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

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

#361

Post by intended »

vlunkr wrote: post #199
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…

The trick is to stop caring about the 1%. There isn't limited wealth or happiness. I promise if you plan it out it's completely possible to retire with dignity and people are doing it all the time.

Definitely - people are doing it all the time: based on investments and savings made before the current market regime and rules.

Its not going to be the same for you and most people on HN today.

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

#362

Post by intended »

api wrote: post #312
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…

It's already not ending well. A seemingly sizable and growing fraction of these disaffected largely male unemployed or under-employed people are embracing full-blown fascism and other equally unhinged ideologies. Look into the intersection between online alt-right / neo-Nazi trolldom and the gamer/4chan/etc. orbit. Humans don't like to live in zoos and alternate realities are ultimately unfulfilling. I agree about yo…

World war 3 is the dream for the disenfranchised.

The reality is more like dystopia and control/distraction of the average user, packaged as good deals/market solutions to help you get ahead.

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

#363

Post by intended »

greenhatman wrote: post #289
Aeolun wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Confirmation bias? Just because it worked for you, doesn't mean there aren't a thousand people who tried and failed at exactly the same thing. Your chances are definitely higher than zero if you try, but unfortunately it's no guarantee that you'll succeed.

There is no guarantee for anything. That is not a reason not to try. There is literally nothing better to do with your life than try. So just try.

Your advice is for a problem which is different from that in the article and the larger Macro scenario.

People ARE trying. Its not really a good strategy as it gets no where. Its only a better strategy than not trying, as not trying gets you to being a depressing statistic, like joblessness in erstwhile manufacturing hubs.

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

#364

Post by TulliusCicero »

marknutter wrote: post #168
diogenescynic wrote: post #79

Good paying jobs are scarce and video games are relatively cheap for the amount of time you can spend on them. It's escapism. They are confusing correlation with causation.

This is such bullshit . Right now you can walk into a long haul trucking job with zero years experience and be making $70k minimum with a $10-20k signing bonus after a short month long training. And that's one of myriad trades that are available today . The lie that has been sold to America's youth that everyone has a "right" to go to college and is entitled to a job upon graduation will go down as one of the greates…

From what I understand, long haul trucking is hell on your body.

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

#365

Post by Asooka »

ajeet_dhaliwal wrote: post #351

I don't think this is an increasing phenomena due to games getting 'better' as much as due to the economic climate. Even children do it, I did. It can be a good thing and a bad thing. The reason I am a hacker and earn a living as a 'professional software engineer' today, have worked in the games industry and now also at a startup is all because of the interest in games and software generated during my childhood playi…

Yeah I don't think games are different than anything else you can get addicted to. They're healthier than drugs and alcohol and keep you out of trouble. You don't even get the acute physical dependence you do with alcohol and they don't really make you dumber like some drugs. If someone is spending all day playing games, they have a mental health problem, or literally nothing better to do, which could be a societal problem. I mean at some point you can decide fuck it, the game is rigged, there's nothing I can do for my future, let me enjoy myself while I can. We've seen this play out with gangs, alcohol and plenty of other things more destructive than gamea.

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

#366

Post by chongli »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #336
Turing_Machine wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the presumed scenario here is that all but the 1% are starving in the streets (including the friends and relatives of said cops). Why wouldn't they side with them? Just to be clear here, I think the outcome of such a revolution scenario would almost certainly lead to even more suffering. But it would happen nonetheless. It behooves us to not allow things to get that bad.

Why is this the presumed scenario? That is not the scenario here in India, where the lower class does in fact work as domestic labor for the middle class. Starvation only seems to happen nowadays in war zones and communist countries.

Starvation is not the motivator I would suggest. Just curious, have you taken a look at the comments section on YouTube? There's an ENORMOUS amount of hate being tossed around and I would conjecture that it is coming from the cheeseburger gamer cohort (and their employed gamer allies).

This hate is being directed at anyone who appears to be doing better than they are of late: women, minorities, Jews, middle and upper class liberals attending private liberal arts schools, anyone with a non-STEM degree... You get the picture.

Anyway, the point I want to make is that these people aren't afraid of having their cheeseburgers taken away, they're afraid of having their games and gaming time taken away. Revoke their social security cheque and give them a mop, they aren't going to starve but they are going to lose most of their gaming and YouTube time. And the people they'll end up serving? Those are the same people they passionately hate.

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

#367

Post by Asooka »

ganfortran wrote: post #200
flashman wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I see what you're saying here: This story is about young unemployed people who have many hours to spare and use them gaming. There are similar young people who use those hours on the alt-right parts of 4chan, Reddit or other online communities.

