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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

#411

Post by kerbalspacepro »

soverance wrote: post #399
intended wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you and others on HN also need to consider a very critical issue on game design: SKinner boxes posing as games. While youth unemployment in itself generates flight/distraction direct behavior, game designers themselves are creating absolutely unethical skinner boxes which will generate addictive behavior. This is like dumping a slot machine into the hands (literally) of vulnerable children/young adults (also…

This comment totally needs to be higher. Every other comment on this thread makes little to no mention of "Skinner Box Design", when design tactics like these are almost certainly the #1 factor for creating video game addicts. The issues we're discussing in this thread start with the game designer. Cognitive flow is a real thing, and game designers have learned through decades of research and testing how to put playe…

I think what you are describing might be called 'Weaponized Flow State'. Flow states that arise while [acting, playing music, playing sports, programming] are really hard to generate. You have to develop those skills without "dynamic difficulty setting" that the author refers to. But when your basic skills are enough for you to do well, you can get drawn into a flow state much quicker.

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

#412

Post by matt_wulfeck »

AstralStorm wrote: post #339
matt_wulfeck wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do you think rich people put their wealth? A savings account?

Caymans and investments. Most of those geared for quick and high returns, not sustainability, improving society or long term job creation.

I would argue that public securities and the stock market is exactly what provides sustainability and long term job creation.

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

#413

Post by vedranm »

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…

>They see a society celebrating women, minorities, the educated, the talented and crave the same. Society does not celebrate them. So that society, therefore, must be abolished.

"Politics is downstream from culture" is a famous quote from late Andrew Breitbart. I hope you observed how the anti-white anti-male identity movements subsequently became either a part of company culture or actually a legislation, giving rise to coerced "diversity". This "identity politics only for some groups but not all" is not "e pluribus unum" that USA used to stand for, so the reaction or pushback against it was anything but unexpected.

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

#414

Post by fdupoo »

robattila128 wrote: post #376
llukas wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This may be new to your information bubble but have you ever read about working poor phenomenon? Your comment is perfect example of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error

fundamental attribution error is a fancy way to tell someone they are self projecting, so why didn't you just say that? also you might have had disadvantages in life so you may be seeing as everyone else being disadvantaged to, the very thing you identified hes thinking with. The reality is people are taking advantage of the generosity we have in our society and people who grow up comfortably will never know how to s…

>Redistributing wealth more and more creates less opportunity for the free market to lift people out of poverty.

What? No it doesnt? How do you even

Is this satire?

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

#415

Post by marknutter »

nommm-nommm wrote: post #388
marknutter wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Where? I have family that was/are long haul truckers and none of them made anywhere near $70k a year and certainly didn't get a signing bonus(?!) From what I could find online median salary is around $50k, which is about right from my experience.

There's a massive shortage of long haul truckers right now. Industry turnover is at 100%. When was your family doing it? I know of quite a few places here in Minnesota that are offering $70k with a $10-20k signing bonus and still having a hell of a time retaining drivers.

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

#416

Post by deegles »

pjc50 wrote: post #403
fmihaila wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One thing that's great about gaming as an addiction: it's very inexpensive. It can be extremely expensive in opportunity costs, unfortunately.

That assumes that the person has opportunities they're giving up. If they don't have them, or can't see that they have them, it's not nearly so expensive to them. (Belief that you have opportunities, and motivation to take them, is very valuable. You can't just tell people this though, humans don't work like that)

This is one of the reasons I believe basic income won't result in masses of people 'dropping out' of society. People will seek real fulfillment given the resources.

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

#417

Post by soverance »

kerbalspacepro wrote: post #411
soverance wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment totally needs to be higher. Every other comment on this thread makes little to no mention of "Skinner Box Design", when design tactics like these are almost certainly the #1 factor for creating video game addicts. The issues we're discussing in this thread start with the game designer. Cognitive flow is a real thing, and game designers have learned through decades of research and testing how to put playe…

I think what you are describing might be called 'Weaponized Flow State'. Flow states that arise while [acting, playing music, playing sports, programming] are really hard to generate. You have to develop those skills without "dynamic difficulty setting" that the author refers to. But when your basic skills are enough for you to do well, you can get drawn into a flow state much quicker.

I disagree that these flow states are difficult to generate. While they are extremely more common within designed experiences (such as video games), they can and have been applied with great effect to more "common" tasks, such as acting, playing music, or sports.

The very best article I've found on the subject is here: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/166972/cognitive_flow_...

Highly recommended reading.

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

#418

Post by jdhe »

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 think this is the most cogent synthesis of these issues that I've read.

https://newleftreview.org/II/87/wolfgang-streeck-how-will-ca...

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

#419

Post by vedranm »

chongli wrote: post #366
yummyfajitas wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>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.

This perception depends highly on the media you read. Anyhow, identity politics for some but not all groups instead of "e pluribus unum" will lead only to more division and conflict.

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

#420

Post by webmaven »

sandworm101 wrote: post #98
dmoy wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mean to derail because I think you have a valid point, but I believe alcoholism is still a way worse problem today. If I'm remembering correctly, it's something like the same number of people die due to alcohol every year in the US as shoot themselves death (~30k)... and that's just fatalities; if we're talking family problems it's way higher.

Alcoholism is certainly still a thing, but there is a generation of young people these days who simply aren't drinking. Some do, and do so to an excess, but something like like half of collage-educated young people just don't. It isn't religion or ideology and so they aren't shouting it from rooftops. They just don't want to drink. For me it started at university. I was riding a motorcycle to class and a job with ins…

This is interesting. Does this also carry over into startup-culture? In the US, many startups have normalized the consumption of alcohol to an alarming degree (in-office happy-hours, kegerators, beer-Fridays, etc.).

What does it look like in the UK? Are there equivalents (aside from the traditional round-at-the-pub-after-work, that is)?

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