Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bullshit. There are problems but it's not because of some "war on masculinity". The real issues are economic.
It is mostly economic, but there is also a constant attack on masculinity in young boys.
Such as?
Fewer young men are in the labor force, more are living at home
641–650 of 1001 posts
Re: Fewer young men are in the labor force, more are living at home
#642Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> I'm a big believer that people only care to preserve societies they have a stake in and if a large enough percentage of the population own nothing and offer no value it's very easy to see this causing a division Wouldn't someone that is able to spend most of their time playing video games (instead of e.g. farming) want society to continue as it exists today? Without that society, wouldn't they be forced to fight/wo…
It's hard to articulate how bitter a life without ambition or purpose can make someone.
Re: Fewer young men are in the labor force, more are living at home
#643Earlier quoted context omitted.
I worked as a video game tester briefly while working my way through college (Mattel Intellivision). It permanently destroyed my interest in video games, along with the fake rewards it offers.
The brief synopsis of video game tester I remember reading somewhere is that it's actually incredibly boring, because it involves finding and exhaustively reproducing bugs, not actually playing a game. Is that accurate?
Incredibly boring, yes. What you do is exhaustively go through every option at every point in play, and verify it does the expected thing. Then you get a new version with fixes/improvements, and do it all over again. You learn to hate every moment doing this.
The dorm in college had a pinball machine, the old mechanical contraptions before LEDs took over. I was fascinated by them, but had no money, so playing them was a rare treat (10 cents a game, 25 for 3 games). One day, the coin op broke, and free games galore. Yay!
After playing that continuously for hours, something broke in me, and I just couldn't stand playing pinball anymore.
I honestly cannot fathom people managing to spend their lives playing video games.
The same thing happened to me with fireworks. I grew up fascinated by fireworks, and would blow every penny on them on the 4th. One day, in college, I had enough cash to buy all I wanted. I bought a lot. Went out to a field, and started lighting and throwing the black cats one by one. Bang, bang, bang. Some hours went by, again something broke. I haven't bought fireworks since. I have no interest in firework displays. The needle doesn't even move.
Go figure.
Never lost my interest in muscle cars, though :-) I grin like an idiot when I drive mine.
Re: Fewer young men are in the labor force, more are living at home
#644I don't think it's a tragedy. The overly dramatic media and pundits get this all wrong in labeling it such. Young people are simply responding to incentives to live at home longer. Living expenses keep going up relative to inflation and wages, such as home prices, rent, insurance, etc. Living at home is a good way save money, even for the employed. Family formation is expensive and fraught with risks such as divorce…
More succinctly, why work when we have nothing to work for? Anecdotally, I just graduated from university and am gainfully employed. I'm really happy to be employed, yet I quickly realized that I have no idea what I want to do with all this money. I'm never going to be able to buy a house. I'm not particularly enthusiastic about having kids, and don't think I can afford children in the first place. I have no major li…
You are asking the great question of what the purpose of life is. Wealth? Knowledge? Family and friends? If you were to ask Goethe it is the struggle, the striving and toiling that gives life meaning. Essentially it is the journey not the destination because ultimately we all end up in the same place. Enjoy the moments of life.
As for what to do with the money. Invest it, retire early if you want and if nothing else give yourself the freedom to make work whatever you want it to be.
Re: Fewer young men are in the labor force, more are living at home
#645I don't think it's a tragedy. The overly dramatic media and pundits get this all wrong in labeling it such. Young people are simply responding to incentives to live at home longer. Living expenses keep going up relative to inflation and wages, such as home prices, rent, insurance, etc. Living at home is a good way save money, even for the employed. Family formation is expensive and fraught with risks such as divorce…
Entirely the rent, and the rent seeking, and the complete lack of housing, sheer greed that drives all the problems.
Hidden deeply on another page someone references a site with numbers from 50 years ago, 1971. (#1) I don't really care what the agenda of that site happens to be; but the numbers. Compare the numbers to today:
Everyone is FAR worse off today and in my generation.
US nationally (today 2021) about 85K is equivalent to the cited 25K 1971 numbers. :: ~10X cost of living (edited, I unconsciously compared to the wrong number.)
Seattle is far more distorted, with housing beyond out of control (I don't know what kind of house was being looked at for the 1971 numbers, but it really doesn't matter, there's almost nothing even remotely near the national price within the region).
