Young men dropping out of the job market to spend time in an alternate reality • Hacker News Board

Re: Young men dropping out of the job market to spend time in an alternate reality

#301

Post by a3n » Fri, Mar 17, 2017, 6:12 AM UTC

Aeolun wrote: post #265

peckrob wrote: post #72

I've watched this happen to my friends. One that I graduated high school with in particular comes to mind. We all played video games back then. Half Life, Goldeneye, Starcraft, Everquest, etc. He was a smart guy, driven, usually made better grades than me (I was lazy in high school). Took a job at an medical supply company after graduating from high school intending to work for a few months before starting college. W…

Lost? I'm not certain I'd put it like that. I'm assuming he at least enjoyed playing games all that time.

Yes, lost, because "normally" you'd gain something in those ten years that you could put into the coming years: money/savings, job experience which gives you a firmer hold on a self-sustaining life, relationships.

Re: Young men dropping out of the job market to spend time in an alternate reality

#302

Post by sambodigiorno » Fri, Mar 17, 2017, 6:12 AM UTC

zxcvvcxz wrote: post #231

edblarney wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Utter and complete rubbish. The 'boomers' invented most of the 'computer stuff' you use, most 'developers' today are hacks (granted, some are amazing). Boomers had difficult upbringing, brought real social change, lived through - and ended the Cold War. Female boomers were expected to be secretaries - and had to fight for the right just to do normal jobs in the workplace. Even the boys - were expected to do the same…

Not sure how this is being downvoted - the truth hurts. We just have it too damn good, and without any wide-scale struggles to know how good we have it. I would like to a read a serious response from a detractor.

I'm your Huckleberry. My parents are late boomers and they and many of their friends were able to sleep-walk into middle class comfort and early retirement. Literally all they had to do was show up for work, 9-5, Monday-Friday and their prosperity was lifted on a rising tide of property prices. When they were in their 20s you applied for a job by sending a CV and covering letter. No three rounds of assessment days and homework assignments. When they left work at the end of the day, it didn't follow them home because technology didn't allow it. And the world of fax machines and mail rooms was limited in the amount of ruthless efficiency pressure it could put on workers.

They didn't even need degrees. And my mother is a perfect example of how boomer women being expected to be secretaries is anachronistic SJW nonsense. She never attended university, just started working as a junior claims person at an insurance firm in the 70s, showed up for work for 30 years and ended up in the boardroom with stock options. Never faced any discrimination. And she would be the first to admit she never put much into her career - no need for constant re-training, seminars, conferences, when she was home she was home.

While enjoying these comfortable lives, their generation with their hippy views presided over explosive increases in immigration to most western countries, and are the architects of wealth-hoarding tricks like buy-to-let and all kinds of snaky BS union-breaking contract work. The bottom line is, as a young person today you simply couldn't repeat their lives in terms of comfort and financial security. To match it, you'd need to put in several times the effort and hours they did, with a lot more anxiety biting at your heels.

The first Millennials came of age to the images of those planes hitting the WTC and, as corny as it is, that was some incredibly apt symbology. The few of us who manage to be "anti-fragile" may make out good from this new era, but that the security of the ordinary middle-class majority has been shattered is indisputable.

Re: Young men dropping out of the job market to spend time in an alternate reality

#303

Post by dragonwriter » Fri, Mar 17, 2017, 6:14 AM UTC

Turing_Machine wrote: post #291

dragonwriter wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think Leninism is Marxism, you are a dupe of Leninist propaganda.

Ah, yes. "No true Scotsman". Nope, not going to play that. Edit: At this stage, enough so-called "Marxist" governments have descended into slavery, starvation, and mass murder that the burden of proof should lie on those who advocate such governments, and that burden should be heavy indeed. But nope, it's always "but that wasn't REAL Marxism". After a century of trying, with dozens of attempts, it is quite clear that…

Leninism directly reverses fundamental premises of Marxism, including the required initial conditions and path. It's not Marxism.

There has been real Marxism, though it's never been absolutely dominant in any society. Particularly, it has been a key driving force in replacing the system of Capitalism that 19th Century socialists identified and critiqued with the substantially different modern mixed economy as the dominant economic form of advanced societies, even though Marxists would claim that as far from a complete success, as the modern mixed economy is far from their desired end state.

