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

#911

Post by JPKab » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 4:15 PM UTC

tuatoru wrote: post #316

JPKab wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think that video game addiction contributes to this kind of thing, or is the video game addiction a coping mechanism? I think video game addiction is an incredibly underreported and highly destructive phenomenon. I encounter (and had to fire a few days ago) lots of young men who don't appear to ever sleep, and are highly unproductive, unmotivated, and constantly distracted. The kid I had to fire (I call him ki…

I think "is it a cause or a symptom?" is a valid question and deserves serious thought. Upvoted. I worried about my own son playing video games incessantly through his teens and twenties, but now at 28 he has been holding down a stable job for a year and I have got good reports from his employer. He's still a loner IRL though. Would I worry so much if he were a gym rat or ultramarathoner-- an "exercise addict"? Good…

I am also a father and I had to stomp out my son's video game addiction. Frankly I don't think it's a major victory for a 28-year-old to have been gainfully employed for a year and still be a loner. Being an introvert is one thing but not having a social network around you especially in your twenties is a very bad sign.

Too often people think that because their kid is introverted they shouldn't be alarmed by them not having a social network of any kind. The reality is that there are many many very healthy introverts who still have strong friendships with other people. I'm only saying this because I've seen too often people write off their children's bad lifestyle choices as simply being introverted.

I don't think I got so freaked out by video game addiction until working at my last company where we hired a bunch of people from the gaming industry. They were the ones who told me about how many top-notch behavioral psychologist are employed in the gaming industry to maximize the addictive potential of video games.

We can say what we will about exercise addicts but at least they are getting very healthy bodies and the highly positive mental health benefits of exercise. Plus when you're in a gym or if you are running trail marathons you are going to be doing so with other people who don't sit in there darkened rooms for days on end.

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

#912

Post by Ancalagon » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 4:15 PM UTC

travisjungroth wrote: post #488

tristor wrote: post #305

This thread is full of people talking about cultural, societal, and economic factors that may influence this outcome. I've yet to see anyone mention the factor that I wish we more thoroughly investigated: health. This has been discussed in some articles at length, but we still haven't identified primary causes, but testosterone levels are falling in men (at a given age) at a pretty steady pace year over year. This is…

The next generations are going to look at us like the Romans drinking from lead pipes. I think it's the weirdest time, chemically, when it comes to life on earth. For anyone struggling with their health, check if hormone tests could fit in your budget. It may point to a problem or hint to look in a different direction.

It’s funny cause lead pipes are still in use everywhere

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

#913

Post by achillesheels » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 4:20 PM UTC

sinsterizme wrote: post #698

achillesheels wrote: post #592

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the rate of metabolic affordances created by women in relation to men? Isn’t this biologically necessarily male due to its sexual dimorphic traits in the biological life kingdom? What are the compounding utilization rates of income from women who elect not to marry and create life in relation to men which have evolutionary selective pressures to bring home the bacon and therefore become more active investors,…

I honestly can’t tell if I’m too stupid to decipher this comment or if this is incredibly poorly written

How knowledgeable are you of the biological phenomenon of homeostasis as it applies to humans?

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

#914

Post by Nextgrid » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 4:27 PM UTC

zaptheimpaler wrote: post #668

twh270 wrote: post #648

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 f…

Moving discourse to social media and click bait has destroyed so much nuance in all discussions. Everything is black and white now, every issue is just a war between 2 sides and you're either "with us or against us".

Social media makes its money on outrage so that's what they're optimizing for. Ban or regulate advertising (which will make it less profitable) and other, less toxic business models will come up.

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

#915

Post by tacocataco » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 4:47 PM UTC

gonehome wrote: post #230

tomp wrote: post #207

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This complaint should be taken about as seriously as a rich person complaining how hard it is to be rich. Every woman can put herself in a man's position of no matches - just delete Tinder. Every rich person can become poor - just give away all their money. Yet they don't. It's called revealed preferences . Because having options, no matter how bad, is better than not having options.

There's also an obvious selection bias - the matches may be sending low quality messages, but if women are largely selecting only the top 2% of good looking men they're skewing these results themselves. The 'better' men never get to the messaging stage at all. I'm happy to be out of the game, but online dating is bleak for 98% of men. Okcupid used to have great data on this before they sold out, a lot of it ended up…

Do you mind if you can explain okcupid selling out? I'm currently on the platform.

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

#916

Post by tacocataco » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 4:53 PM UTC

nradov wrote: post #418

treespace88 wrote: post #61

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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…

Real humans don't make relationship decisions based on data analysis.

Age, income, height, weight, number of kids, attractiveness scale (1-10).

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

#917

Post by tacocataco » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 4:55 PM UTC

dorkwood wrote: post #845

treespace88 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

My experience with Tinder was that all the women I met turned out to be more interested in hooking up than anything else. Is there an app for people who don't even really want to sleep with each other, but would prefer to just hang out and talk? I want to use that one.

Try going to meetups, that way you know everyone there has something in common to talk about to break the ice.

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

#918

Post by wwweston » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 4:55 PM UTC

olalonde wrote: post #835

wwweston wrote: post #774

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the most interesting insights into gender divides, and years ago I think I recall seeing a link here on HN to an essay by someone who tied this insight into dynamics down to a cellular (ie sperm have a wider and flatter curve than eggs) and genetic level (men seem to have a higher incidence of both genetic defects and beneficial mutations). I can't seem to find it again (much less speak to its accuracy…

Edit: I believe you are referring to "Is There Anything Good About Men?": http://www.denisdutton.com/baumeister.htm . It was discussed multiple times on HN: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=Is+There+Anything+Good+About+Men%3...

That's got to be it! Thanks.

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

#919

Post by livueta » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 5:08 PM UTC

granshaw wrote: post #860

livueta wrote: post #640

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In my experience[0] that's not really true. This comment[1] is pretty on the money. Being a NEET is not a vacation, and playing video games all day is often a means of avoiding confronting the realization that you're a waste of oxygen. Many have substance co-dependencies that function similarly. It's the sort of life that sounds cool as an overworked wagie but gets stale rather quickly, plus a massive helping of sunk…

And spending your life working to make other execs rich isn’t a waste of oxygen?

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that. Like I said, there are plenty of fulfilling non-commercial NEET-friendly outlets. I just see the game/tv spiral as almost uniquely destructive of self-esteem.

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

#920

Post by ziziyO » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 5:09 PM UTC

t-writescode wrote: post #564

ziziyO wrote: post #557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When all you’ve known is privilege, equality can feel like oppression.

Forgive me, but then it is not the kind of equality we should strive for. I want everyone on better, higher footing, not the highly footed to be brought down.

Are you saying that all lives matter?