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Fewer young men are in the labor force, more are living at home

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Re: Fewer young men are in the labor force, more are living at home

#81

Post by lumost »

michaelt wrote: post #74
andrewmcwatters wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does effort mean in this context? I recall friends of mine, young women, who were having the hardest time finding a significant other were just demanding things of men that would have them selecting from a socioeconomic pool of the top 20% of the population, when they themselves were in the bottom 20%. It was my experience that young women in general were asking for too much when I was in my early 20s. They want…

> What does effort mean in this context? One school of thought says there are men on dating websites who copy-paste a message saying "hey how you doing?" to every woman they see; and that women are beset by hundreds of copy-pasted messages from men who haven't even read their profile. This school of thought says, in order to stand out, men should carefully compose a different clever, charming message for each woman t…

This is why tinder was created, having both parties express some level of interest eliminates the need and most of the benefits of mass spamming. Granted one party could spam likes, but ranking algorithms probably take into account this behavior.

Re: Fewer young men are in the labor force, more are living at home

#82

Post by ajkdhcb2 »

kypro wrote: post #48
andrewmcwatters wrote: post #7

I see this on the fringes of those within my circle of friends. I know one man in this age cohort who doesn't seem to have a job, just plays video games all the time, and I don't get it. But one thing I think about is what he has been exposed to: this is what he knows. I don't think this individual I'm speaking of was raised with anything differently. In this same light, as I believe the two concepts are directly rel…

We seem to live in an age of such abundance and freedom that it's now possible to live in all manner of ways which seems to exacerbate these extremes. In the past if you were a man and wanted to eat and have a home you had to work. We also relied far more on children to look after us in our old age than we do today. Today welfare and the affordability of essentials like food make it possible for people not to work an…

Where is this socialist paradise that you speak of where you can have a home without working? There is nowhere like what you are saying.

It is the exact opposite of what you are claiming. Affordability of essentials has become so much worse that many people can't afford to live a decent life with their own home even if they are working the jobs that they can actually acquire.

These people aren't privileged because they "choose not to work and have everything paid for them by people who work like me", it is generally emotionally devastating to be stuck living with your family while your youth evaporates. Further, the money to do this is coming from the family (for those lucky enough to have a family wealthy enough). You're not paying for it with your taxes.

Re: Fewer young men are in the labor force, more are living at home

#83

Post by twalla »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #75
michaelt wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What does effort mean in this context? One school of thought says there are men on dating websites who copy-paste a message saying "hey how you doing?" to every woman they see; and that women are beset by hundreds of copy-pasted messages from men who haven't even read their profile. This school of thought says, in order to stand out, men should carefully compose a different clever, charming message for each woman t…

You also have the problem of writing dozens and dozens of seemingly engaging and individualized messages only to get no response back. So eventually, you start putting less and less effort into each message and even start to repeat old ones. It's a sad fact of life.

When I was dating I was fortunate to have a large enough match pool to experiment with this. The result: a stupid copy-pasted throwaway line or emoji had roughly the same results as a message I put some thought into. The second category got a few more responses but in terms of conversion to an actual date there wasn't an appreciable difference.

The takeaway for me is profile pictures, physical appearance and class/status signifiers (vacations, hobbies, nice things in/around the picture) were all that mattered and if someone was sold on that all you really had to do was not get in your own way by saying something stupid.

Re: Fewer young men are in the labor force, more are living at home

#84

Post by BeFlatXIII »

protonimitate wrote: post #25
cheph wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The idea that every able bodied person has to work is not supposed to be the way our society functions; at least not in the last 100,000 years. So the fruit of who's labour exactly are they entitled to then? And can I also get in on that action? I would like to get something other people made without working any more. I don't see why I as a productive member of society should get less than someone who festers in th…

FTA: > Make no mistake, though, for a young man who’s not working the couch isn’t a bed of roses. “About half of prime age men who are not in the labor force may have a serious health condition that is a barrier to working,” the late Princeton economist Alan Krueger wrote in the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity in 2017. Does it really sound that appealing to be "entitled" to pain, high medication costs, and/or a…

One of my close friends is a NEET because he uses a wheelchair and living in a rural town with his parents provides a floor for higher quality of life than moving to the city and trying to make it on his own (and navigate the various disability services). From what he’s told me, the kinds of jobs suggested by the unemployment and disability empowerment agencies are either hilariously irrelevant or make no logistical sense (long commutes that would require one of his parents to be a de-facto full-time chauffeur).

I haven’t spoken to him in ages. Hopefully the pandemic remote working boom has pushed things in his favor.