Re: Young men dropping out of the job market to spend time in an alternate reality

#304

Post by coliveira » Fri, Mar 17, 2017, 6:14 AM UTC

greenhatman wrote: post #286

coliveira wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is too easy for people who have "made it" to say this. I have kind of made it too, so I could have the same attitude. The problem however is that anecdotes don't proof a point. You have to look at numbers. Numbers say that the majority of Americans are losing purchasing power year after year, and there are fewer middle class jobs. Somehow, the 1% have more privileges each passing day, they pay close to nothing in…

Who are they going to invest the money they have in though? People who play computer games and watch Netflix all day? Probably not hey. If you want any chance you're going to have to do something. At least try something.

Enough with this. People who have money are not investing in productive things. They are mostly investing in hedge funds to play the market for the short term as a lottery, or in merger/acquisitions, which kills more jobs than creates. They also put money in assets like real estate that have their prices inflated because of the big rise in money looking for safe investments. When investors do something productive, it is just high technology that kills more jobs than it creates. In other words, the idea that wealthy people create jobs is a myth that is patently wrong in our times.

Re: Young men dropping out of the job market to spend time in an alternate reality

#305

Post by thriftwy » Fri, Mar 17, 2017, 6:17 AM UTC

zxcvvcxz wrote: post #231

edblarney wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Utter and complete rubbish. The 'boomers' invented most of the 'computer stuff' you use, most 'developers' today are hacks (granted, some are amazing). Boomers had difficult upbringing, brought real social change, lived through - and ended the Cold War. Female boomers were expected to be secretaries - and had to fight for the right just to do normal jobs in the workplace. Even the boys - were expected to do the same…

Not sure how this is being downvoted - the truth hurts. We just have it too damn good, and without any wide-scale struggles to know how good we have it. I would like to a read a serious response from a detractor.

There's no room to grow.

In the modern world, for most people, there's nothing productive to do and no fame to get from it.

In the USA, all the highways are already built (and even when they're failing, their fixing will be postponed). High speed rail lines weren't, and they're not going to be. Not on any human time frame.

So most people are engaged with running pre-built technosphere that is slowly falling apart, with no new developments, for ever-shrinking pay, while more and more money are extorted from them to pay for previous generations entitlements, and also for medicine, real estate, tuition and law, which from services all turned into endless money sinks.

Friges and ovens are not the alpha and omega of life. Productivity, respect and growth are. Are we having any all across post-development countries?

Re: Young men dropping out of the job market to spend time in an alternate reality

#306

Post by kordless » Fri, Mar 17, 2017, 6:20 AM UTC

laughfactory wrote: post #150

It's not just video games either. Add Netflix and social media, and soon, VR, to the equation, and it's pretty clear that the game of life offers insufficient rewards relative to one's efforts. I don't believe we ended up here due to some grand conspiracy, but I do think that the top 1% have gotten so skilled at trapping wealth and therefore opportunity that it's really screwing over everyone else. Even as a relative…

> I do think that the top 1% have gotten so skilled at trapping wealth and therefore opportunity that it's really screwing over everyone else.

This is well put and I would only add that the wealth trapping is occurring in a viral way, which means there should be some type of inoculation for the more harmful effects of it.

Re: Young men dropping out of the job market to spend time in an alternate reality

#307

Post by kordless » Fri, Mar 17, 2017, 6:21 AM UTC

fmihaila wrote: post #296

sonthonax wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As with all addictions.

Well, it depends. Some other addictions, while they may consume parts of you, can on balance be more contained (if they don't kill you first). Video games, on the other hand, are sure to eat away inordinate amounts of that which you can never get back: time.

I would propose two counter conjectures: 1. There is no you. 2. There is no time.

Re: Young men dropping out of the job market to spend time in an alternate reality

#308

Post by wallace_f » Fri, Mar 17, 2017, 6:22 AM UTC

flukus wrote: post #184

laughfactory wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They'll take up gaming. The gulf between being a truck driver and, say, a programmer is vast. Imagine losing your truck driving job and suddenly trying to figure what the hell else you're going to do to support your family. Yikes!

