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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

#101

Post by guskel »

treespace88 wrote: post #61
marcellus23 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's certainly believable that women don't enjoy dating apps, but I think it's difficult to make the case that it's equally hard for them (in terms of successfully getting a date) when they have thousands of matches and many men I know have none.

Women are paying a high price in the online dating world. It’s preying on their weakness the same way porn does for men. Most women don’t want to sleep around and have a large number of partners. But tinder leads them to believe that they can find an unrealistic partner. And they get hurt by the small percentage of men that play the online dating game well. Women need a lot more data and time to evaluate a potential…

I think a solution would be to limit the number of matches one could have at a time. This forces the user to sacrifice something (the opportunity cost of matching with someone else) to remain in contact with their match.

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

#102

Post by _fat_santa »

bradlys wrote: post #93
_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…

Where do you live? This has not been my experience on the west coast. You might be underselling yourself. In any major city, being average isn’t sufficient. You’re just swiped over for the next guy who is above average. (They always exist on the apps, nearly infinite amount)

I live over on the East Coast. I'd say that I look average, but its also about the profile and how you sell yourself.

(This is pure speculation based on my experiences) Out here I've noticed that Tinder and Bumble are just terrible to use, Hinge though seems to be the sweet spot. The problem I see with Tinder and Hinge is with the swiping, it turns it into a game of sorts where you're playing whose post attractive based on the number of points (matches) you get. With how Hinge is setup, I get fewer matches, but of those matches, I end up going on first dates much more often.

I also found that it's about playing the algorithm a bit and making sure your profile is setup right, think of it in terms conversion rate (from being in the "This person liked you" section to matching with someone). Before I started having success I went through probably 10+ iterations and tweaks to my profile to see what worked and what didn't. I also found that sometimes the algorithm just said F you and pushed me down to the bottom of the stack. In that case delete your profile and recreate it, I've had to do this once.

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

#103

Post by cashewchoo »

commandlinefan wrote: post #33
cashewchoo wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know this is bait, but I want to provide my experience as counter-example. I went to a STEM college where anyone who graduates could quite reasonably expect to be able to build themselves a middle-class career, live comfortably, and perhaps even have some economic mobility (moving from middle-class to upper-middle, mainly...). There weren't a lot of women there, and you would expect that what women were there would…

> as counter-example ... the kind of woman who would be interested in having a life-long career ... that is not the case ... men who wish they could be stay-at-home dads You seem to be saying the same thing OP is saying: there are few women who are comfortable being the primary (or sole) breadwinners.

I'm not, your ellipses abbreviate too much. I'm seeing, among a group of people who would theoretically be predisposed to not want to stay at home, people still electing to stay at home. This contradicts the OP's glib remark that less women nowadays want to stay at home.

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

#105

Post by prirun »

_fat_santa wrote: post #70
beckman466 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I suspect all of this is primarily cultural first, and not related specifically to work, the economy, pricing of good or services like buying a home and starting a family, which would come second. Hmmm I think you're wrong. It sounds like you've got survivorship bias, big time. Most people want to contribute, but the economic system fucks them and makes them dependent. Examples include: the intellectual property re…

> Most people want to contribute, but the economic system fucks them and makes them dependent. Examples include: the intellectual property regime and monopolistic parasitism of the knowledge commons [1], neoliberal philanthrocapitalism [2] and the completely disgusting and neocolonial division of labour under global capitalism [3]. This line of thinking in my opinion is the problem. Before I start, I will admit I hav…

> I think if anyone truly wants a home and is willing to do whatever they need to in order to get it, they can get it. Same goes for just about everything else, if you want something, and you're willing to do whatever it takes to get it, you can do it.

You may be right, but people come in a normal distribution, with most being just average. To "do whatever it takes" implies a person on the extreme right of the distribution, and most people aren't there. So while it may be possible to buy a home, if it takes extreme effort to do it, most people won't.

Whereas, when I grew up in the 60's, my dad worked as a bag boy at Kroger, then a meatcutter. We had a small 3br house, 2 kids, a car, a motorcycle, a boat, insurance on all this stuff, and mom worked out of the house doing babysitting and ironing. They were still in their early 20's and got married right out of high school. We eventually had 2 cars while still in this house, around '65. Nothing even remotely like this would be possible today.