Re: Fewer young men are in the labor force, more are living at home

#85

Post by chewz »

_fat_santa wrote: post #78
wolfretcrap wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's less about not having good jobs more about: 1. Most want to start business and become rich, not work for someone else. Starting business is difficult, needs lots of work, even if you are smart and hardworking, have capital to start, still you need social skills which present generation didn't develop, so getting along with others and leading others is still difficult which limits the success. 2. Anything you'll…

I agree with your first two points. Starting a business is hard, you'll probably fail (statistically) and there is likely someone else doing it better than you already. But part of starting a business is looking at that adversity and doing it anyways. Your third point about dating, I couldn't disagree more. If you go on social media you will see arguments very similar to the one you made, basically if you aren't an a…

There is big difference between going on dates every week and finding a woman that will treat you as a potential life partner and father for her children...

Re: Fewer young men are in the labor force, more are living at home

#86

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

ryandrake wrote: post #73
olivierestsage wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unsure why you're getting downvoted for this -- it makes good sense, and many could benefit from this kind of thing. I have a friend who moved from NYC to Ohio recently. He was bellyaching about it a lot (the move was for work), since he thought he would be so sad to leave the cultural opportunities of NYC, etc. Instead he has found that a) Ohio wasn't so bad after all, b) his stress-related conditions have evaporate…

> Unsure why you're getting downvoted for this Any hint that dense urban living is not the optimal lifestyle for everyone gets downvoted here. For example, here's my super-controversial anecdote from yesterday, that people took time out of their day to try to bury: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27450896

Well there's also the angle of people moving from the big city into a small rural community and gentrifying it. A good friend of mine had to deal with this trend in Bozeman and was ultimately pretty much forced out by it.

Re: Fewer young men are in the labor force, more are living at home

#87

Post by kogepathic »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #75
michaelt wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What does effort mean in this context? One school of thought says there are men on dating websites who copy-paste a message saying "hey how you doing?" to every woman they see; and that women are beset by hundreds of copy-pasted messages from men who haven't even read their profile. This school of thought says, in order to stand out, men should carefully compose a different clever, charming message for each woman t…

You also have the problem of writing dozens and dozens of seemingly engaging and individualized messages only to get no response back. So eventually, you start putting less and less effort into each message and even start to repeat old ones. It's a sad fact of life.

> You also have the problem of writing dozens and dozens of seemingly engaging and individualized messages only to get no response back.

To use a property analogy: if I am not the highest offer on a house, I probably won't get it. Doesn't matter if I have a trust fund or work for minimum wage (effort put into the offer) my offer wasn't accepted.

Similarly if I'm the seller, I can decide "No, actually I don't want to sell my house to BlackRock, I'd rather sell it to this young family" and that's entirely my choice. This choice might leave money on the table, but at least I get the warm fuzzy feels inside for doing what I think is best.

What you describe sounds like you want some kind of "thank you for putting in some effort" but you decide the amount of effort to invest, the other party owes you nothing.

Re: Fewer young men are in the labor force, more are living at home

#88

Post by LatteLazy »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #26
LatteLazy wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you were born into the ranks of a few kings or priests, this is the first time men have been allowed to opt out.

It's also the first time women have been allowed to opt out. Working most of the day is the historical norm for all able-bodied people and most not-wholly-able-bodied people.

I think women's experience has been a lot more complex. U til the 1950s they were needed to work in the home most of the time. And it's only really the last 20 years women haven't been REQUIRED to opt out of working once they got married or had kids...

Re: Fewer young men are in the labor force, more are living at home

#89

Post by dougmwne »

chewz wrote: post #85
_fat_santa wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your first two points. Starting a business is hard, you'll probably fail (statistically) and there is likely someone else doing it better than you already. But part of starting a business is looking at that adversity and doing it anyways. Your third point about dating, I couldn't disagree more. If you go on social media you will see arguments very similar to the one you made, basically if you aren't an a…

There is big difference between going on dates every week and finding a woman that will treat you as a potential life partner and father for her children...

I think this is a huge distinction. Stable career prospects are a huge factor in choosing a partner. And the HN poster you are replying to probably has better career prospects than most. The millionaire talking point seems like a distraction. The point is that many men have zero career prospects, and probably have a pretty terrible dating pool as a result. This all hangs together, no job, no partner, no kids, no home.

Re: Fewer young men are in the labor force, more are living at home

#90

Post by [deleted] »

runawaybottle wrote: post #62
AlwaysRock wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've got a buddy in a similar situation. We all came from somewhat similar backgrounds and all majored in the same, useless, thing. We lived together and while we all played a lot of video games one of the three never really moved on from that. He's still working at a low wage job behind a counter and playing video games a lot. I think it's less that he doesnt know different but more that he never got a break in the…

It’s also a form of perfectionism. I deal with exactly what you are describing with a family member of mine. A part of his problem is that, I shit you not, I sincerely believe he thinks he is too good for a labor/service job, or community college, or coursera, or the gym, dating someone not perfect, etc. It didn’t go his way for so long, but the ego is still there. And what is the ego exactly if not an intense defens…

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