Fewer young men are in the labor force, more are living at home • Hacker News Board

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

#721

Post by acituan » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 4:19 AM UTC

flippinburgers wrote: post #511

Men 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…

> Men are not doing as well as women in school.

Schools are not performing as well for men as they do for women.

I'm not just playing with words; it is really important to frame the share of responsibility correctly.

It is the school's job to educate the kid, not kid's job to compensate for the dysfunctions of an education system. I'll generalize because I don't have any detailed data; anyone from the front-line educator to the curriculum designer to the budget maker is potentially responsible for this failure. On this particular issue, they are the ones not doing well, not the kids.

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

#722

Post by mannerheim » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 4:20 AM UTC

AngryData wrote: post #225

ameister14 wrote: post #6

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. What? I was under the impression that particularly in agrarian societies, everyone who was able to work, worked. Are you saying that surpluses allowed for a large class of people to just not work at all?

Agrarian societies had cyclic work. Some societies could be especially arduous, but the most successful and populated areas weren't. For large chunks at a time throughout the year the farming population didn't have more than daily chores and personal projects. But of course during planting and harvesting they would work their asses off. A lot of the rest of the time was personal preference. You could make your house…

> Working on the pyramids was a bonus, not a requirement

Egypt used corvée labour to build the pyramids. It was certainly a requirement for those people.

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

#723

Post by shkkmo » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 4:22 AM UTC

whiskyant wrote: post #201

UncleOxidant wrote: post #113

I'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…

It's the parents fault for coddling them. If they kicked them out at 18, the nephews would definitely need to work and may realize the importance of having a better job/career.

Possibly.

Or they end up as homeless drug addicts.

Both outcomes have a none neglible likelihood.

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

#724

Post by brianxp » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 4:24 AM UTC

amin wrote: post #274

I know some guys like that, and all of them grew up without their biological father in the household. Anyone else notice this pattern? Could modern families (with step fathers, or without any father) contributed to men failing to become independant?

From anecdotal experience my father abandoned us I used to be a NEET in my late teen years. (but I also used to and still live in a very dangerous place, where I could regularly see people being killed or botched, something that could have contributed to me staying home)

What saved me was that I had a big interest on computers and learned at the time to do basic stuff like toying around with php (when it used to be big) and html.

One day on going through the neighborhood park I met a guy who told me he was a software developer and his company was looking for inexperienced people in exchange for the minimum wage and so my story as a developer (although I'm a very SUBPAR one) started

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

#725

Post by cjohnson318 » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 4:28 AM UTC

acituan wrote: post #721

flippinburgers wrote: post #511

Men 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…

> Men are not doing as well as women in school. Schools are not performing as well for men as they do for women. I'm not just playing with words; it is really important to frame the share of responsibility correctly. It is the school's job to educate the kid, not kid's job to compensate for the dysfunctions of an education system. I'll generalize because I don't have any detailed data; anyone from the front-line educ…

Men run most governments. Men own most companies. Men dominate the higher levels of corporations. Most engineers, doctors, lawyers, investors, and other highly paid professionals are men. Men simply own more capital than women, by a huge margin.

It looks like schools are performing better for men than women.

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

#726

Post by fb13 » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 4:29 AM UTC

lkrubner wrote: post #715

What should strong, stupid men do? Male participation in the economy peaked in the 1950s. It began to decline as the USA automated agriculture. Millions of years of evolution gave us some men who are very strong, but very stupid. There used to be an abundance of jobs for such men. Agriculture, in particular, provided endless jobs for such people. Some of these jobs paid surprisingly well. When I was very young, I spe…

Pardon the interruption for this opportunity to promote basic income.

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

#727

Post by iammisc » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 4:30 AM UTC

mkmk2 wrote: post #174

lumost wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has a lot of parallels to "opt-out" syndrome in Japan. Given the concurrent rise of VanLife and FIRE cultural phenomena it's worth considering why many individuals in developed economies ideal life is to not work. I'd hypothesize that the rising costs both economic, and mental associated with what many consider a basic standard of living independently probably has alot to do with it. Why work when 60 hours per w…

What are the FIRE cultural phenomena?

Fire is the opposite of not having a work ethic. Most firees are incredibly disciplined and have a bigger work ethic than most normal people.

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

#728

Post by shrimp_emoji » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 4:31 AM UTC

NaturalPhallacy wrote: post #531

spcebar wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your argument reads like Palahniuk's satircal message in Fight Club. These concepts of masculinity our culture pines for are destructive and unproductive. A woman is no less qualified to raise a man than a man. No one has told them their success is evil. You're conflating women being told their success is success with men being shunned. There's a perception that women and minority groups have somehow gained an advant…

> A woman is no less qualified to raise a man than a man. It's not that women aren't qualified, it's that children need father figures as much as they need mother figures: >72% of juvenile murderers, and 60% of rapists came from single mother homes. Chuck Colson, “How Shall We Live?” Tyndale House , 2004, p.323 >“The strongest predictor of whether a person will end up in prison, is that they were raised by a single p…

I recall but can't find a meta-analysis which found that over 80% of children in single mother households read into stats with no critical thought.

Poverty is a more convincing factor in the way people raised by single parents turn out than that they didn't have a father figure (traditionally the financial provider btw).

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

#729

Post by chriswalz » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 4:31 AM UTC

okaram wrote: post #685

flippinburgers wrote: post #511

Men 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…

Can you point to any examples of negativity towards masculinity instead of towards toxic masculinity?

I think it’s easy to conflate the two since news articles tend to not make a clear distinction unfortunately. Try searching “men buzzfeed” and then “women buzzfeed”. Go to news section on Google. One search will result in positive/uplifting for one gender and quite the opposite for the other

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

#730

Post by iammisc » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 4:37 AM UTC

teachrdan wrote: post #472

thepasswordis wrote: post #291

Is anybody advocating for them or encouraging them in any way? I can’t think of a single group which aims to highlight men, uplift men, and encourage masculine behavior. These guys grew up in a school system of almost entirely women teachers, and popular media tells them that if they are successful in any way, it is due to oppression. It’s no wonder why they’re not succeeding. We spent the last 15 years telling them…

There seem to be any number of outlets promoting men and encouraging masculine behavior. (however that may be precisely defined) * Joe Rogan is the highest paid podcaster of all time, and has 190 million downloads a month * Ben Shapiro has the number 6 most-listened to podcast in the US * Fox News is the highest rated news program in the US To your point that most women teachers are women: That's true because women a…

Why are all your 'masculine' programs conservative? Think about it and therein lies the problem.