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

#106

Post by MyHypatia »

wolfretcrap wrote: post #50
futureshock wrote: post #22

This seems like a kind rational economic choice. If there are not enough good jobs that can support independent living, providing for a spouse, buying a home or raising a family, then staying home with the easy accomplishment of video games makes sense. Most people never live outside their home states and can't afford to leave the support network of their family and close friends. If you grew up in a medium or high c…

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…

>> Even in dating women demand millionaires, average Joes are treated like disposable good for nothing who women say are creeps because they don't have money to build their IG brand and devour women with lavish gifts.

This is a ridiculous caricature of women. Most women aren't spending their time building IG brands, counting lavish gifts, and petulantly demanding millionaires. This sounds like a cartoon villain or something from a reality TV show.

Most women are trying to find their place in the world, figure out their goals, establish a career with reasonable prospects, work on hobbies, create a support network of friends, and hopefully find a partner to start a family.

If your attitude towards women is that they are money-hungry, delusionally entitled, and over-demanding then I'm not surprised they don't waste their time trying to convince you otherwise. They are busy spending time with people and looking for partners who don't treat them like delusional, spoiled children.

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

#107

Post by cheph »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #30
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…

We have never paid people based on the amount of effort they put in.

Not sure who you represent (i.e. who "we" refers to in your message) but what you all do with your money is your choice, and I don't have any objections to whatever basis you all decide who you give your money to. But thanks for letting me know.

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

#108

Post by jeffrallen »

hahahasure wrote: post #69
cashewchoo wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know this is bait, but I want to provide my experience as counter-example. I went to a STEM college where anyone who graduates could quite reasonably expect to be able to build themselves a middle-class career, live comfortably, and perhaps even have some economic mobility (moving from middle-class to upper-middle, mainly...). There weren't a lot of women there, and you would expect that what women were there would…

I wish everyone could try stay at home parenting. It made me hate it. I like my kid significantly more now that I see him evenings and weekends.

Here's a more nuanced view: both partners in a marriage should try both full time work and full time parenting. Then both partners will better understand the choices they make and have empathy for the other's situation.

This is lived experience.

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

#109

Post by jfengel »

bena wrote: post #60
kogepathic wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> another friend of mine basically refuses to date anymore because he thinks the sort of culture of Tinder dating is a waste of time that favors women disproportionately. My female friends (I'm male) with online dating profiles have shown me their matches and conversations, and it's bleak. They all mostly have an average profile and still receive thousands of likes/hearts/swipes and messages, but the mean amount of e…

Bumble has its own issues. It turns out "making the first move" is anxiety inducing in everyone. What women have done on Bumble is to basically treat the "first move" as an "invitation to treat", a second shot at selecting a guy. Most of those "first moves" are exactly what they say they don't want from guys: simple "Hey"s and "Hello"s. And then they say in their profile that once they say "Hey", you're supposed to r…

I did appreciate on Bumble that women got to realize that writing that first message wasn't easy. I always carefully crafted my first message on any site, and it is disheartening to get no reply to that.

(Some of it, I think, is Tinder et al showing me profiles that it knew perfectly well were defunct. They're hoping to attract the person back, but it's a very dark pattern.)

I did find that the vast majority of women on Bumble wrote tolerable first messages. Some were better than "hi" but nonetheless didn't say much, which I interpreted as "OK, you can go ahead and write the first message." That rarely turned out well, but at least I knew the account wasn't dead and not a bot (at least, probably not).

I met a lot of great women on both Bumble and Tinder, leading to relationships everywhere from one-night stands to decade-long romances. I don't think it's easy for either men or women, albeit in different ways. It's very easy to make the mistake that thinking that if X is hard for me then X must be the only important thing, and that leads to a lot of ill will.

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

#110

Post by AlwaysRock »

nunez wrote: post #96
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…

I wonder what kind of situation your friend had going on in their house or their lives. Maybe y'all aren't as similar as you think?

Sure. Maybe. His parents were both doctors and he had four siblings and an adopted sibling that all see to have done fine. But There certainly could be something I'm missing.
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