the same.

You're right though. If you want to be a non-contributing member of society and act like a child, that's completely your prerogative but it's an absolutely childish, selfish, and narrow mindset to have.