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The data are clear: The boys are not all right

washingtonpost.com

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Re: The data are clear: The boys are not all right

#291

Post by conductr »

rajeshp1986 wrote: post #87

I went to a local college few days back and I noticed that there were more girls than boys. I think part of the reason is due to high college debt many young men are choosing to take jobs and skipping college all together. This will translate to less men in the knowledge based/corporate jobs.

The high paying vocational jobs also tend to be more geared towards males. Eg. plumbing, electrician, etc. So I wonder if college is the best measure here. I think most people just go to college as a means of making money, they aren't actually in it for the love of knowledge.

Re: The data are clear: The boys are not all right

#292

Post by recuter »

c7DJTLrn wrote: post #232
BitwiseFool wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm one of these men and I hope this actually works out in the end. I sense that men also have a biological clock but we can reassure ourselves that we can keep putting off settling down because of the biological reality of male reproduction. If I just get a little more successful, then I will be more attractive in courtship. But the thing is, you lose track of time really quickly. And, it is quite the bootstrapping…

Good luck to you. I'm in the same boat and it's comforting to not be alone. I've sacrificed a social and romantic life to get to this point (20 year old, fairly well paid DevOps guy). There are days that I immensely regret leaving school at 16 and terminating my youth early but financially speaking it was the best decision ever. I just push onwards, hope for life to become fun, and hope that I won't become a cautiona…

Please please please try to find good outgoing non-techy roommates that you can tolerate while you are at this age. Even better if they are good with girls. Do not live alone just because you can afford to do so. Try to spend as little as possible of your salary and regardless of the market buy a house/apartment as soon as you can. Live in the smallest room.

There are plenty of excellent places in the world where you can have a reasonable quality of life for about $10k/year, your goal is to have that covered from your real estate income. Go do that as soon as you can, travel slow. Overnight trains, house/pet sitting, couch surfing, 'etc are all good things to try.

Try to find a remote job and never touch your salary income again, keep investing it. Do not mention your net worth to anyone.

You will find in a few years that "DevOps" is a very finite skillset so there is no real need to push so hard as you'll know most of what you need to know in about 3 more years if you do not already.

No reason not to have a social and romantic life and great weekends. I'm quite confident your employer and less talented peers are exploiting your age and willingness to put in long hours.

Don't be available after hours and avoid being on call as much as possible.

You only get your 20s once. Make memories.

Money is important but you need less than you think and is never a worthy goal in and of itself. You can convince yourself of this by reading up on behavioral economics. Optimize for quality of life. Have a FU-money number, reach it, and bail.

Re: The data are clear: The boys are not all right

#293

Post by irrational »

rayiner wrote: post #269
ytwombly wrote: post #150

US-based cis-hetero white man here. The data reinforce the impression you get glancing at the headlines or spending a day out anywhere in America observing other men. Dare I say it even reinforces what I know from painful firsthand experience as a man, at the lowest points in my life. I was lucky though, with a supportive family who helped me through the confusing years of early adulthood. You can point to the declin…

> You can point to the decline of organized religion and with it traditional gender roles, but then what explains the relative stability in post-Christian Europe? As far as I can tell, Europe isn’t all that post-Christian. Even countries that have low levels of people actively practicing religion still carry a strong cultural legacy from Christianity: https://www.europenowjournal.org/2019/10/02/the-catholic-nes... Co…

Who wouldn’t prefer to stay home if they had the choice? I could spend my days traveling, hiking, going to the beach, reading, working on hobbies, learning new skills, cooking, etc.

Re: The data are clear: The boys are not all right

#294

Post by _bkr9 »

thrway99 wrote: post #61

My observation is that we are going to have a radical rebalancing of who reproduces and who doesn’t. Lot of men and women who are generally not too motivated to seek out a companion, lose weight, put in the work to make it happen just…won’t pass on genetics. Children are a lot of work and energy. I’m highly introverted and high earning. My wife was the aggressor in my case. She pretty much made it all happen. I think…

A note on fitness. Any pressure I've had to lose weight or whatnot has come from me. All female partners have said that they don't care about my weight, and some actually like some belly to rest on. That said, they have commented favourably on other physical features, and I'm not particularly overweight.

I say all this just to try and fight the idea that crops up that if you're male and don't fit some jacked or "Chad" ideal that there's no one out there for you (who you'd have an awesome time with). When I look at the incel subculture, it's doubly sad because these boys are being fed a model of how attraction, sex, and dating works that is just flat out wrong. It's like a self-harm club based on false premises.

