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Family instability fuels rising nihilism among young men

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Re: Family instability fuels rising nihilism among young men

#71

Post by dx87 »

freddie_mercury wrote: post #38
dx87 wrote: post #9

This post resonates with me, but I definitely don't think it's hopeless. I'm in my early 30s, and have "no friends". There are people I would consider my friends, but as we grew up, we got adult responsiblities like jobs and family, most moved to different states for work, so I haven't actually been able to see them for years. Recently I've been working to improve my life, so I've been going out for walks around my n…

> I really believe that the "loneliness epidemic" is a product of a generation that socializes almost completely online, and has no connection with their community. I agree about "connection with their community" but I'm less sure that socializing online is the root cause, though I agree it almost certainly a contributing factor at this point. I live in a developing country which has substantially more street life, c…

I think another thing could be how easy it is to only interact with people who share your interests when you were raised doing it mainly online. Older coworkers have said that before the Internet became widely used, being able to find common ground with your neighbors and coworkers was the only way to have any social interaction. Now though, it's so easy to find an online group with common interests that it can seem like a chore to talk to someone who doesn't share a lot of things in common. Even when people do go out in social situations, it's not uncommon to see a lot of people sitting on their phones.

Like you said, air conditioning made it so you didn't have to interact as much if you didn't want to. Now with the Internet, you can sit in the AC all day and think you are being social because you're talking to likeminded people online, even though you likely aren't making meaningful connections.

As an aside, my wife is from the US South, and what you read is spot on. Even if it wasn't sitting on the porch, it might be going to a local creek or lake to cool off. Even now with AC, it's not uncommon for friends or family to be driving by the house and decide to stop by and talk just because it's part of the culture now.

Re: Family instability fuels rising nihilism among young men

#72

Post by 127 »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #37

This entire thing is based off the ridiculous premise that the "family life" used to be some universal great bedrock. Have you ever talked to your parents generation about their family life? It often seems pretty shitty too, even if the accident of their birth forced a marriage.

Ridiculous to you, based on your own experience. Completely rational and common sense to others.

Re: Family instability fuels rising nihilism among young men

#73

Post by 127 »

courtf wrote: post #40

I expected some level of hand-wringing here in response to this article. Maybe it's something in the water in rural America, but none of this is unusual or extreme, and if this behavior is foreign to you, then you and I grew up in different circumstances. Getting together with the boys and breaking the law, pushing each other to go a little further each time, is a rite of passage all over the world. Maybe it's practi…

Drunk driving is not acceptable behavior, ever.

Re: Family instability fuels rising nihilism among young men

#74

Post by ntsplnkv2 »

frenchy wrote: post #26
dx87 wrote: post #9

This post resonates with me, but I definitely don't think it's hopeless. I'm in my early 30s, and have "no friends". There are people I would consider my friends, but as we grew up, we got adult responsiblities like jobs and family, most moved to different states for work, so I haven't actually been able to see them for years. Recently I've been working to improve my life, so I've been going out for walks around my n…

I think this experience is surprisingly common. Modern society affords us a lot of mobility, but I don't think we realise how much it costs us in terms of stable friendships. I have a young kid, and he's still too young to really have "friends" (when you're young enough, any stranger is a friend), but eventually we'll either have to decide to live in the same place for a long time, or he's going to have get used to c…

How many people actually take advantage of that mobility?

Most of the men who fit the article's profile I know have never left hometown.

Re: Family instability fuels rising nihilism among young men

#75

Post by r29vzg2 »

alltakendamned wrote: post #53
r29vzg2 wrote: post #52

The most striking quote to me from this was: > In 1960, the out-of-wedlock birthrate in the U.S. was 3 percent. In 2000, it was about 30 percent. Today, it is 40 percent. No matter how you feel about it, it’s got to be said that change thing large has to have some sort of affect on the population. And those effects are still quite unknown.

Not being married does not mean the relationship is not a stable or long term one though.

I agree, marriage isn’t a requirement for a stable and long term relationship. That being said, it’s a pretty good indicator, or at least it used to be, and a shift of 36% is very significant.