> The gulf between being a truck driver and, say, a programmer is vast It really isn't. AI might not be able to take over 100% of our jobs anytime soon, but if even half of the things we spend time on, things like understanding requirements. If an AI system can coax users/managers to provide better requirements, maybe even create tests for those requirements, then every programmer could be twice as productive. That m…

AI in the future will also write the majority of the kind of code that is written today

Re: Young men dropping out of the job market to spend time in an alternate reality

#309

Post by mos_basik » Fri, Mar 17, 2017, 6:23 AM UTC

saryant wrote: post #112

I'm a 26 year old male and never got any deeper into video games than some intense rounds of Mario Kart in college. I've played others but generally lose interest and move on quickly. Doubt I've played a video game in a few years at this point. What follows is likely senseless babbling and bullshit armchair pop psychology. The prevalence of video games among young men frightens me, in two ways: First, in the developm…

Just a comment to make on one of your points -

>In so many video games, you play the hero... you [are the] only person who can succeed and you're rewarded... without real-world troubles like concern for others

Anecdotally, the games I have found most compelling (by and large; exceptions abound) tend to fall remarkably far from that pattern.

In Eve Online you start as a nobody in a cruel world populated by jaded, career hardcore gamers and you probably end that way too - unless you are (irl) creative enough and (irl) charismatic enough to build an commando team, a franchise, a company, a charity or an empire large enough to leave a permanent mark on that universe and on its inhabitants' minds. Rust is pretty much Eve but without the complex economy and an API to crunch numbers with. Still has the social engineering, the pack out for blood mentality and the ability to create a visceral sense of loss (in you or your enemy).

In Dota/League/Starcraft/Counterstrike/any other round-based ladder game you are a chess piece; you play your role and cooperate with others. The better you are at those two things, the more you win games. There's no free lunch; you're always matched with people similar to your skill so you are always working to minimize the very real risk of humiliating, extended failure at the hands of your peers in every game.

In Minecraft (singleplayer) it's just you and your creativity. You cannot win or lose. You have no missions aside from those you give yourself. The value or satisfaction you gain from this game is directly proportional to what you put into it. It's almost zen. Or maybe it's almost existentialist. In Minecraft (multiplayer) you add to all that the ability to cooperate with others (to convince them of the value of your goals, or to contribute to the advancement of theirs) or to conflict with others (defend what is yours while destroying what is theirs).

I mean, I love Mirror's Edge and its sequel. They're beautiful games, with great soundtracks and fluid gameplay that doesn't revolve around shooting. But in the end, I don't rack up hundreds of hours in that kind of game. I don't think I even got halfway through the Skyrim campaign. Shit's boring to me.

This is all, of course, just my opinions. All my life I've been an outlier, though, so maybe this is all irrelevant to your point, which was about the usual effects of usual games to usual teens/young adults.

Re: Young men dropping out of the job market to spend time in an alternate reality

#310

Post by dragonwriter » Fri, Mar 17, 2017, 6:25 AM UTC

zxcvvcxz wrote: post #247

Endy wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Marxism should never be "easily dismissed". It should be respected and fought for. The problem is that we're afraid to go out and actually fight the Permanent Revolution; because we've been cowed by those who currently hold the power.

You're right, we've never had Real Marxism (TM) , we just have to try a little harder next time. > Capitalism (according to Marxist theory) can no longer sustain the living standards of the population due to its need to compensate for falling rates of profit by driving down wages, cutting social benefits and pursuing military aggression. The socialist system would succeed capitalism as humanity's mode of production t…

> Do they mean that same capitalism that brings >1,000,000 Chinese people out poverty every month?

No, they mean the dominant economic system of the developed West in the mid-19th through early-20th century (since replaced in the developed west by the modern mixed economy which is an unstable form with a danger of reverting back to capitalism because it retains central features of capitalism.)

What China has is a transitional form that is somewhere on the map between totalitarian centralization through a kind of neofeudalism (that relates to classical feudalism in the same what that Leninist/Stalinist/Maoist totalitarianism relates to monarchic absolutism) to something like capitalism. Which is certainly progress, just as Marx recognized that the transition from.feudalism to the kind of capitalism he and other contemporary socialist critiqued was progress.

But that it is progress from something worse earlier doesn't make it the ideal end state.

> Did Mao not try hard enough?

Mao tried quite hard at completely the wrong thing. Leninism and it's descendants abandoned key tenants of Marxism to create something that either (in the overly generous view) they thought could work in very different conditions than Marx addressed or (in the more cynical view) as served as convenient propaganda for authoritarian populism in the societies in which they operated.