Not quite. Actually, it is not coincidence, 4chan is primarily a video game/anime forum while being the one of the online centers of alt-righters. Unemployment stays as the center of all issues here. Or bad employment if we look from a higher perspective. With low income and bad job, video game, as a way of pleasure, it is cheap per hour, very little requirement for room, easy obtain of the feeling of achievement, ma…

Look at it from another way - jobs don't intrinsically fill any need on Maslow's hierarchy. We do then to get the money we need to do the things that we want. Gaming - alone or in a group - does fulfill some high level human need. Obviously not for everyone, some people prefer getting drunk in company to sitting quietly at home, but that's what makes us human.

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

#368

Post by guitarbill »

mattmanser wrote: post #354
jondubois wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, you don't see them in the streets, they're "out of sight, out of mind". Even if they understood what happened to them, they wouldn't have the confidence to do anything about it. The brilliance of this terrible system is that it makes the victims accept the full the responsibility of their failed lives upon themselves. It's natural selection. People who need to feel short term rewards in their lives will be wipe…

The Occupy protests around the world? Arab spring? 2011 UK riots? Black lives matter? There's a definite undercurrent that politicians are barely keeping a lid on, the latest manifestations being Brexit and Trump.

While you're right in those being reactions to a (correctly) perceived helplessness, have those things actually changed anything? I personally subscribe to Adam Curtis' argument [0] - from his works like Hypernormalisation and Oh Dearism - that they haven't changed anything fundamentally.

Sure, Brexit and Trump have had an effect, but are people truly better off? For all Trump's talk (whether you see that as positive or negative), I think we're seeing that even he's struggling against the whole system. And Brexit isn't really doing what anybody wants at the moment.

[0] Adam Curtis seems to come up regularly here on HN, for good reason. I can't believe it hasn't yet in this thread, but I'm happy to be the first. I strongly recommend all of Adam Curtis' work: https://thoughtmaybe.com/by/adam-curtis/

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

#369

Post by intended »

ajeet_dhaliwal wrote: post #351

I don't think this is an increasing phenomena due to games getting 'better' as much as due to the economic climate. Even children do it, I did. It can be a good thing and a bad thing. The reason I am a hacker and earn a living as a 'professional software engineer' today, have worked in the games industry and now also at a startup is all because of the interest in games and software generated during my childhood playi…

I disagree - and I also think the counter point needs to be more dispersed.

A majority of the games created today are straight up skinner boxes which engender and support addictive/gambling behaviors. Especially since today, most games are in your mobile phone and not your PC/Console.

These programs use random reward schedules, linear reward schedules, everything. They use it with constantly fine tuned schedules, and with constant feedback.

These are machines, which send dopamine shots to the brain at precision tool levels.

There is no real world analogue that can beat

1) Random chance of huge drop (dopamine hit)

2) Clear performance metrics showing steps to next dopamine hit

3) Timers showing when next free dopamine hit is coming

4) Social tie ins to increase reach and invoke community/social mental systems as well as social proof/buy in

5) Streamlined, A/B tested interfaces and messaging.

6) Leader boards for the competitive

7) Mobile and thus constantly available

I used to dream of making games which were like that, because I thought I was being a sneaky bastard. Then I saw these creatures appear on the market.

Many people out there with less sense and more money are happy to blame the gamer and call it "just a game".

Lets be clear: This kind of design should be banned/disallowed.

And if anyone gets upset by using "banned" on HN, let me remind everyone that around the world Subliminal Advertizing is disallowed, if not directly illegal.

Shiny skinner boxes in everyones hand are planes of existence worse than Subliminal ads.

I am a gamer, and have been since the day I saw an atari, and fumbled with a sinclair spectrum.

This shit is beyond unethical.

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

#370

Post by vertex-four »

sheepmullet wrote: post #63
ocschwar wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what scares the shit of me regarding UBI. I don't mind paying for it even if it does keep young men immersed in a fantasy world. But I have a daughter. And she will be surrounded by men whose idea of women will be shaped by game characters that fail the Turing test but have big tits. I guess for her first birthday after puberty I'll have to get her a taser.

I think you might be worrying about the wrong thing. Young men have much healthier views on gender equality than when I was young. The trend I see is young men not putting in the effort to form romantic relationships and young women, rather than adjust their standards or put more effort in, trying to compete for the few guys who do measure up. I would be much more worried that my daughter was going to end up very lon…

> Young men have much healthier views on gender equality than when I was young.

Honestly, it broadly depends on what communities you're part of, IME. Some are wonderful, some are abysmal, and a lot are well-meaning but terrible at policing bad behaviour from a minority of members.

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