Re: Family instability fuels rising nihilism among young men

#76

Post by dx87 »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #32
frenchy wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this experience is surprisingly common. Modern society affords us a lot of mobility, but I don't think we realise how much it costs us in terms of stable friendships. I have a young kid, and he's still too young to really have "friends" (when you're young enough, any stranger is a friend), but eventually we'll either have to decide to live in the same place for a long time, or he's going to have get used to c…

Maybe we don’t need the mobility with the concept of remote working normalizing. Community is underrated.

I think you're right. Not building meaningful relationships with friends, family, and neighbors, is one of my biggest regrets of my 20s. It adds a lot of stress thinking how small my support system is, which prevents me from wanting to take risks that could further my career or life goals. It reminds me of the African proverb "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together."

Re: Family instability fuels rising nihilism among young men

#77

Post by ntsplnkv2 »

jancsika wrote: post #29

> But the data show that American society has fewer people in poverty and less bigotry compared with decades past; and police use of force is far less pervasive than it was during higher-crime periods. Nonetheless, it could very well be that poverty, bigotry, and excessive force are still high enough to remain a threat to social stability. And that threat is certainly increased by ubiquitious video evidence of bigotr…

Statistics simply aren't visceral, they don't appeal to most people emotionally.

it takes graphic imagery to bring it out. Trump saying a statistic is far more likely to evoke a response than someone reading it in a book.

Even if statistically poverty is less and crime is less and abuses are less, if people don't SEE that, is it actually real?

Re: Family instability fuels rising nihilism among young men

#78

Post by Taek »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #69
aaron695 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At no point in my life have I ever wanted to damage someone else or their property for the fun of it Their examples are extreme. I'm not sure if they did it on purpose. But change it to throwing eggs at people, to baseball batting letter boxes and drink driving going home once or twice from a party and lighting fires for fun, and it'd be considered normal. The point is young men see the value of the prank and the v…

> It's takes a long time to understand what the value of a letterbox might be to some people, that'd very complex knowledge. It’s not as soon as they are forced to earn and pay or work to reinstall one. And I guess I hung around exceptional people, but I didn’t think it takes genius to recognize the value of a life or limb, especially someone else’s. Anyone past toddler years should be able to comprehend that if they…

When you are a teenager you feel invincible and you value life much less. It feels more expendable while also feeling more robust.

Have you spent time with kids? They love kicking eachother in the balls well past the age of toddler.

Things that seem obvious to adults are not obvious at all to 16 year olds, and often even counterintuitive.

Re: Family instability fuels rising nihilism among young men

#79

Post by rhacker »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #69
aaron695 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At no point in my life have I ever wanted to damage someone else or their property for the fun of it Their examples are extreme. I'm not sure if they did it on purpose. But change it to throwing eggs at people, to baseball batting letter boxes and drink driving going home once or twice from a party and lighting fires for fun, and it'd be considered normal. The point is young men see the value of the prank and the v…

> It's takes a long time to understand what the value of a letterbox might be to some people, that'd very complex knowledge. It’s not as soon as they are forced to earn and pay or work to reinstall one. And I guess I hung around exceptional people, but I didn’t think it takes genius to recognize the value of a life or limb, especially someone else’s. Anyone past toddler years should be able to comprehend that if they…

And it's the golden rule. I bet few people even know that.

Re: Family instability fuels rising nihilism among young men

#80

Post by jariel »

Fricken wrote: post #68
lotsofpulp wrote: post #6

> This is how my friends and I treated one another, and others. There were other examples of stupidity. Taking baseball bats to taillights in parking lots. Driving around town shooting pedestrians and bicyclists with airsoft guns. Getting blackout drunk and racing down the freeway wearing a blindfold. At no point in my life have I ever wanted to damage someone else or their property for the fun of it, and I wouldn’t…

I don't understand the point of this comment other than to virtue signal that you're better than a bunch of teenagers from a decade ago. Whoop-de-fucking do, aren't you special.

The point is to illustrate that those 'freewheeling actions' are not normal and not just part of 'teenage rebellion'.

All of them could cause major harm to oneself or others that's not normal, signs of serious underlying problems.

'BASE jumping' or 'stunt plane piloting' is dangerous but that's something altogether different than 'driving down the freeway blindfolded' - which is quasi suicidal and very dangerous to others.

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