Re: The data are clear: The boys are not all right

#295

Post by brandall10 »

tomjakubowski wrote: post #50
commandlinefan wrote: post #29

> As men’s unemployment rises, their romantic prospects decline. Conversely: as young men's potential future employability rises, their romantic prospects also decline. That is - the men who'll grow up to be stable and reliable have lonely teenage years.

Interesting. I'm just one person, but: I've enjoyed stable employment as a programmer since I was 23, and my teenage years and early 20s were easily my most socially (and romantically) active, and I rarely felt lonely then. I've felt most lonely in my late 20s and early 30s. I sometimes wonder if my career destroyed my ability to make and keep friends.

I think late 20s is when most people lose touch w/ remnants of their college social circle if they're not naturally outgoing. Usually everyone has moved away or married off at this point. It's fairly normal.

Re: The data are clear: The boys are not all right

#296

Post by orange_joe »

edmcnulty101 wrote: post #239
thrway99 wrote: post #61

My observation is that we are going to have a radical rebalancing of who reproduces and who doesn’t. Lot of men and women who are generally not too motivated to seek out a companion, lose weight, put in the work to make it happen just…won’t pass on genetics. Children are a lot of work and energy. I’m highly introverted and high earning. My wife was the aggressor in my case. She pretty much made it all happen. I think…

I think the obesity problem is linked to the fact that many people have to work 60 hours a week to survive and don't have the time/energy to get in shape. Capitalism has taken a large swath of people out of the dating game just due to working to survive.

People work 10% fewer hours now than in the 1960s, but the obesity rate has gone up from 13% in that time period to 36%. The obesity crisis is IMO more related to what we eat, and an increasingly sedentary lifestyle.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/AVHWPEUSA065NRUG

Re: The data are clear: The boys are not all right

#298

Post by decafninja »

SuoDuanDao wrote: post #40
bmj wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the father of 18 year old who is not going to college and instead working as a carpenter, I don't think lumping 18 year olds with 25+ year olds makes much sense. Perhaps I have an antiquated view of family, but I don't feel his "independence" has everything to do with where he lives. I'm more than happy to have him around the house if it allows him to save money and live a better life at, say, 21.

Sure, it can be a great arrangement. It will slow down his dating prospects though, who can host if a relationship gets serious is a common discussion in dating.

Multigenerational households are the default in many countries/cultures with many young adults - even high earning ones like doctors, hedge funders, or FAANG SWEs -continuing to live with their parents until marriage. They manage to get in relationships and date just fine. The logistics can be different of course.

Re: The data are clear: The boys are not all right

#299

Post by HPsquared »

urthor wrote: post #289
errcorrectcode wrote: post #276

Quoted post unavailable.

The Bay Area is a skewed microcosm of transplanted misfits. I'm not sure this is a great surprise to anyone. But the Bay Area is filled with people who: 1) Move cross country to live in the most bohemian region in the entire United States (San Francisco). 2) Often pursue a technology profession. An industry which has an entire nation of career guidance counselors steering introverts to work in. 3) Sticks with it when…

The people drawn to these places tend to be materialistic as well. People dump their social connections to move, in pursuit of wealth. Not going to be the best people socially, on average.

Re: The data are clear: The boys are not all right

#300

Post by e4e78a06 »

Jtsummers wrote: post #167
skinkestek wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably. But why should small boys be punished and denied opportunities because of that? Also, this has been even broader: Around here, until recently girls got extra points even on studies were they were massively over-represented (in addition to being generally over-represented in higher education.) Just recently boys started to get extra points when applying for Engineering degrees in Chemistry or in Nursing.)

I don't know where "around here" is or even what "girls got extra points even on studies where they were massively over-represented" means. Are you talking about grades? "points" towards college admissions?

At least in the US, most schools practice either explicitly or implicitly (through adjusted admissions criteria) affirmative action towards women for STEM subjects. That's the case even for subjects like Biology where the gender ratio is already balanced or tipped towards women.

One obvious example of this is the fact that CMU admits 50% women into its CS program, even though their applicant pool and similar caliber schools have around a 20-30% ratio. So if you believe that women and men in the applicant pool are equally qualified, women have a 2x higher chance of getting in. That's just basic statistics.

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