Seattle's rent is completely out of control; beyond any rational measure. No wonder neither I nor my generation can make any savings; it's all being consumed by rent seeking land owners.
Income 10600 %Income71
House 25200 237.736
Car 3600 33.962
RentYear 1800 16.981
UniYear 2600 24.528
Gas5000mi 100 0.943
Mail500invite 40 0.377
-
USA 2021 Equiv71
House 269000 113151
Car 30500 89806
RentYear 14400 84800
UniYear 26100 106408
Gas5000mi 483.33 51233
Mail500invite 290 76850
-
Seattle 2021 Equiv71
House 750000 315476
Car 30500 89806
RentYear 36000 212000
UniYear 31200 127200
Gas5000mi 533.33 56533
Mail500invite 290 76850
Re: Fewer young men are in the labor force, more are living at home
#646Men are dirtbags. 97% of murders worldwide are committed by men.
Re: Fewer young men are in the labor force, more are living at home
#647Earlier quoted context omitted.
There’s a lot of validity to the social struggles of men in a lot of online discourse, but to say “society“ punishes us for not being women flies in the face of almost every useful metric of socioeconomic success. Women did not create the society that is hurting men emotionally and economically. Buying into that victim complex is a distraction from your own self-development and healing.
> Women did not create the society that is hurting men emotionally and economically The extreme elements of 3rd wave feminism has influcenced society in ways that unfairly and negatively impact boys. Specifically the concept of "toxic masculinity". Toxic people are toxic. Toxic behaviors are toxic. Toxic people should be shamed and toxic behaviors should be discouraged. Boys should not be shamed for being masculine,…
I've never encountered "toxic masculinity" in my entire life.
Conservatives will be conservatives, aka creating a straw man so their base can feel just and continue in their camaraderie-through-bullying strategy.
Like the abolishment of "critical race theory" which was taught exactly zero places in the US before the calling for it's ban.
Re: Fewer young men are in the labor force, more are living at home
#648Men are not doing as well as women in school. If you look in the wrong places on the internet, media, or daily life, all you see is negativity towards masculinity. In addition, there doesn't appear to be any broad social system that is geared towards supporting men. The fact that men don't tend to be a socially adept doesn't help. This all feels like the perfect storm and there are plenty of people who act like "men…
Yup. I've had many conversations about this topic with my son (and on occasion some of his friends -- both male and female), since he was in middle school (a decade ago). They're well aware of how men are portrayed versus women.
We've transitioned from "A women's place is in the home (barefoot, pregnant, and cooking a delicious meal for her husband)" to "A woman's place is whatever she wants, and men are the reason for everything that's wrong with the world today". Whether it's world war or a bad relationship or choosing the right car.
It's not a binary decision, people. We don't need to decide which gender/sex is "better" or "more right".
Re: Fewer young men are in the labor force, more are living at home
#649I've got two nephews aged 34 and 32 who still live at home and play video games all the time and rarely leave their rooms. Neither has ever had a job that lasted more than a month or so. Neither ever learned to drive even though they live in a town with little or no public transit. They haven't had any education beyond high school. They seem wholly unprepared to navigate life without their parents. It's a slow motion…
I want to put some blame on people's focus on university education here. Every guy I've met in this type of situation is someone that isn't stupid, but they don't excel in academia either. Their family treats them like crap because they didn't go to university or dropped after they got there. They become depressed because they compare themselves to their "smarter" peers who appear to have everything worked out are doing great in life. Constantly pushing someone towards university when it's maybe not the best idea for them, then calling them a loser when they bomb out just engenders learned helplessness in the individual. Then people why these individuals stop trying.
Re: Fewer young men are in the labor force, more are living at home
#650Earlier quoted context omitted.
I completely reject everything that you are saying. A grown man (or woman) who is dependent on their parents at that level has very serious problems because they are the equivalents of obese domestic dogs in a world full of wolves. Left to their own devices, they would have nothing. A person who does nothing with their life when they could be doing something is really a narcissist. They take it for granted that other…
Leaving home at 18 is really mostly an american thing. Go to a place like Italy or India or Pakistan and you'll find 30+ year olds living with their parents and it's no big deal at all.
At least in South Asia they are also at that point working and in many cases supporting their parents.